This season of GIRLS has been an emotional roller coaster for all involved, and over the last few episodes it seemed that the dark moments were overtaking the light. The final episode didn’t shy away from the darkness- all of these characters are still struggling, but there was a silver lining for each that once again leaves us eager to find out what happens next, this time when the girls (and Adam, Ray and Charlie) are back for season 3!

Hannah

Hannah is very, very alone. We find her in her bed, still in the ugly brown t-shirt she wore to the hospital, being driven crazy by a terrible ringing noise from the damaged ear. It is a terrible idea to Google your symptoms, so it is no surprise that when she does, she goes down the web-md query rabbit hole and ends up even more depressed than when she started. To make matters worse, she receives an alarming call from her editor, demanding her new book pages today or she’ll have to return her advance. What happens if she’s spent the cheque? Oh, they may just have to sue her. Gulp.

Hannah being Hannah, she dials up her emergency contact – her dad – to help her out of the bind. Unfortunately she has used up all the sympathy her parents could muster for her, and has become the girl who cried wolf. Even though in this case she really is in deep trouble, and not only needs medical and financial help, but emotional help as well, her father feels that he is being manipulated and tells her she’s on her own.

After hiding from Marnie, knowing that she will not be able to offer any help Hannah needs at this point, she continues her cool whip eating procrastination. Depression breeds bad ideas and the unfortunate self haircut is one Hannah has flirted with before and finally succumbed to. Carey Mulligan likely got hers cut in a salon, and it is clear right away that Hannah’s version is a disaster. Another sign of her flawed thinking process? Hannah invites downstairs neighbor and erstwhile stalker Laird to help her finish it.

She explains to Laird how she is feeling:

“You know when you are young and you drop a glass, and your Dad says ‘Get out of the way’ so you can be safe while he cleans it up? Well, now no one really cares if I clean it up myself. No one really cares if I get cut with glass. If I break something no one says ‘Let me take care of that.’ You know?”

Even though she understands it, she has not come to terms with being out in the world on her own. Like she did when she was a child, she pretends to be sick, hoping that Laird will do something for her, even try and have sex with her again so that this can be one of her strange experiences rather than just a sad girl falling apart. He refuses to be put in that position though, calling her self involved and presumptuous, and tells her she is rotten on the inside. Hannah apologizes for her behavior to him, and he accepts, but it really doesn’t change anything – she is still alone.

After calling Jessa and leaving her a voice mail about how shitty it feels to be abandoned, Hannah makes one more call for help, and this time it is answered. The only person left who could possibly help her is Adam, and she calls him, accidentally making the call over “facetime” which means he can see her in all her hacked off hair, OCD twitching glory. As soon as he realizes what state she is in he is off and running, shirtless, all the way to her house, keeping her on the phone so she won’t feel alone. It is the grand gesture of her ideal white knight, and the expression of panic and joy on her face throughout says it all.

After breaking her door down to get in (she is under the covers and can’t get out to open the door) Adam is there, in her bedroom, and finally we think that things might just be all right after all. He scoops her up, they kiss, and something that has been off all season finally feels like it is put to rights. He may not be a gentleman in the conventional sense, but Adam really does know what it takes to help Hannah. In fact, it seems like they will help each other.

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GIRLS Season 2, Episode 9

Awkwardness is a part of life at all ages, but there is something specific about feeling awkward in your early twenties. You feel like you have some idea of how to behave like an adult, but then something happens – you run into your ex on a date for instance – and all of a sudden the overwhelming awkwardness feels so strong you might black out from it. Each person responds differently to it, but it tends to bring out the strange in all of us. This is certainly true of this episode of GIRLS, where each and every character is wildly awkward in their own way. Read on to see what feeling awkward will lead our girls and guys to do.

Hannah

As we learned last week, Hannah has OCD, and it is immediately apparent this week that she is still suffering from it. She is on her way to her editor’s office, the one who assigned her the ebook and our heart broke for her as soon as the meeting started. He has not finished reading the pages she submitted, because he isn’t sure “who wrote them”. You see, he wanted the “chubby face with come on it” writer and got someone writing about friendship, more Jane Austen than Anias Nin. His helpful suggestion – if she’s not having enough sex at the moment, make it up – she can pull off writing a novel, correct?

At home and once again struggling to write, Hannah manages to literally get a pain in the ass – more specifically, a splinter in her bum. After removing it, she opens a box of Q-tips and starts to clean her right ear when the OCD kicks in, leading her to jab her eardrum so hard she seems to puncture it. The noise it makes – a sickening squish-crunch – is still ringing in our own ears. She calls her parents for comfort and then off she goes to the hospital.

She is treated by a brusque ER doctor, who points out she must be feeling rather silly (thanks Dr. Tips) and has no time to listen to her attempt to explain her mental state and struggle with anxiety that lead to the ear-cleaning snafu. He believes it is only an abrasion, but can’t tell from all the blood (comforting!) so suggests she see a specialist if it’s still bothering her in a few days. She asks if he could clean the other one out since it is feeling a bit uneven (OCD red flag) and he declines.

It is the law of first major heartbreak that when you are feeling your absolute worst on every level you will run into your ex. Not only that, they will seem like their life has improved immeasurably since you. When Hannah sees Adam on the street outside the engagement party, which he explains he is attending with his girlfriend, Hannah takes another giant blow to the gut. Natalia is a cool girl name, and Hannah is on the street in a nightie coming home from the hospital. She and Adam have a moment when he calls her “kid” and she comes close to crying. She tries to salvage her pride with a mention of the book she is working on but Adam is already heading inside and she’s left knowing in this moment she lost.

At home she sits on the edge of the tub, she begins to clean the other ear. Hannah’s anxiety makes her crave balance, but whether that balance can come in a healthy way or whether it will lead to two punctured eardrums is yet to be seen.

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GIRLS Season 2, Episode 8

One of the shocking lessons of your early twenties is that success doesn’t often feel the way you think it will, both for you or the people in your life. Success doesn’t wave the magic wand over your whole life, and often the thing you’ve been dreaming of brings expectations in equal measure with joy.  This is what the Girls are in for now.

Hannah

Hannah’s neuroses have always seemed more like funny quirks than serious mental health issues, but the stress of her book deal is showing some deeper cracks in her foundation. Namely, as she walks down the street with tears sliding down her cheeks and ignores Adam’s call, she begins looking over her shoulder (his stalkery behavior makes this just good sense) and can’t stop alternating shoulders until she reaches eight times. Same goes for opening and closing the door when she gets home, and eating precisely eight chips. It’s unclear whether this is a new pathology until she meets up with her parents – it takes her mother mere minutes to notice the counting, and their immediate alarm makes it clear that this is a problem from her past.

They are at The Carlyle to see Judy Collins, but no one can enjoy the tunes that much since they’re focused on Hannah’s visible counting tic. She denies it, but midway through the performance she is overwhelmed by her anxiety and bolts. Of course as she does she bumps a man’s shoulder and then has to bump it seven more times to make it an even eight. Pretty hard to pretend the OCD isn’t back now.

Her parents drag her to a psychiatrist (the perfectly cast Bob Balaban) to get to the root of her problem, and we get more insight into her past experiences with OCD. In high school it was pretty bad, with a routine that usually took her most of the night to get through and left her exhausted at school. Medication helped, but made her tired so she didn’t want it anymore. It occurs to us that this has been foreshadowed at different points this season, especially in “Another Man’s Trash” when Hannah developed the habit of taking the Grumpy’s trash to other people’s cans. We thought she did it for a cheap thrill, but it seems more that it became a compulsion that she was attracted to for the control it provided. Now the problem, compounded by her continued confusion over the break up with Adam (She’s not sure if he is the best or worst person she knows) and the stress of the impeding deadline for book pages has sent her into a tailspin.

When the psychiatrist tells her he has published a book, in fact a very popular series of books, she loses some of the chip on her shoulder and agrees to do whatever he wants if he’ll just tell her parents she is fine. His question is a good one – is she fine, really?

Shosh

Shosh has always been part of a more privileged world and the choice to date 33 year-old homeless barista is brought into sharp relief with the rest of her life when they happen Shosh’s friend Rideeka ironically rollerblading (so vintage, since now that means 90’s). She infers that Shosh has been out of the scene lately, due to said boyfriend, and invites them to her “impromptu” that night. “Impromptu” means party apparently, and Shosh is determined to go – she can’t have people think she is dead or missing just because she’s found love. Ray draws his own line in the sand, declaring that he won’t attend a college party as a grown man. It’s creepy. We concur, but Shosh doesn’t and off she storms, even faster than Rideeka tottered off on her rollerblades.

On her way in to the party, Rideeka’s cute doorman flirts with her. Flattering. The party however, leaves something to be desired. Rideeka is the wealthiest Hindi she knows, with the palatial pad to prove it, but all that’s on Shosh’s mind is her troubles. She is “that girl” now – the one who talks about her boyfriend/roomate problems for so long that people can’t stand listening to her. She leaves with a dampened spirit, thinking perhaps she just isn’t a “party person” anymore.

What do you know, neither is Hot Doorman. He strikes up a conversation on her way out and after a little light flirting Shosh is making out with him in the mailroom. She has always been such a loyal, trustworthy person to her friends but she is discovering that relationship problems are harder to hang tough through. He may just be a doorman, but this guy at least likes something (clubs apparently) versus Ray, who seems to like nothing except old episodes of Ally McBeal. Their relationship breakdown has hit warp speed.

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Hannah and Jessa enjoying an unusual dinner during a road trip.

Road trips are generally hijinx-laden and hilarious. This week, Hannah and Jessa’s road trip was one of these things (hijinx aplenty) and the occasionally the other too. What it was most was a glimpse into why Jessa is Jessa, as we travelled with her and Hannah to visit her father, his girlfriend Petula, Petula’s son Frank and their pet/dinner rabbits. It was also a convenient way to deal with the fact that real life Jessa, actress Jemima Khan, is pregnant and GIRLS was having a lot of trouble hiding it. There are only so many baggy shirts and tent-like caftans a gal can wear, you know.

Since this week we only see Hannah and Jessa on their adventure, we’ll break the episode down a little differently, by waiting, visiting and leaving.

Waiting

Hannah and Jessa are waiting at the Manitou train station for Jessa’s dad to pick them up. While some people would be traumatized by always having to wait for their parents (and by apparently being molested while doing so) Jessa has developed a thick skin to protect against being hurt by their apparent disinterest in her. One of her defining characteristics is her fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants nature, as evidenced by her quickie marriage and even quicker divorce, but some of her darker demons (like the heroin addiction she mentioned, and her compulsive need for male attention) become more understandable through this small piece of knowledge about her childhood.

When Hannah complains about Mr. Johannson’s lateness, Jessa mocks her for how uncool it is that that bothers her. She does appreciate Hannah coming with though. Her dad wants her to meet his girlfriend Petula, who he doesn’t remember she has met twice before, and who is not the same as the previous girlfriend whom he had a five year-old daughter with. Where is said five year-old now? No one speaks to her, answers Jessa, wondering idly if her name is still Lemon. Here is another hint to the riddle that is Jessa. Her father’s relationships have been fleeting. It is also interesting that he has another daughter whom he seems disinterested in – this conversation was likely had before, with someone speaking about five year-old Jessa herself.

Still confused by the mysteries of texting (although she has at least upgraded her vocabulary as she used to call them “word alerts”) Jessa is coming for this visit because she got a text from her father of random letters, which she took to be a symbolic indication he had something to tell her. When Hannah has the gall to suggest it could have been an accidental “butt text” Jessa furious at her, but not without awareness crossing her face that this is actually the likely explanation.

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Marnie and the inimitable Booth Jonathan.

After last week, when nothing happened to anyone but Hannah, this week everything is happening to everyone. There are lots of important parts, but our ultimate favourite is the short-lived team of Adam and Ray, who replace Shosh and Jessa in this week’s recap. Dog bites, ferry rides and yelling—all the things a good man adventure requires.

HANNAH

Once again Hannah is taking a very important meeting, with someone very important (played by actor/director John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch) signified by the fact that Hannah is a gushing fangirl over his magazine, and the fact that a “money man” drops by their table to say hello. The editor has read Hannah’s essays and identified in her writing qualities that describe Hannah herself: complex, sweet, naïve and infuriating.  Long story short, he wants Hannah to write an e-book. He may not know what a pistachio is, but he knows talent and Hannah has it. The catch? He needs that in a month. Sooo….no pressure or anything.

It’s one thing to talk about writing a book, and another to actually sit down and do it. The one-month deadline makes procrastination a dangerous game. New roomie Jessa isn’t making life easier either, in the stage of depression where she falls asleep in the tub and becomes ultra mean (she tells Hannah the book she’s writing won’t matter to anyone including those who read it and Hannah herself).

Escaping her empty page and terrible new roommate, Hannah wanders over to Casa Booth (Jonathan). She is wearing an especially frumpy combo of denim sack dress and navy and green rain coat, and is distinctly out of place.  It doesn’t help that she is ignored by her former best friend and not in the mood to enjoy the pretentious art assholes even though one thinks he knows her from “one of Ryan’s shoots.” When he mentions another of the guests, Sketch, the one Marnie just greeted as “my favourite wordsmith in the world!”, is also writing an e-book, Hannah feels as small as she possibly could and takes off for home.

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A certain type of twentysomething girl is bound to have a fling/relationship/sexual encounter or two with a significantly older man. Hannah is most certainly that type of girl, and so it is no surprise that this episode is all about her meeting Joshua (Patrick Wilson),  a 42-year-old separated doctor, and spending 36 hours shacked up with him. In fact, it seems like all these girls are that kind of girl—Marnie is with artist Booth Jonathan, Shosh is with 33-year-old Ray, and Jessa must have an older man or 20 in her rearview mirror (for instance the father of her babysitting charges from last season).

This episode has a different tone from the others, partly due to the fact that we only see Hannah, and partly because it isn’t funny per se, as much as thoughtful and bittersweet. This relationship may not, in fact cannot, last, but it is a telling encounter, and one that Hannah is unlikely to forget.

Since Hannah is the only main character in this episode (except for her boss Ray, who sort of sets the whole thing in motion) we will break this down by the most important things that happen, starting with the garbage. Yep, the garbage. Read on.

THE GARBAGE CONUNDRUM

Last week we saw a more self-assured Hannah, hosting a dinner party for her friends with money she’d made actually writing. This week we see her at her regular paycheck job at Grumpy’s, goofing around with her manager Ray. Hannah seems so happy and carefree, wearing her floral onesie and explaining the definition of the new word – sexit –that she has coined (that is going to end up in the word graveyard alongside “fetch”, Hannah). Part of her good cheer can be traced back to discovering Marnie and Elijah’s indiscretion, allowing her to feel like the good friend rather than the bad one for once. So is this the end of Hannah’s childish behavior? Has she entered the land of grownups? Not by a mile.

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Hannah’s dinner party featured pad thai and bundt cake.

Farewell Elijah the fink.  As punishment for his three seconds of semi-flaccid lovemaking with Marnie he is out of a roommate, an apartment and all the sweet swag he got out of his relationship with George, who has apparently bequeathed all his gifts to Hannah. We’ll miss Elijah—he was becoming one of the best parts of the season. And he isn’t the only man kicked to the curb this week. No relationship is safe this episode.

HANNAH

Roomateless again. On the plus side, Hannah has acquired some new furniture and on the minus has learned that Elijah won’t be paying rent for the month because he doesn’t have the funds, and he has calculated the cost of the burritos he bought her while they were dating (with extra toppings) as well as the butt plug (say WHAT?) and feels that they’re even. Even though she is once again in a financial bind, we have to say Hannah shows some emotional growth in this roommate eviction—no hysteria. She even shows her burgeoning sense of adulthood by throwing a dinner party.

Using the money she earned from jazzhate.com for her first article (presumably about banging her ex-junkie neighbor while high on coke), Hannah prepares organic pad thai for Charlie, headband-obsessed Audrey, Shosh and Ray and party-crasher Marnie. She isn’t technically crashing since Hannah invited her, but it was assumed she wouldn’t attend because of her transgression with Elijah.

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 Hey girls.

 We’ve discovered that something magic happens in the third episode of a GIRLS season. In season one the magic came in the form of Booth Jonathan, the cocky and obnoxiously sexy artist, and a dance party of two, just Hannah, Marnie with tunes by Robyn. This time, we know the magic is back when we get our first moment of the season with the girls all together, sitting on a brownstone stoop selling their wares (which in Jessa’s case are blouses that one of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers once complimented her on). Sadly this is all we’ll see of Jessa and our beloved Shosh for the whole episode, but fear not, what we do get lots that makes up for it. Drugs, dance parties and the return of Mr. Jonathan commence now.

HANNAH

Hannah is a writer, an as yet unpublished writer, so it is good to see her in a meeting with a potential editor. This particular editor is in charge of a website that seemed to be in the vein of Vice, or Gawker or the like, so of course she would like Hannah to write about something outside of her comfort zone (where the magic happens according to the insipid wall art) like a threesome or cocaine. Page-views baby!

So like a good little adventuress, Hannah trots off to procure some cocaine. Since she has “weird nasal passages” she has never tried it herself, but Marnie suggests she ask the junkie from the ground floor apartment in the building for assistance. Except, Laird (junkie neighbor) is a junkie no more. He is clean and sober, just living his life with his turtle. Hannah, being the tone-deaf quasi-asshole we know and love, asks him to buy her drugs anyways. Since he is clearly in love with her, he obliges.

She will need a partner in crime for this adventure, and who better than Elijah, who knows exactly what she should wear and where they should go (obvs to dance and club where Andrew Andrew, the brand consultant gay ipad djs who dress alike and dance alike, are spinning).  They will power clash their outfits and start doing coke at 4 in the afternoon and human decency will not stop them!

They begin with a list of what they want to do in their lives. Elijah wants to raise show dogs; Hannah wants to learn to write a check. Way to shoot for the moon you two! When deciding to start their festivities early, they didn’t take into account how disastrous it is to be ultra high in broad daylight among sober people. Their foray on the subway leaves them hanging onto a staircase rail like a coked out Lucy and Ethel. Somehow, the magic subway takes them to 1998, to a real life rave full of glow sticks and mesh tanks. Or, alternatively the 90’s are back in every disturbing way possible.  Whichever way this happened, the rave looks fun – this show is glamourizing drugs!

Until, it isn’t anymore. While euphorically high, doing lines off a toilet seat lid (hygiene has never been Hannah’s forte, but et tu Elijah?) Elijah decides it’s a great idea to finally spill the beans on the sex he and Marnie had. Cue epic Hannah meltdown.

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 Newlyweds Thomas Jane and Jessa.

Elijah’s older boyfriend George dumps him in the first scene because of his youth (and the fact that he cheated with a woman) and it sets the tone for the major issue in this episode – adulthood. The challenges of growing up seem to be pretty serious road blocks for immature Hannah, and the others may think they’re faring better but under the surface they’re all just kids playing house (or in Marnie’s case, hostess). Let the immaturity ensue.

HANNAH

Hannah’s love life is, as usual, somewhat fraught. Spurned Adam is making her the world’s creepiest breakup music videos (Umm, Adam? If you don’t want to seem like a stalker, don’t use the words “creeping around” as part of your first verse.) Hannah is mildly concerned he will murder her, but is obviously also enjoying the feeling of being the object of his obsession, at least for the dramatic value it brings to her life.

She is also encountering a vaguely more grown up problem. Her new boyfriend Sandy is a Republican (this was foreshadowed in the first episode when she asked to borrow his copy of The Fountainhead). This causes tension between him and her gay roommate, and when Hannah helpfully makes a comparison to the fact that Elijah’s ex George was old and therefore still uses Hotmail, it was clear that the issues at hand were over her head.

After an enlightening afternoon with Jessa and the puppy posse, Hannah decides to follow her advice and press him about why he hasn’t read her essay yet. He confesses he had read it, and that it “wasn’t for (him) exactly.” driving Hannah into a classic writer’s tailspin. When he gives the world’s most obnoxious notes (“I just didn’t feel like anything was happening in it. Nothing was happening.”)  Hannah can’t resist opening up the can of worms further by goading him into discussing his Republicanism. Stung by his dismissal of her work, she challenges his politics with generalities (gay marriage, guns, black people in prison) that make it clear that she isn’t truly political herself, but simply wants to get under his skin.

That certainly works.

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Recap: Season 2, Episode 1.

The GIRLS are back in town. We left them each at a crossroads—Hannah was eating cake alone after fighting with Adam about moving in together and watching him get hit by a truck in the street, Shoshanna was finally losing her virginity, to Ray of all people, Marnie was making out with a chubby funnyman after brushing off a chance to hook up with her ex Charlie, and Jessa, predictably unpredictable, was marrying a finance guy in a surprise ceremony. In GIRLSland that wasn’t so long ago, so let’s dive right in and see whether any or all of our heroines have found themselves on the right road.

HANNAH

At the beginning of season one we found Hannah spooning with her roommate, and it seems not much has changed. Except that rather than uptight Marnie, the big spoon is now Hannah’s gay ex and current roomie Elijah. The plan they hatched at Jessa’s wedding has come to pass and they are as snug as two bugs in a Brooklyn rug.

Elijah is not the only new man in Hannah’s life however. She is dating someone distinctly unAdamish, Sandy (played by Donald Glover). They are having lots of sex, chasing each other around bookstores just as fast as his boner allows, but when he indirectly uses the dreaded L word, she makes it clear that is not something she wants to hear – she is trying to learn her lesson after the intensity of her doomed relationship with Adam.

And what of poor old broken leg Adam? Hannah hasn’t quite gotten around to telling him about her new man-friend, and doesn’t plan to until he “is capable of wiping himself”. In fact, she is still acting as nursemaid, coming by with videos, takeout and prescriptions. It is causing confusion – as he puts it she is there all the time, and is his “main hang” so he isn’t so worried about labeling things as long as they continue. Since it’s hard to tell a guy you are dating somebody else while you hold a pot for him to pee in, Hannah bides her time.

Meanwhile she has a party to throw in her newly styled pad – a house warming with Elijah, and a chance for him to show off his rich boyfriend George. One small hitch; George thinks the hipster gathering in Brooklyn is boring, and decides to get roaring drunk to make up for it. Cue an embarrassing karaoke attempt, followed by a smack down of Elijah’s “boring” friends – don’t they realize how much more fun it was when he was their age “snorting coke on twinks and dacing with (his) tits out?”. Elijah needs Hannah’s help to get him out before he ruins Elijah’s whole party/life.

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