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| Left to right: Donald Glover and Dunham |
Welcome back to my week-long catch-up on the series Girls. Continuing recaps is the second episode of season two: "I Get Ideas."
The episode begins with Elijah (Andrew Rannells) and George (Billy Morrissette) discussing Elijah's choice to have sex with Marnie (Allison Williams). Elijah's claim is that he is young, confused, and possibly bisexual. George, who is older, cannot handle this mindset and decides that the only proper thing to do is dump him. There is also an insult to Elijah's mother Charlotte, who could be responsible for Elijah's promiscuous nature. Meanwhile, Adam (Adam Driver) has sent Hannah (Lena Dunham) a video via G-Mail in which he sings about the tragic break-up. Hannah is scared to even deal with him, as she now feels he's murdery in a murder way. Elijah agrees that they probably should call the whole thing off.
Meanwhile, Marnie is at a job interview for an art company. Her interviewer Patricia (Laurie Simmons) teases her by stating that she could get a desk job, but she won't. She doesn't feel like Marnie is attractive or interesting enough to work in the art community. She instead suggests working at a hostess place. When Marnie runs into Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) and Ray (Alex Karpovsky), who are naked in bed together pitching woo, Shoshanna offers to get her a job as a hostess, as she feels it makes good money and allows her to have time to think about her life.
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| Left to right: Chris O'Dowd and Jemima Kirke |
Back at Hannah's apartment, Sandy (Donald Glover) is over brushing his teeth and the two are having a whole lot of fun trying to talk with mouths full of toothpaste. However, when Elijah interferes, it turns into a discussion about Sandy's Republican nature. He claims that he isn't a Republican because of his parents, as you don't need two Republicans to make one. However, when Hannah tries to calm the situation by noticing everyone's differences, notably how Sandy still uses Hotmail and Elijah is dating George, things just come to an end despite a wall of hostility.
At Thomas John's (Chris O'Dowd) apartment, Jessa (Jemima Kirke) is busy painting a portrait of him. She apologizes that it turned out awful because she usually only painted things she hated. The two are madly in love and back from their honeymoon. As Thomas leaves for a meeting, Hannah shows up. Both are met with a box full of puppies that Hannah claims are fetus sized. They take them to the park and begin trying to name them all dumb names like Garbage and Hanukkah. During this time, Jessa suggests that while Hannah is happy with Sandy, she needs to be more aware of him. He hasn't read a story that she gave him weeks ago. As Jessa claims, if he's not reading that, he's not reading her.
At Sandy's apartment later that evening, the two are making out when they finally decide to discuss the story. Sandy mentions that he actually has read it and he didn't really like it. He tries to blow the situation over by saying that it was well written, but not for him. Slowly the discussion digresses into how Hannah could be dating him because he is black. This leads Sandy to stereotype white women and claim that it is a shallow attempt to be culturally diverse and look cool. When the discussion begins turning towards race, Sandy decides that Hannah just needs to go.
When Marnie comes to visit Elijah later that night, Hannah stops by to say hello. Marnie is wearing her hostess outfit, which looks like a slutty Von Trap child. The infidelity seems to be turning Elijah into a mean little prick who kind of hates Marnie for causing the break-up with George. Hannah doesn't know any of this, as she arrives moments later. However, during a discussion with Marnie about her new job, Hannah accuses her of taking a job for her looks. She tries not to be judgmental about it, but essentially comes across as insulting her.
During the night, Adam sends Hannah a text that he is downstairs by her apartment. The next thing she knows is that Adam uses his key to get inside. Hannah considers it space rape and attempts to call the police, only to hang up seconds later. Adam wants milk and tries to make him happy with the hopes of him leaving shortly after. It doesn't work, as he is now hopping around the room and gleefully trying to mess with her. It eventually takes Hannah slapping him and yelling "Go away" that gets him the idea to leave.
On the way out, two police officers (Chike Johnson and Miriam Tolan) are on their way up to Hannah's room. Hannah denies calling, but after an argument with Adam, it slowly reveals that she actually did. Adam is now yelling about applying a restraining order against her. The police want the two to follow them to the station to fill out forms. However, when Adam gets too cocky and begins talking about wanting to know who is asking, he gets arrested for different charges: two unpaid parking tickets and public urination. As he is being pulled away, Hannah apologizes and watches from a stairwell.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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| Left to right: Chike Johnson, Adam Driver, Miriam Tolan, and Lena Dunham |
Continuing a very strong season is the second episode, which only turns the head on more characters. This time, I feel like Adam gets the sympathetic angle. For me, he started off as the despicable boyfriend who just wanted to have sex. In many ways, the third act felt like the dark finale to many of the early episodes of the first season. Whereas in episodes like "Hard Being Easy" that flirted with them breaking up, only to make out, this felt like a nice tease. Things could have just fallen back into pattern and Adam could easily fall into the shoes Sandy recently emptied.
In fact, Adam Driver has proven himself to be one of the most adept actors on the show. The range that he showed from the beginning of the episode to the end is something this show rarely had before. Whereas we are used to arguments between Marnie and Hannah, they were very surface level in the display of emotions. Here, Adam's weird nature comes out and his delirium of bothering Hannah in the middle of the night is somewhat tragic as well as humorous. It is only in Hannah's aggression to push him away that things become super sad. When he is arrested, it feels like Adam is only going to get worse, or maybe Hannah is just going to feel even worse and bring him back into her life.
Sandy is also a character that I felt was thrown in just to appease the criticism of the show. During the first batch of episodes, online commenters to sites likes AV Club complained about nepotism and the lack of racial diversity. To a strong degree, I feel like Sandy was created just to appease that audience, and I wonder if I wasn't aware, if that premise wouldn't have been so annoying. As it stands, I find Donald Glover to be a really strong performer (both on Community and his Childish Gambino rap albums) and while I admit that hearing him take down Lena Dunham felt refreshing, it also just felt like the show's attempt to silence the criticism. Personally, Glover's brief time wasn't established enough to make me feel like his final spiel about how blacks are being dated for other's self-esteem as something valid. Maybe if he comes back in a later episode, things could get interesting. Otherwise, it was a disappointing cameo.
I feel like Elijah is slowly turning into a monster. This could theoretically be because Andrew Rannells' contract with the more time consuming the New Normal, or just because that is how the show wants to go. In fact, he seems overly dramatic about the break-up with George, and it feels like only time before he decides to take everyone else down with him. His one shining light is that he refuses to tell Hannah about how he had sex with Marnie. However, with him becoming more of a loose cannon, what is going to stop him?
Also, is Marnie going to get back on track? True, reality hit her hard when it turned out that she couldn't have an art job anymore. However, the route to be a hostess does seem somewhat familiar to Tiny Furniture fans, in which Aura (Lena Dunham) also takes a hostess-type job. However, the outfit is adorably trashy and there are limitless possibilities of where that plot can go. However, there is a sense that Marnie is going through a crises. It was a nice touch that Laurie Simmons (Dunham's mother and also an actor in Tiny Furniture) was the one to break the news. It felt like a deep inside joke. Still, my theory that Marnie and Hannah are switching roles is continuing to feel oddly relevant, as Hannah talks about living a comfortable life and Marnie is now struggling, which is a complete turn from this time last season.
It was also nice to see Jessa, who actually feels more and more like a hippie every time I see her. True, her free spirit nature has always made her feel like a wild card, but her relationship with Thomas John is exceptionally odd, because there is a sense of love there. Not that it is bad, but we haven't really seen Jessa "settled down." We've seen her gallivanting with others, but this is the first time where it feels like she is at peace. However, he choice to dispense advice to Hannah was problematic. It seems like every time Hannah takes advice from her friends, it just turns things against her. This time, she lost Sandy for being paranoid about racism.
Still, the show's decision to expand the universe into new and interesting directions is one of the show's strengths. We have seen more of the cast's relatives and we even have Shoshanna evolving from that gimmicky character that I so much loathed from season one. I just hope that her and Ray go into an interesting direction besides just pitching woo together in bed. That would be odd. However, I sense that drama is around the corner, as things are beginning to pile up beyond belief. Who knows, maybe by the next episode, things will be flying off the walls.
Come back tomorrow, when I shall be covering the third episode "Bad Friend," which based on prior viewing, may be one that I have quite a bit to say.
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