This blog is for people who are watching Season 2 of Girls, which obvs means MEGA SPOILERS abound.
Rather than listening to a cacophony of dickheads on Twitter tell me I’m not entitled to hold opinions that differ from theirs, I thought I’d catch up on this week’s Girls. Not having realised that my dislike of Adam would be so controversial last week, I was kind of hoping he’d pop up this week, in jail, and give me something to redeem myself with in this latest blog post (sorry Adam fans). Alas no, it was not to be. Instead, Girls seems to have turned into the Hannah and Marnie show, with Elijah bitching from the side. Where is Jessa? Where is Shosh? Where is Ray? THEY ARE THE BEST THINGS IN IT.
Deep breath. So, to briefly recap an episode in which not that much happens, comparatively:
- Hannah Gets a Writing Gig Then Scores Some Coke Off an Ex-Junkie
So Hannah finally gets her dream of being paid to write but it’s accompanied by the rude awakening that you have to hawk your entire soul in order to do it. $200 per piece- not bad, though it’s for a website that is so obviously based on xoJane. Which totally makes sense. OF COURSE Hannah would write for xoJane. ‘Jame’, the boss, wants Hannah to go outside her ‘comfort zone’ which for this liberal-arts educated midwestern small-town girl means taking cocaine. Jame’s sign so perfectly encapsulates that kind of Vice-y attitude to confessional journalism, too (faux-boundary-pushing, with a tiresome foundation in American psychobabble).
- Marnie Has The Worst Sex Ever
Booth Jonathan is such a dick, though I did like his line ‘I love when young people are passionate about something and then give up the minute they have to struggle’. Bitchy. His domineering attitude clearly excites Marnie, who, we learn later, seems to be at that awesome stage in a girl’s life where she just lets guys treat her like shit because she’s insecure. Case in point: the weird televisual installation that he locks her into. How did she not freak out? It made me feel weird just watching it.
This guy is almost parodically weird. It made me wonder whether or not there really are that many eccentrics in the world, let alone New York, but then I looked back over my sexual back catalogue and thought ‘yup.’ The sex starfish has genuinely never happened to me, thankfully. It’s probably the worst sex scene I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s worse than season one episode two, by a country mile. And Marnie’s laugh? So good.
- Said coke is the Drug of Truth
The ex-junkie living downstairs, Laird, manages to get Hannah some coke despite an awkward explanation in which he explains that he’s clean. Hannah’s attempt to procure drugs is so cringeworthy that I might just skip over it, although I did like the discussion of ‘quirky’ WIFI network names (‘Madame Ovaries, anyone?)
OK, so let’s talk about the Gak. Realistic or not? Personally, I felt that it wasn’t (too many twitchy-gurny facial expressions made it look a bit like Kiera Knightley in ‘A Dangerous Method, plus they were dancing like they were on pills, not cocaine), but then this hipster cokehead moron on Gawker seems to think it was incredibly accurate so maybe I’m wrong. Like him, I kind of applaud the fact that it didn’t portray everyone who took it as having an immediate heart attack while bleeding from every orifice, unlike every American TV show ever bar Californication (love it, don’t care what you say.)
- Hannah Finds Out About the Sofa Sex
And predictably freaks out. I liked it when Hannah asks, ‘could you feel her ribs?’ and Elijah replies ‘she’s very ribby’- not only has Dunham written Allison Williams’ weight loss into Girls in an interesting way, but she’s also isolated a point of insecurity for Hannah really effectively. Can’t think of another TV show that would do this.
Hannah confronting Marnie about it was actually my least favourite part of the episode. I don’t know, I’m just quite bored of watching them fighting, even though I liked the shorty shorts comment. I wasn’t surprised when she started pashing the ex-junkie. Typical insecure Hannah behaviour.
Notes:
- Jessa name drops one of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, who she apparently met once. Will we ever get to hear more than a few snatched details about her travels? I want more Jessa, dammit.
- I loved how much Laird hated his turtle. ‘I’ll never not have it’, ‘he can be a real asshole sometimes, though’
- However, I thought this was the least funny episode so far. Except for the sex scene, obvs.
- Do people in America still write cheques?
- Did they have to make Hannah look quite so ridiculous? The ‘power-clashing’ outfit was a new low, I felt.
- Is having unprotected sex something that Marnie would actually do? It seems so unlike her.
- I’d like to declare a moratorium on Elijah saying ‘a couple of pumps’ now.
Quotes
- ‘Ray only wants to watch old episodes of Ally McBeal all night long’ – Shoshanna
- ‘I’m planning to write an article than exposes all of my vulnerabilities to the entire internet’ – Bad move, Hannah, bad move.
- ‘This is not going to be the kind of night where you drive around in your mother’s Volvo with a bottle of cough syrup and a box of cold Mcnuggets’ – Elijah
- Elijah: ‘They’re like brand consultants and iPad DJs’ *is sick*
- Marnie: ‘What’s the blood made out of?’
Booth Jonathan: ‘Oh, it’s blood’
re Marnie having unprotected sex, she does have a minor freakout in season 1 about how she has been careless enough that she thinks she should have gotten pregnant by now and so wonders if she can’t have children.
American here. Yes, people still use checks, but it’s becoming rare. Most bills can now be paid online and many stores are no longer accepting personal checks. I was behind an old couple in the grocery store yesterday and they were paying with a check. It took for-freaking-ever for them to write it out and have it verified.
I JUST FREAKING LOVE THESE ARTICLES! Totally agree about the weird outfits for Hannah, throw the girla BONE wardrobe department!! Keep these comin, love girls, love Vagenda, YAY FOR INTERWEBS!