So this is it, the series finale of Girls. I thought I’d be more weepy, but this episode left everything just so and I think you’re going to like it. Rolling the S6:E10 Latching recap after the break!
Pregnant Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) is having an awesome sleep; all cuddled up with Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams), which surprises her greatly. What’s going on, Marn? She wants to help Hannah raise her baby and I’m sorry for all you gif-haters out there, but this had to be captured in it’s entirety because Marnie’s intensity made me laugh so hard:
When Hannah sort of agrees, faintly
Hahahahahaha! Oh and then we get a montage of all the GIRLS cover screens ever, awwww. And then GROVER! 5 Months Later!
I legit choked, I didn’t realise Paul Louis (Riz Ahmed) was, er, black? Blackish? Grover is GORGEOUS! Yes you ARE! You ARE!! Grover’s awesome on the scale, but once back with his mama, all heck breaks loose. Yes it does! It does too! The temp doctor (locum! I know that from a good friend who does a lot of locum work for baby deliverers) suggests that maybe the reason Grover stopped breastfeeding is because of an “off” chemistry.
TANGENT: I need all y’all to hold me back this episode but I’m just going to get it out of the way immediately so we can get back to the story. I had a nightmare breastfeeding my first; someone gave him formula at the hospital when I was high AF on c-section meds, even though it specifically said “NO FORMULA” on my birth plan. Birth plans are HILARIOUS, but that’s another story.
STILL TANGENT: The reason I’d been so adamant about NO FORMULA was that I’d been to a horrifying breastfeeding class where they said right out that if you didn’t breastfeed, you were killing your baby (the Chinese milk incident was right at that time). ANYWAY, add post-partum nerves with a baby who had already tasted the sweet, sweet nectar of bottled formula (so easy! Liquid gold OF DEATH) and…yeah. No bueno. I probably would have been okay, but hospital staff liked to alternate between insisting I breastfeed every hour and sneaking him tiny bottles of Liquid gold, so we were done before we started. I pumped and bottle-fed for 4 months and then caved and my son did FINE.
YET MORE TANGENT: There is SO MUCH pressure on women to breastfeed, and so much insistence that it is a natural, easy and intuitive act that I promised myself that I would tell every expectant mother that they might find breastfeeding a tiny bit tricky and to not rule out formula: Fed is Best. Just keep a can around and a pump and try to relieve some of that artificially induced anxiety. I nursed the next two kiddos without one problem because I went in with that game plan and never looked back. Until I had to explain the whole process to my then-six-year old because there is no cool way to do that.
DONE!
No, the temp doctor won’t call Hannah’s regular doctor to talk, but she’s clearly not willing to discuss in detail with disguy. Marnie is waiting and vaping in the waiting room because of course she is. She thinks the doctor saying Grover was basically the perfect weight is the best compliment ever because of course she does. Imma do my best to not mention her frame this time because it’s the end!
Guess what? Non-parent Marnie is totally Breast is Best! She rhymes off the stats about lower incidents of sickness, bigger brains, blah blah blah because how can they know that, Marn? How can they narrow down a person’s success in life as to how they were fed for 3 months to 6 years (oh jaysus) as kids? You will hear these stats everywhere as a parent and the one thing you will learn completely as you go along: to use your own judgement as you go along instead of relying on expert opinions. They all conflict! I’m stopping, I’m stopping, sorry.
Hannah wasn’t breastfed and look at her, she’s a ray of sunshine! Marnie was breastfed for two years and it is SO WEIRD to hear grown women talking about an experience there is no way they remember. Almost as weird as Hannah trying to insist Marnie taste her breastmilk. Hard pass. I have a gross story about a roommate and her one night stand; hit me up if you want to be grossed the fuck out.
OOOOH Fast Car from Tracey Chapman is on the radio! “Singer” Marnie is all over that, singing and hair flicking along until Hannah shuts her down HARD. We didn’t even get halfway through!
I am not comfortable watching Hannah try to nurse Grover. Like, at ALL. There was just an outcry about a young writer who wrote about being busted just before she made an attempt to pop her non-lactating breast in someone else’s baby’s mouth and I totally get it. Not okay, don’t want to see, hard pass.
Hannah never gets him successfully latched, which is really odd considering she said he nursed already for 6 weeks. She looks like she’s never seen a baby before and he looks extremely well-fed. Yes he does! Yes he DOES!
And don’t call a baby a “fuckhead” OR an “asshole”, thanks.
He does great with a bottle! I’m guessing that scene was filmed first. Aww that little noise they make when they drink, it’s like ecstasy and sleepiness had a baby and that’s the sound it makes.
It’s baby burrito time! Guess who makes a perfect baby burrito and who can’t do anything right with her own child? Okay, one is Hannah and she isn’t appreciating the fact that Grover stops crying immediately when Marnie has him or that Marnie knows how to wrap a baby. You know: it’s the first thing they teach you at the hospital.
Hannah isn’t appreciating anything Marnie is doing for her and her kiddo, really, but I don’t think I’d be able to deal with a screaming kiddo while someone sat across from me and read out breastfeeding suggestions from a book.
I love that Hannah brings up that we haven’t seen Marnie’s boobs at all in six seasons, yay!!!! Go Allison Williams! That is awesome.
Marnie reads all this great advice aloud; not even listening to Hannah castigating her at every turn. It’s like they’re having two different conversations, one where Marnie thinks a soothing voice and offering to press her fingers on top of Hannah’s next to her nipple makes sense and another where Hannah is turned completely away and furious. And every time Marnie says nipple a fairy dies 🙁
They watch TV and eat TV dinners (so appropriate!); Marnie’s thinking she might go listen to a jazz trio at a wine bar. By herself, without Hannah, with wine and cheeses. Hannah doesn’t understand. So FINE, Marnie won’t go.
She’ll stay in her room and take selfies in her lingerie instead! Woot! I think Marnie has a fella! Hannah bursts in and hands over a screaming Grover, who she thinks hates her.
Hannah is awoken the next morning by her mother, Loreen (Becky Ann Baker), she’s leaking because Grover has already been up for 3 hours. Marnie called Loreen because she has no clue what to do with Hannah’s crisis.
Hannah (two breast-pumps attached) storms outside to confront Marnie; how dare she call her mom? She launches a tirade against Marnie that can only be projection, accusing her of immaturity and failing and so on and so forth.
I’m not giffing that.
Nor am I giffing Hannah in the bathtub and getting dressed while arguing with her mom, because while it is a totally normal act, I feel like I have seen enough of Lena Dunham’s pubes to last a lifetime and suspect you have as well.
She’s worried about Grover rejecting her; Loreen breaks in to suggest she apologize to Marnie. Hannah still doesn’t get it; she doesn’t appreciate Marnie, she doesn’t appreciate that her mom got on a plane at 5 am, she’s mid-tantrum on this fantasy train that this baby happened TO her, that it wasn’t a choice she consciously made. This is the first choice she can’t take back.
Wow. Hannah, this is a new low, and had to be captured in it’s entirety because I think it’s the meanest thing I’ve ever heard her say.
Hannah storms out after that, in the middle of the day, without her screaming baby, with her breasts that he needs for food. Well, we know she pumped some earlier! I love how she accuses some random guy of thinking she was a hooker (he didn’t) and then screaming after that MEN are disgusting.
Marnie’s having Skype-sex with some dude, she’s masturbating with a vibrator (never really thought of Marnie as a bean-flicker) with an English accent while he runs her role playing scenario. Loreen bursts in; LOCK the door, Shelly the Flight Attendant!
Loreen can’t find any breastmilk; Marnie, and sorry she broke in on you making the beast with one back.
Marnie says it’s not masturbating if you’re videochatting and really? I did not know there was a loophole re: Skype. ANYWAY, is Marnie happy? Um, no, duh. She thinks she doesn’t need to be happy, this isn’t her time, it’s Hannah’s. But wouldn’t the best thing she could do for their friendship be being happy? Like Loreen and Tad; who were best friends and then ended up with nothing left but hate, because she didn’t know when to let him go.
They’re rolling a can of formula back and forth, it doesn’t look that bad, right?
It’s night time now, Hannah hears a young girl shouting and then crying, a teenager (Rubyrose Hill) is out without pants or shoes, so Hannah hands over her jeans and shoes before leading her towards her house to use her phone.
What’s the girl crying about? Because her mom told her to do her homework one day early, not because of stepdad fiddling. Hannah wants her jeans back NOW! Parents do everything for their children, whether they want to or not!
The teenager does not accept that Hannah would like her jeans back, she runs off into the night and a cop pulls up next to Hannah: does she need a ride? Nope, nope, she just had a baby recently and that sounds about right. He follows her all the way home, sloooowwwly, leaving her at the house where Loreen and Marnie are drinking wine and talking about Marnie’s future law career. Marnie really likes rules.
Grover starts crying as soon as Hannah gets home, COURSE, no, no, she’s got this, nobody else get up! And all of a sudden, she does. She sits, and he latches; there’s that noise again, when ecstasy and satiety meet and and she sings Fast Car and we are done Girls forever.
I was okay with that; I was okay with a beautiful, peaceful ending at the end of a successful series and I actually feel as though it’s enough. I’m not even mad. Or sad. Or sad-mad. We got the tearful goodbye tour last episode and got to work all of our Adam angst through the one before that, so. I was bummed that their history couldn’t make a future, but I couldn’t argue either.
I’ve loved Girls since I first saw it; even though I am nowhere near the demographic. The writing is smart and Lena Dunham’s comic timing is unreal. Her using her naked body as a social statement and an object of ridicule but also beauty is gorgeous and subversive and I cannot even say how bloody happy I am to see more than one body type on TV. I will miss Girls for that and so much more.
For those of you who’ve been reading along with with for two seasons of recaps, cheers and thanks for hanging in. I hope you stick around and check something else oot: my email inbox is always open for recapping suggestions at [email protected]
