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| Lena Dunham |
Welcome back to another round of Girls TV Recap. This year, we will follow season five and the perils that Hannah (Lena Dunham) and her friends face as they grow up and learn how to be mature... hopefully. What new experiences will they face? Come back every Friday for the latest recap including thoughts and predictions for each episode. Will it remain one of the best comedies on TV? You'll have to read to find out.
Where exactly do things go for Girls following the fall-out from last week? Well, the answer is thankfully in a broad and redeeming direction. For starters, the relationship between Fran (Jake Lacy) and Hannah seems to be nonexistent, and we have Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) back on the home turf. For what it's worth, the massive amount of stories have shown some growth in a season that hasn't really offered much in the direct way of evidence. It may not be the greatest episode, but it has plenty of great character moments that will hopefully continue to evolve over the remaining two episodes.
The episode opens with Shoshanna, who is distraught to be back in America. She finds the rudeness of everyone to be a little overwhelming. As she wanders the streets, trying to find purpose, she stops off in a sushi diner and runs into her old boyfriend (Jason Ritter). On top of everything, he yells at her for giving up a good job and being very self-centered and selfish. Speaking as she wasn't paying attention to him as it was, this isn't so much a problem - even though she's probably going to have to find a new place to eat sushi.
Meanwhile, Hannah and Fran have decided to go on a road trip in a motor home. When they arrive at a gas station, Hannah panics and hides in the bathroom. When Fran comes, he discovers just how much Hannah doesn't want to spend the summer travelling with him. He leaves, abandoning her there. Ray (Alex Karpovsky) picks her up. Thinking that it would be a relief, Hannah gives him oral sex, which causes Ray to veer off the road and flip the large van he's driving. As a result, they'll have to wait 4-5 hours for help to bail them out.
Hannah's savior comes in the form of a driver named Hector (Guillermo Diaz). While the trip starts off well enough, Hannah becomes worried and calls Marnie (Allison Williams). She is busy rehearsing for her tour with Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who has a new girlfriend (Lisa Bonet) and has Marnie bitter. Hannah tries to call her to save her, but ends up discovering that there's very little wrong with Hector. She also calls Jessa (Jemima Kirke), but hangs up when she becomes bitter that they're dating and having sex together.
The issue is that Laird (Jon Glaser) isn't worried about wife and mother of a child Caroline, who has been missing for three days. As he becomes concerned, he leaves Adam in charge of the child. Jessa stops by to help, too. Things are rather uneventful, though Jessa doesn't seem to be able to handle the vomiting of an infant. The episode ends with Hannah and Hector driving into New York, fantasizing about the great opportunities that lay ahead beyond the big lights.
Rating: 4 out of 5
For starters, it seems impressive that the series chose not to give Fran the dignity of a whole season. While Adam and Hannah's relationship lingered for close to four seasons, Fran has been impossible to fit into a camp since the very beginning. Of course, the separation is arguably in one of the most explicit ways possible, as Fran leaves her at a service station. There's little love lost as the car drives away, but it finally puts to rest one of the more baffling relationships on the show as well as possibly getting Fran gone for good. It's tragic, as he is too good for her. However, Hannah hasn't really provided much to want him either.
Of course, there is argument to be made in the way that she treats Ray following his sacrifice. He goes to rescue her, going 90 minutes out of his way to do so. However, she insists on pleasuring him at an illogical time and sabotaging his mission. Better yet, she leaves when things are looking to get bad. Hannah may think that she has matured, but she really has only become less frequent in her cowardice ways. Speaking as she liked Ray as a friend, the choice to abandon him altogether is a little shallow and doesn't help her reputation.
Of course, this story is also about how the past is impossible to let go of. For Hannah, she gets bitter when she knows that Jessa is dating Adam. For Marnie, it's the fact that Desi already has a new girlfriend. For Shoshanna, it's the boyfriend she tried to abandon. Everyone has some loss of some sort, and they're all bitter about it. The choice to end the episode by having Hector excited to drive into New York feels like a callback to the optimism that likely filled all of these characters in their early run. It was a time when anything was possible. Now, they have bitter exes and are unable to live their dreams quite like how they pictured them.
I suppose the big question that will hopefully be answered is if Caroline is still alive. The choice to put Laird in such a strange situation is a nice twist, though one that in earlier seasons would be greatly ignored by the following week. It's a loss that could pin Adam and Jessa into the role of parenting more directly. Whatever the cause, they seem to be the ones most likely to get out of this season without seeming as bitter as their peers. Of course, there's the fact that Desi is still in Marnie's life, so nothing is quite as concrete as we'd like to think.
Girls has been doing very well this season in building back after a meandering fourth season. Thankfully, they have plenty of clever stories to work with and are finally calling out the characters on their nonsense. Maybe it isn't quite as satisfactory as it could be, but the slow progression of maturity has been an intriguing one this season, even if Hannah shows some childish relapsing from time to time. To some extent, she has managed to become secondary in interest to her own show. I wonder what's left to cover on the series this season. Will Shoshanna ever meet up with her old pals? There has to be answers.
The episode opens with Shoshanna, who is distraught to be back in America. She finds the rudeness of everyone to be a little overwhelming. As she wanders the streets, trying to find purpose, she stops off in a sushi diner and runs into her old boyfriend (Jason Ritter). On top of everything, he yells at her for giving up a good job and being very self-centered and selfish. Speaking as she wasn't paying attention to him as it was, this isn't so much a problem - even though she's probably going to have to find a new place to eat sushi.
Meanwhile, Hannah and Fran have decided to go on a road trip in a motor home. When they arrive at a gas station, Hannah panics and hides in the bathroom. When Fran comes, he discovers just how much Hannah doesn't want to spend the summer travelling with him. He leaves, abandoning her there. Ray (Alex Karpovsky) picks her up. Thinking that it would be a relief, Hannah gives him oral sex, which causes Ray to veer off the road and flip the large van he's driving. As a result, they'll have to wait 4-5 hours for help to bail them out.
Hannah's savior comes in the form of a driver named Hector (Guillermo Diaz). While the trip starts off well enough, Hannah becomes worried and calls Marnie (Allison Williams). She is busy rehearsing for her tour with Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who has a new girlfriend (Lisa Bonet) and has Marnie bitter. Hannah tries to call her to save her, but ends up discovering that there's very little wrong with Hector. She also calls Jessa (Jemima Kirke), but hangs up when she becomes bitter that they're dating and having sex together.
The issue is that Laird (Jon Glaser) isn't worried about wife and mother of a child Caroline, who has been missing for three days. As he becomes concerned, he leaves Adam in charge of the child. Jessa stops by to help, too. Things are rather uneventful, though Jessa doesn't seem to be able to handle the vomiting of an infant. The episode ends with Hannah and Hector driving into New York, fantasizing about the great opportunities that lay ahead beyond the big lights.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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| Zosia Mamet |
Of course, there is argument to be made in the way that she treats Ray following his sacrifice. He goes to rescue her, going 90 minutes out of his way to do so. However, she insists on pleasuring him at an illogical time and sabotaging his mission. Better yet, she leaves when things are looking to get bad. Hannah may think that she has matured, but she really has only become less frequent in her cowardice ways. Speaking as she liked Ray as a friend, the choice to abandon him altogether is a little shallow and doesn't help her reputation.
Of course, this story is also about how the past is impossible to let go of. For Hannah, she gets bitter when she knows that Jessa is dating Adam. For Marnie, it's the fact that Desi already has a new girlfriend. For Shoshanna, it's the boyfriend she tried to abandon. Everyone has some loss of some sort, and they're all bitter about it. The choice to end the episode by having Hector excited to drive into New York feels like a callback to the optimism that likely filled all of these characters in their early run. It was a time when anything was possible. Now, they have bitter exes and are unable to live their dreams quite like how they pictured them.
I suppose the big question that will hopefully be answered is if Caroline is still alive. The choice to put Laird in such a strange situation is a nice twist, though one that in earlier seasons would be greatly ignored by the following week. It's a loss that could pin Adam and Jessa into the role of parenting more directly. Whatever the cause, they seem to be the ones most likely to get out of this season without seeming as bitter as their peers. Of course, there's the fact that Desi is still in Marnie's life, so nothing is quite as concrete as we'd like to think.
Girls has been doing very well this season in building back after a meandering fourth season. Thankfully, they have plenty of clever stories to work with and are finally calling out the characters on their nonsense. Maybe it isn't quite as satisfactory as it could be, but the slow progression of maturity has been an intriguing one this season, even if Hannah shows some childish relapsing from time to time. To some extent, she has managed to become secondary in interest to her own show. I wonder what's left to cover on the series this season. Will Shoshanna ever meet up with her old pals? There has to be answers.
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