Gabbing about 'Girls': Week 1

In an attempt to silence my emotional and physical turmoil about not having financial aid yet and therefore not having any food, I settled down to watch the Season 2 premiere of Girls. This year has been a great year for Girls. The show has taken home a substantial amount of awards (including a Golden Globe for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy for Lena Dunham, the show’s writer and creator) and has received wide public acclaim. Girls have been doing awesome things in general, like; it’s really rough out there being a male these days in a world of awesome women.

-Season 2 picks back up shortly following the Season 1 finale. Clever Lena Dunham opens the season with the exact shot that opened Season 1, two people lying in bed together. The viewer is unsure whether they’re friends or lovers… only this time instead of it being Marnie and Hannah in bed, its Hannah and her ex-bf/roommate Elijah.

Photo via hbo.com/girls

-Elijah proclaims while spooning Hannah “I’m sorry I have a boner, it’s not for you,” which kicks off the show’s notoriously glib take on all things sexual. Not that I’m going to be one of those people that complains that the show doesn’t represent any group besides white females, I was pretty happy to see more development of the one gay character on this show.

-Shoshanna returns this season very dejected by Ray. After their brief tryst, Ray apparently tells Shoshanna that he has no interest in dating her. This rejection sparks her to go out and sage her room while begging the higher powers above to help her, “Ruin Ray’s life.” This would be any sane person’s reaction to being turned down, right? Maybe Shoshanna read The Secret or maybe she’s smoked too much crack.

-Marnie is my kindred spirit. She’s an uptight controller who tries really hard not to be an uptight controller… which is my personality to a T. In her opening scene she is fired from her job at an art gallery by her flighty boss. Her employment termination is described to her as “not firing, but downsizing” which is a euphemism our generation is very familiar with.

-Part of this show’s charm is that it is so self-aware of how our generation deals and perceives things. The characters are all so deeply self-involved yet the show notes this and turns this quality into something that a viewer can see an endearing. It says, “These characters are self-centered but if you’re their age… you probably are, too.”

-Donald Glover what are you DOING here? He came out of nowhere and starts saying things like “This is really fun, but it’s so hard to run with a boner.” Hannah is dating Childish Gambino but refuses to admit that they’re dating. She quivers at the word “love” even when it’s used in a non-romantic way which is another trait of our generation that is extremely telling.

-Hannah is still taking care of Adam after his truck incident last season. It may seem like she’s being self-less, but really Hannah hasn’t changed much. The only reason she is helping Adam is because she doesn’t want to feel guilty.

-“When you love someone, you don’t need to be nice to them all the time,” was the stand out line for me this episode. U GO LENA. LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD.

-I still don’t like Adam, nope, nope, nah. I may have felt bad for him for .5 seconds during the episode but then I realized that it was just indigestion. He’s demanding and creepy and nope.

-The lunch between Marnie and her mother was A+ writing again. For once the show takes the microscope off our generation and puts it on the generation that came before us. It shows how deeply uncomfortable our parents get with their children aging and how desperately they want to be our peers instead of our support systems.

-The theme nights conversation struck a chord with me because after watching this episode with the lovely Michelle Collins, I came back to my house to my roommates and our friends dressed up in fancy dresses sipping sangria out of dollar store wine glasses. It was Golden Globes night, obviously.

-Hannah’s party dress looks like it was constructed from various failed quilts attempts yet she strangely looks good (?)

-Shoshanna makes the show, sorry ‘bout it.

-I love all the interaction with Charlie and Marnie. I think Marnie is the only character that really has grown from the first season. I think it’s really common to break up with someone only to be reminded of all the reasons why you liked them in the first place. Plus, Charlie’s new gf Audrey is such a tiny-hip daemon.

-They play great music in this show. They played “Losing You” by Solange and I couldn’t help but dance.

-Ray and Shoshanna are oddly cute?

-Marnie and Elijah are by far my favorite. They have this odd hate/respect thing going on. I was not expecting them to have sex at all! It was hilarious how it ended because Elijah thought Marnie was rolling her eyes at him. I hope we have more volleying between these two this season. “I would hate to be a gay man. I hate giving blowjobs… and having anal sex, I assume.” GURL.

-Adam is so dramatic I felt like I was watching an episode of The Hills, that is…if the cast of The Hills never showered and they all thought it was okay to masturbate in front of each other.

So happy Girls is back. Now I can curl up with friends on a Sunday night and have even more feelings than I usually do.