DianeDobbler

I've said it before that I know women writers, and I completely disagree that a woman writer's natural condition is childless. One I know has a bunch of kids and a Mr. Mom sort of husband and the other is child free but could afford a kid; just either didn't happen or didn't have the interest. I know that she could have adopted if she chose, and she didn't choose. I just don't think the arts are incompatible with family life at all. It's the same as any other profession - do you have the money. Can you make the schedule work. People in the arts who make a decent living with their work are actually better off than people in conventional jobs; their schedule is flexible, and they're not always stressing sick days, babysitters, etc. Same for people who work at home, although those I know a few who work at home who try to keep to a schedule, the flexibility IS there if there are problems. It's another thing, of course, if you are making under 25k a year and trying to be a single parent, but THAT is the problem. Not the work itself. The 25k. None of the writers I know cannibalize their lives for their "work". One does a lot of work in Latin America, and also free lances writing for publications like National Geographic and AARP, and the other writes a ton of novels. On occasion this one will draw on "her own life" to get published, but it's heavily calculated and slanted to sell, and leaves her kids out of it. It's funny that so many of the writers on television and in film are so autobiographical, because the writers I know are not. Another point - a lot of the writers I've seen on Girls are very bohemian in their nature and their style, and that's not my experience either. One of the writers (the one who is a mom) is very money conscious but she's not "bohemian", she's more of a minimalist and with everything she has in her life, she doesn't like a lot of stuff or a lot of clutter. Her kids are the same way. The other writer loves to travel and frequently travels, but her style is not at all bohemian. I can't imagine her with a tattoo, or really long hair. I think some people who cultivate that look do it for marketing purposes.

I agree Jane's writing seems generic. It's more average fan fiction than something that would be seriously considered for publication. And publication worthy manuscripts don't have to be 'good' in my opinion. I have a neighbor, a former regular NY Times columnist, who has some novels out. Clearly based on herself and her neighbors, and they are objectively bad. Lowest common denominator. However, I've come to recognize that lowest common denominator writing is a gift. There's a consistency to it, everything is reductive to all of the characters recognizing what it is they want and not stopping until they get it, and even the protogonist being driven by self-interest. For my neighbor's novels, all of the characters, even in their variety, know exactly what they want. It's a very narrow universe for each of the characters. They make mistakes when they misread a situation, or maybe their spouse turns out to be problematic in a way they didn't initially recognize, but they never change what they want, nor their pursuit of it, and what they want is usually something very basic, very clearly defined, but a bit out of reach due to their life circumstances. It makes even a bad book (and hers can be pretty bad) very readable. One time, Michael fell asleep while reading Jane's novel, and she remembered that he'd stayed up all night reading that successful romance novelist's book. I think it comes down to clarity.

For the record, Moses Farrow originally believed Dylan (when he was fifteen). He is one of the three children for whom Woody Allen is his legal father. It was only when he grew up and benefitted from being on Allen's side that he changed his tune. Either way, he wasn't there in the crawl space. IMO the primary benefit Lena Dunham received from having the parents she has were money and connections. Money sent her to an elite school in NYC, that's where many connections were made. The other aspect is she had a secure base in NYC from an early age, and finding and maintaining that is a principal challenge for any aspiring artist who doesn't have a financially sustainable home base in NYC, one that gives them a lot of free time to pursue what they really want. That said, and as Dunham has said, she didn't get an HBO deal because her parents were "art community famous." There are many young women like Dunham all around the city, plenty doing their artistic thing. Tiny Furniture got her her deal at HBO, and Tiny Furniture got her a lot of positive attention. Like many people she was privileged, and that privilege freed her to do her writing. She knew how to navigate that world as well. There are plenty of young people with all of her privilege who don't get anywhere, let alone a deal w/HBO, because their work isn't viable commercially. She may also down rate herself as an actress, but I think she's pretty funny. She was funny in Tiny Furniture too. Hoodoo, I completely believed the line of dialogue "No, I don't have her gymnastics bag." I can't quite define the conversational tactic that repeating what someone has asked you is, but it can be condescending and reflect exaggerated tolerance. Repeating it back can make the other person feel as if they've said something annoying, and is getting on your nerves. "No, I have not seen your organic oatmeal." That's how the entire conversation with the ex played, right down to him suggesting that the bag may be in a couple of obvious places the ex-wife probably should have considered or checked before asking him, but she didn't - as USUAL - so he had to point it out to her. I know a girl (a woman now) who did a little sitcom television when she was a tween, then didn't do anything, then got back into it in her very early twenties. She had a great singing voice and a good "B'way ingénue" look. More like a character ingénue than the romantic lead. She was a step ahead of her peers who were on the audition circuit because her dad was an eye doctor with a Manhattan practice and a Manhattan apartment, so while she was expected to work (temping), she could take off whenever she needed to audition, and her parents were extremely supportive. Having a support team is a big help. About prosthetic penises; while I do recognize that often women are asked to show the real deal while guys are allowed to use a prosthetic, it's a fact that there are women who also use prosthetics (I hate the word "merkin" too, but that's what we're talking about). Kim Cattrell used one in SATC. We also have to consider the challenges of filming something. A penis has a mind of its own. A real one might decline to show up in a way that makes it simple to get the shot. A prosthetic one - bam, will land on the thigh every time. I think Dunham said they also used one for Adam when he was supposed to be beating off. It made it easier for the actor to have something to grab, even though the prosthetic wasn't in the shot. I think we'll all agree that it would be even more wrong for the actor to be expected to actually grab his own thing. Slacker, not to divert, but the Yale-New Haven team was a joke. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/28/nyregion/yale-study-about-allen-flawed-expert-testifies.html I wonder if you have read the testimony as well as the judges' report. We're not going to agree, obviously, but I don't want to leave Yale-New Haven as credible support.

I've known quite a few people who set themselves up in NYC (and in the NYC-adjacent NJ communities - Jersey City, Weehawken) in a group home situation. That's the most doable. Get a room in a house or other dwelling with other people, and yes, people do pull that one off every day. It IS getting your own apartment that is the trick, and people without supplementary support who work the service jobs are priced out of getting their own apartment. Yet there's Marnie, no discernible income, yet Ubers and massages. I still think Ray is more than a manager - got bumped up somehow. I know two women who are freelance writers. One has three kids. I asked her what her niche was and she said "Anything." It's true. She's been writing since she was a teen-ager, treats it like a job, has had her poetry published in the New Yorker, but will also write ANYTHING to get a deal or make a sale. She has a young adult genre pen name. She's done dystopian novels and chick lit. She can squeeze blood out of a dime and then squeeze it some more, but she and her family live a sort of bohemian privileged life - they've traveled to Europe (still squeezing pennies) and go to good schools, but all of their furnishings are second hand, ditto their clothes. The mom (the writer) complains about money because it's VERY hard, and when things don't sell, they really don't sell, but still - she has supported a family of five on her writing income. I also know a lot of female creative types and most are moms. That's one thing I don't see on Girls - in my life I don't see the writers and creative "types" Hannah encounters, who had some type of sacrifice going on. The creative types I know just WORK at it but otherwise have their families and communities. I do have a divorced neighbor who makes a very nice living and she has no kids, but she's incredibly, incredibly smart about how she manages her free lancing and pursues work. She used to be in a corporate job, so she is very familiar with how to help corporations with her writing, even internationally, as well as her more creative articles. Anyhow, I've seen creative women portrayed on both Girls and 30 Rock as types who have to go off the beaten path, and most writers I know are right on that damn beaten path, just hustling like anyone who is self-employed. They need clients like any business. It's not so funky and artsy, I guess I'm saying. No way Hannah is making rent by getting an article published in the NY Times "Modern Love" section and then getting a free lance assignment from that, the end so far as we know. (The niche feminist blog probably didn't pay at all, but it's good for her samples). What made me roll my eyes was when Hannah offered to buy Jean-Louis drinks using "my magazine's expense account." Good luck getting reimbursed, Hannah.

Thanks choclatine, however, the essential point is, there is nowhere in NYC where someone can live and pay rent while sort of occasionally working in a "survival job", or even working part time. Not without passive income of some kind (parents, for example). Where to live is the biggest challenge for any artistic sort or non corporate, non-trust fund graduate coming into the city. No matter where you live, no matter how unfashionable (and Greenpoint has been pretty hipster for awhile) and no matter how tiny or how much of a dump the space. Someone as a joke put a bathroom online for rent and got many offers from people who wanted it as living space! Adam I can understand - originally he got some money from his grandmother each month, and claimed to Hannah that he "supplemented" that income. Now he's a working actor. Soshona I believe gets money from her parents. The other two - no idea.

As a NYer, I'm just super conscious of where people live when they're supposed to live in NYC. OTOH, there are plenty of people who are servers in coffee shops and small restaurants, or they teach yoga, and somehow it's enough to pay the rent / the bills. Very often it's split with a partner or spouse though. Girls does a really really good job showing us what these struggling artist / low income apartments really look like in hot areas like Williamsburg, but Hannah's employment is so intermittent, as is Marnie's, I'm always distracted. Hell, the 2-hour massages she's been getting are at least $200 a session, based on what is a fairly standard $100./hour experience in the NYC area (more or less, but never that much less). Clearly in NYC it's the fact that a couple of these girls are able to afford to live in the city at ALL, particularly in a hot area like Williamsberg, that challenges reality, not the apartments themselves, which are pretty realistic looking - and would still cost a fortune despite being glorified tenements. The show doesn't feel different to me this season. It's actually improved as a show, IMO. Hannah makes me laugh. She's an interesting character - she has all the entitlement, audacity, desire to shock, assertiveness, randomness, exhibitionism and irresponsibility of a woman who is much more beautiful, and I honestly think that drives some of the rage I see on social media. I would also include her fashion sense, her wearing clothes that exposes her, her following trends when she is not someone most people want to see representing trends. Jessa is impossible, and has the drug history, but she's also a familiar type. I think we can see Jessa as someone who was enabled because of her sex appeal and bohemian glamour, but Hannah? How dare she. The character has had a big influence on fashion in NYC; I see a lot of Hannah's running around as far as how they dress, and I think that's a good thing. IMO the dislocation comes from the aging of the girls themselves. Their situations in life have become more urgent. They're not in that post-collegiate figuring it out stage anymore. They connect intermittently, not routinely. P.S. - for me, Jessa and Adam appear to be settled in for the long haul, established in a way that I never felt with Adam / Hannah.

Come sit by me, MyPeopleAreNordic.

Doesn't Ray have an ownership interest in the coffee shop? A couple of seasons ago, he had a conversation with Shoshanna outside some event, where he described the positive direction his life had taken, and I think it included a stake in the coffee shop.

Due respect, to WhosThatGirl, I empathize with shipping disappointment on television; I'm often left dissatisfied. That said, I really came into girls via Shoshanna and Ray, although I've come to enjoy other aspects, even Hannah-centric episodes like the surfer one. When it appeared that Ray was in love with Marnie, I was positive it was Lena Dunham working the character hierarchy of the show - Allison Williams and Dunham are really the consistent female leads over Mamet and Kirke, so of course they would be assigned the two male leads (Ray and Adam), and Ray was done for. I was extremely unhappy about it and found it completely unbelievable. On paper I believe that sure, Ray was the "type" who would want what he thinks is the girl he could never have, but he's really never been that type of guy in practice,and I didn't buy that he'd always been a Marnie critic because of what she represented. And it's true, I'm one of those who does not like Marnie. The only times I've ever liked her has been with Desi, or that bottle episode with Charlie. I have generally positive feelings towards this season, building on last season, which was a favorite. Money continues to be a WTF for me. The apartments look like the apartments that people with little money would scrounge to get and pay a fortune for, so props to Girls for that, but there is no indication where these girls get the $$ to pay the fortune even the most tenement-looking digs (like Marnie's) will cost in Williamsburg. I'll assume Shosh's parents still underwrite her a bit, and I'll assume that as a working actor, Adam has a comfortable income. He's WORKING, working, doing commercials and film, and those pay well, even at his level. But Hannah and Marnie have me completely lost as far as how they're sustaining themselves. Personally, I give Girls credit for the Desi character. Once he stopped being Marnie's sexual tension guy and began to be ridiculous, I assumed Desi was on his way out, except that Marnie continued to show signs of interest, such as being jealous of his Lisa Bonet girlfriend. But he kept sticking around, and I now believe they deserve each other and will end up together. Something about Desi got him cast on Broadway, so I think he'll get his act together and start making money, which will make Marnie happy-ish. Desi is usually the type of character I find REPULSIVE-repulsive, not funny, the type of character a show finds more amusing than the audience finds him, a real irritant. But I just like watching the actor work - I think he's hilarious.

I was rewatching some of Season 1, specifically when Trent blackmailed Rebecca. I seriously would not be surprised if she ended up with that guy. They have similar backgrounds. He's surprisingly good in bed (considering she took his virginity). He likes taking care of her in a way she hasn't been taken care of in her life. He's completely on some sort of spectrum, and doesn't quite get how it works socially, but he knows he doesn't get it. He also got through Harvard and started his own company and is obviously rich - made himself rich - so he's at least as functional as she is. What he did to get close to Rebecca isn't that much wilder, more dangerous or more inappropriate than what Rebecca did to get close to Josh. I don't see Rebecca's super-animated, wild, exuberant side as a symptom of her underlying issues. I think that energy, that intensity and unconventionality, and even her (somewhat) overly porous boundaries are part of her. Anyway, I could see this.

The cast has said that My speculaton is that Marnie and Desi will still be "together" by the end of the series. The show had many logical points where it could have written him off, and he's still here. I guess that says there are many logical points where Marnie could have written him off, but he's still in her life. Last week's Desi episode seems as if it should have been his send-off, or at least his and Marnie's, but it wasn't. I guess a baby would teach Hannah responsibility, but that's a lousy task for a baby.

P.S. - I think some of the casting in CEG just plots along the same line she took in her videos, or at least just evokes people she worked with on youtube. In "Cheaters", the Nicole Shabtai character (Casey) is totally a Valencia type. Valencia types, the physical type, show up on CEG a lot. Rachel Grate (Audra Levine) is a Valencia type. Just grow the hair and lose the corporate drag. Among the campers in the camping episode, there's a Valencia type (in fact one of the recappers on another site seems to think it's Gabrielle Ruiz herself, but it's not). Even more strangely, there's a youtube video sketch comic actor named "Greg Burke" who is totally a Greg type. In fact, it makes me wonder if the character of Greg in CEG was based on the characters Burke played on youtube, and that's why Greg was called Greg. Similar physical type, including looking just a bit older than his supposed peers, even though he might be the same age.

I would find it really weird to flip back to Adam/Hannah considering what Lena has said about Jessa/Adam, and the fact that she did that pairing in the first place. I was actually very surprised. Until that relationship I always felt Lena was fixed on Adam as Hannah's end game (I'm not - I much prefer Adam/Jessa).

I know quite a bit about Woody Allen that supports what his former daughter, Dylan, said he did to her, not all of it in print. People try to figure out Allen - I think Allen is a narcissist who breaches boundaries. That's what gets him off. Not pedophilia as pedophilia, but violating fundamental norms and getting away with it. He dated a fifteen year old (Dalton student) - why fifteen, why not eighteen - what's the difference physically? I think the difference was that fifteen was forbidden. Why Soon Yi? ...forbidden (I remember Mia's late daughter Daisy saying Allen had tried to get closer to her as well.) To get to Dylan there is likely more to it than "just" the forbidden, but I think that's a lot of it, and I definitely believe Dylan. I remember being so frustrated with someone who refused to believe it simply because she enjoyed Allen's work. (Literally no other reason.) That's such a bad reason, it's so solipsistic. It's not about "you" - "well, reality or potential reality is unpleasant to me, so I'll decide reality what is most convenient to me." She drove me crazy, this woman. A blogger even did a version of this exercise: "I love Woody Allen but I don't want to be a bad feminist, so how about if BOTH are true? He truly believes he didn't do it and she truly believes he did!" Right, lady, so everything wraps up conveniently for YOU. That's not how reality works (not talking to a particular poster, just my issue with "I'm a fan, therefore it would be painful to believe certain things, therefore I won't believe it.") I definitely believe Chuck arranged for his ex-wife to call when Hannah was there. It was a conversation he was going to have to have anyhow, so he set it up to happen so Hannah could witness it. Look how well he came off in that conversation. Clearly frustrated (by the ex-wife, of course) enough to be human, but patient, oh so willing to be reasonable, although btw, he's the better parent (his daughter will have to get fresh air at HIS house, not just sit on the computer all day!) Look how tolerant, endlessly patient, reassuring he was while speaking to someone who was no doubt irrational, insecure, and difficult (or "deeply disturbed" as he later told Hannah). You could tell it was such a challenge for Chuck to keep that conversation on track! He is certainly beset! In my experience, fans (which Hannah definitely was) can be relied upon to behave to type, no matter how smart they are. He wasn't complimenting her writing because Girls wants us to think Hannah is a great writer. He complimented Hannah to soothe her ego. Her writing is so effective he was tormented by what this bright, observant woman had to say! What if other people believed her - it could damage his life (so IOW, he's telling Hannah her is writing influential). The wrong tactic would have been to treat her as she seemed to expect to be treated at first - as a nobody. Instead, he treated her as she wanted to be seen. A baseline move for a man like Chuck. I read the accounts of the two women who accused Affleck. I believe them. One of the things I remember reading/hearing about the Allen case was an explanation as to why so many actors continue to work with him (I know one who won't even audition for him, but she's not famous.). It's because while Allen's issues are public, there is so much exploitation and vileness in the industry, so much shady, revolting behavior by people in power (actors, producers, directors), an actress could easily be standing adjacent to someone just as bad, every day that she's on set. Allen is just public.

I don't think Rhys' scenario, as imagined, is all that elaborate. His character was a predator. As someone said upthread, it was likely a numbers game for him. He's done this a LOT, he's had conversations with smart, challenging, YOUNG women that end up as a set up. But any woman young enough or immature enough to think that a conversation with her can alter this guy, or that he'd be having that conversation in reasonable good faith, and that it's about what she thinks it's about (sharing perspectives, making his case for himself) is also a perfect target for this guy. I don't believe he singled out Hannah and found her niche article because he's so consumed with being misunderstood and misrepresented. I think he probably contacted/invited a number of girls, and, as mentioned above, the ones that accepted his invitation to come and talk it over are the ones deluded enough to be perfect targets. This is really garden variety manipulation with a recognizable type, not some elaborate scheme. This is his con. In a different way, Bill Cosby had his routine. While I think many women went out to dinner, stayed over (thinking they were staying as a guest, not a sex partner), came over, bought into whatever lie he may have told, there may have been a few who read the situation correctly and got out of there before the pill was in their drink. But the odds were on Cosby's side. Of course, though, he tended to pick the right targets - women who didn't want to turn down the opportunity to network with him because show business is so damn hard and this might be an important contact. Likewise with Hannah, she's a young, poor writer being asked to come and listen to an older, famous, rich writer explain himself to her in his home. There had to be a subtext running under there as well, that this was also a contact, no matter how impure that thought might have been. Proving that she could hold her own against this guy, impress him, change him. He KNOWS all this. People aren't that original. He knows her before he met her. IOW, Rhys's idea wasn't an elaborate or over elaborate plot - it's real life. He's an actor. He's been in show business a long time. He knows it as well as anybody else - a certain type of celebrity can be very manipulative, all about power. IOW, he had a plan, and it was going to work or not. So much of it was obvious manipulation, that I think we've seen before from plenty of people - things done for our benefit. In his case I think the timing of the call from the ex was part of it, his revealing inappropriately "personal" (or made up) details of his family relationships was also part of it, the stuff about being tormented by what she wrote was bullshit, and I wouldn't be surprised if the OCD about the shoes (don't touch the suede) was just affect for her benefit, working a persona. Hell, she's OCD. If she saw that he wasn't really focused on the subject they were supposedly discussing, if she recognized all the bait, she would have called the meeting short and gotten out of there, and his plan wouldn't work. Given her age, her ego, the fact that she was a fan of his, his status, the reflected status on her if she could prevail in this conversation, chances are it would. IOW, I think it was a pretty straightforward plan for a practiced predator, not a stretch at all.

It's not such a huge deal to be published in the NY Times as a one-off. The NY Times itself is pretty predictable. A friend I've mentioned in another post has a sister who is a writer. Her writing is not to my taste, but one thing she does is write. She is prolific. She's earned a decent living for years. She told me one of the things she learned was when she was rejected by a minor publication, she submitted the same piece to the Times and wasn't rejected by the Times. And she knows why. She's extremely good-looking. The subject covered the sort of thing the Times loves to publish - feminist ambivalence crossed with a sexual theme that ends up showcasing that the author's feminism is weak/self-serving. I was like - dude, this never happened to you that way, you are not that girl (in real life she's not at all equivocating). But it was a skew on something that happened to her and she knew how to pitch it to the Times (and they knew what she looked like). A girl who looks like Hannah with an ex like Adam who takes up with a girl who looks like Jessa and all the issues that brings up in Hannah is right up the NY Times' alley. She could end up working that angle. At the "Moth" reading, I think the key was that, without commenting on her own appearance, she mentioned what Jessa looked like, and how that was a factor in her reaction to Jessa being with Adam. Then in the surfer piece, she is sent out to the Hamptons purely because of what she looks like. I know there is a market, at least as long as she's in her twenties and into the mid part of her thirties, for her to be an unglamorous woman moving in a glamorous environment where there are a lot of beautiful people, among them her friends, and writing about it. There's money in hate reads. If she wrote as a woman who looks like her and still fucks guys like Jean-Louis, or has the effrontery to resent her super-built, budding acting star ex hooking up with her very beautiful friend, or feels as entitled as a beautiful woman does to show her body or proposition someone or be demanding, she will be hate read all over the place (I am not endorsing this, and I think LD knows what she's doing). In prior seasons I used to not believe Hannah got some of the guys she got. But there's also the old saying, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Hannah always takes a shot. She's always game. She's pretty much impervious to humiliation. She's selfish, which is a hook for some people because they try to win the person over or figure them out. In Jean-Louis's shoes, or flip flops, I can see why he hooked up with Hannah. No downside, he was leaving the country shortly. In his job, he is surrounded by a bunch of vain, uninteresting women who are all pretty much alike, maybe with similar lives. Hannah is different, she has no inhibitions, she speaks her mind, she's humiliation proof, she can be challenging. Not every guy, particularly Jean-Louis who has racked up some impressive numbers when it comes to sex partners, is after the best body, or at least someone conventionally attractive. If he's constantly got opportunity, he may decide to go for the adventure one weekend. Hannah would be an adventure for a weekend. Certainly a welcome change of pace. At the start of the episode was distracted by the fact that I recognized the tunic the "Where is Tamra" woman was wearing as a Free People tunic also worn by Rebecca in Crazy Ex Girlfriend. And I also agree with Mikrili on nudity. It's been in our culture that only if a woman is beautiful is it okay to be nude, because nudity is supposed to be provocative for the viewer, a woman is supposed to be an object, and if her body doesn't qualify as an object, then it's just her, and who wants to see it. I think Dunham is making a point here. It's a woman's body, not an object. And OMG, a woman who is not conventionally attractive enjoys being naked! I like Shoshanna and Ray and I hope they "end up" with each other, but I felt their scene was forcing something that has always been natural between the actors. They have chemistry naturally, no reason for the scene to push it. Where Marnie is concerned, I think she was transparently using Ray as her back-up, as her property, and she didn't want her power over him diluted by Shoshanna. Nothing to do with her feelings for Ray, everything to do with his utility.

I didn't believe those two Jamba Jeans girls for a moment. They have big success, it's about six years since Shoshanna blew them off, and I just didn't believe how it all went down. They were beyond cartoons. Do I believe those two girls would be narcissistic assholes, yes, but not in that lowest common denominator, see it from space way and cartoonish style. I know their purpose, but this was just silly. They were even cast so one was very tall and the other very tiny - Mutt and Jeff. Also, we'd never seen them before so it was hard for these two ridiculous women to represent the road not taken. The problem is that Shoshanna is completely underwritten and her stories get short shrift. Also don't know the point of the instagrammable mystic woman and her tea set. Girls does have a tendency to introduce a boyfriend who is just a regular guy with flaws who is probably a mismatch for the "Girl" he's dating, and then turn them into an out-of-character insane person. I think Charlie is the only guy with whom Marnie ever had chemistry and I don't believe he became a drug dealer. I think Desi is too careerist and too aware of how his sex appeal can progress him at least to where he has a foothold in the business to be believeable as someone chomping 20 oxycontin a day. He never acted like that guy until recently. Wasn't he on Broadway? I can't believe the show acts like that credit was barely about being a barista in his long game of building a career. At the least he should be in other shows, doing an internet soap, making a commercial, being on stage, and then doing his "real passion" music, like a thousand other actors who want to be musicians. I live in New York. Trying to think of weekend trips I've made, with a significant others, or with friends. Went to Finger Lakes for the weekend (wine country, Dr. Frank's vinyards and more). Went to Saratoga for the weekend. Have been out to the Hamptons or Hamptons adjacent beach communities for an overnight or weekend. Been to the Jersey shore. Also one time went to Nyack for a flea market. Sometimes people go up to Woodstock - there are a few theatre workshops there. A friend owns part of a share house in the Morse Lake area of New Jersey. But if you are a couple of twentysomethings in Williamsburg looking for a short road trip / overnight, Poughkeepsie is pretty random. It really depends. I have a friend who went through a lot of men. At times the guy would get interested in me (I would meet them through her). One time she was trying to foist an ex onto me, and I had no interest whatsoever. But another time one of her exes was someone I would have been interested in, and she was like, OMG, you can't. And why was that - because to her, he was a significant ex, whereas the guy she encouraged me to go out with was not (and much less attractive as well). I never know what the general rule is considered to be. Some girls have a never ever ever date a friend's ex rule, as if that can never be violated. I don't think you date an immediate ex. However, I know a number of circumstances where the original pairing was no great romance, and both people moved on, and then it reconfigured with someone else in the same social circle with no drama. In interviews, the ethos of the creators of Girls seems to be you can never do that. I really think it depends on the emotional impact the original relationship had on your friend. I think even Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston dated the same guy at one point (Adam Durwitz). Adam was a really significant relationship to Hannah, and even though they broke up, I can see her being jealous and resentful of Jessa/Adam. Hannah tends to be very jealous anyway (look at her reaction to Jean-Louis having a girlfriend), and I could imagine her thinking that her friend, "who looks like Brigitte Bardot and a mermaid had a baby" would have a more successful relationship with Adam then she did, possibly because of qualities Hannah doesn't have, and that could sting. And I'm sorry, it would get on my nerves if Marnie dated anyone I'd ever dated, let alone anyone I'd lived with. Ray was so not her type, I'd know it was about her ego. I believe New York's Senator Gillibrand still lives in Hudson. Jemima was also in Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture. I don't think she's Jessa. Jemima has talked about the percentage of her that's Jessa, and also a lot that's not. Jemima is authentically bohemian and privileged, but has been married since 2009 and has 2 children. Early in in Girls she had a spot on take about Jessa using her cool factor to get by, and how after you hit a certain age you simply can't keep behaving with Jessa's entitlement, but Jessa continues to do so. Jemima liked the big fight Jessa and Adam had at the end of last season - she felt that showed Jessa had some skin in the game, there was some authentic passion and investment there that was new for Jessa. Recently there was an interview with the Girls, in which they discussed Season 6. Jemima made a few wry jokes about being "forced" to play opposite Adam Driver, and Lena Dunham interjected that one of the things people don't understand about Jemima is that underneath her "lushness" and her "British naughtiness" she is very moral and neurotic. Jemima says one of the ways she ties herself up in knots is she thinks things are supposed to be a certain way and people are supposed to behave a certain way. As an example, Dunham talks about when they were in school and one friend started sleeping with another friend's ex. Jemima was appalled and told Lena Dunham "If you don't tell her, I'm going to." I think it goes to power dynamics. If you've been in an intimate relationship with someone, and they immediately spin off and sleep with a close friend of yours, I am sure that feels extremely perilous - two people with intimate knowledge of you getting together. I think that would be the motivation for Jemima wanting to tell the girl. It's just like cheating, in a way. When one person in a marriage cheats, the person they're cheating with knows something about the marriage that one of the people in it doesn't know. Which is horrible.

Matthew Rhys says he believes his character planned the whole thing. I thought he absolutely NAILED a certain type of "off duty" celebrity. Seemingly candid (often a little inappropriately so in that "instant intimacy" way many celebrities are accustomed to being around strangers) but all the while with the most "reasonable" demeanor in the room. Constantly validating Hannah while also challenging her a little (mostly with his vulnerability) so she felt like an equal. Boy is this a common routine. I also agree it didn't feel like "Girls", but as one review said, something from the Girls production team with Lena Dunham as the lead. I am completely on Hannah's side as to her conclusions that the girls were telling the truth (no, four girls are not hearsay) and that you can have a forced b.j. - these things don't start from scratch, it starts when someone is uncertain, or feels uncomfortable, wants to back out, doesn't feel right, etc. Hannah was doomed simply by accepting the invitation and visiting him at home. That decision was her ego. Also her ego was her struggle with the fact that she'd loved him as a writer, therefore she needed and wanted an explanation for his behaviour. That always kills me. "This person's work was important to ME, therefore I am looking for something to rationalize the harm he did to others cause I don't want my experience tainted." Lady, that is life. Things co-exist. Shitty people can be talented in multiple ways. And buying into everything he said, including that reading what she'd written had tormented him, kept him up at night, put him back in therapy. Uh huh. Another flag was his ex-wife's call just as he and Hannah were beginning their conversation - ten to one he'd told his ex-wife this was the only time he was available to discuss his daughter's visit/summer custody, and then Hannah got to hear his whole devoted dad pacifying unreasonable ex schtick. The third was him telling Hannah his wife was a "deeply disturbed woman" and his daughter suffering from depression. He doesn't know Hannah and both those pieces of information were inappropriate and manipulative (and probably lies as to his ex-wife). Everything about this guy was controlling.

Opinions about Rebecca / Nathaniel aside, Rebecca chased Nathaniel around the conference room with a weaponized pen and attacked him, knocking him to the ground and pinning him there. I'm not going to turn around and find Nathaniel propositioning her in the elevator out of character for this show. Everything in that office is in appropriate; we can't cherry pick. To add re Greg, I just didn't like the actor playing Greg. He was cast correctly - modestly handsome, demeanor, what he projected, all fit the description of Greg. But in addition to not liking the type as he was deployed in this show, I didn't care for the actor in the context of this show. He seemed uninvested and with little imagination. By that is when he was given strong material he never revealed more about Greg than what was on the page. He delivered what was on the page - he has decent technique / is a pro, but that's it. For example, I think of how much more could have been done with the sung line "I fly a plane, a plane" in the drinking song other than the incongruity and sort of obvious choice to smile in the face of comic horror.

Naomi is one of those characters who behaves according to the needs of the plot. I absolutely do not believe that the woman who decided Josh was perfect for her daughter, the woman who told Josh to propose (remember after she said "Do exactly as I tell you." he proposed by the end of the episode), would blow off her daughter's request to help with the wedding. To her, the sooner her daughter got married the better, and she'd be the one flying into West Covina in the black pants outfit and a headset, making sure it happened before her kid changed her mind. I didn't believe her blowing Rebecca off for a single second. Her daughter is getting MARRIED and she acts like she's being asked to assist with some random situation? No way.

Agreed that in my large extended family, other adults are allowed to discipline the kids of other adults. And by that I mean "don't do that." Not assign the punishment or privilege withdrawal, but "stop that, that's wrong"? Absolutely. All I can say with JTV is that I'll be keeping an eye out for all the stories JTV is prepared to tell that just couldn't be told with Michael there. I have a feeling that's all bogus, and it's about putting her w/Rafael in the end. Some of the things Justin Baldoni said made me believe the whole thing was done for Rafael/Jane. In three years, and without seeing it, he became her best friend, just like Michael and Jane had that foundation of friendship, says Baldoni. It's cheap. I do not know why shows adhere to the original game plan. It didn't work with HIMYM. Shows often take the lazy way out, often to protect a male lead. Here, they didn't need to do that because he functioned well with Petra, but still. I remember on Scrubs, in the early seasons, the creators said they had Sarah Chalk's character sleep with the leading man's brother to really put the nail in the coffin of any possible pairing, but at the end of the day they did that pairing anyway. Ugly Betty got rid of Henry and put Betty through dating and relationship drama that quickly became pointless, and all they got out of it was an open-ended finale saying MAYBE down the line Betty and Daniel would get together. Me, unless JTV really has re-set and opened up the show instead of setting up for Rafael / Jane in the end, this was pointless. Every story so far since Michael's death is one Jane and the other characters have already had.

I believe that JTV killed off Michael because they're pairing her with Rafael in the end and were unwilling to deviate from their original intention. The rationale used by the show runner - that Jane had a journey to travel which would be stunted by marriage early in the series run - would be more believable if the stories they've been telling depended upon her being single. Her travails at work and her conflicts with those with professional authority over her are stories JTV has been telling since the premiere, and we're still seeing those stories, which can be told just as easily with Jane married. As much as I enjoy Petra, my eyes rolled forever at yet another body showing up on Marbella property to threaten the hotel's reputation. Just as they roll at Petra and hate sex with whomever, or Jane's overly sharp and unmotivated (IMO) animus against Petra despite surface amiability. Xo and Rogelio's story is nothing but a hamster wheel with no interesting detours at all.

For those who brought up that we're supposed to believe Rebecca is a size six - back when Rebecca and Valencia went to the desert enlightenment event, Valencia described herself as a "ginormous size 6, junior 5/7." Even with some slight padding, Valencia was still quite a bit more slender than Rebecca, which makes the idea that Rebecca is also supposed to be a size 6 even more disappointing. Back to the song "I love my daughter." I really do think this is a meta thing, singing about how weird and "coming out wrong" it can be to talk about your love for your daughter, particularly in song. I know plenty of father / daughters where the daughter is Madison's age, and (fortunately) I have never seen a creepy father / daughter vibe. What I see in person, even when the relationship is loving, is definitely and matter of factly parent-child. Just the other day I was walking ahead of a father / daughter where he was explaining to her how president William Henry Harrison actually probably died from drinking water contaminated by the raw sewage field a short way from the White House, and not from pneumonia contracted by delivering his inaugural address in the rain. Overhead conversations between fathers/daughters that I hear on the subway are about schedules (that's a big one), reminding the daughter about stuff they need to remember, or negotiating something the kid wants to do or making an exception to the usual rules at home. One last thing - one of the reviews said that the Nathaniel Plimpton character highlighted something the show often sweeps under the rug - a substantial class divide between Rebecca and her friends. Rebecca grew up going to Ivy schools (which is as much about the money your family has, where you live, and what prep schools you attended as brains), knows how to pronounce prix fixe and amuse bouche, and has been dating down. Greg a bartender, Josh a "human flip flop." But that's not quite true. We have seen that while her boyfriends are slackers, they actually have a toehold in the same world Rebecca comes from. Greg's mother, for example, obviously has a wealthy husband, and she expressed that they'd be happy to support any ambition he had that required schooling or other help. Hell, even when his dad sold the house, half of the money was supposedly able to fund Greg's entire Emory stint AND fund his dad's new life at an upscale retirement community (and I really doubt that house, in West Covina, not a closer L.A. suburb, went for the kind of money that could fund his dad's retirement, let alone still do that while giving half to his son). Josh's dad is a radiologist, and his family appears upper middle class to me. Where his sister was buying her wedding dress was an expensive bridal boutique complete with the champaign and fashion show experience. Josh was a bit fish out of water at the restaurant, but his parents were perfectly at ease. So it appears to me that these guys have more of a common background with Rebecca than it would appear from their current lifestyles. It's just that Rebecca was precocious and fast-tracked, while Greg and Josh drifted a lot more. Both had the sort of family background that were in a position to help them do whatever they wanted once they decided what that was.

When I saw this episode I googled "voice to text software." and then drilled down to the programs used to auto-transcribe lectures. Is there any reason Paula and Sunil couldn't have done that right there in class, instead of dressing up like old time movie cat burglers and breaking into that guy's apartment or dorm? Of course, they did copy the file, so they saved money on purchasing it for themselves. When I was in school I liked to take my own notes. The process of writing down what the professor was saying actually locked in the information, and I ended up having to do very little studying. I just reviewed the notes. Even though I was manually transcribing, the process had the effect of locking it down in my memory, almost like a muscle memory exercise. That said, for people who listen to audio files of their class lectures, they can listen to them the same way / same time they listen to music. During their commute. Running errands. Doing chores around the house. Etc.

My .02 after reading this discussion and binge-watching: I think there's too much exaggeration about the risk Paula might be taking going to law school and becoming a lawyer at her size and age. She's not going to be competing with young dynamo law school grads. She's her own category. I know from a writer friend (and to my surprise) that quite a few people in their fifties and sixties (let alone Paula, who is in her forties) switch careers, get a new degree (and are also able to qualify for grants, scholarships, and other support) and thrive. In the world of the show, we've seen her receive positive feedback from a judge. We know she's a strong legal brief writer, which is not necessarily common in a community where Ivy law degrees are uncommon. As far as the world of law extends, I found it extremely unrealistic for Rebecca to be offered a partnership because she was the hardest working young lawyer they'd ever seen. That's not a qualification. A gazillion young, brilliant, Ivy educated 26 year old NY lawyers live and breathe their jobs. There are only 24 hours in a day; unless she works every one of them, I just don't believe Rebecca worked harder than any other lawyer her firm had seen of her age. That aside, it's not a qualification for a partnership, unless somehow as a second year or third year she'd managed to land a lot of business, or established herself as integral to retaining big clients. In a firm like hers, that's unlikely, or they wouldn't be a firm like hers. Anyway, frankly, I found Paula's story arc more plausible than Rebecca's in terms of her career.