DianeDobbler

Oh my God, the absurdity of Hannah being hired to teach 18-21 year olds about the INTERNET? WHAT about it, exactly? That's insane, and very convenient. I usually like Lena Dunham but her bullshit about why Shoshanna wasn't on this season was insulting. Soshanna had a scene or two with Ray - is her "estrangement" from Hannah the reason she only had one line of dialogue in each scene, when Hannah wasn't around? It was blatantly insulting on Dunham's part. Get out of your bubble, Lena. I hate this kind of "out my ass" showrunner spin. Reminds me of soap operas and the crap writers used to say when they'd dump on a character. Man, they are Mary Sue-ing Hannah left and right. Again, if she's supposed to be glowing with pregnancy and all kinds of sexy changes happening to her body, and there's especial note taken of her breasts, maybe wardrobe and special effects should have done something about the boobs. But to take the same boobs and go "OMG - your boobs!" is ridiculous. Another thing I dislike, which has been mentioned above - creating a fake issue to solve, while ignoring the real issue. Fake issue - Hannah assuring the interviewer she would work up until she gave birth. As has been said, it's AFTER the baby is born that's the problem. The show hasn't addressed child care at ALL and that is the number one issue for a single parent who works. Lena Dunham, who is a feminist and supposedly somebody supporting legislation to assist single parents, is being absurd not addressing this with Hannah. Childcare is extremely expensive, and except for those who can afford to pay for round the lock care - extremely inflexible. No doubt one of the benefits of Hannah's new job will turn out to be free child care for a kid straight out of the womb. So she gets a magic job, with a magic place to live (the digs she moved into appear to have been faculty housing - do adjuncts get this?)? In my experience, friendships (and family relationships) change the most when people start having kids.

Why are they playing into the "NYC is dirty" trope? It's not. It's one of the cleanest in the country. It's a big city, it's very expensive, and there's a lot of inconvenience that goes with it (I actually find it easier to shop when I'm visiting family outside New York than I do in NYC. It's exhausting.) But dirty and dangerous, it is not. Social workers don't have to be that evolved in order to be effective social workers. I think I can say that definitively since there are a number of them in my immediate family. You just have to steer clear of a specialty that plays into your shortcomings. Jessa, for example, might be good at DBT (Dialectical behavior therapy) since it's clearcut, and last resort. Another family member works exclusively with adoptions - she's great at it, but I wouldn't want her as a marriage counselor. And yet another taught AIDs education in the Carribbean. Somewhat OT, but I got ticked off with Crazy Ex Girlfriend when Rebecca wanted meds and the doctor said "Let's delve into your childhood." There are whole, important approaches that are cognitive, and in the present, and don't do the talk and delve thing (these things are subject to trends and are cyclical). IOW, I don't think your social worker needs to be especially evolved any more than your surgeon. It depends on her focus. PS, why the hell did two characters comment on the sexual appeal of Hannah's "pregnant" body? She hasn't touched her boobs - those are Lena's unenhanced boobs. Are we supposed to pretend they're pregnant boobs? The only thing pregnant about her is her midsection. Hell, SATC did a better job with Miranda's pregnancy. Re the spoiler about Jessa and Shoshanna - well fuck.

This reminds me of Mad Men where Matt Weiner just fan serviced all over the place in the finale without letting the audience enjoy a build-up. Don's build-up was entirely misdirection (seemed about him finally stepping up for his kids, but NOPE). Peggy got five seconds to realize and express her love for Stan, Pete had reconciled with Trudy but got remarried and begun his new job off screen. I'm just PISSED about Shosh. We couldn't see her dating that guy? In one magic swoop her old boss appeared and is transformed from a kind of dumb, silly woman to a sparkle pony of life wisdom and enlightment and is rushed through to a romance w/Ray, while we attend Shosh's engagement party without ever knowing she was dating anyone, nor where she's been in life since she started that new job that she resented. "Girls" has became more and more hierarchal, and about who Lena Dunham apparently personally prefers. I like Andrew Rennells, but he's become a girl, and there's no room for six of them (cause Ray is one as well). So Shosh gets this bullshit. Since Lena/Hannah is the star, we have to observe every single beat of her story (and of course, Marnie's), while everyone else gets the bum's rush.

Absolutely. In fact a couple of episodes ago he walked off a movie set on impulse, which would have cost the director and everybody else a lot of money. And him some credibility and good standing in a very difficult business. He acts on impulse every bit as much as Jessa and Hannah. I don't understand the description some reviewers give of Adam and Jessa as "volatile." They had that crazy scene last season, but subsequently have seemed stable to me. Although I don't buy the sex den one bit. That is not real life. One thing a reviewer DID point out was that a lot of what we see raises questions. Have we had relationships like Hannah's with Elijah where they're so completely open there are literally no boundaries - walking around without clothes, commenting on what's exposed, going to the bathroom while the other is showering? And for me, a few episodes back when Ray came over to see if he could move back into Jessa and Adam's, Jessa just sitting there naked, Adam playfully jumping on top of her, and the two of them saying - oh yeah, we shoved all your stuff over there? Something I read described the Ray in this episode was "This episode's version of Ray." I think the entire season has been written like that for all of the characters except Marnie (who has been unrelentingly awful) and Shosh (who has barely been on).

The reason I mention that Hannah would be conscious and competitive re Jenna's looks is that at Hannah's "Moth" reading, one of the strongest emphasis in her story about her "boyfriend taking up with her best friend." was that her best friend looked like "Bridget Bardot and a mermaid had a baby." It was part of the pain that infused her moth story. Then when she asked how Jessa was in bed and Adam said she laughed more, Hannah tried to spin it as a bad thing, as an unexpected discomfort with sex from a woman "with a body shaped like hers and hair like hers." I think Lena definitely wants us to know the looks are something that Hannah may feel gives Jessa an advantage, and it gets Hannah's back up. I'm not saying it impacts how Hannah behaves. But it impacts how she feels.

Thanks for the CDN stuff, Eyes High! I agree with everyone who thinks it's unrealistic these four women would remain a core group of friends. Shosh long long ago stopped being that. I believe Hannah/Marnie would endure even I find the friendship unrealistic in real world terms, and Shosh/Jessa will somehow stay connected because they're related. I've never quite understood why we're told Jessa wants to remain friends with Hannah so badly, and Marnie/Jessa lost real contact long ago, as did Marnie / Shoshanna. The "sleep with your friend's ex" deal is sticky. I probably have more animus towards Marnie than towards Jessa, because Jessa actually resisted while Adam chased her around, and because she was aware of crossing a line and violating her value system, while Marnie came over to confess to Shoshanna, she was her usual oblivious Marnie self about it, specifying they'd had sex multiple times, and, IMO, not taking the scenario particularly seriously. Hannah had made her feel she was obligated to talk with Shoshanna, but I don't think Marnie had an ounce of actual guilt. And, when Hannah wanted to know how Jessa was in bed, it reinforced for me that she's upset because Adam is sleeping with a better looking woman. That, more than the actual fact of the relationship, is what pisses her off. It threatens Hannah. The one woman she probably feels most competitive with in that circle, and Hannah IS competitive. Jessa has stuff Hannah can't aspire too, but might want to (they have a lot in common - comfortable walking around naked, follow their impulses, comfortable with stranger sex, a lot of strength of will, a ton of strong opinions, a lot of witting or unwitting influence on those around them). I did think it was funny when Hannah told Adam that next time he made a movie about her, he should cast someone who resembles her, has cool hair and all these other qualities the actress they used actually DID have, only to a greater degree than Hannah herself. Certainly that actress had way more "gravitas." Oh, when Hannah listed all the things that could happen to the baby, why did she mention the car seat scenario? She doesn't have a car. It would make more sense for her to worry that the subway doors would close and separate her from the child. Finally, just read an interview with all four girls where Allison Williams said her MO each season was she wanted to be on the show more. She wanted screen time. She wanted to be a piece of furniture in Hannah's apartment if that's what it took. The show runner goes "You're nothing if not consistent." That made me wonder if Girls actually modeled Marnie on Allison Williams. Not the woman's personal life, but her MO as someone of little talent who wants to be a performer and get as much spotlight as she can. It's always denied, but it's very typical for shows to overcompensate about a performer who doesn't cut it with the rest of the cast. Remember Jessica Pare on Mad Men and how everyone on the cast fell down for her in dvd commentary? And if there IS anything to CDN's portrait of Lena Dunham, it would make sense why Sosia Mamet got less screen time and Allison Williams got the most. Williams is the least scene stealing of the other three.

Eyes High, what have you heard about Lena Dunham's behavior as a show runner? Understood about the camera on Shoshanna, but my point about the camera on her face was she is one of the girls. They are, presumably, telling HER story as well, however truncated. She was either a prop and audience stand-in in the Abby-Ray scene, or the camera being more on her face than on theirs was a beat in HER story as well as Ray's. We'll find out. I personally didn't see Ray fall in love, it was sort of this obnoxious OTT thing going on that felt a little off to me. She was blatantly there to facilitate Ray feeling better about himself and to shove him forward, and it was painfully heavy handed. I'm still not positive that her role there was to demonstrate she's the right woman for him, but with this show, I'm prepared to be wrong. The "test" question they did was one of those things that sounds superficially profound, but is actually asinine. You can't answer the question without asking other questions such as, are the buildings of equal quality - basic condition, size of the space, amenities, price, only one has an ugly aesthetic and the other a beautiful one? Is the ugly building a dump? Actually, my first response would be "I want to live in the beautiful building" - not because of the reasons Ray and Abby proposed, but because in NYC if someone says "Ugly building", I'm thinking a dump, so of course I want to live in the nice one. Nothing to do with aesthetics.

I have a theory that Sosia Mamet had such chemistry with her part, was so different than the others, and entertaining, that she was an inconvenient distraction to the show runners. The very thing that made her a permanent fourth "girl", when she was only supposed to introduce Jenna, might be the thing that made Lena Dunham keep her on the sidelines lest she steal the show. Taylornotsoswift, when I saw BTE, I thought, well, so much for Shosh and Ray. But then seeing how there are two more episodes, and how the camera was on Shosh's face the entire time Ray and Abigail are bonding, I'm hoping Abigail and Ray are misdirection. Abigail / Ray certainly seemed railroaded.

But the boobs did not. Hannah had her substantial pregnant stomach but her boobs weren't affected by pregnancy at all. It ended up looking weird.

Finally was able to watch it uninterrupted, and my thoughts are - Ray/Abby - I wouldn't be surprised if that's Ray's happy ending, but there was something about the camera being on Shoshanna's face during the scene where Ray/Abby sort of made her an outsider and told her her answers were wrong that made me think Shoshanna could still be in that story. She hasn't been shown to still be in love with Ray, so all of that camera on her face - what story was it telling? If we WERE supposed to believe she was in love with Ray, the camera on her face would be the moment when she realizes she has to move on, there was no connection, and then in the finale, we'd see her next step. But here, they've been established as friends, so it's possible the camera on her face was telling us (which we'll find out in hindsight) that him connecting with Abby made her realize she still had feelings for him. It was a weird "arc". The first beats of Abby/Ray didn't even feel on the level - they felt weird and phony, and Abby felt phony. The later beat, when they interviewed old Brooklyn denizens, felt on the level, but in a way that the show wanted to sell the wonder of interviewing people who were part of Brooklyn history. Almost like Girls decided to shove another show in there. It went on too long, and was self-indulgent. We didn't need ALL those individual stories and moments to tell that beat in the Ray story. LOTS of music telling us how to feel in this episode. As I typed that, I realized that I felt a plot hole in this episode, a failure to establish stakes for either Ray or Adam, so the final beats felt unearned. For example, I know Ray can be a crank, and a curmudgeon, but he hasn't been established as "that guy who struggles socially and can't talk to people." That's never been his obstacle. He's always talked with people at the coffee shop just fine, had casual conversations just fine. His obstacle was finding a purpose in his life to which he could commit. So Abby spoon-feeding him how to ask people their stories felt out of the blue. Oh look, Ray is breaking out of his shell. Through her warm example, HE can now connect. Since when did he have that particular kind of shell? The kind where someone had to role model for him how to strike up conversations with willing, interesting strangers? There was all this warm, fuzzy music behind that sequence, as if Ray has been locked in some sort of shyness and self-doubt prison that made him awkward talking to a bunch of seventy year olds. Come on. Seventy to ninety year olds are Ray's crowd right down to his toes. He'd never need Abby taking him by the hand with that. I'm not familiar enough with Ady Bryant's "straight" acting, so I couldn't quite get a read on her facial expression after she and Ray kissed on the carousel. For a second I thought she was playing, you know, exhaling with happiness. She sort of let out a sigh and smiled. But then there were a bunch of other expressions, and I began to wonder if she doesn't have a husband stashed somewhere, or is getting ready to move to the U.K. or something. Like "I kissed him, but oh dear, he has the wrong idea." Then Adam. Adam made references like Jessa would probably leave him in four months anyway so he did them both a favor - where did that come from? Where did his comment that he was looking forward to the baby so he could get out of his own head come from? Has he been in some kind of ongoing malaise? Because it played as if he seized on the Hannah-and-baby thing as a way to break out of some funk he'd been in, only that funk had never been established. It had never been hinted that he thought Jessa would dump him. And I guess the fact that he quit his movie was the part where we were supposed to understand he was in a funk? Cause how it PLAYED to me was that by quitting his movie, Adam was being Adam, nothing out of the norm. Jessa has the idea for them to make a movie, and he does, and is now submitting it to festivals, I guess. The story there was his quitting his movie and making his own, using his history with Hannah as the script, awakened feelings for Hannah, feel there was unfinished business, and he then pursued it before it was too late. But the story in THIS episode was Adam was using Hannah and the baby to escape something. I also felt that Hannah recognizing it wouldn't work with Adam didn't really play out in the episode. It was a very result-oriented episode, like the show runners thought of shots (or a "moving" musical score) and then reverse engineered the episode to justify the "moments" they'd pre-planned. In Hannah and Adam's story, it came across to me that they think Lena Dunham cries really well, and they wanted that long shot of her lip quivering, her wiping away silent tears, and her look around with wet eyes to master the emotion welling in her. And the story that led up to it was the pretext to showcase Lena Dunham doing that thing they think she does really well. Hey - how about a Golden Globe? Jessa's story, I understood. I have to give Jemima Kirke props. When she told Adam he needed to go do what he had to do, I honestly thought she didn't act out because she still has guilt about Hannah. There was something in how she played it that made me think "Oh, Jessa thinks she doesn't have the right to act out about that." She was great in the bar - the look she used to pick up the guy. And in her scene with Laird, when she threw out, "He's going to raise her baby." She hit the word "her" just enough so we could suspect "Instead of OUR baby." but not to the point where if it turns out she's not pregnant, we can accuse the show of misdirection. I agree with Hannah about food co-ops, but Park Slope's aside (I don't think she and Adam can afford to live there anyway, and the shift thing would be a burden if they lived far away), there are several co-ops with, IMO, a more practical way to address participation, including allowing non-members to shop there at higher prices, thus subsidizing the fact that they don't do shifts, and I think other structures if you're not a shift person. ETA - the show remains financially nebulous. Adam and Hannah were talking about getting subsidized housing for artists, but when Adam was pursuing Jessa he paid for her classes, which isn't cheap. How struggling or not struggling an artist is he meant to be?

Well, I guess I'd question whether "cute, sexy and flirty" is the only way to attract a guy, or if there's one way to be that. I think that Hannah did most of her uncouth behaviors before she and Paul Louis hooked up. For me, the hook-up was easy to buy when I got a look at the cookie cutter types who were taking Paul Louis's surfing class, and also how they liked to show off how well they were doing or were looking for praise. After a certain point, that is going to be boring. How much fun would those women be to hang out with? Hannah's off the chain, but she doesn't care, and I could see that having appeal for a weekend fling. (And remember, Paul Louis's a little wild too - he's had group sex.) If I remember correctly, she also seemed to be closer to Paul Louis's age. She's outspoken, confident, has her opinions, but is also wild. She is up for going with the flow and having a good time. I don't mean to stereotype, but dudes have done that stuff - thrown up, fallen down, spilled stuff on themselves. I'm sure Jean Louis has done or seen similar a time or two - it's just a little less common seeing a girl do it, because if a girl is looking to hook up (which Hannah didn't seem to be until it happened - another thing that was appealing, IMO) she might be trying to be "cute, sexy and flirty" instead of herself. Hannah was being herself. She also didn't come across as "trouble." You know - steer clear of that girl because she's a mess! She came across as very confident and unapologetic. Hannah is not a conventionally cute girl, and - and I know I've said this before - I think what works for her is being fully herself versus adapting "cute" behaviors to attract guys. And I think her upfront, unabashed attitude might attract more guys than we'd think because at least she's not the same old, same old. She's also very sexual and into sex in an upfront way. I, too, felt bad for Hannah when she called Paul Louis. She had him pegged correctly when she resisted letting him know. But everyone was telling her it was very important for a man to know. She was finally convinced, and it turned out not to be important to Paul Louis. That's difficult not to take personally under the circumstances, after everything she'd been hearing from men, no matter how predictable Paul Louis's response. I thought Paul Louis's reaction was written believably - not wanting it at all, but being very careful not to be a douche. You know he was waiting to be safely off the phone.

Hoodooz, Elijah's co-worker is played by Jasmine Cephus-Jones, who played the dual roles of Peggy/Maria Reynolds in Hamilton. Bootlegs of the original cast in live performance showed up (briefly) on youtube a short time ago, and I thought Cephus-Jones was very good in both roles. She's about 27. On stage, she has a womanliness and maturity but on television she looks very young. I find her completely likeable, even though the roles she has been playing on television are pretty basic.

Happy for Elijah, but even Julie effing Andrews went routinely to a voice coach, even as a teen when she had no money and was in vaudeville. That's one thing every professional singer or aspiring singer does - keep that voice in shape. This is like 42nd Street (the B'way musical). "Maybe she can do it NATURALLY!!!" Whether or not we have our favorite girls, the show started out following four of them. And whether or not Soshanna was originally intended to be a "girl", they decided to make her one. Nobody put a gun to Dunham's head. So to completely abandon the character this season is a joke. I kind of suspected it was going to happen when, in an interview, Dunham said Soshanna has the best ending, and "it's totally earned." I thought, oh, that's their excuse. They've told her story. It's like the old soap opera head writer bullshit when they'd let an actor go "Her stories have been told." I remember one actress saying if her stories had been told she must have been out of the room when it happened. As someone on twitter said about Adam "They better not Mr. Big this shit." Desi and money - maybe he has money from dealing pills. Or maybe he's the trust fund baby. I can't recall what we learned about him from Marnie's wedding. But when we met him, he had a hot (live in?) girlfriend who seemed pretty invested in their relationship, he was good enough to be cast in a Broadway show, and I assume he was pulling his weight on the home front. He seems comfortable acting out about not doing rotten gigs like the one in New Jersey, and if he really needed money he couldn't afford to be that way. He also let his then-girlfriend nix selling merchandise at his and Marnie's gigs. I believe he and Marnie didn't make money from that tour; I DON'T believe they didn't LOSE a shit ton of money on top of that. Things like Desi's monologue to Marnie last week bother me. When he acted like he did acting, abandoned acting, became a musician, and all were frauds. I've met people in the arts who had drinking and drug problems. Nobody has such a bad problem that they're not aware of $$$. That's what they think about. He would never have abandoned acting while he was commercially viable - plenty of actors are also musicians. Anyway, I believe he could have supported Marnie, because I think the character has money - either from dealing pills or because he's actually making commercials or doing short-term feature roles on television that he films during the day. If he's not doing any of that stuff, just pissing away opportunity, then he's got a trust fund. The therapy he was engaged in - private and one on one - is not cheap either. Allison Williams is pissing me off. Her joints have the most volume in her body, her sternum protrudes from her tank tops, her boobs have disappeared, and she's a lollipop. There is no way that's her "natural weight" that she went down to after college - what bullshit. The pissing me off part is her giving interviews about how women shouldn't pressure themselves to look a certain way, blah blah blah. Her hip bones also jut out.

Taanja, I am not misremembering. Soshanna did not dump Ray after he took her virginity.

qtpye, I agree that it's sad how such a fuss is made over an ordinary looking girl as the leading lady of a TV show, and how the hotness of her leading men is scrutinized. But I did that myself. I was all "are you kidding me?" over Adam/Hannah, and Hannah/Patrick Wilson. I never see, in real life, the disparity in attractiveness levels between Hannah and her boyfriends. However, one guy wrote from a guy's point of view how Hannah/the Patrick Wilson character was plausible under the circumstances, and it also made me look at my own observations, and how far absolute obliviousness, but a driven quality, can take someone. Believe me, the "others" (characters on the show) who criticize and bash Hannah, are not nearly as invested in keeping her down as Hannah is invested in keeping herself moving forward, in seizing opportunities, or in recognizing an opportunity that isn't even one, but that she makes into one. That gives Hannah the advantage. And for every opportunity she finds, let's not forget how much rejection she tramples over, much of it caused by herself, but still. How many of us could handle some of the rejection Hannah faces simply by behaving in the same entitled way a good looking person might behave? Or a narcissistic dude might act? Me, I'm always inclined to say, but Hannah. You're not a good-looking person. Or, you're not a narcissistic dude. But I underrate that quality of determination and will that in real life, I acknowledge carries people further, in my experience. Hannah has taken the rejection, humiliation, and embarrassment that I think would make a ton of people quail. It really is a signifying characteristic of successful people. You know the old trope of "I'm a fraud, and people will find out?" That was Hannah's reality as a character from day one, as far as the audience was concerned, and also as a person from day one, within the fictitious universe of Girls, but she is not the sort of person who worries about people thinking she's a joke. She worries more about what she wants. A whole lot of people think about many other things other than that. I just don't think Marnie is hot. I think she's way more a girl's idea of a hot girl than a guy's. What does she lack to be a guy's idea of a hot girl? Money. If she were a trust fund baby or a rich kid, she'd be right in there, like Allison Williams herself. Without that back-up, she's not Jessa, and most ordinary guys won't be falling over themselves for her. I think there's a whole strata of NON hot guys (like Ray, I guess) who would show up for her, but as for the guys she's aiming for ? All she has are looks that every single girl aiming for the same guys already has and then some, and that plus other advantages Marnie lacks. Marnie is not looking for deep, soulful guys. She's looking for a successful, hot guy in the arts on track to be successful. For guys like that, Marnie is a baseline.

I agree that pseudo Hannah is more interesting, and I can buy certain guys being attracted to her more than I could the original. It might be as shallow as her having a better body, but I also think she is just plain more interesting in that world. However, the real Hannah I have gotten used to. It's her quality of "you always miss 100% of the shots you don't take". I've learned something watching her, because the long game of her character I think shows something true about life that a lot of people think ISN'T true. Usually people who do the things she does, who are not full on crazy, have something that insulates them from consequences for awhile, but Hannah doesn't seem to. She shouldn't be able to do and get away with the things she does (such as having hot boyfriends). But I've come to believe in it because the character never stops herself, her character follows her own will. That's different enough to get her to places where her looks and even her personality might not. I compared some of Jessa's crazy/reckless stuff with some of Hannah's. I don't think anybody doubted that Jessa could hook up with a guy she met in a bar (early in the show's run, when the character was pregnant) and have sex in the john, but they'd doubt it about Hannah. With Hannah, because she has nothing to protect her or help her get away with what she does, I think the audience keeps thinking "You CAN'T do that" or "You can't get away with that!" I think Lena Dunham once remarked on some of the out there things that Hannah does, but also mentioned she thinks that might be how Hannah ends up getting somewhere in the end, and I agree. Hannah can be irresponsible and get sidetracked, but it's never out of "I can't" or "I don't measure up here." Even when every other person besides herself would probably think she can't and doesn't. Even when the actual experience she's having tells her she can't or isn't measuring up. Hannah is always playing out of her league, is undeterred and insensitive to any negating signals, and I think in the end she will wind up in a sort of "Shoot for the moon, you might land among the stars" situation. Pseudo Hannah has a charm that real Hannah doesn't, but real Hannah has a force of will about herself that I think is pretty rare, even though so many times, you think surely now she'll be humiliated. The thing is, she's not. That is what's special about her. I can't see going to Michigan but I could see her mom coming to New York. Maybe. Hannah and Elijah's apartment could accomodate a kid for a few years, maybe until the kid is in pre-school - plenty of people live in smaller quarters. Hannah's making her contacts and getting her assignments in NY so it would be stupid to go to Michigan. The thing with writing is she can build her client base. She's only doing 25k but she can grow that.

Well, I'm definitely not rooting for Adam/Hannah in the end - I didn't buy the period of time they were supposedly in love. I think it's unfair to the Jessa character to have Adam's character stalk and pursue her, do his best to undermine her reservations (which were about Hannah) - dismissing and undermining Hannah - and now Jessa is being positioned as the insecure girlfriend afraid of her boyfriend's feelings for his ex. It's plot driven, and makes the character of Adam look like the only part of a relationship he likes is the pursuit, or when his object is withholding from him. I do think Jessa should suck it up about Hannah and their dead friendship. That's another thing I never bought - that Jessa would insist on maintaining her friendship with Hannah. There was never much to it - Dunham never wrote it. There was just that one episode where they visited Jessa's father. That scene between Hannah and Jessa did play that Jessa had violated a friendship rule, and Hannah was just being real about it, but the reality is Adam was the pursuer, and if he's going to be viewed as the lost love, that leaves Jessa unfairly holding the bag for the Adam / Jessa thing all by herself. I would probably be tired of Desi if his story was with anyone but Marnie but if there's one thing I can't stand in Girls, it's Marnie winning - at anything. So I just get a big kick out of Desi, and Marnie being in the snares of that story for so long. I did think the story was revealing about her - she wants this music "career" come hell or high water, and she doesn't have the chops to get it on her own. She couldn't sing solo at the party! Desi is really the act - she's the visual interest, although she looked more like a drag queen in her rocker get up. Also, as bonkers as Desi was in the therapy session with Marnie, I think he was right when he said that to her he was a dick and a voice - and I also think he was a means to an end (which I guess is where the "voice" part comes in). I am curious how Marnie ended up so entitled when she doesn't appear to have had a spoiled upbringing. I can see her being one of the hot girls in high school but she's not so hot that there wouldn't have been others just as hot. Now Jessa's spoiledness - and Jessa is spoiled - I understand better. She's much more conventionally beautiful in that timeless bohemian way, she's a mess, she's a character people in her real life would have seen portrayed in media, so she fits a certain stereotype that goes through life getting away with things because of their looks, and I also think she has to have family money somewhere. She's never been completely idle, but she's certainly gone stretches without a guy or a means of support. A neighbor and I were talking about a neighbor who is a bit of a name as a writer (not huge, but a name). She's got an artist husband. My neighbor said, "I don't know why she didn't marry a finance guy or hedge fund manager - she's the type." But I said, "No, in her utmost fantasy she'd have wanted to marry Ben Affleck, but be the only woman he's ever known who is smart enough, smarter than him, and can keep him interested, who has access to the world he moves in, but is also above it, but admired in it, and is just as sexy as the actresses he works with." Very juvenile fantasy, but pretty sure it's true, and I think that's Marnie's fantasy of herself too, she wants that glamour and validation that's up a notch from just marrying a bro w/money. It's not about "the music" for her, or really having creative talent. The guy playing Desi has actually convinced me he is talented, and his arc sort of confirms it, so I didn't fully buy him calling himself out at the end of the episode. Just OT - I saw a short interview with Lola Kirke, Jemima Kirke's actress sister. She's brunette, but there is a definite family resemblance. However her accent is much more American, and her energy is completely different. She played Greta in Gone Girl.

Well, I think Hannah mentioning Paul Louis's days off was meant to tell us that her life had a lot more structure than it used to have. It's kind of a small thing - her spending so much of this episode not having time for other people's bullshit because she was busy working, but I guess that's the new thing we're supposed to understand about Hannah. She's seeking and getting assignments, and she's showing up for them - not only was she rushing away from Adam, but I could see that for Hannah, she was pulled together. Her hair was in a style, her outfit required thought. I also like that her work life is not some fantasy. She doesn't have a book contract, she's not appearing on TV, she's not doing anything television-glamorous or super lucrative, but she's earning a living with writing and building up her credits. I was wondering about Sharva. I kept thinking she was remarkably young looking to be the age of Marnie's mom, but she's not that age, and that explains it. Shoshanna and Ray were serious. They were in love. There was ultimately, at the time, too much of an age and experience gap, but the connection was genuine. I believe he was her first sexual experience (at least to completion). There was also the conversation the two of them had in bed while Marnie was in the room, talking to Marnie about what jobs might be available to her because of her looks. "Not MODEL, but something." I think if you've stood in a bedroom where your friend and her boyfriend are in bed together talking to you, it adds another layer of "Don't sleep with that guy after your friend breaks up with him." Hannah and Adam were always an undefined mess. When they were first together, the highest she rose in status was "favorite hang." I can't even remember all of the other permutations the relationship took. When she moved to Idaho, that's it, come on. Each of them had several layers of other relationships by the time Jessa / Adam happened. I think it had more to do with who Jessa is and what she represents to Hannah than the fact that a friend was banging Adam. It went to Jessa being the girl who was conventionally beautiful and got away with everything, and how Hannah felt that might have reflected on her. If a significant ex moves on from you to a "just" a friend of yours, it might be one thing, but to move onto the girl who always had a power over men you lacked is another deal entirely. But in the world Dunham has created, I understand that schtupping friends' exes is bad.

I did like this episode and have a little more faith in Hannah's ability to pull this mommy thing off. She seems to be supporting herself as a writer - she's not making a fortune, but she's steadily producing articles and doing interviews, and getting a good set of clippings (Esquire and The NY TImes are good). All of a sudden what we see of her life is more reality-based - she's pulled together and out the door on time to do her interview; she's prepped for it, she's working on it late at night. I like the lower-key, drama free Hannah. I really really REALLY do not want her to get back with Adam. I just don't see him fitting in with who she appears to be becoming. She has a reasonable support system - Elijah is on board, her father and his partner are in town. As long as Hannah is paying her rent and pretty much works at home, this could be achievable. I also enjoyed some of the snark on her and Elijah's potential as parents - how Hannah thinks her kid better be a girl or a super gay boy, or the ways in which she's bound to screw up her kid. I just don't get Jessa. The Jessa I really liked was the one who assisted Louise Lasser's older artist, AND the one who was cautious about getting involved with Adam. This Jessa is going back to being a cartoon. But not as much a cartoon as Marni. Allison Williams is just the worst actress. All this time on Girls and she still comes across as a glorified amateur, particularly next to Rita Wilson. Wilson isn't even a world beater as an actress, but she IS an actress, Williams still comes off as high school play level. When she snapped her fingers at Desi I rolled my eyes. That looked like a Desi farewell - after many false farewells - he even got some music on his exit. So maybe he's done. If he is, though, I think that Marni's career is done. The truth is that Desi, even though he describes himself as a fraud, is the one with talent. He had acting talent (was cast on Broadway), he had more musical talent than she does. When her character's hair was blown out for the party and dressed up, Rita Wilson looked distractingly like Jennifer Aniston. I really miss Shoshanna. I totally know that Zosia Mamet was not originally meant to be one of the main girls, but that was six years ago, and Lena Dunham is a writer who is perfectly capable of writing Shoshanna, but doesn't. Shoshanna fits into the fabric of the world Dunham created.There is nothing in the arcs of Marnie and Hannah that need to have the entire table cleared to the exclusion of the others. Marnie's is just the same thing over and over and over. At least Hannah is changing. There are countless characters who were "never meant to be" one thing or another, but because of what the performer brought to it, that changed. Girls should write towards what changed, or they should never have kept her. I do not see Adam / Hannah as a love story. I never bought their second act - the one where they were living together and then she left him to go to the writers program in Idaho. I bought their dysfunctional / weird initial sexual relationship - but was never all that convinced by Adam's development, even though Driver is a good actor. In general I've always had problems buying into the Adam character, although intermittent phases he went through were sometimes entertaining. PS - Great to see Jasmine Cephus-Jones as Elijah's co-worker. I love her singing voice, and I got to watch her Hamilton performance when someone on youtube uploaded nearly every single number from a live performance of the Broadway cast. She was delightful, witty and expressive as Peggy with very few lines, and compelling as the woman who "brought Hamilton down" in a way - Maria Reynolds. We first see Maria walking, and there's so much history and backstory evident in the decided yet contained way Cephus-Jones walked, you can't help imagining what happened to set her walking down the street to Hamilton's house. Definitely more than the damsel in distress routine she put on when he sees her. All that in a walk.

I've long since become resigned that this show's two leading ladies are Hannah and Marnie, that's how Dunham sees it, and no matter how execrable Williams' acting, Dunham thinks she's kick ass. They're not even paying lip service to writing for Shoshanna. She's a prop. It reminds me of Mad Men. We're going to get Shoshanna's end game wrapped in a bow and Dunham's gonna skip the storytelling part. I've always hated Adam and Hannah. I've never believed Adam would be into her. I agree that he's whatever the script needs him to be, though. The primary way he's grown is that Adam Driver has developed a sense of humor in the role. Driver over all has opened up as an actor in his interviews and his work - he's much funnier and more relaxed. Desi - as others have said, Ebon Moss-Bachrach is incredible in this role. It's a personal miracle for me, because from looks to the type of guy he's playing, he's got everything I cannot stand. I should recoil every time he's on camera, but he is hilarious. I actually believed him and Marnie back in the beginning, when he seemed to be a sexy, talented actor / musician. They they turned him skeevy, and I thought - that's it. He's going to gross me out now, but he makes me laugh so much. I thought the scene between him and Marnie in the stairwell after her night with Charlie was the end of Desi, and I've been surprised every time that he keeps turning up. But really, look at Marnie. She's not much better, and if Desi got it together in any way whatsoever, he might be right for her.

On the subject of Josh's spirituality, I know in S2 episode (I was binge watching), he mentioned that he differed from Rebecca in that he enjoyed the spiritual side of life. He told her straight up that he enjoyed that part of the bar mitzvah they attended, and that he was excited to be coaching basketball because it was church basketball. He emphasized that aspect. He has flat out said the spiritual side of life interests him. It makes sense - camp fits in there as well. I've been giving some thought to the male characters, particularly Josh, and I think Josh's competence is underrated. His real problem is his skills and accomplishments aren't something he's organized into a career path, so he looks aimless or even talent free, but he's actually quite talented. He's clearly a talented dancer / choreographer and athlete (he was remembered 10 years after he left high school) and these skills inform his volunteer activities. And speaking of that - volunteer activities. Youth basketball. Youth camp. He excels contributing to both. He's tech savvy. He's also exceptionally social media savvy. A male Asian guy in his demographic with that inherent understanding of and talent for social media could probably hook up with a social media job for a hip company whose products were aimed at millennials. Warby Parker (the online eyeglass company) employs a guy just like Josh to facetime, instagram and everything else so the target demo feels like the company is a friend. I know of a travel company looking for someone like Josh - they really want the demographic more than they want the resume. When the script allows him, he has emotional intelligence. He also has a sneaky something that Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna wrote in for both of Rebecca's love interests - financially comfortable, loving and supportive families. On the surface with Josh we have a guy still working a "job" and not a career, who hasn't put together any sort of life path for himself, but we also see his family has means, and can induce that if he wanted to go back to school or explore a specific career track, he'd have their $upport. The same was true of Greg. We first met him as an "aimless" bartender who was nominally still in town for altruistic reasons, but in reality, kept himself stuck. He spent his savings on his father's medical care - however, I'm thinking that without his father, he'd have to pay rent somewhere, so that situation wasn't the trap it seemed to be. And he turns out to have a wealthy, loving, Beverly Hills-dwelling mother eager to support him moving on from being a bartender whenever he says the word (I always wondered why a bartender went to night school instead of part time day school, or why Greg seemed to work most during the day, whereas most bars make their money at night). So both of Rebecca's S2 love interests were on her "class" level in terms of family background, they were just both underachievers while she was a hyper overachiever. And Greg and Josh had more in common than we'd think as well, at least in terms of where they found themselves in life at the same time of life.

Yeah, Shoshanna has a great figure overall. I do think the show gets all the make-up and hair right for these girls and what they're doing in life, although Marnie is way too princess for a wannabe singer. Maybe I need to check out the trends and see if what she's doing - this super groomed faux Grace Kelly thing - is happening and I just haven't picked up on it. Shosh's look is everywhere, and Hannah's look is everywhere. I think Lena actually created the Hannah look. I have noticed that MANY more girls that age and similar in build to Hannah - or bigger - are now going for trends in their clothing in a big way, so I think that was a good thing Dunham did. Jessa's look is just "I'm a beautiful girl with great hair and don't have to try that hard" - where everything looks bohemian on her. She doesn't have to spend anything. There's this myth that women in classic movies of the 1930s and later didn't have to be super thin - that that's a contemporary development. But it's not true. Almost all of the major female movie stars of the 1930s - and back then 5'6" was on the tall side - were carrying not 5, but 10-15 more pounds when they first broke into film, and dropped that weight for stardom. They were pretty enough and sexy enough to get into film to begin with, but once on the stardom track, they were extremely thin. Check out Myrna Loy in The Thin Man sometime - she was 29 when she filmed that. She's lovely, and so is her figure, but there's not an ounce of body fat on her. Ditto Carole Lombard. The rationale behind this, I believe, was the faces. These women all had extraordinary bone structure, but if you look at photos of them from their teens, it didn't leap out at you the way it did at the height of their stardom (and I mean apart from make-up). The idea was that the eyes look as big as possible, and leap out of the face, that the smile do the same, and as for the rest of the face, anything other than cheekbones was just a waste of real estate. That's only possible if the woman is very thin. I think the reason for many women in film being extremely thin is the face, much more than having a teensy figure, although most of these women did get themselves down to a teensy size. Even when Ingrid Bergman comes along she is built bigger - bigger shoulders, taller (5'10") but once she makes "Intermezzo" in English she is much thinner than when she made it in Sweden. Just look at her waistline in some of the shots. Guys are required to be toned or even ripped, but other than that most male actors of that type are also very thin, with low body fat. In person many are positively skinny. I used to know a guy who modeled - it was sexy modeling, not fashion modeling. His photos made him seem as if he had a perfect body, but in person he was small, just very defined and well proportioned. Allison Williams is a good looking woman in real world terms, and an envied "type", but in the universe of actresses of her type in which she's competing for roles, her looks don't stand out. I don't believe that's a natural thinness - I know one extremely naturally skinny girl who accentuates it with stillettos, and everything on her is tiny. She's not SHORT, but her bones are petite, her frame is little. Williams' isn't. I wonder if she's trying to really define her facial features as much as possible, because they don't stand out against others out there doing the same job (compare her to Ali MacGraw in her prime, for example).

Marnie is suddenly and mysteriously living the life of a trust fund baby. What the hell. I rewatched this episode and all of her exercise commitments are incredibly expensive. Pilates is expensive. One on one it's expensive (I've done it) - group classes less so. It's not so much that she does pilates - plenty of people on a shoe string do yoga classes, pilates classes, but she apparently has several different professionally supervised physical maintenance appointments every day, gets two hour massages, and travels via uber. That's literally hundreds of dollars over and above food, rent and utilities, not to mention clothing, and on top of that she seems to have endless free time, as we see her hanging out during week days, and there's no sign of her working at night. As far as Shoshanna knowing about Marnie and Desi, I think Shoshanna is in the trickiest position. Ray is her ex, and her current roommate. It's been his choice to continue (until now) a relationship where he's exploited and disrespected. This is also a woman who is or at least was a friend of Shoshanna's, who decided to screw Ray anyway. In the world of the show, that's apparently a pretty big deal. In the big picture, I don't think hooking up with a friend's ex is a gigantic deal, but I do think it really depends on how that original relationship ended, and how your friend feels about the person now, and if your friend is in a different, successful relationship now. I think this is something Shoshanna is playing by ear.

I like Jessa and Adam, but I'm not do or die as I am with Shoshanna and Ray. I will just hate it if Adam and Hannah reunite, thus conveniently resolving Hannah's financial challenges being a single mother. Because there is no way she is surviving in NYC on what she earns, with a child. She can't afford anything to do with taking care of a child, let alone taking care of a child while working. Adam's sister lucked into the landlord as the baby daddy (or super) so both parents have secure housing and also can stay at home. I just have a feeling that Adam is going to be the deux ex machina for Hannah's baby - look, a successful actor / former boyfriend who happens to be very responsible with kids! If that's the way it turns out, the development of Jessa/Adam will feel very spiteful to me. Yes, I know Jessa is Jessa. But in terms of the show, Lena Dunham did an honest development of that relationship, including huge reservations from Jessa, which Dunham insisted were honest. She insisted Jessa would have huge qualms about hooking up with a friend's ex. And now we're where Adam and Jessa are making a movie about Adam and Hannah (come ON), and Jessa has soap opera dialogue like "You need a real close-up on just you so everyone can see how much she irritates you!" So not only is it on the NOSE, it's also soap opera level telegraphing and denial. I believe Jessa would be pissed, I don't believe she would handle it like a minor diva from Bold & Beautiful. It will feel to me as if Dunham did Adam Jessa in an "authentic" way purely so he'd go back to Hannah, giving it more impact that he left a relationship with a woman who looks like a mermaid and Brigitte Bardot had a baby. PS - about beauty - I don't use the supermodel as the beauty standard. In person they are often plain - not ugly, but plain. Symmetrical, even features that can be transformed with make-up and are malleable, but not gorgeous eyes and lips without make-up. The ones who have that kind of good bone structure AND beautiful individual features are rare. Often the features are "merely" symetrical and even, but they look washed out without make-up. They're also often extra tall and skinny, which IMO looks better in photographs than in person, particularly when they're also often fourteen years old. So that's a long way around to say I think Jemima Kirke is conventionally beautiful. She has lovely bone structure and conventionally lovely features - lips, eyes, nose and hair. I think she is far more naturally beautiful than Marnie, who is good-looking, but IMO in a "Rich girl" way. "My parents were attractive, I resemble them, and I'm also skinny." She has a nice jawline and cheekbones, which make her (relatively) photogenic, but I don't think anything else about her would make her eligible to become an actress based on looks. A newscaster, maybe. :)

What Jane the Virgin is now doing reminds me of what soap opera writers did when a new character wasn't going over the way they wanted - they remove distractions and force the character down audience's throats. The entire "Your love for Raphael made your love for Michael DEEPER" followed by a sparkly romantic montage of Jane / Raphael kissing both from previous episodes and Jane's old timey book was as low as it gets. It's called emotional blackmail. I don't think Justin Baldoni has the chops to carry the show as its leading man. He's all over the damn show. It's obvious now this is what JTV's writers always wanted, and Brett Dier's popularity was something they addressed with the rationale of they'll give his fans a complete story, close it down, and then continue with their original plans. IMO this was doomed to fail when the role was cast. I don't really have respect for writers that adhere to their original plan no matter what is on screen. That's false integrity. Some of my favorite shows insist they do that, and it's a warning sign to me. I've always been surprised by how many classic films were created on the fly as the screenwriter and director responded to what was on screen and took adjustments. Ditto television. It always seems amazing to me that some of my favorite moments were happenstance or developed during filming, but I've now come to realize that can produce much better results than adhering to a blueprint. As an aside, and other than the Raphael thing, I am tired of seeing Petra with scuzzbags. If she's going to have sequential shady love interests, can't it be somebody charismatic and attractive, and fun? Why skeeve-outs or weasels? I think the "joke", if it is a joke, of having the immaculately groomed, controlled Petra getting it on with a slimeball must be funnier on paper than it has ever played, because they've done it repeatedly. It doesn't play that well, due to casting and deficient sex appeal in the love interest. These guys have no appeal, so the scenes are ff. With this current guy, they tried to show us he really did care and really was a regular guy, and I just resent crap like that, and I resent being asked to care that Petra cares. Writing can't really alter a casting choice. I feel that in the first two seasons the show took greater care setting things up. Now they railroad stuff through. We've seen next to nothing of Bruce and Xo, but now they're engaged. Along with railroading things, they repeat things unto death. It feels as if I've seen Petra move a body a thousand times already, and somebody get hold of something to blackmail her with a billion times. Also the theme in this episode that Jane had a bias against men seemed to me to be JTV going out of its way to reassure viewers that just because it's a feminist show doesn't mean it's man hating. I'd like to see a male-centered show pacify viewers like that.