Girls is back! This episode featured a beachy Hannah at surf camp, Jessa eating yogurt, and some deep consideration of “toxic negativity.”
You guys. You have no idea how happy I am to have this show back. Girls has just begun its sixth and final season, and I can’t wait to see how these characters progress. Last season we saw a lot of drama, but also a lot of growth. Hannah eventually chose forgiveness, or something like it, of Jessa and Adam. Marnie decided to get divorced, which we all knew was deeply necessary. Shoshanna got away from the toxicity of her life in New York, and while she had to come back, she was a better person when she did. And Jessa seems to be opening herself up to the possibility of love again. Though, as the fifth season’s finale confirmed, it seems like dangerous, misguided, unhealthy love.
Ultimately, though, I was really excited to see where we stood with these characters, and we get a lot of information really fast.
Let me break it down by Girl.
Episode 53 (season 6, episode 1), debut 2/12/17: Riz Ahmed, Lena Dunham.
photo: Mark Schafer
Hannah
It was a really interesting choice to me to take Hannah out of the city for this first episode back. A writing assignment took her to a surf camp in Montauk where she was supposed to write sardonically about the housewives who “co-opt” surf culture. Instead, she met Paul-Louis, played extremely well by Riz Ahmed. The laid-back surf instructor took a shine to Hannah. They ended up spending a few days having sex and traipsing around the beach. They had several intense and meaningful conversations. She even mentioned she was thinking about staying in Montauk for a while. And then he mentioned that he has a girlfriend.
This episode was meant to help us understand where Hannah is with herself. Her writing career is taking off. At the beginning, she seems very confident in herself. But every time Jessa and Adam come up, she’s visibly uncomfortable. She verbalizes that she feels “more like a dumpling than a woman” (one of the episode’s best lines). She’s still shaking the sting of not being good enough. In her mind, she’s not good enough for Adam to stay with. And she’s not good enough for Jessa to choose over Adam.
So then Paul-Louis comes along, and he shows real, genuine interest in her. He seems to really want to connect with her, and she allows that. She is attracted to his philosophy that “it’s so much easier to love than to hate,” and recognizes that she hates more quickly than she loves. But then, he casually talks about his girlfriend, after she suggests that she stay there for a while. And she’s the same old Hannah. At the beginning of the episode, her self-worth was coming from her writing and her successes. By the end, it was coming from Paul-Louis. And she’s not good enough for him either.
“All of my friends in New York define themselves by, like, what they hate. Like, I don’t even know what any of my friends like, I just know what they don’t like.” – Hannah
It’s interesting, too, that she brushes it off. She struggles, but accepts that he has a girlfriend and tries to be “the cool girl.” “Why get mad at fun?” she asks him rhetorically. Um, Hannah…because you’re not having fun. The façade of the “cool girl” is so familiar to many women. You try to be breezy and not too serious, either to attract someone, or because that’s how you wish you were. But it never works. Hannah talked about getting away from the “toxic negativity” of everyone in the city, but this is just as bad.
Marnie
The episode began so joyfully – with Hannah’s publication in the Modern Love column in The New York Times. She converted her Moth story into a personal essay, and the first few minutes showed everyone in her life reading it. Their different reactions speak volumes, but the one that most reflected my reaction was Marnie’s. “Hannah’s in print!” she exclaimed to herself, giant grin on her face, celebrating alone on the toilet. Marnie’s pride in Hannah’s achievements has not always been obvious, but this tiny moment meant the world. These people do care about each other – despite how it may seem sometimes.
Marnie’s choice to ask Ray to move out (even though he never moved in) was great. The scene, in which they both kept obsessively calling each other “baby,” was hilarious. But more than anything, it showed a real step in the right direction for Marnie. Rarely on the show has she ever been without a boyfriend. Charlie filled that void for her for years. When they broke up, she spiraled. She clung to Booth, or Ray, or Desi, or whoever was closest to her. She never figured out how to be on her own, as evidenced by her reason for divorcing Desi. But her asking Ray to leave really showed she was trying to define herself by herself.
Episode 53 (season 6, episode 1): Alex Karpovsky, Allison Williams.
photo: Craig Blankenhorn
…Until the end of the episode. She watched how Ray and Shoshanna interact, talking about things she has no clue about. But when Desi showed up to pick up some stuff, Marnie seemed fine and strong. Then, she offhandedly said something about how she wasn’t that talented. Desi’s quick and strong reaction against that led to a relapse. They started making out.
I angrily wrote in my notes, “MARNIE!!!!” when this happened. She didn’t even seem into Desi himself. She seems to feel sorry for him. But it goes back to her resistance to loneliness. She seems fine, but these choices show she’s really, really not.
Jessa and Shoshanna
Didn’t see a lot of Jessa this episode. But it was very interesting that she was the only one who chose not to read Hannah’s piece in The New York Times. Even Adam endured it.
It’s hard to figure out where Jessa and Adam stand. At the end of the last season, they had a serious knock-down, drag-out fight about Hannah. Jessa wasn’t okay with not having her in their lives. She blames Adam for what happened. And it got violent. They didn’t hurt each other, but they did their best to fuck everything else up. Now, they are hanging around naked in the apartment, with no apparent issues with each other. Are they bottling things up? What will come of that?
Shoshanna wasn’t super present either, but her conversations with Ray were so delightful. She seemed so happy and well-adjusted. And she’s so worldly now! Shosh and Ray were reading the paper together and talking like real adults. It was silly for Marnie to get upset over them bonding. But I wonder if the show is telegraphing a potential future reunion between Shosh and Ray. Back when they dated, they weren’t well-matched. Now that they’ve both changed, they might be.
Next: It's Almost Time to Bid a Fond Farewell to HBO's Girls
Best Girl: Shoshanna – she was so pleasant and appeared to be so fulfilled. Also she wasn’t on screen long enough to do anything terrible. Yay, Shosh!
Most Improved: Hannah. It means something that she’s trying to be better. Plus, Modern Love is nothing to sneeze at. Go Hannah!
Best Line: “I’m gonna f*ck my way to the middle!” – Elijah, on using orgies to advance his acting career