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| Allison Williams |
Here we are, continuing the week long catch-up of Girls. We are currently on episode three of season two titled "Bad Friend." For the previous two, please click the links: "It's About Time" and "I Get Ideas."
It has been awhile since we have seen Hannah (Lena Dunham) get a job for writing. In fact, "Pilot" is probably the last time that we know of her getting some employment from it. The episode opens up with her in an interview with Jame (Angela Featherstone) for a job at an online publication called jazzhate. Hannah is enthused for the job and is consulting about what niche field she can go into. After she throws out some ideas with Jame, she realizes that the best way to achieve this is to go outside her comfort zone. The result is a biographical essay of what happens when she takes cocaine, despite never actually doing it before.
She consults Jessa (Jemima Kirke), Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), and Marnie (Allison Williams) at a yard sale. Shoshanna is complaining about Ray's choice to stay up late watching Ally McBeal reruns. Still, Jessa pens it up to her just having sex and being fidgety. However, when Hannah shows up, the group begins talking about the logical reasoning for taking coke and why she would want to do it in the first place. Of course, typical Hannah, she wants to take it for the story. Jessa eventually figures out that she could consult Laird (Jon Glaser), who is a stoner that lives in the basement of their building and hangs out by the mailbox.
One thing leads to another and Hannah is knocking at Laird's door. Looking very much the part, he welcomes her in and after a misconception, he reveals that he is clean. At most, he has a pet turtle that he takes care of, which is sometimes a pain. He tries to sway her off of doing coke, but things spiral until he gives up a contact number for some dealers he still knows.
Hannah meets up with Elijah (Andrew Rannells) in their apartment. There they begin discussing when the proper time to take the coke would be. Elijah feels like 4 PM would be too indecent and should wait towards the evening. However, they are so excited that they begin having ridiculous conversations and suddenly Hannah is writing her dreams in marker on the wall. Actually she writes down Elijah's, which is to raise show dogs. The two wait until the evening, where they plan to go to a club where AndrewAndrew is performing and just have a great time in really trashy clothes.
Meanwhile, Marnie is at work when she runs into Booth Jonathan (Jorma Taccone), who was a small art guy she had a crush on in "All Adventurous Women Do." He begins talking about how he is going to force himself on her and have sex. The two undoubtedly leave and head to his apartment, which is filled with artsy junk, including stuff that he plans to use for an exhibit about miserable children, including a dollhouse covered in blood and inspired by nightmares. Soon Booth leads Marnie to a circular tube and forces her to get inside. Inside is a bunch of violent and disturbing imagery. When she is pulled out, she is so impressed that she immediately agrees to have sex with him. This turns into Booth being a controlling man by forcing her to critique a doll that is seated near the bed as he is having sex with her.
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| Left to right: Lena Dunham and Andrew Rannells |
Meanwhile, Elijah and Hannah are busy dancing at a party. Hannah comments that they are the sexiest nonsexual pair at the party before going to the dance floor to just shake it. After being complimented by another dancer, she trades her shirt for a yellow see-through shirt that she wears for the rest of the episode. She also gets Elijah to come down after snorting some cocaine. The two are in the moment, singing along to the song triumphantly and singing "I don't care." It is pure bliss.
That is, until they go back to snort more cocaine and suddenly things get heavy. Elijah reveals that he had sex with Marnie. This upsets Hannah, as she makes it more about herself and how she was supposed to be his last girlfriend. Elijah tries to say that he wasn't sexually attracted to her, but the drama continued and suddenly Hannah is pouring water over her head, trying to cool herself down. Eventually the two head over to a convenience store, where Hannah texts Marnie and demands to see her. She reveals where she is. Elijah and Hannah continue the argument and suddenly Laird is there. He tries to pass it off that he is only buying socks, but the reality is that he is stalking them. He also has "H," which Hannah doesn't want, but Elijah takes. The group decides to head over to Booth's apartment when they discover where Marnie is.
With everyone coked out of their minds, they infiltrate the apartment. Elijah thinks that it is a bank because of the barred doors. Hannah decides to cuss out Marnie for being a bad friend, thus reversing the argument from "Leave Me Alone" in which Marnie called herself the good friend. Things get hairy, and suddenly Laird gets the bright idea to leave. He invites Hannah along, and the two head back to his apartment, where they make out, but only for one night.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
I have to admit that I thought this episode was pretty terrible. For starters, I feel like Girls and drugs should not be exclusive. In "Pilot," Hannah drinking opium was a rather unconvincing factor and probably the least interesting aspect of the episode. Also, Lena Dunham, for all of her passion, is just not a convincing druggie. She has the manic energy and lunacy, but it only feels like a heightened version of who she already is. However, where the opium-based hallucination was very minor, dedicating a whole episode around coke-taking just was unappealing and made most of the episode feel like it was self-involved. On a side note, Shoshanna taking crack in "Welcome to Bushwick a.k.a. the Crackcident" was excellent because Zosia Mamet really added a nice comical touch to that.
Though it is interesting that plenty of big reveals come with the drugs in this series. First, the opium leads to Hannah's revelation that she has to be independent. The crack leads to Shoshanna and Ray's relationship. Now the coke leads to Hannah's discovery of Marnie and Elijah's sexual encounters. While I doubt that the "H" is going to go anywhere interesting, it is possible that Elijah could go one step further and save it for a big dramatic reveal. However, taking "H" would be too depressing of a road to take this show, especially as it already is in the middle of heavy drama.
I am not against this show having drama, but I felt like this episode was bad because it accentuated the drama with the comical idea of drug use. Adding that Hannah is not a convincing druggie, it was just painful to have to sit through that. The facts were apt for being revealed, but this episode filled me with doubt, like as if the show ran out of ideas. It could have gone off the rail. In many ways, I worry that "Bad Friend" is going to be a precursor to the show's attempt to add more complexity and nastiness. Also, just how ornery is Elijah going to get? He has been building this entire season, and he is either going to leave, or is going to just snap. If anyone is annoying angry, I am sure it would be Elijah. His brief "Vagina Panic" cameo convinced me of this.
In an interesting note, this is the first Adam-free episode that we've had. I wonder how he's going to enter back into the story. With all of this Marnie/Elijah conflict going on, it feels right to leave him out of conflict. However, I doubt that he won't be gone long. He'll return with a vengeance.
Also, as the show has been keen to point out, Hannah is one to keep notes of everything. She planned to use Charlie and Marnie's relationship as basis for her story. Keep that in mind when you consider how wild "Bad Friend" got. She took cocaine and found out that her friend was sleeping with a gay man. Plenty of juicy material there. Also, since she isn't one to self-censor, she may leave all of the details in. True, it may get her the job at jazzhate, but consider that until now, she hasn't had a public forum in which her work could detriment her friends. If this story actually goes on a scale that gets her popularity, this may just turn Marnie into a full blown angst machine. And who could blame her for that?
I have also been sort of curious to see what they would do with Booth. I enjoyed his appearance in "All Adventurous Women Do," and have greatly awaited his return. Here, there is little to be disappointed with. He is perverse and the torture video booth he created only makes me wonder if Marnie is going to put up with it just because he has a crush on her. Of course, Booth is just too much of a dominant man to let her decide. In some ways, I feel like Marnie, provided that she stays with Booth, could be officially in a very bleak downward spiral where she has no control over her own life and instead has to answer to an abusive man. It is like her Adam, but more of a perverse art freak guy.
I would also be curious to see Laird again. True, there have now been two episodes that end with the main characters making out with guys "just for tonight" (Marnie and Charlie in "It's About Time"), but hopefully this is just coincidence. I feel like either the show is really making these women seem like loose cannons who need self control, or opening a whole realm of multiple lovers and drama. Either way, if it goes down like this episode, the show may be in trouble. Otherwise, I am just glad to be beyond the big Elijah/Marnie reveal and hopefully that means we can move on to more interesting stories.
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