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Max (Kat Dennings) hasn’t paid many bills in her life as Caroline (Beth Behrs) discovers by answering the dreaded wall phone in their apartment. No one but bill collectors and the landlord call the wall phone and thus it’s not to be touched.

Caroline insists on finding out how much debt her new business partner is in. Here we find that not only does Max have a few dozen credit card bills but also a student loan. Max attempted college. It was a relatively small revelation, but the fact that Max once aspired to something was well revealed and her finally revealing to Caroline that she had a dream, illustrating children’s books, was another sweet bonding moment for the girls.

As for Caroline’s arc this week, we briefly meet her d-bag ex-boyfriend, William (Travis Van Winkle). William dumped Caroline on the day he found out she wasn’t rich anymore. In a twist on convention, rather than getting vengeance on the ex-boyfriend, he’s merely introduced, his awfulness established and then he’s ushered off.

William returns later in “And the 90’s Horse Party” but to no important effect. So where does this episode’s unusual title come from? While Max and Caroline are doing laundry they meet a group of hipsters who boot them out of the laundromat because they have booked it for an “80’s Pop Up Disco Party” featuring an ironic guest appearance by Vicky from Small Wonder.

Sharing Max’s love for the adorably robotic Tiffany Brissette I wanted to stay with this awful party. That party however, was merely an inspiration for another party. After encountering hipsters willing to pay 100 dollars to ride their horse, Caroline plots a party at the diner where hipsters can ride the horse for a sizable fee.

As has become pattern on 2 Broke Girls, the story progression is weak, sacrificed in favor of banter between Caroline and Max. The writers of 2 Broke Girls are not so much interested in creating stories for the girls to inhabit so much as writing dialogue they think is funny regardless of the context.

 “Was your childhood based on the novel Push by Sapphire?”

Caroline’s assessment of Max’s latest disturbing childhood recollection was a terrific line and one needed to deflate Max’s increasingly disturbing back story. Either the writers will need to lighten up soon or figure out some way to soften Max’s backstory. As Caroline’s joke depicts, it’s getting dark.

As for the random notes…

• Just because the 2 Broke Girls horse was essential to this week’s plot doesn’t make the horse a good idea. The joke of having a horse in an urban New York setting isn’t working and is only serving to make the show seem needlessly broad.
• Matthew Moy‘s Han is not getting more sympathetic, he’s becoming more of an uncomfortable stereotype with every faltering attempt at speaking English. The girls trying to get Han laid this week was yet another shallow moment for an already shallow show.
• Jonathan Kite’s creepy cook, Oleg, is still not funny nor has Garrett Morris’s diner cashier grown any funnier, even as a geezer DJ.

2 Broke Girls continues to function better away from the diner set where Max and Caroline play off of each other’s differences in more interesting and funny ways.

Returning briefly to Caroline’s ex-boyfriend, I thought it was remarkable that the show didn’t take the opportunity to get some retribution against the guy for dumping Caroline the way he did. Will this be a continuing storyline? Caroline running away without confronting him and Max letting him get away with barely an insult seems an odd way to leave things with the jerk.

What do you think?