In Girls‘ last season’s finale, “She Did,” Jessa included the following prophetic statement in her wedding vows: “Your dreams are not what you thought they’d be.” It made sense then, because in the context of her wedding to Thomas John, we saw a bohemian malcontent settling for a 401K and high-rise apartment. Having spent the past few months taking in the second season, Jessa’s proclamation seems truer than ever. As a finale, “Together” shows us that finding love (or sex, […]
A Girl on Girls: Sometimes He Uses Me as the Decoy (S2/E8 “It’s Back”)
This week’s episode of Girls could have easily been titled “Left Turn” instead of “It’s Back,” considering all the curve balls that get thrown at the audience. I don’t want to be a sour Sally, but I may or may not have said that this episode seemed to include a potentially jumping shark. All I’m saying is that if you’re going to make Marnie a singer, Charlie a successful startup guy (which felt like wish fulfillment and a revenge fantasy […]
A Girl on Girls: I Manifested the Solution (S2/E7, “Video Games”)
Another week, another bottle episode of Girls. “Video Games” takes place outside the show’s chronology (except for including Jessa’s split with Thomas John) and only features Hannah and Jessa from the main cast. We get to meet Jessa’s dad (Ben Mendelsohn, playing an absent father with anger issues), his girlfriend Petula (Rosanna Arquette) and Petula’s oddball son Frank. It’s nice getting a peek into Jessa’s emotional and historical life world, but I’m not convinced it was worth leaving Brooklyn.
A Girl on Girls: You’re Just Babies Holding Hands (S2/E6 “Boys”)
It’s difficult to return to Girls knowing that last week was probably a high point. I’m aware at the start of “Boys” that I will have to deal with the entire cast to make up for the spare group of actors that were in “One Man’s Trash.” But at least we begin this week with John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Shortbus) offering Hannah an e-book deal. Mitchell is the publisher of Hannah’s very favorite Pumped Mag, […]
A Girl on Girls: I Thought I Was a Gummy Worm (S2/E5 “One Man’s Trash”)
This week’s installment of Girls is probably the most categorical bottle episode in the series thus far. We get a few minutes with Ray in the beginning, but really this half an hour is about Hannah and her experience with Dr. Joshua (guest star Patrick Wilson) in his beautifully restored Brooklyn brownstone. On one hand, the pared down cast (Dunham, Wilson, Karpovsky) lets us really focus on Dunham’s acting chops, and on the other hand, it puts a lot of […]
A Girl on Girls: Maybe I Don’t Care About Being Polite (S2/E3 “Bad Friend”)
Like I said last week, Girls excels when it has the courage to pare down the cast and really engage with specific cast members. This week we have even fewer players, including plenty of time with my imaginary boyfriend Andrew Rannells in his role as Elijah. “Bad Friend” uses a mostly split narrative—we are with Hannah, and then we are with Marnie. Yes, we briefly see Jessa and Shosh manning what looks like a killer stoop sale, but that’s all […]
A Girl on Girls: You’re Just a Sad, Limp Little Glow Worm (S2/E2 “I Get Ideas”)
This week on Girls we tend to get some very good advice from the most surprising places. Now ex-boyfriend George tells Elijah that he’s just confused, and Jessa tells Hannah that she tends to overthink things. The two seem mutually exclusive at first, but after thinking it over, it all boils down to not being resolute, in your decisions and in life. It might be about lacking self-confidence, sure, but we see that Hannah generally has more than enough of […]
A Girl on Girls: Maybe I Want to be Wendi Murdoch. Maybe That’s My New Thing (S2/E1 “It’s About Time”)
We begin again, this time with an unsmoteable “Previously on Girls” montage befitting of your weirdest weird uncle. The series had already been picked up for a second season by the time the first season finale rolled around, so the show left us with plenty of loose ends: Shoshanna lost her virginity to Ray, Jessa ran off with new-husband Thomas-John, Marnie was making out with a weird dude while Charlie looked on and Hannah was getting called a monster by […]