I know, I know. I missed a week. Worst TV show recapper ever. I don’t even have an excuse- I was just feeling lazy. It’s a shame as well because Episode 4 was my favourite for a long time, and I’d felt that the coke episode which preceded it was a bit of a low point. So, before I move on, a quick recap of last week:
The episode basically centres around two dinner parties, one with Hannah, Marnie, Shosh, Ray, Charlie and Audrey not getting along at Hannah’s apartment, and the other one with Jessa and Thomas John and Thomas John’s parents not getting along at a steak house somewhere. Neither dinner party goes well. Hannah is feeling wounded because she’s just kicked Elijah out for sleeping with Marnie, and Marnie and Audrey keep rubbing one another up the wrong way (side note: even though Marnie is behaving horribly and should not be leading Charlie on like that, how is it that Audrey comes out of this looking worst, when actually, she’s entitled to be pretty bitchy about the whole thing, especially as Marnie recently shared a bed with her boyfriend?) Marnie storms out and Charlie follows her up onto the roof where he tries to kiss her. Marnie tells him that she is seeing Booth Jonathan and Charlie goes off in a strop. Hannah calls him a ‘fucking jerk.’
Meanwhile, Shosh discovers that Ray has lost his apartment and secretly moved in with her weeks ago. Basically, the whole dinner party is a disaster and everyone ends up angry, apart from Ray and Shosh, who in a tender make-up scene in the subway, declare their love for one another.
Predictably, the dinner with Thomas John’s parents goes terribly, mainly because Jessa is an intolerable free spirit who you can’t help siding with despite her apparent inability to just pipe down and be polite to Thomas John’s incredibly conventional parents. When they ask her about her time in rehab, she goes ‘come on, I’ve been drinking since I was a child. It was for heroin.’ It’s like the worst meet the parents, ever. After they get home Thomas John and Jessa have a huge row where he accuses her of wanting him only for his money because ‘he’s the only guy who actually made money out of the recession’ i.e a unicorn., while she’s a ‘fucking deadbeat hipster munching his hay’. He calls her a whore with no work ethic. She punches him, calls him boring, and eventually they agree that he will pay her $11,500 in order for her to fuck off and never see him again. Everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief.
So that’s where we were up to. Like I said, I loved episode 4 so think it’s going to be a hard act to follow. After Hannah rubbing her vagina on that chair and Shosh djing on the hob I’m not sure there’s anywhere else this show can go comedy wise. Too good.
Episode 5
Hannah quits her job at Grumpy’s because it’s a ‘toxic work environment’, after Ray has a huge row with a neighbour who accuses them of using his rubbish bins. Weirdly, she goes to the guy’s house to apologise and ends up in the guy’s house, admitting that it was her using his rubbish bins because she was too scared of Ray to tell them that she lost the coffee shop’s dumpster key. I really sympathise with Hannah here because I know what it’s like to have a boss who’s a total dick, and it’s actually quite sweet how she sheepishly explains her cowardice, then kisses him. They have sex and we discover that the neighbour’s name is Joshua. He is fit and separated, and tells her she’s beautiful, which she says is ‘not always the feedback she’s been given.’ Aw.
Then he asks her to stay and they end up engaged in a huge summer shagathon punctuated by naked ping pong. Then Hannah passes out in the futuristic shower and has to be rescued, demonstrating that she’s still pretty much a kid who is unable to take care of herself. Suddenly Josh seems to morph into a daddy figure rather than a shaggy figure.
Then Hannah talks about her feelings for ages. ‘Something’s broken inside of me’, she says, while the guy is like ‘YAWN’. As are we, but that’s kind of the point. ‘I’m just too smart and too sensitive’ she goes on, explaining her spiritual connection with Fiona Apple. Then in a blatant act of self-sabotage she turns on him because he’s refused to share his deepest feelings with a person he’s just met. The next morning, she wakes up alone and the episode ends with her symbolically taking out his rubbish and walking away as melancholic piano music plays in the background.
Notes:
- Making a sexy exit is officially called a ‘sexit’ from now on
- Some people seem to think this episode is unrealistic and implausible. I can tell you from personal experience that it isn’t, having both quit my waitressing job on a whim and had sex with a married but separated man at least a decade older than me, also on a whim. It really is the kind of stuff you do in your twenties, and those who say otherwise are clearly much more sensible than I ever was, which is probz why they write for HuffPo and I don’t.
- This episode is really summery. It made me crave wine in the garden. And summery sex. SUMMER SEX.
- Hannah seems to be actually getting orgasms, which is progress. Who knew a ping pong table could withstand the weight of two people screwing?
- This episode’s mood is completely downbeat in comparison to last week’s episode. Lena Dunham seems to be trying to convey something about Hannah’s mindset, namely that she has no clue what she’s supposed to be doing with herself. It’s as though we got to see her dream of perfect happiness (nice house, hot guy, newspapers and wine) but she realises that she’s still dissatisfied because her unhappiness is INSIDE OF HER. That’s how I read it, anyway.
Quotes:
- ‘We’ll all just talk neighbour to neighbour. Just lean against the fence and open up a frosty one and cup each other’s balls and sing Cumbaya. Wake up, you fuckin’ pinko’ – Ray
- ‘Please don’t tell anyone this, but I want to be happy’ – Hannah
I thought this was a terrible episode of The Hannah Show. I could have believed Jessa fucking a stranger, completely sober in the middle of the day but Hannah? No, completely out of character.
Also, what was the point of her hook up with the junkie downstairs? That’s never been revisited.