Girls Season 4 Episode 4 recap.
It’s like this season of Girls is sending me a big heart-shaped valentine sour candy, like it’s aiming at me specifically and only. Because I have zero time for, like, the pedantry of people being offended but not wanting to actually discuss being offended or move past it, but hold it over your head forever.
The fact that Hannah cannot deal with the irritation of the nonsense that is Iowa is what makes me love her. Like I said last week, you can be annoying and wrong and you can violate the meanings of cubbies, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have a point when your contemporaries are being threatened.
Having said that, how much else is there to say? I wasn’t really following Hannah’s father wanting to encourage her to stay in Iowa. Because…it legitimizes her as an artist? Because if she doesn’t stay, he doesn’t have a clear path to continue to encourage her on?
I mean, that’s life. There aren’t clear paths, particularly when we would most like there to be. This is what Shoshanna learns this week, and while I find the idea of her looking for a job utterly farcical, I can accept that she would try to fix her relationship with Ray because she kind of understands how to fix it. Others have written about how Shoshanna is a cipher that isn’t developing and changing along with the rest of the show, but I can understand how she would think that her naiveté in the work world is balanced out by her incredible relationship acumen. And fashion expertise, obviously. That t–shirt is awful.
But I don’t know about Shoshanna coming back to Ray because it seems to me he’s stood still. He’s nobody new. Like, she’s made this realization that she’s lacking in all these ways and so she needs to achieve in Ray ways. Or else she’s less good than she thought she was, ergo she’s now worthy of Ray? I don’t know. Either way, it feels gross, and just less intentional than everything else that’s happening on this show, especially since Ray has been so good for Marnie, or at least so wise for Marnie.
And Marnie – Marnie needs something. What kills me is that this show spends so much time talking about how can we be artists, and I’m trying to be an artist, and if only people understood that I am an artist. And here’s the thing – she is. She’s doing it. She’s a successful musician and that’s not even the problem.
When she looks back and says what a mistake this was for her to have done, to let Desi into her apartment and into her pants and has absolutely nothing to say about why she let it happen (because clearly their music isn’t affected by their romantic relationship or not) except that he’s good with his tongue, she is going to lament this loudly, and then some other friend is like “I would LOVE a sh*tty relationship that had great oral” and then they’ll revive Sex And The City for Allison Williams in 10 more years. I love her making mistakes in particular because Marnie knows better. And she’s started on third base, looks-and-talent-wise, so that’s why people are extra annoyed when she’s so extra. When she makes mistakes.
And speaking of…Hannah returns to New York, wind blowing in her hair, gets up the stairs of her apartment to find that Mimi Rose has Britta’d it all up*. If you don’t know what that means, I have a feeling you’ll find out. The show hinted at this of course, a few episodes ago, and I suspect we’re going to deal not only with the fact that Adam is spending time with this …person, but that Jessa knew. I don’t think she’s that great a friend to begin with so the fact that she’s terrible to Hannah by not telling her is no new news, but sometimes ‘your friend is a bad friend’ is the lesson that it takes most of your 20s and beyond to learn.
* This was what I wanted to title the article but I’ve been accused of spoilers above the jump, so I saved it until last, just for you.
