Those days of striving and subsisting are long gone for them. Jacobson, 34, and Glazer, 31, are not just the creators and stars of “Broad City,” the Comedy Central series that puts an antic, absurdist spin on their coming-of-age adventures; they are members of the entertainment establishment. They present at prestigious awards shows, appear in tributes to their comedy foremothers; and have no shortage of solo projects. Jacobson writes books (like her recent memoir, “I Might Regret This”) and stars on Netflix’s “Disenchantment,” and Glazer performs stand-up comedy and appears in films like “Rough Night.”
They can’t pretend to be who they aren’t anymore, and so, the coming season of “Broad City,” which makes its debut on Jan. 24, will be its last. On a break from editing some of the final episodes, Jacobson and Glazer explained their decision to end the series on their own terms, talked about the making of the final season and looked forward to life — as collaborators and friends — without the show.
These are edited excerpts from that conversation.
Q: As we speak, you’re not quite done with your work on “Broad City,” but how does it feel to be very nearly done with the show?
ILANA GLAZER: I’m finally starting to process it now. It feels like we have two babies, who are our inner children, and we’re sending them off to college. You don’t need us anymore.
ABBI JACOBSON: We didn’t know exactly how or why or when, but we knew what the end would be. I’m not going to tell you it. But we want you to leave the characters and feel OK.
GLAZER: Before, part of the joke was, ha ha, these white girls don’t have to grow. Because in your early 20s, you’re the same idiot, over and over and over again. And then Season 4, we couldn’t help but grow because we were so angry and disgusted with ourselves.
Q: Why?
GLAZER: When we came back to rewrite it (after the 2016 presidential election), there was so much police brutality. We kept being like, why the (expletive) are we in here?
JACOBSON: We’d be breaking an act, thinking, how are we doing this? Constant news alerts.
GLAZER: That’s not why we needed this to end. It was more like, the fourth season was bizarrely political, the process of it, and I think that’s why the product turned out that way. Season 4 really took it out of me, from beginning to end, and stretched on for so long. We couldn’t do another one after 5. Couldn’t do it.
Q: Did you get yourselves a Larry David-type deal where you could revisit the characters in a few years if you feel inspired?
JACOBSON: (cautiously) I think we could? Sometimes networks do that and they don’t say a show’s ending.
GLAZER: That, we didn’t want to do. Comedy Central was so understanding that we needed to set these personal and creative boundaries, to keep the show as high-quality as it remains. That takes a limb. It takes an entire arm. I’ve got no limbs left. My head’s cut off on the fifth. I’ve got nothing left to give. There’s just a torso on the floor.
Q: There’s a sense of finality that starts to creep into the last episodes, but still a spirit of absurdity and experimentation. The season premiere was produced to look like Instagram Stories.
GLAZER: It started as a documentary, one that Ilana made about Abbi. And then we were like, it should be more modern, because everybody’s documenting themselves all the time. It’s already based on Instagram Stories. We did not want to be —
JACOBSON: Sued.
GLAZER: — creatively bound to Instagram.
JACOBSON: They were like, you can maybe use it if you send it to us. And we’re like, you’re going to limit us.
Q: There’s a story line this season about Abbi making a new friend, much to Ilana’s chagrin.
GLAZER: How funny is that? Ilana is blindsided. That’s Lucia Aniello, who’s a writer and our main director for “Broad City.” It was fun to explore that idea of, hello? They have no other friends.
JACOBSON: The audience has known that. It’s more of them realizing that.
GLAZER: And we’ve said it for a couple seasons: Will they ever get another friend? And we’re like, nope. And then we’re like, it’s actually a problem. They need other friends.
Q: We also see Abbi have her first experience dating a woman.
JACOBSON: That’s in my book (in which Jacobson talks about dating a woman), and I wanted to put that in the show. It totally feels —
GLAZER: Completely sincere.
JACOBSON: Abbi’s not the fumbling idiot we’re used to seeing, trying to ask someone out. It feels more real.
GLAZER: She knows how to ask somebody out, and she wants to. It’s fun to see that.
JACOBSON: That’s such an Ilana influence — real life, and the show.
GLAZER: For the whole show, we’ve been figuring out how much different we are than our characters. Now that it’s over, I feel so free and proud to be like, that is us. It’s not completely, exactly us, but it’s us.
JACOBSON: And for other people to see it. I really feel like our show has been so queer from the get-go.
GLAZER: Queerer than we knew. Behind the scenes, in front of the cameras. Everyone who works with us has gotten queerer and queerer in the past six years. I swear to God.
Q: What was it like to write the series finale?
GLAZER: We’ll write Act 1 together. And then one of us takes Act 2, one takes Act 3. And we were writing different parts across a table.
JACOBSON: I’m like this: (lip trembling)
GLAZER: We were like: (gasping for breath). And then we just let it out, crying.
JACOBSON: I have a picture of you, just in tears.
GLAZER: And then we were laughing at ourselves, crying. Because sometimes we’re like dudes and we don’t want to cry.
JACOBSON: We filmed ourselves reading it.
GLAZER: Crying, laughing, crying, laughing, crying, laughing. It is crazy.
Q: Were those emotions even more intense on your last day of filming?
GLAZER: Luckily, we were supposed to be weeping. We were weeping for like three hours at dawn. It was so dramatic.
JACOBSON: The two of us decided to weep privately, first. We just needed to talk and hang.
GLAZER: I was like, (sniffs) “We’re going to be friends?”
Q: Does it feel contradictory to know that you’re going to miss the show, but also to be relieved that the exhausting process of creating it will be over?
JACOBSON: It’s exhausting because you love it so much. I am scared I will never have a project where I feel this way. I probably won’t, exactly.
GLAZER: It’s like your first love. You’re like, I’m going to be with this person forever! And then it’s like, no, I’m not. But I’m going to learn from this forever. We both need some space from this universe that we’ve lived in. We started the web series in 2009. At 31, that’s like a third of my life. It’s the longest relationship either one of us has ever had.
Q: Do you feel like the amplified version of New York you’ve been satirizing but also celebrating on the show is going away?
GLAZER: This is where I get verklempt. Because it is changing. I’ve been here 13 years, and after “Sex and the City,” I thought, as a white person, I was always going to be the change and not see it. But I really have seen so much of the city change in a way that makes me sad, I guess.
JACOBSON: I’ve been here 12 years, and when we met each other, we were very broke and scrappy and hustling. This romanticized idea of the city. And that’s what we’ve always tried to infuse into the show. But you start to lose a little bit of that bright lights, big city vibe.
GLAZER: We own apartments. I’m not making it work in the same way, and I don’t want to. I want the people who are having that experience to tell me what that experience in 2019 is.
JACOBSON: Make me nostalgic for it. I know I can’t make myself nostalgic anymore.
Q: If the series is ending, does that mean your partnership is over, too?
JACOBSON: I don’t feel that way. We have two shows that we’re producing together.
GLAZER: One that we’re producing and one that we’re at least writing the pilot. Remember, bitch?
JACOBSON: We just took that one.
GLAZER: Did not plan on that. It’s still hard to write, but it’s a lot quicker.
JACOBSON: We’re less precious with it, too. We’re like, oh, let’s get feedback and we’ll make it better. With “Broad City,” we’re like, this has to be the best seventh episode of the season.
Q: Will your friendship be different when you don’t have “Broad City” taking up so much of your energy and attention?
GLAZER: I can’t wait to be real friends that aren’t working all the time.
JACOBSON: We constantly spend time together, because we’re editing now. I went to her parents’ Hanukkah.
GLAZER: Um, I held Hanukkah. My parents were guests.
JACOBSON: That’s what I meant. Ilana’s Hanukkah.
GLAZER: I ordered food.
JACOBSON: We’ll do dinners. Couples’ massages.
GLAZER: Gummy dinners.
JACOBSON: Gummy?
GLAZER: Weed gummies. Where you can’t work for eight hours.
JACOBSON: You can’t talk.
GLAZER: I’m saying this as a real intention: I really look forward to doing stuff that is not work and checking on each other for being accountable to live actual life, and not always working.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.