I got about 2 seconds into Girls this week and had to legit stop and freak out BECAUSE TRACEY ULLMAN IS IN THIS EPISODE!!!!!!!!!! Tracey ULLMAN!! Sorry, sorry, you’ll see what I mean, but of course you already do because Tracey Ullman taught me about about Brass in Pocket and everything else there was funny in the world before I found Amy Poehler too. Let’s roll before this gets embarrassing, shall we?
We open in Ode Montgomery’s (TRACEY ULLMAN) apartment where Hannah (Lena Dunham) has been dubbed Hillary and is stroking a simply massive Maine Coon kitty.
Does it say something about me that I’m starting to recognise cat breeds? Is someone gonna send me a starter kitty? (tm vs)
Sorry, sorry, I got really distracted by Ode’s nipples, that have been staring at us the entire time she’s talking about supporting her writing career with part-time sex work, not serving cheesecake as she imagined. I tried to do the math on whether or not I should be checking out Ode’s rack, but since they’re super and she’s pointing them at us, I assume it’s okay.
Sex work in an oddly clean townhouse midtown, good times.
And she’s still talking but now I think I need a level because the nipples aren’t quite lined up okay okay sorry sorry, Hannah’s confused because none of that sounds like writing! If you’re going to write, don’t you need to be locked in a dark room with your thoughts and small figures to turn this way or that way (I read a super trippy explanation of writing from George Saunders in The Guardian that had me imagining some kind of a scaled miniature set with little people staring all the time)? But no! Ode thinks that’s just how MEN are perceived to write, and I totally agree. Who wants to be alone with their thoughts all the time? How do you even work a theory through? How do you write people without being around people?
Ode goes father: “childlessness is the natural state of the female author”; she doesn’t need one of those to feel connected to the world! I will say it is hella harder to complete a thought while saying “I SAID STOP TEASING YOUR BROTHER” for the millionth time. Hannah has one more question: is being a writer and a female as hard as it seems? Or? Harder
A (supper bulky) Adam (Adam Driver) is acting again, knee deep into an Italian-accented monologue about killing his mama before cancer ravages her ..CUT! Director Olatta (Rezeta Veliu is beautiful) is getting zero emotions from Adam and it’s because he doesn’t understand why his character is yakking so much about his mother’s illness. Wouldn’t it be more meaningful if he just used his face to convey emotion? What’s his motivation, Olatta??!! He quits and walks out
And then we go right to Ray (Alex Karpovsky) and Marnie (Allison Williams) fucking and I did NOT need to see Ray’s scrawny little pubes while they’re spitting the most unrealistic sex talk ever. EVER.
“You’re so hot!! (to Ray) “Yes please come and then I will come with your come in my body” (also to Ray)
And then she fakes an orgasm even MOAR unrealistically; I guess Desi was good for something.
Side note: Marnie looks great! Ray looks homeless
She wants to die in the mouth of a lion with him, so that they will be forever joined in her death and his death and Ray’s like “whuuuuu?” Marnie complains; she would like, literally die for someone to say that to her (as she gets a paper towel and cleans up the funhouse) but he’d just like to have a girlfriend. How about a dinner or something before dying in the mouth of a lion after faking an O?
It’s like Marnie is always performing with Ray, always trying new bits, basking in the glow of his love but not really connecting personally.
She’s super busy lately, with rehearsals and extra gym booty classes
But he just wants to chill! Can’t they chill? But no, she has a thing tonight, so there will be no chill dumplings and beer, Ray. She babbles on and on and ON about meditating (on train or Uber?) and finally, finally I think Ray gets that what Marnie is in love with is a mirror. Something shiny to reflect back herself, all the good parts, anyway. She’s a narcissistic nightmare, self-centered, vain, vacuous and shallow and still pretty, so Ray thought he was the lucky one.
Intellectuals mixing with the pretty folk (not that people can’t be both, but Marnie ain’t) sometimes goes well and sometimes you just wanna talk about something besides meditating on Uber, right?
Hannah’s working on her piece on the toilet, with her laptop while Elijah (Andrew Rannells) showers and just. Too much, too much. She has a UTI, but not from sex this time; from walking around with wet underwear for two days.
Me and Elijah: “you’re gross!”
He asks her to text her one interesting lesbian friend (one?? I have like ten interesting lesbian friends and I live in BuFu, Canada) and get him into the New York Mag event, can she do that with her bladder on fire? Can she??
Ray’s at work now, reluctantly listening to Bobby (Bob Johnson) hold forth about the good old days on the subway line, helping the “mayor and his homosexual friends” get around in secret. He shunts Bobby out of the way to help a customer who wants to know re: scone currants. A noise from outside gets his attention; Bobby’s collapsed.
The thing Marnie had to go to was seeing Desi (Ebon Moss-Bacharach) at rehab; Marnie would really like Desi to get back to work now, please. So yeah, derail your recovery from a serious opioid addiction because it’s irritating your soon-to-be-ex-wife, sure.
The counselor Raneed (Okieriete Onaodowan) asks Marnie to let Desi speak, and then he promised she’ll get lots and lots of time after to talk. I love that even perfect strangers have her pegged.
He takes five minutes to drink a glass of water while Marnie loses her mind; now we’re to it. He takes responsibility for being where he is but she was his partner and she never saw him. She never saw him and he f*cking loved her and I don’t believe that bit, but the first part, sure.
This isn’t just about Desi, though! It’s been hard for her too! Marnie has bruises all over her body from trying to deal with the stress of Desi’s addiction!
Desi and Raneed look at each other.
Raneed delivers the blow: her narcissism just made Desi’s addiction about her and it’s detrimental to Desi’s recovery.
Jessa (Jemima Kirke) is working on her psychiatric degree online (and diagnosing herself as a sociopath) when Adam comes home raging. He’s done! He’s out of the movie game! And acting! But Jessa knows what will work, they’ll just make their own movie!
And then she asks Google to do the heavy lifting.
I can’t figure out why I like this show so much when so many of the characters hurt my melon.
Hermie (Colin Quinn) is giving Ray the gears about pushing poor Bobby aside for the craisin dude; maybe he needs to think some more about who he’s listening to. Ray was on the community board and doing so well, but then that conventional beauty sucked him in again and Ray lost himself. Hermie isn’t calling Ray a waste of space, it’s much worse than that.
That had to hurt.
Woo hoo we get Hannah’s momma Loreen (Becky Ann Baker) finally! She’s doing aerobics in the attic when Hannah FaceTimes her from the toilet and shows her mom her bloody pee.
She puts the phone between her legs, past her rolled up underwear to show her mom her peeing.
Cuppa break!
Loreen insists that Hannah go straight to the ER, that bloody pee over the video chat looked bad.
Oh and I knew where this was going; Jessa wants to make a movie about their relationship and Hannah. Hannah mined it already, why don’t they? Adam gets twitchy
But agrees! This could be it! Jessa is ‘CITED
Hannah is much less excited to see Dr. Joshua (Patrick Wilson) whom she spent a few dirty days with a while back at the ER, I’m ecstatic! I love Patrick Wilson.
He recommends she come see them a little earlier next time (pre bloody pee) and HANNAH’S PREGNANT? Did she know that?
He gives her an awkward hug but that feels like the wrong thing…her one-time awkward fling telling her about her pregnancy from another one time fling…it’s Paul-Louis’s baby-to-be and Joshua brings up an abortion right away, he’ll arrange everything. What makes you think she wants an abortion, Patrick? I guess just the part about the never seeing the father again bit. She leaves while I wonder if we’re gonna get an abortion showdown on Girls this season. It would be a helluva way to go out.
Ray is spitting mad and pacing while venting about Hermie to Shosh (Zosia Mamet); what does Hermie want from him?? They decide Hermie wants Ray to be a better version of himself; Ray’s off to apologize for being a tool, not kill himself, Shosh, honestly. And she doesn’t either, so. Stahp!
I don’t think that’s what Hermie wanted; I think he wanted Ray to stop wasting time sucking Marnie’s arse and get back to what he’s good at: ranting against The Man.
Pregnant Hannah with a painful UTI comes home from the hospital where her ex-lover tried to arrange for an abortion for her to find Adam and Jessa at her door. Is she okay with them making a movie out of their sordid love triangle? Surely she can see how rich it is, “cinematically.” She tells them they should do whatever they want and walks past.
Elijah blew off the party and is watching TV in super tiny blue underwear; Hannah crawls into his lap and he pets her. Sometimes you just need to be petted and not talk about it.
Ray gets to Hermie’s house and I have a bad feeling and oh. Hermie is dead. And I don’t see a wife. Ray and I freak out for awhile; when the HELL did I start caring about RAY?? Because I do and I’m worried about him, Hermie was his sage, his leader board, his stability.
So here we have it Hannah, a female writer explicitly going against Ode Montgomery’s advice re: female writers and their natural childless state.I didn’t even take that as foreshadowing because I never thought in a million years Hannah would get pregnant or if she did; consider keeping the baby.
We also get a little bitta showme in the form of Ray doing most of his realization silently, just like Adam thought his character should in that crappy, cliched movie! The part that resonated the most to me was when Jessa and Adam and all their bullshit was literally at Hannah’s door and it was nothing. It means less than nothing, really, in the grand scheme of an actual life; so your best friend screws your ex-boyfriend, who really cares? How does that stack up against a life potentially growing inside of you? Those are the real decisions, Adam and Jessa are noise. Until next week!
