Girls | Episode 5

The Japanese board of health (or ministry, or imperial panel, or whatever it’s called) clearly operates with liberal policies. Cats and food in the same area? No, thank you, I’ll pass on the cat-hair latte. Hot steaming baths where people are naked? That’s not all that different from public pools (which, it should be noted, are also disgusting). But the candlewax in buttholes thing? That must violate a health code somewhere.

Scott:  The less I see of Marnie, the more I like this show.

Watching Shoshanna’s devolution from happy-go-lucky professional whose puppy love kept her afloat to emotionally bankrupt low-wage worker whose realization that happiness is not a function of cultural novelty somehow breaks my heart more than the failures of Hannah, Marnie, and Jessa. Perhaps Shoshanna’s innocence makes her fall into reality a bit harder to watch. Perhaps harsh realities seem more severe when glazed with a bubblegum J-Pop aesthetic. Perhaps the all the cat hair from the cat café has irritated mine eyes and only makes it look like I’m crying. Regardless, I felt Shosh’s sadness.

Hannah’s foray into lesbian sex was a bit disappointing for those of us who expected more scissoring. Jessa’s whole cum-inside-me-and-pretend-I’m-not-on-birth-control thing was a bit bizarre, but placed on the spectrum of her otherwise abhorrent and irresponsible behavior, it went largely unnoticed; her whole you-can-fuck-my-gross-sister thing was more inline with the Jessa I know and hate.

Advice for Shoshanna:  Go home. Japan was fun, and your experience inside your conception of a perfect world was a fun mental holiday. But your life is in the States, and the more time you spend trying to make Japan work, the more time you’ll spend delaying your development. Japanese culture (especially for women) relies on arrested development, and it’s time to grow up.

Janessa:  Aren’t we all so excited to have Scott back?! He made it to 10p.m. and for that we are all #blessed.

I’m just going to jump right in and say Hannah’s dip into the lady pond made no sense for the character we’ve been presented thus far…or maybe it does? I’ve spent far too much time thinking about this. Is Hannah adventurous? Sure. As she stated earlier in the season: what she lacks in experience, she makes up for in curiosity. Does Hannah enjoy gathering experiences in order to separate herself from the crowd? Yes. This move was very much inline with her decision to do coke for the sake of a blog post. Where it doesn’t make sense is Hannah’s vehement heterosexuality. Hannah has spent the lifetime of this show seeking out the D. Her personality depends on and is very much driven by male energy — she cares very little about being positively received by females. So for her to cave so immediately to this yoga teacher, either speaks volumes to the yoga teacher’s charm or signals a misstep of my read of Hannah’s personality. Either way, bold move Girls.

To continue on with the lady theme, this Spring-Queening resort getaway was my personal worst nightmare. A bunch of women, all of whom are completely wrecked by their relationships, sitting around eating low-sodium meals (salt RULES!) and talking about said relationship failures — kill me now! Hannah’s obvious aversion for the resort and its participants was very much on par with her role of “voice of a generation”. It’s a pretty well known fact that today’s woman is generally getting married much much later than her mother and grandmother did. Although my Facebook feed may counter this statistic, the reasoning behind it was presented in last night’s episode. Today’s woman knows there is much more to life than the trajectory offered by defaulting to a life defined by marriage and children. Hannah knows she wants nothing to do with spring queening because she knows nothing about the path these women went down. She has no time for these biddies who built their entire existence around a marriage.

My final note on this episode goes to poor Shosh in Japan. Although I do agree with Scott’s sentiments for Shosh’s current situation, I want to call BS on bad storytelling. As I mentioned in a previous post, Shosh’s days in Japan are number, her return to NYC is inevitable. What I didn’t appreciate is her out of nowhere breakdown during a perfectly good meal. I 100% support crying in public (its one of my favorite hobbies), but I feel that such a breakdown needed more of a catalyst. Also, do we even know why Abigail is in Japan? Her arrival and Shosh’s breakdown just seem like a quick way to accelerate Shosh’s departure from Japan.

ARE WE ALL EXCITED FOR CHARLIE’S RETURN NEXT WEEK?!

Advice for Hannah: Do not throw this sauna session in Fran’s face. Granted his behavior has been somewhat questionable, this infidelity was still an unfair move that you need to be honest about — rather than something you throw in his face when he decides you two need to have a conversation.

 

Girls | Episode 4

Janessa: First and foremost, I need to announce that Scott is about as reliable as Jessa in regards to being a dependable writing partner. Do not go into business with someone who falls asleep before 10pm, you’ll be left to write all alone. The second thing I need to announce: I’m currently using the Girls Season 5 Playlist to get in the mood for writing this post. I highly recommend following said playlist on Spotify:

Love is in the fucking air you guys! Or at least some version of it is. Last night’s episode was all about the couples. From the newly minted Marnie Harperin (yuck) and her psychologically unsound Desi to the cute-as-all-hell Dill and Elijah — we got it all! I’m going to switch things up a bit and do a little snippet on each of the pairings because there is honestly nothing better than judging the crap out of someone else’s relationship!

Marnie and Desi: Nope. Nope. Nope. When your spouse acts like a life coach rather than a lover, something has gone terribly wrong. Marnie does spout a little bit of truth when she urges Hannah to fix things with Fran because “People who fix things stay together”, but what she doesn’t realize is that the second half of that statement is “…or they realize it’s not worth fixing”.  Am I wishing divorce upon Marnie and Desi? Of course not. I think Marnie has a lot to learn from her new role of ‘Wife to Big Fat Baby Hipster’, so I want to see them try at this for a little longer. What’s so sad about their situation is how alone Marnie must be feeling. She has no one to talk to about her relationship (or least anyone with any sense) and she is too proud of a person to admit that things are kind of shitty.

Hannah and Fran: I haven’t spent much time talking about Hannah and Fran this season because I’m a little more interested in their whole arc, rather than the individual moments we’ve gotten so far. The reason for this? I’m still perplexed about their relationship. What does Hannah see in Fran? What does Fran see in Hannah? It’s not that these two are polar opposites, they are from two different planets, and I’m having a hard time figuring out where they meet. Because of the time jump, we completely missed the “How Hannah and Fran Fell in Love” story. We’ve been dropped right into the post-honeymoon phase (the more interesting phase) with no idea of what a happy and healthy Hannah and Fran look like. Instead, what we have is an increasingly unhealthy relationship, blossoming right before our eyes. It started with the naked photos in Fran’s phone — neither of them was completely right or wrong in this argument. And now, we have this editing incident which has led to a pretty big breakdown in communication. Their argument over Fran’s editing was not about Fran’s editing, it was much more, and one of them is going to have to take the uncomfortable step of bringing the real issue to the surface. Until that happens, Hannah is going to continue to revel in her personal brand of crazy and Fran is going to keep coming off as the “good guy” that he may or may not be.

Jessa and Adam: Ok. Are my standards so low that I find Adam’s stalking kind of adorable? I like a man that is hell-bent on what he wants, even if it involves being a little creepy. To be pursued is always kind of flattering. Light criminal behavior aside, I like these two together. Unlike Hannah and Fran, Jessa and Adam navigate life in a pretty similar fashion. A relationship between these two would not involve anyone trying to change the other person, it would be a consolidation of two similar personalities that are just different enough. There’s something about Jessa and Adam that seems a little more secure than the pairing of Adam and Hannah. The proof? Jessa’s arrival at Adam’s door and the conversation that followed was eerily similar to Hannah’s knock on his door in season one (the one where she has Mexican eyebrows). Watch that scene HERE and then compare it to Jessa’s scene. Note how Hannah’s confession is built upon insecurities and Jessa’s is built on a much more vulnerable,
emotional confidence. Also, Adam’s reactions are completely different.

Elijah and Dill: As a heterosexual female, how jealous am I allowed to be of these two lovebirds?

Advice for Hannah: Take the crazy down a notch, figure out why you’re actually so angry and then explain that to Fran. Your combative tone is doing more harm than good.

Girls | Episode 3

Janessa: My gut feeling on this episode: please let this be the worst one of the season. Poor Shosh and her Japanese adventures deserved more than this. Maybe Scott thought otherwise, but he has abandoned this blog for a trip to Aspen. Let’s hope he is less of a Hannah and more of a Marnie on the slopes.

So Shosh has been living in the anime dream known as Japan for 7 months. Japanese Shosh is pretty chill. She gets along with her co-workers. She’s embraced Japanese culture from her Harajuku wet dream of an apartment to the public bathing habits of a country that is clearly not America. She even speaks Japanese! I know nothing of moving to another country, but it seems our Shosh is doing quite well — which makes her inevitable firing a little hard to swallow and frankly, disappointing.

Given that we are now in the fifth season of GIRLS, I think it is now safe to conclude that once you live in New York City, you’re not allowed to leave for an extended period of time. Jessa goes to rehab, she’s back in NYC by episode two. Hannah leaves for grad school, she’s back by episode four. Shosh leaves for Japan, and although she isn’t technically back, there’s a very strong chance she’ll be back by episode five (I’m giving her stay in Japan another episode because from the previews we know Abigail comes to visit her — also I’m assuming HBO would not pay for a show like this to shoot in Japan for only one episode’s worth of material). Marnie has yet to make her great departure, but there’s still another season. Although my hypothesis ultimately fails because Shosh is not back on American soil, her firing in this week’s episode puts her stay in Japan on notice.

I’m striking a disapproving tone for this move not because it’s unrealistic, people get fired, but as these girls (and this show) mature, it’s time to show at least one of these creatures succeeding at a career. We’ve been watching these ladies for four years and not a single one of them has maintained even a semi-serious job for longer than a season. Marnie’s gallery job in season one (and maybe still in this season) is the closest we’ve come to seeing a successful career from this group of girls and that makes no sense, in my mind. Maybe I am bragging, but when I look around at the women I call friends, there are a lot of career success stories. I’m not saying these women are satisfied with their jobs, but they’re working and moving up the ladder. Apparently, if you’re friends with Hannah Horvath, success is not so easy to comeby.

Ultimately, GIRLS is a show in need of drama and no real need to mimic “real” life, but Shosh’s apparent firing is a missed opportunity for the show’s representation of the twenty-something experience. Yes, growing-up is full of failure, but there are some successes too. Seeing Shosh kick butt at her job, seeing her decision to move really pay off, that could’ve been just as much fun to watch. Although, it would not have led to the scene in the fetish shop, which may or may not be my new favorite Shosh moment.

Again, there’s always more to talk about with this show. And I’m sure if Scott were here we could’ve really delved into Fran’s fascination with his ex-girlfriends’ nude photos and there would’ve been much debate on whether America is really a country full of sluts. But he’s not here, so this is what you get! Feel free to tweet angry tweets at him, in Japanese.

Advice for Marnie: Never, ever, ever, EVER pronounce Ecuador the way you did in this episode. EVER.

Girls | Episode 2

Janessa: Scott is busy eating a burrito bowl so this chick is flying solo for this week’s post. I’m sure we will all miss his commentary, but I promise to try and deliver a post that is still sweet, sexy and stocked with K-Mart brand seltzer.

GIRLS minus Marnie minus Shosh = a whole lot of Hannah being Hannah and Jessa making strides toward being less Jessa. It also meant a lot more screen time for the men of GIRLS — if this were a sitcom Elijah’s spinoff would definitely be in the works — which is more than appropriate given the episode’s title, Good Man. We got some Fran. We got some Jacob. We got some Adam. We got some Laird. We got some Elijah. We got some Ray. We got some hipster barista in a hat (Although, I guess if I am respecting gender trends, I should say we got two hipster baristas? Is barista a gender neutral term or is it inherently female?). We got some Principal Toby. We got some Tad. We got some Keith. And finally, we got some Dill. That’s a whole lot of penis. And yes, I used IMDB to help me figure out this list.

For a show about girls, one could probably bet that we would not get a lot of the male species on screen. We ladies lead lives that are naturally complicated, even without menfolk, just ask any group of close girlfriends. Also, we bleed out of our vaginas for approximately a week, once a month, so basically we’re a walking Sci-Fi drama, all on our own. The great thing about GIRLS, and our own lives, is that men add yet another way to define our world. Our relationships with them — whether it be romantic, platonic or hereditary — affect who we are and what we do. What I think GIRLS attempts to explore in this episode is the question of “What makes a good man?” There isn’t a right answer, but it means something different for each of the characters (us — this post is really about me).

Hannah’s interactions with the male species in this episode cover a much wider range of relationships than Jessa’s, so let me get to her first. Hannah immediately begins to explore the concept of the “good man” as she frantically wakes Fran at the sounds of a home intruder. We all think she’s joking, and Fran probably does too, but she’s right and Fran is to the rescue! Fran is Hannah’s vanilla Knight in Shining Armor. He saves her from Jacob and has ultimately saved her from the instability of her relationship with Adam. He’s the quintessential good man. He played lacrosse in high school, dated his high school girlfriend until she broke up with him in college and his honesty is just but lacks a necessary bite. He is the boy everyone wants for Hannah, but whether she and her antics can keep him around is big question for this season.

If Fran is Hannah’s exploration of the romantic “good man” (Laird is too, but LOL I am not writing a book here), her interactions with her father and Principal Toby represent a more patriarchal sense of attempting to define a “good man”. For Principal Toby, the question is how does a good man act when he holds authority over a women? For Tad, the question is how does a father’s relationship affect his daughter? What is so so good (but mostly awful) about this type of man for Hannah is she will NEVER have a great relationship with these figures. Principal Toby now joins a long list of male bosses who Hannah has acted with inappropriately. There is no holding power over Hannah Horvath. She does what she wants, when she wants to — she’s an HR nightmare. Maybe a good man is one that let’s a woman do whatever she wants, but in the workplace, Pushover Toby is doing nothing to  help develop Hannah as a professional woman.

Hannah’s relationship with her father, Tad, is in an entirely new place due to his homosexuality. This Tad is not the Tad she grew up with, and we all know how much Hannah hates change. The good news is that Hannah is a little older now, more equipped to handle this new version of her father. She knows she needs to be there for him. She has drawn some boundaries for herself and knows when to contact Elijah for back-up. She’s sweet with him. The bad news is for Tad. By leaning on Hannah in this way, by forcing her to be his main support, he’s crippling a young woman who needs to be spending a little bit more time exploring herself and her needs, rather than catering to someone else’s crisis. Is he being a good man, a good father? Not necessarily, but Hannah is going to be there for him.

Jessa’s interactions with the male species number far less than Hannah, but her budding relationship with Adam offers up a complicated look at the “good man”. Although I am little confused as to whether or not the kiss between these two at Marnie’s wedding was a first for them, one thing is for sure: there is no going back. Once horndog Adam sets his sights on a female, it’s pretty much game over. He’s like the little chihuahua that keeps humping your leg no matter how many times you try to escape him. By and far, Adam represents my favorite time of “good man”. He cares deeply, loves deeply and he refuses to answer text messages. He is the type of man that will inspire your self-confidence and then turnaround and convert it into anxiety — whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty good man. Jessa is the perfect sparring partner for Adam’s kind of off-the-wagon neanderthal sex addict sociopath. She doesn’t need a man to boost her self-confidence. Sex is a purely physical endeavor for her. And she has no concept of what of a normal relationship. What I hope happens, and what is ultimately so frustrating for all of us who have loved an Adam, is Jessa will be the one to bring Adam over to the good side. She will be the one to tame him because she can handle all the other bullshit. The thing with Adam’s breed of the “good man” is that there’s a good man in there, it just needs a reason to come out and stay out.

Ok, I am done. I acknowledge there’s a lot more to say. If anyone wants to pay me to write more, I can send you my PayPal info. If not, I am very behind on an X-Files podcast.

Advice for Jessa: Sure, mutual masturbation is fun, but isn’t having friends more fun? Or at least having friends that aren’t pissed off at you? I can see this thing with Adam being really good, but you’re setting it up for a rocky start by giving into his wiley ways and ignoring your gut instincts.

Girls | Episode 1

Janessa:  Here comes the bride, all dressed in a bell-sleeved dress that probably costs thousands of dollars, but could’ve easily been purchased at Urban Outfitters? Happy Wedding Day, Marnie and Desi!

As twenty-somethings, weddings offer a nice moment to check in with where you are at in life. What friends are you excited to see? Is the open bar still your one and only priority? Is your newest relationship secure enough to go through watching someone else make the ultimate commitment? Nuptials are a merry-go-round of unwanted self-reflection, wonky mirrors and all. I couldn’t think of a better setting to kick off another season of GIRLS.

As I so eloquently tweeted, Wedding Marnie is PEAK Marnie. Girlfriend is as cool as a cucumber that’s currently being grilled in the fire pits of hell and her groom is on or about the same level of sanity, aka, a garbage person who decides to go swimming in a glorified puddle in order to calm his cold feet—are these two actually meant to be? Instead of taking a dip, Marnie decides to deal with her stress by being an utter control freak about the vision of her dream wedding, which made for an excellent performance from Williams and some of the series’ best dialogue, my favorite being: “Well, now I don’t have to tell her anything because she’s going to kill herself.” One of my favorite moments of the Marnie wedding vision is how it was ultimately Jessa who came to save the day. Marnie can claim that she and Jessa are nothing alike, but Jessa represents the exact Ralph-Lauren-meets-Janis-Joplin vibe Marnie so desperately wanted. Jessa’s “saving the day” montage was a great example of how desperate times call for a certain type of friend and it was an excellent way to set up Jessa’s pursuit of a career in therapy, as she mentioned last season.

Of course, this wedding is not just about psycho Marnie, it’s about checking in on all of the characters. We now know Shoshana made her move to Japan and seems to be thriving in her new environment. Jessa seems to be sober, stable, and possibly hooking up with Adam somewhat regularly. And Hannah is happily relationshipped to Fran, despite a rocky start last season. The gang seems to be doing alright, but, of course, this will not last for long. It would not be GIRLS if it did. The tagline for this season reads: “Finally piecing it together,” but as semi-adults, we all know that one minute you’re making the mature, grown-up decision, and the next you’re drunk at brunch dialing your ex. I can only imagine the shit storms that are headed toward our girls for this season, but I am expecting a big one to center around Adam and Jessa’s budding relationship. Dating your friend’s ex seems to be a thing that adults can get away with—your social circle is shrinking after all—but how everyone deals with it determines whether the situation can work. Is Hannah mature enough now, with Mimi Rose behind her, to deal with Adam moving on?

All in all, this was an excellent episode. There is air of maturity, but in classic GIRLS fashion there is something a little off about Marnie’s decision to marry coughJessa’sweddingcough. I am also happy to see the wedding split into two episodes. Everyone knows the party doesn’t start until after the vows, and we definitely need Elijah’s MDMA to kick in.

Advice for Jessa: You can canoodle with Adam all you want, but eventually you’re going to need to break the news to Hannah. The news has to come from you, she cannot find out from another source.

 

 

Scott:  Was there a better manifestation of our protagonists’ various personalities than their wedding day getups? Let’s digest.
Marnie’s pretentious outfit makes her look, in her mother’s eyes, “like a Starbucks cup.” Once again, reality falls short of Marnie’s vision, and her insistence on artistic aesthetics makes her look more like a tool than a muse. The headdress is as bad as Booth Jonathan—both are transparently pretentious.

 

For Shoshana, I will rely on an analogy. → pageboy haircut : classical dress :: neuroticism : extraordinary compassion → That is, just as Shoshana’s bizarre haircut distracts from her sartorial beauty, so too does her neurotic nature distract from her beautiful inside. If only she could ditch the bleach blonde and the likes/ums/ahs in her speech, Shoshana would be the paragon of a professional woman in her 20s.

Jessa’s Midsummer-Night’s-Dream-meets-rehab appearance succinctly sums her up. In a garden after flowing through a meadow to dry off after a morning rain? Check. Smoking in said garden while kissing your best friend’s ex-boyfriend? Check. Jessa is such stuff as dreams are made on, and her little life is rounded with a puff of smoke that came from a joint probably laced with something.

And then there’s Hannah, a trainwreck whose commitment is admirable even if her tactics are not. The woman barely holds it together on a Tuesday on her lunch break, so we can’t expect anything to go correctly on the day of her best friend’s wedding. This gladiator look suits her poorly—but then again, it’s not like she’s the queen of wise decisions.

 

Advice for Ray: Ray, you hold a special place in my heart. I feel that I’m you—looking out into a sea of assholes while questioning if their behavior should be considered the new normal. But when it comes to Hannah and the gang, you’re too paternalistic. They don’t need fathers—they have them, probably, although they’re flawed. They need a friend. Stop interviewing Fran; get to know him instead.