TV Recap: Girls - "Hard Being Easy"

Left to Right: Christopher Abbott, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams

I am going to attempt to keep up a weekly entry recapping the brand new HBO comedy series Girls, written, starring, and directed by Lena Dunham of Tiny Furniture fame. While the episodes usually premiere on Sundays, my entries will be posted towards the end of the weeks, usually on Thursdays or Fridays. This is more of a time convenience as I hope to take this new venture seriously and take time to review each episode. If this goes over well, I will continue to do more of these. I was going to do Bob's Burgers, but the idea came a few episodes too late. However, I am still considering doing Louie, whose previous season remains the best 30 minutes of TV each week.

This week we get into the juicy conclusion of last week's big fall out of when Charlie (Christopher Abbott) and Ray (Alex Karpovsky) decided to read Hannah's (Lena Dunham) diary and discover some very negative opinions of the relationship between Marnie (Allison Williams) and Charlie. It has been there all along, but the discovery was necessary to move the story forward. Truthfully, I thought that it would be a falling out between Marnie and Hannah in a very petty episode where she moves out. In fact, it initiated the opposite reaction.

The episode starts with the fight over the content, which Hannah believes was intruded upon, yet Charlie feels is reflective of Marnie's actual opinions. After Charlie has Hannah read out the passage that hurts him the most, they dissect who is at fault, only to have Charlie lash out, toppling furniture that he built and claiming that he was an important member of the apartment, despite not paying rent. After storming out, Hannah asks Marnie opinions on if she had read another passage if maybe she would have liked it.

Alex Karpovsky

Over a meal, they talk things over and it is discovered that Marnie has never been to Charlie's apartment. Hannah and Marnie patch things up, and they split for the rest of the episode. Marnie heads down to where Ray works to interrogate him for Charlie's address. Ray is reluctant, claiming that she ass-fucked him in the heart, but eventually gives out the information. Marnie spends the rest of the episode with Charlie in his apartment, which she claims looks like a Target ad because everything is hand built and neatly put away.

Meanwhile Hannah meets up with Jessa (Jemima Kirke), to whom she divulges the events of the previous episode involving both her sexual harassment with her boss, and how she got back together with Adam (Adam Driver). Jessa is nonchalant towards the harassment and encourages her to go through with advancing on her boss to create content for Hannah's "story."  

Jessa spends the rest of the episode meeting up with an old friend, who is in town to move in with his girlfriend, who is 38, which Jessa considers to be old. They claim to have a platonic relationship, but as the story progresses, Jessa makes advancements on him, and eventually it leads to having sex outside of her apartment window. When the friend goes in to kiss Jessa, she stops him, reminding him about her girlfriend. Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) just happens to be in the room for some reason and sees it all. Jessa calls her out on it and claims that the sexual act was a sign that she could not be smoten. 

During this time, we also get a flashback to when Marnie and Charlie first met at a party in college. Marnie is tied up to a pole after taking pot brownies and Hannah was designated to watch over her with her boyfriend of the time. When a song by the Scissor Sisters comes on over the speakers, she finds a strong desire to dance, but doesn't want to leave Marnie alone. Jessa is also there, but more into getting hold of drugs so that her heart can fall out of her vagina. Charlie shows up and takes over watching duties, which results in a lot of hugging and intimate conversation.

It helps to establish the relationship between the two as it joins them in a one-on-one discussion of why they got together and what good it meant still being part of each other's lives. Charlie gets the impression that Marnie wants to be with him, so they have sex, which goes very well and leaves each other in a passionate array. However, Marnie drops a bombshell and tells Charlie that she want to break-up shortly following the passionate moment.

Hannah tries to make a move on her boss, claiming that he has been asking for it. This can be seen in a shot preceding in which the boss grabs Hannah's butt. She forces the boss, who is married, to grope her breasts and attempt to get him into having sex. He is reluctant and questions her motives. She claims that it is for his desire and would benefit her story. When he refuses, she goes off on him and says that she could start a lawsuit against him. He laughs at her, claiming that she is a very unorganized person and couldn't do it. The final threat comes when Hannah states that she will write a story about him and not change his name. She is then fired.

The episode ends with Hannah visiting her boyfriend Adam, who is in the middle of something very important. He manages to drop it and tell her that the honesty she dropped on him in the last episode was a sign that they shouldn't be together. He claims that a relationship should only last either six months or until someone is bored, which he fully believes that Hannah is. 

Hannah goes into the bathroom and cries, only to return to a masturbating Adam. He convinces her into an awkward form of foreplay in which he masturbates while having her try to insult him for being dirty. This is an obvious reversal of the opening scene of "Vagina Panic." It goes on for quite awhile, and Adam refuses Hannah to take off her clothes for physical arousal. 

After what Hannah claims to be all day, she decides to take some of his money and leave. She starts with a $20 request, but when it is discovered that Adam only has $100 bills, she takes one and demands him to apologize for wasting her time. He is still violently masturbating. Upon her exit, he stops and requests her to shake his hand. Hannah leaves without doing so.

Left to Right: Lena Dunham, Jemima Kirke

This episode opened up a few interesting new paths for the show. It notably shows that Marnie and Hannah are best friends and that their bond was stronger than that of Marnie's with Charlie. We haven't gotten to know Charlie independent of Marnie's incessant complaints. Maybe future episodes will show just how insecure he really is. Maybe he will just disappear, but I have an impression that like the end of "Hannah's Diary," he takes things a little too seriously. I also hope that if Charlie leaves, it is not the end of Ray, whose brief appearances have brought about a lot of great moments. However, due to his compatibility with Charlie, it is impossible to see him popping up alone.

Jessa continues to be a tease of a character. First she claims to love sexual harassment, then she has quick sex with an old friend, to whom she refuses to kiss. This seems like a subtle hint that she is a heart breaker, and I like to assume will eventually cost her the babysitting job that has been established. She hasn't made nearly as much moves on the husband as she did her old friend, but the subtle undertones are present in both cases. She is clearly in relationships not for substance, but for a good time.

Hannah manages to get fired from a job again. Maybe my idea that she does spend the season trying to get a job will pay off. Who knows what else she could get fired from. At least she got paid this time. However, it still is cringe worthy to note that she got fired both times for taking naive initiative on things that could have easily been ignored. She doesn't seem to last long anywhere. She also is very certain on writing a book about her experiences called "Midnight Snacks," which seems to get more insane and I believe may actually become a plot point where she exploits her friends in a depressingly dark way. Her writing may cost her everything come possibly any future season arcs. 

It was also interesting to see her relationship with Adam take a turn of events. Adam tries to blow off the break-up and consider that she is gone, though Hannah somehow still has feelings for him. It comes to an end in an oddly heartbreaking way in which a naked Adam refuses to acknowledge her. However, it is also impressive that he demands the insults after episodes establishing dominance. Who knows. Maybe future episodes will dive into the penis picture that he sent in "Hannah's Diary." Maybe the surprise girl will show up and cause all sorts of problems. I also wonder if this is actually the end or if Adam is planning to work his way back up.

Zosia Mamet

Can we please give Shoshanna more of a plot? This is the second episode (after "All Adventurous Women Do") where she feels like she was shoehorned in simply because she is part of the main cast. I am sure that something is developing with her character, but throwing her in as a innocent bystander just seemed pointless. She is already the nimble virgin of the group and she needs to become more than that.

However, the big draw of this episode came from Marnie and Charlie. Most of all, the flashback gave a lot of hints into why they ended up together. It was kind of sweet and made their break-up all the more tragic. It's true that Marnie has expressed disinterest in him since "Pilot," but has never taken initiative. Now that they're broken up, what will Marnie's story be? Will it be getting a new boyfriend, or will it just be Charlie trying to get back with her?

With this said, I would love to see some flashback that finally tells us why Hannah and Adam are dating. It seems weird that they're even together, speaking that Adam is a recluse. Maybe there is a deeper origin. Then again, I am fine if Adam drops out of the story all together, or becomes as infrequent as Shoshanna seems to be. It gives Hannah depth, but so does the rest of the story. One way to improving Hannah is to get rid of Adam.

Also, I wonder if Sleigh Bells' "Infinity Guitar" will now be their transition music, as dominantly on display in this episode. It feels out of place in the way that the transition music in 2 Broke Girls felt out of place. The show seems a little too indie to be using buzz guitars, even though the chaotic undertones make sense. I just think that it will underplay the scenes that need the low energy tension.

Favorite moment: It is easily the ending, which is mostly thanks to a build-up of an abusive relationship. It also works because it is role reversal topped with a sense that Hannah was only using Adam for his money. The whole masturbation and apology thing only makes him seem weaker and hopefully will not just be replacing the dominant character as Hannah. If it does, it will undermine everything that I felt was done brilliantly in this episode.

Rating; 3.5 out of 5

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