Girls – All Adventurous Women

If you’ve been following my recaps, you know that I wasn’t entirely sold on Girls. I liked the concept, and thought it was generally an amusing show, but I couldn’t quite warm up to the characters.

Episode #3 did a great job of endearing the show to me, although part of that may have simply been because I’ve been watching. It’s been three episodes, an hour and a half, clearly I’ve invested some time in these characters and their unfortunate situations. It didn’t hurt that the humor was spot-on in this ep, along with the sort of disasters that girls in their twenties dread.

Turns out Hannah’s fears weren’t entirely unfounded – she has HPV. Anyone watching the show can tell that her skeezeball boytoy Adam probably gave it to her, but when he denies it, she immediately shifts blame to her ex-boyfriend, Eli. She meets with him for a good old-fashioned “You Gave Me An STD!” confrontation...only to get sidetracked when she realizes Eli isn’t really into girls anymore.

The gay ex-boyfriend – you hear about it, but you never think it’s actually going to happen to you.

Marni’s relationship with her boyfriend Charlie continues to deteriorate. Charlie, I’ve decided, is very much the male version of Hannah in a relationship; he just wants to please Marni and make her happy, much as Hannah wants to please Adam. Marni...well, I think Marni wants more fire in the relationship, but she’s clearly not ready to dump him yet. Still, he doesn’t turn her on anymore, hence when she’s hit on by a very assertive male at a gallery opening...well, that scene in the bathroom was priceless, wasn’t it?

Jessa landed a regular babysitting job. She seemed to do pretty well with the girls...until the father came home and she admitted to kicking one of them in the head (accidentally, of course). Dad didn’t seem too upset about one of his kids being potentially concussed, though, as he promptly invited Jessa to smoke some weed with him.

Shoshanna...actually, I don’t remember what Shoshanna did. She was in the episode for about two or three minutes talking to Hannah at one point, but she didn’t have any pertinent storyline of her own that I recall. It’s for the best, I’m sure. I don’t think I could stand a lot of Shoshanna. 

The ending, I think, is where Hannah really won me over. She was in the process of updating her Twitter, and kept revising her tweet – writing, rewriting, deleting, editing – which I do. She  knows raw honesty won’t work for her here, so she ends up posting “Adventurous women do” (the phrase being something Jessa said about HPV...all adventurous women have it, or something like that...kids, don’t try this at home).

Then she turns up Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” and starts jamming in her room. Marni arrived a moment later, the girls had a cute exchange over Eli being gay (apparently Hannah was the only one who didn’t realize it), and then Marni joined her in dancing. That’s just what a good friend does, really. You burn their toast, they eat it anyway. You call them at weird hours to ask about fungus, they indulge you. They find you dancing in your room, they join you.

That’s how I ended up connecting with them. Like Hannah, I have stared at my computer screen late at night, debating whether or not I really want to post something, usually paralyzed by wondering what people will think. In the end, I’ll usually censor myself and make some cryptic or possibly life-affirming comment, maybe the lyric of a song, and leave it at that. Why drudge up all those things that keep us awake at night? Sometimes it’s easier to suck it up and dance.

Marni joining her in the dance party did make me miss having roommates. I’ve lived on my own for almost two years, and it can get lonely at times. If I decide to through an impromptu dance party, I’ll be dancing alone, which is fine...but only if you’re about to be walked in on by a) a cute guy, or b) a bemused friend, both of which are obligated to join you if they possess any common decency at all.

I’m looking forward to next week.