I’m still not really sure what to think about Girls. Sometimes there are moments of fascinating character developments, but other times it’s all about being overly “clever.” We get both of those this episode.
Fade in at a book party for “Leave Me Alone,” a memoir from Tally Schifrin (Jenny Slate), who was in a writing class with Hannah back in college. Her book is apparently about how Tally’s boyfriend killed himself, which strikes Hannah as a great thing “so much pain to write about.” Yikes. She also runs into her old professor, Powell Goldman (Michael Imperioli), who agrees that Tally is a bad writer, and says Hannah is a good one. So he wants her to come to a reading of some of her work. Seems encouraging, right? Right?
In the meantime, Marnie was annoyed that Hannah still owed money for rent, although Hannah just got a part-time job to finally start paying her back. We got a lightning quick bit from Shoshanna, who was affected by Tally’s book with the bit about death. She’s created an online dating profile and has already gotten a message from a guy — Bryce. And he’s Jewish! Oops, that’s the end of that subplot! We’ve gotten nothing from Shoshanna for a while. Frustrating.
Now it’s bizarre and confusing, when Katherine (Kathryn Hahn) showed up wanting Jessa back to help with her kids (she thinks it’s her husband Jeff’s fault?). Jessa was clearly in the wrong too. But Katherine’s been having dreams of killing Jessa, devouring her, then defecating most of her. What the…? This was trying to be deep, but was actually stupid. At first I thought there was some subtext about attraction, but then the show got really obvious. Jessa said she couldn’t come back, but Katherine wanted to help her. Of course, Jessa didn’t think she needed it. However, Katherine thinks Jessa creates drama to distract herself from what she really wants, whatever that is. So, the dream was an obvious metaphor for anger and the desire to help.
Back to Hannah’s little reading, she’s received a lot of conflicting opinions. Her boyfriend Adam thought they were all stupid, and Hannah thought that a bit too, planning to read her silly story of a boyfriend hoarder at college. But Marnie thought the story was a bit whiny (foreshadowing!), and her coworker friend believed Hannah should write about something “real.” DEATH! Ridiculous. It’s hammered over our heads when Hannah bombed at her new piece about an online boyfriend that died, because she was worried about being “trivial.” It all ended up back with Marnie, in an angry fight about each one calling the other selfish, before deciding they don’t want to live together anymore.
This was a legitimately clever and affecting confrontation, which painted each person as complex and neither entirely right or wrong. But the episode also had quite a bit of nonsense. I still see a lot of potential in this show, but I’m still not sure it’s there yet. Or if it ever will be.
A few out of context quotes:
Clacked by Jeremy Fogelman 
on Jun 11, 2012 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
