S04.E03: Female Author

[chocolatine]

Also wasn't Clementine supposed to be pregnant at the end of last season? Have we gotten a follow up on that?

 

 

People on these boards speculated about a potential pregnancy based on the flowy green dress she wore in the episode she was introduced, and some people also thought she walked funny. A pregnancy was never mentioned on the show; the only thing mentioned about her physical condition was an unspecified auto-immune disease Marnie told Ray about.

 

I could be wrong (I often am), but I thought Sho just got a BA or a BS in science or math. I'm almost positive she just got her undergrad degree since her being younger than the rest of the cast has been mentioned. And I could have sworn the class that almost stopped her from graduating was a bio lab. Why is she interviewing for a position as a buyer?

 

 

I thought she majored in business, and being a buyer for any product line is first and foremost a business task. I used to work for a major online retailer, and all the buyers I met there had a business background.

 

Plus wouldn't being a buyer for a major brand like Anne Taylor be a pretty good job for someone out of school? How would she even get the interview with no retail experience and a degree that doesn't translate?

 

 

Yes, it would be a great job. It's not a "cool" brand, but it's major retail chain, and Shosh could gain some very valuable experience there that could qualify her to work for any brand she wants after a couple of years. As to how she got the interview, major brands like Anne Taylor have "campus relations" with major universities like NYU, i.e. the company's recruiters have the university's career office send them interns and new grads. The reason why Shosh took the interview for granted is probably that she didn't have to work very hard to get it.

Edited January 27, 2015 by chocolatine

[blackCatCollins]

i just have to say, with both a Torkelson's AND a Weetzie Bat mention, i'm scared that i have more in common with Lena than i thought...

[terrymct]

Hannah wrote for that e-book, didn't she? I know she didn't complete it, but she did do some of it I believe.

 

It was stories from her own (primarily sexual) adventures.  It's the same sort of thing that the other students in the workshop were pointing out to her.

[nachomama]

I do not care how close I am to someone, and don't think Ray is actually very close at all with Jessa or Adam, you cannot have $3000 from me to bail you out of jail. Number 1 I don't have it and number 2 hell to the no. If Jessa was going to have some kind of epiphany like actually begging Adam to be her friend, it should have been at the behest of asking everyone she knows to bail her out and no one stepping up and realizing she's a shitty friend. 

 

Elijah and Jessa are a lot of fun in small doses. The trick most people learn is that you can't be that person 24/7, 365. Elijah is living it up in Iowa and everyone loves him but it will burn out very quickly. Once he's slept with everyone in Iowa he will return to the big apple, leaving a trail of bodies. 

 

They may show Hannah in an unflattering light but Ray at the moment is the only one with redeeming qualities. 

[Pallas]

They may show Hannah in an unflattering light but Ray at the moment is the only one with redeeming qualities.

 

Ray has been rockin' ever since his epiphany on Staten Island.  The two lost dogs together, staring at Manhattan from the wrong side.  That time it was Adam who had delivered the home truths, on his way back to the ferry  -- in what I think is still the best-written conflict scene on the show.  Especially since the subtext was that these strangers had no reason to be together in that strange place, on that strange errand, with that stray dog. Except that they were each so relieved to meet someone else so odd, so at loose ends and yet so propelled, the direction just out of reach.  

 

I obviously have a soft spot for Adam, but I think he gave his best with Jessa: accompanying her to meetings, pointing out that you only get one birthday in AA -- that is, that you don't get to forever set the clock back after each relapse, without even this symbolic consequence.  Even to the point of realizing that Jessa is a more compulsive, less compelling iteration of his sister and no kin to him.  And that this time, he might save himself by not trying to save her...

 

What Lena seems fixed on is the idea that young men have better or at least fiercer bullshit detectors, while young women are less willing to see the truth before their eyes.  Or to express it, at the expense of someone else's feelings, "for their own good" or not.  At the same time, she seems to understand that neither seeing nor pointing out someone else's flaws keeps you immune from that person's appeal, that combination of their strengths and vulnerabilities and how these things work on you...nor does it guarantee, at all, that you are also able to perceive your own. Her guys are up to their waists in rubble, while calling out well-reasoned and rude critiques of the job being done by a nearby work crew, filling in a pothole on the street. 

[hoodooznoodooz]

17wheatthins: Mr. Gross

Hee, hee! I could not agree more. So gross.

[DangerousMinds]

Hmmm, I always thought Rachel on Friends was a "personal shopper."

[Momof2boyz]

I thought the clip clopping of the horses hooves at the end was pretty funny.

And did anyone notice the Amish guy had his arm around her as he drove her home? LOL.

[Kat From Jersey]

...Desi is such an asshole. I want someone to break his jaw so that it has to be wired shut and he can't spew all that bullshit anymore. Even Marnie deserves better.

 

I love Elijah, but he can't always be Hannah's magic gay friend. Give the guy his own storyline, Dunham!...

 

And so he can't spew his horrifying singer-songwriter songs, ugh!  Marnie has a pretty voice, but yeesh, those songs are just so depressing and over-done.  And Desi is such a skeeze.  I was going to say, at least she told him, but where exactly did she end up in the relationship?  Will her desire to be his artistic muse/side piece win over her desire for commitment from him? Because he's definitely having cake/eating it

 

I love Elijah, and how he already knows everyone on campus, but he and Hannah are such enablers for each other!  And, did we know he used to be a dancer?

[ktwo]

Hmmm, I always thought Rachel on Friends was a "personal shopper."

That was a different job later on in the series.

I also loved Hannah's takedown of her fellow writers. Maybe it was a little overprivileged, but still cathartic and true to the character. We'll see if her outburst affects the class's behavior in any way.

I must disagree and I thought that scene was completely unrealistic. The way all her classmates just sat there and waited patiently for their turn for her insults? Please, they would all be shouting her down, throwing pieces of her own bullshit at her.

I also didn't think it was in character for Adam to care so much about Jessa as to go to jail with her. But them getting together while Hannah is in Paris - oops, sorry, Iowa - would be perfect for this show.

I still liked the episode overall despite calling bullshit on those.

[bunnywithanaxe]

I think we shouldn't get too bogged down with the idea of " realism" -- this series is definitely not realist, but absurdist, with touches of realism. Not Cassavetes, but Woody Allen. It is just as realistic for Hannah to get space to lecture all her classmates as it is for her to have a freaking heart to heart with Patti Lupone.

Edited January 28, 2015 by bunnywithanaxe

[Pallas]

And, did we know he used to be a dancer?

 

Yup, Elijah had his eye set on becoming a Broadway baby, hoofer division.  I don't recall hearing that he gave it up, until this ep, with his hilarious retrospective summation, "Five-six-seven-eighting my way into the room..."  

 

Elijah and Ray each sound more like writers than anyone we've met so far at Iowa.  And not only because they're better written: they perceive more, and seem to work from within a greater context.

[MelsW]

I thought Shosh was some sort of business major. I looked it up and this IMDB bio says she was a math major:

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0303497/bio

[beeble]

Right now Jessa rings true for me. I've seen people with their 1st/2nd/3rd time out of rehab and still not have any sense of personal accountability for how badly they act. Jessa was gross by squatting mid-day in front of God and everyone, and sadly, I've known a few "free spirit types" who pull this and make sure to enunciate that it's everyone else's problem should anyone dare comment on it. Jessa thinks the the world exists for her, and she is very well written and acted. Her vulnerability at the end was touching too. I don't think Adam is foolish enough to sleep with her; he is written as a bizarrely grounded person in different respects, and he takes his sobriety seriously, as he does with other boundaries. Just because the writers can doesn't mean they will...

 

I would love to be in charge of cardigans and trendy jewelry at Ann Taylor Loft, even though it's not my dream-job. (My dream job is part-time goal keeper for the US soccer team, part-time rock singer, and part-time Nobel-prize winning professor of something awesome at the University of Awesome) That would have been my vicarious job, had Shosh not been such a tool and flushed away her chance of ever doing that.

 

I know that the Iowa Writer's Workshop has an excellent turnout with successful writers not only getting published but winning awards. This felt very undergrad-juvenile to me.  I'm sure the workshop has its ebbs and flows, but I think it's really the lesser-quality workshops that has people nastily reducing peers to "this/that type" of writer. That would kill the soul. Will Hannah even last a year there? 

[MyPeopleAreNordic]

Right now Jessa rings true for me. I've seen people with their 1st/2nd/3rd time out of rehab and still not have any sense of personal accountability for how badly they act. Jessa was gross by squatting mid-day in front of God and everyone, and sadly, I've known a few "free spirit types" who pull this and make sure to enunciate that it's everyone else's problem should anyone dare comment on it. Jessa thinks the the world exists for her, and she is very well written and acted. Her vulnerability at the end was touching too. I don't think Adam is foolish enough to sleep with her; he is written as a bizarrely grounded person in different respects, and he takes his sobriety seriously, as he does with other boundaries. Just because the writers can doesn't mean they will...

I would love to be in charge of cardigans and trendy jewelry at Ann Taylor Loft, even though it's not my dream-job. (My dream job is part-time goal keeper for the US soccer team, part-time rock singer, and part-time Nobel-prize winning professor of something awesome at the University of Awesome) That would have been my vicarious job, had Shosh not been such a tool and flushed away her chance of ever doing that.

I know that the Iowa Writer's Workshop has an excellent turnout with successful writers not only getting published but winning awards. This felt very undergrad-juvenile to me. I'm sure the workshop has its ebbs and flows, but I think it's really the lesser-quality workshops that has people nastily reducing peers to "this/that type" of writer. That would kill the soul. Will Hannah even last a year there?

I have to agree with what you said about Jessa. I do think Jessa is the best-acted female character on the show for sure. I do think that at times the writing for her character could have been better, but Jessa is definitely not the worst written character on this show IMO.

Speaking of acting, is anyone else ever distracted by Allison Williams/Marnie's arms/shoulders/hands when she's speaking? It's like Allison Williams "acts with her arms." I don't know how else to explain it but I'm always distracted by her large arm/shoulder/hand movements when she is speaking (unless she has her arms crossed, which does seem to happen frequently). They just seem to flop around when she's speaking.

Edited January 28, 2015 by MyPeopleAreNordic

[SourK]

re: the writer's workshop stuff. It doesn't ring true to me, either, having been to a few (not Iowa), but I think this may be one of those cases where they're trying to make the experience accessible to people who haven't been there, so that's why it's coming across as Writers Workshop 101 rather than a graduate program for actual writers. Kind of the same way movies and TV shows about other specialized professions or hobbies boil things down to the basic elements that everyone can understand -- doctors give you medicine; lawyers talk in courtrooms. In this case, writers go to workshops where they're pretentious and passive-agressive with each other -- in broad terms, at least in my experience, that's kind of right even if the details of how it happens seem wrong.

[terrymct]

I thought Shosh was some sort of business major. I looked it up and this IMDB bio says she was a math major:

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0303497/bio

 

The math majors I know/knew would have killed her with their compasses some time about mid way through sophomore year, if she hadn't already washed out.

[himela]

Girls is honestly a series that sometimes I adore and other times makes me wonder why the hell I keep on watching. If art is supposed to create such an emotional roller coaster then I guess Lena and her team has successfully created art. Girls makes me wonder if real life young women are like this nowadays. I mean, we are used to all these glamorous women we watch in series and shows that watching actual "next door girls" surprises me, makes me sad and happy at the same time, gets me thinking etc. I watched all 3 episodes back to back and I admit I got bored and a little upset for wasting this time to watch these pathetic losers' lives. On the other hand I'm getting furious with myself cause I'm so used in people in series who are handsome and beautiful and have everything figured out that actually watching people with real problems makes me sick in the stomach. I don't know if you know what I'm saying. I really admire Lena for creating a whole series, she is a very talented and smart young woman plus she is a great actress, but watching Girls just makes me feel bad, leaves me with bad taste in my mouth. I hate that sex is shown that much emotionlessly, I hate that all people in this series are dumb or at least not smart (except from Hannah but she kind of doesn't use her intelligence for her benefit), I hate that every parent in Girls is negligent, indifferent or dumb, I hate that Girls leaves me hopeless about our future.

[qtpye]

Yeah, this is probably the most real and gritty depiction of females on television.  This include not so perfect hair and wardrobe choices.  It's like the anti  Sex and the City.  However, I feel that most of these "girls" will be totally differenct people by their mid thirties, so the future is not lost.

 

If Shosh is a STEM major, then perhaps the world is her oyster and she can afford to be very picky?  At least, this is what a college guidance counselor would probably say.

[MelsW]

Speaking of acting, is anyone else ever distracted by Allison Williams/Marnie's arms/shoulders/hands when she's speaking? It's like Allison Williams "acts with her arms." I don't know how else to explain it but I'm always distracted by her large arm/shoulder/hand movements when she is speaking (unless she has her arms crossed, which does seem to happen frequently). They just seem to flop around when she's speaking.

 

I never really noticed it but as soon as I read the quote above I knew exactly what you were talking about. YES! Allison Williams is definitely a hand-talker...or maybe she just plays Marnie that way (but I doubt it).

[braziliangirl]

 

I hate that Girls leaves me hopeless about our future.

 For me it's kinda the opposite. Cause I can see aspects of the main characters in myself and my friends when we were in our early/mid 20's and most of us changed (with time) for the better. We're a little less selfish, entitled, insecure, know-it-all's. I wish I would gain a dime every time that I hear: "Oh, I was awful when I was younger. Thank God there wasn't so many social media platforms or I'd be screwed".

 

Having said that...

 

but watching Girls just makes me feel bad, leaves me with bad taste in my mout

 

 

Yeah, this happens to me! Mainly, because I can identify with the awful decisions I/my friends made in the past. And I'm ashamed for not using the "empathy button" that much especially about my parents. I cringed with Shoshana's interview but it would be something that maybe I would've taken for granted when I was younger (although I like to think that I would never say that to the interviewer).

Marnie's love life is almost a patchwork of stories from my friends from the "nice boyfriend who bores you" to the "ex of your sort of friend that you're dating only to feel praised" until the "guy in a relationship that won't leave his girlfriend but keeps you hangin on" comes up.

Edited January 29, 2015 by braziliangirl

[blackCatCollins]

i know it's a little thing, but for some reason Marnie asking Ray if it was ok to be kissing him was really endearing to me. 

[Crazy8]

Ray killed it in this ep. His pep talks are legendary. Out of everyone in this show, I really hope he finds someone worthy of him in the end.

[Hecate7]

He has. He's the one who had Charlie perform Hannah's diary. His motives are now pretty clear.

[MyPeopleAreNordic]

He has. He's the one who had Charlie perform Hannah's diary. His motives are now pretty clear.

I had totally forgotten that.

I still love Ray (and dislike Marnie).

[lucindabelle]

I could buy the students sitting quietly waiting for Hannah's rant, it was late, they were drunk or stoned, they were curious and zonked

But I also completely agree that this feels off if it's meant to be he prestigious workshop. Everyone who got in there, and it's only the most prestigious one in the country, would come in with respect for their peers.

This would have made sense at a lame undergrad workshop or some wannabe Iowa place. Wonder what actual iowa students have to say about it.

[nachomama]

Just to show I don't dog Lena dunhams appearance always I saw her on late late show when Judd apatow was guest hosting and she looked nice. And she talked about all the nudity and bizarre clothes.