I never watch Girls or Veep on Sunday nights as I’m busy with Mad Men, so by the time I watched Girls on Monday evening I’d already seen this. It’s all very angering, interesting, upsetting, etc.
Girls has been taking undeserved heat since before it debuted, in so many ways. It faced the Bridesmaids problem: That if THIS isn’t funny, then WOMEN must not be funny. It faced criticism over lack of racial diversity, when in fact it so far seems to be at least less white-washed than a show like How I Met Your Mother or basically anything else on CBS. And Lena Dunham, a uniquely talented twenty-something woman, is continually critiqued by some for her appearance rather than her talent. In fact, we all are.
It’s particularly interesting that this discussion should arise following an episode of Mad Men that focused on women, their role as Other in society, objectification, etc. You look at that episode and think “What happened to Joan probably happened a lot back then,” or “Peggy really had to fight to get her due”, but then you also think “That still happens now, it’s just not as obvious or accepted.” You think that, and then you are slapped in the face with idiot commenters on message boards who can only focus on whether they find Lena Dunham is sexually attractive to them, who say sexist, piggish things. Yes, commenters on message boards (not on this blog, though!) tend to be the lowest of the low – but they’re still people, they’re still out there. And like the writer who wrote that thoughtful response, like Peggy and Joan and Megan, they piss me off.
OK, now let’s talk about the actual episode.
Best Party Ever
“Best party ever? I mean to me that’s like saying ‘best gym ever’ or ‘best nature documentary ever’, I mean how good can it really be?”
Oh Hannah. I’ve never related to you more. Except for later when you said “Last time I got drunk I ate all this brie and I threw up on my cell phone.”
I really, really liked this episode. It had so many good things – Adam with his shirt on, Marnie being kind of a bitch in the way that most of us probably have before, Shoshanna high on not marijuana, and Jessa offering to be her “crack spirit guide”. (And immediately abandoning her.)
I know she was on drugs, but I really felt a spark between Shoshanna (easily my favorite character, btw) and Ray. I need that to happen, y’all.
Basically, no one had a good night. Shoshanna accidentally did scary drugs. Marnie got slapped in the face by Hannah’s gay ex-boyfriend. Jessa’s boss came to the party because he’s a dirtbag, and ended up getting punched and kicked because Jessa is always the worst. And Hannah was thrown from Adam’s bicycle, so I suppose she got off the easiest physically, anyway. Emotionally, there was a dramatic moment with Adam that ended with the two of them taking a pretty big step forward. All along, we’ve seen him from Hannah’s point of view. This douchebag guy who never calls her back. But finally we got to see a bit of his perspective – that she’s this girl who only sleeps with him and then goes home to write in her journal, that she makes no effort to get to know him and doesn’t even know he was a teenage alcoholic.
It looks as though Adam will be Hannah’s actual boyfriend now, and I’m interested to see how that could change Hannah’s character a little. And for what it’s worth, I thought this was one of the funniest episodes the show has done so far. What did you guys think?
Favorites:
- Hannah thinks she needs to get eleven hours of sleep her night ever since she had mono.
- This episode perhaps featured some of the worst dancing I’ve ever seen.
- Tako can tell when people think her name is spelled with a C.
