“Girls,” the HBO hit television show shaped and created by the quirky witticisms of Lena Dunham, is back this spring in what looks to be the most compelling and dramatically disjointed season yet.
After a tumultuous and, for many, disappointing second season, Season Three premiered with a much-needed two episode special on Sunday, Jan. 12.
We meet our characters as they wake up in their newfound realities. Hannah (Lena Dunham), in her codependent splendor, wakes up next to her boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver) who feeds her the medication she’s on after last season’s obsessive-compulsive downward spiral.
Meanwhile, Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) hops out of the top-bunk after a one-night stand, Jessa (Jemima Kirke) is pretending to wash dishes and then throwing them away, and Marnie (Allison Williams) is still wallowing about her ex-boyfriend on the couch.
This reintroduction allows for us to reinvest in the idiosyncrasies and admittedly highly selfinvolved girls that shape the character-driven narrative that is “Girls.”
Jessa, characterized by her impulsive nature and flightiness, has landed herself in rehab, which, true-to-form, she is quickly kicked out of for various infractions including outing (and subsequently sleeping with) a lesbian and provoking other patients in group therapy.
Despite her eventual departure, the stint in rehab reveals Jessa’s innate insight and developing wisdom as she works her way through her screwed up neuroses. Let’s be honest though, she still has hell of a long way to go.
Of course, Hannah, Adam and Shoshanna are tasked with coming to pick Jessa up from rehab. On the car ride there, Hannah and Adam discuss the complex nature of female friendship that according to Adam involves a “vortex of guilt and jealousy with each other that keeps them from seeing situations clearly.”
Adam is at the forefront of this season. The “original man” title earned first season has been attributed to every aspect of his character. He is primal. His relationship with Hannah is incredibly intimate in its ape-like tendencies and his wise nature surfaces at unexpected moments, or as Shoshanna put it, “Adam, you are, like, so dementedly helpful.”
Dunham’s thoughtful dialogue that reveals the honesty of human interactions is what keeps audiences coming back to the show. It leaves us questioning our own temperaments and relationships. However, chronicling the twenty-something quarter-lifecrisis means acknowledging how unlikable the human condition can be.
Speaking of unlikable, Marnie is not up to much of anything so far. Her apartment smells like a Sephora and she’s still a bitchy friend (demonstrated clearly when she unabashedly undercuts Hannah’s birthday by showcasing her musical stylings in the third episode). Calling her “catty” would be giving her too much credit. She exemplifies the selfinterested ladder climber. It will be interesting to see if she will grow into a more multidimensional character as she makes her way through the entertainment industry.
It can be easy to cast “Girls” aside as just a self-indulgent melodrama, especially considering the closing of this past season, which uncharacteristically wrapped up in a Nicolas Sparks-esque way, but that would ignore how groundbreaking it has been in portraying women complexly and truthfully – albeit upperclass white women.
Disappointingly, many are turned off by the show’s representation of diversity, which is unimpressive if not nonexistent, especially given that the setting is the metropolis of New York City.
Perhaps, though, the show cannot become more progressive before the girls in the show become so as well. Nevertheless, I will leave you with an exchange between Ray (Alex Karpovsky), the never-letthe- nineties-die barista, and our main character Hannah.
The dialogue, in its simplicity, speaks for itself. Ray: We live in a huge sprawling metropolis where it’s very, very easy to avoid the person you don’t want to see – forever. Hannah: Yeah, but that’s so sad. Ray: Why? Because we once shared true intimacies but now we’re nothing but strangers? Hannah: That’s sad. Ray: That’s not sad Hannah, that’s called life.
“Girls” airs every Sunday night at 9 p.m.