Over the course of its 35-year history, MTV has gone through nearly as many makeovers as Madonna. In its latest incarnation, the network formerly known as Music Television is betting that the future is female with two bawdy comedies, Mary + Jane and Loosely Exactly Nicole, about young women chasing their dreams in the big city.
The more successful of the two, Mary + Jane, follows two twentysomething best friends selling pot — excuse me, operating a “mostly legal prescription delivery service” — out of the Eastside Los Angeles apartment they share with a pet chihuahua named Daniel Day-Lewis.
Contrary to what you might expect, their names are not Mary and Jane but, rather, Jordan (Scout Durwood) and Paige (Jessica Rothe). The former is a polyamorous, libertine brunette who believes that random sex cures everything — “headaches, period cramps, Lyme disease.”
The latter is a sensitive blonde who gave up her lifestyle blog to become a “ganja-preneur” and is heartbroken by her recent breakup with a graffiti artist/celebrity DJ known as Softserve.
In between deliveries of bud with punny names like “Kylo Ren Faire,” they partake of such time-honored hipster customs as queuing up for artisanal toast and $15 juice served in baby bottles.
Created by Can’t Hardly Wait screenwriters Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan and executive produced by Snopp Dogg, Mary + Jane seems like a rather deliberate hybrid of Broad City, Comedy Central’s hit about two weed-loving best friends, and High Maintenance, the web series turned HBO comedy about a pot delivery service.
But what it lacks in conceptual originality, Mary + Jane just about makes up for in execution, with sharp satirical observations about stoner culture, celebrity, the Silver Lake lifestyle and female friendships.
One particularly funny subplot finds Jordan making a delivery to the home of an unnamed, Brangelina-esque Hollywood A-list couple whose large, multi-ethnic brood of children, forbidden from watching television or movies, relies on an in-house improv troupe for entertainment.
The show is also populated with peripheral characters, including a creaky-voiced, humblebragging scenester named Jenny (but pronounced “Jen-nay”), who are vividly drawn and amusingly absurd.