Season finale -
Ray and Shoshanna break up was obviously coming. Ray is better off.
Charlie and Marnie back together is just lame.
Hanna and Adam back together… predictable but annoying. With Hanna on the cusp of finally growing up and possibly getting a grip (what with reaching a new low by being rejected by the junky neighbor), it’s Adam to the rescue. WTF?
Two seasons gone now and not a single character has shown an ounce of development or personal growth.
I’m starting to think that Lena has created a reality show masking as a dramatic series. All the characters you love to hate acting out their train wreck lives. Just the hook needed to make the audience feel better about themselves and keep watching but with less guilty calories because it’s an HBO drama and not an MTV reality series.
This drives me nuts as almost all adopted dogs are “rescues.” The word literally means “I didn’t pay for my dog from a breeder” and the unspoken, “and that means I’m better than you.”
The rest of us just say “adopted” since it’s, you know, more accurate.
Maybe. I have an Alaskan Malamute who bounced back and forth between homes and shelters until he was finally taken in by a no-kill snow dog rescue group. He had severe food aggression and wasn’t entirely housebroken at age three. It took many months until he would let me interact with him while he ate, and my carpets are finally safe. I have a few extra scars, but he has a home and a family who loves him instead of spending the rest of his life in a kennel being walked for a few minutes a day by volunteers.
But yeah, that’s probably just the same as choosing the cutest puppy at the Humane Society.
The disparate reactions to this show are really interesting… this episode was the one that pushed me over the edge into totally loving it, because it felt SO real to me - I’ve had a few of those experiences, when I was just a lass.
In my opinion, I’ve never seen a scripted television show with so much truth in it. It’s amazing.
She didn’t sabotage herself. Are you referring to her expressing the feelings that came up for her and thereby “breaking the spell”? That wasn’t self-sabotage, that was real. There was nothing to sabotage, it was a moment that was going to end one way or another. Even if there were some potential she was sabotaging, what was the alternative, be fake instead? That’s not Hannah and it’s also stupid: if that’s what she had to do with the doctor to sustain it, it wasn’t real so again, nothing to sustain.
As I said, I experienced a few of those dream sequency out of the blue ephemeral let-the-world-go-away-while-we-fuck-and-play-in-our-bubble affairs with impossible men when I was a girl myself, so I know whereof I speak.
She needs to be real and be with someone else who’s real: Adam.
I hear what you’re saying… but it’s one thing to have feelings in the midst of something that doesn’t feel quite real, and it’s quite another to blurt out those feeling like a stream of consciousness and say things that are certain to paint you in the worst kind of light.
I’m saying that Hannah is self distructive. That’s the nature of the character; To always snatch failure from the jaws of success.
And I hated the finale. But I’ll watch the next season because it’ll end in tears for them, again.
Well, this is larger than a conversation about TV; this goes to the heart of the way people interact with each other and you and I are on opposite sides of the fence on this. Your side of the fence has a much higher population than mine, for sure. But my view is that if telling your truth in a moment of real emotion and meaningful self-revelation paints you in “the worst kind of light”, then there’s a flaw in the relationship between the blurter and the listener, and it is a good to find it out early.
I say this as a lifetime blurter, so to speak. I’ve never seen any value in holding back my truth specifically to avoid painting myself in a bad light, and I can’t think of any time that I wished I had. Because the only kind of personal relationships (friends or lovers) I want are those which are as genuine as they can possibly be. The people I want in my world are people who can see and hear me blurt and not be repelled. If they are repelled, then that’s important for me to know, because it means they aren’t for me.
I want all responses to me, whether they are liking, loving, or hating, to be based on the real me, not some tailored/adjusted/managed version of me, because any feelings people have about me based on knowing me via managed/withheld/tailored versions of me aren’t worthwhile, because they aren’t really about me at all, and what good is that? Plus it keeps things so much simpler.
And that’s why I love Hannah, and I love her with Adam. Very warts and all…
The finale didn’t end in tears for three of the girls. I guess you could say it did for Hannah, but she ended the episode better than she started. However, Marne is apparently in a relationship with the love of her life;who magically became cool, and great in bed and, rich for no reason; and Shoshonna got out of a relationship she shouldn’t be in and was having fun at a bar.
I’m going to predict that Jessa is dead/dies next season.
Lena Dunham has made her entire career telling stories about Lena Dunham. She is her only subject. She made a movie about Lena Dunham, and now she has a show about Lena Dunham. That’s why the characters seem unlikeable; they’re simply extensions of herself. They are NOT meant to be unlikeable at all - Lena Dunham likes them just fine, most especially her own character. They’re her. Especially her, since she’s playing her, and it’s all about her.
You have to admire her ability to create a career out of basically just talking about herself.
Well, the great in bed thing was plausibly explained (he’d been with other woman since the break-up who’d shown him some new tricks). But yea, how long did his transition from zero-to-hero take? The whole season felt like it just happened over the space of a few weeks.
ETA: looking at the episode list on wikipedia, we see Charlie in episode 2.4 and he still seems pretty pathetic (ditching his gf to try and make-out with Marnie), by 2.8 he has a bajillionaire head of a Manhatten based software company. Anyone know how much time is supposed to have passed between those epsiodes?
Well, I appreciate that frank and edifying insight. It does sound like we’re on opposite sides of the fence in that respect but it’s interesting to hear that POV. I’ll try to keep it in mind when I’m feeling particularly annoyed with the character in the future.
What I meant was, it’ll all probably end in tears for them in the next season. Can’t possibly expect that disfunctional group to suddenly grow up and act normal, can we?
She does put herself out there though. And you gotta give her credit for the way in which she does it. Whatever her motives.
There’s a difference between accepting that someone has warts, and going around saying “Hey! Look at my wart! Look at it close up! Let’s squeeze it to see what comes out! Huh? Huh? Look at it!”
Finally watched the last few episodes of the season and my biggest reaction is that I have absolutely no sympathy for these people, particularly Hannah. How excruciating it was to watch her wallowing in her self-pity for three episodes, avoiding every last responsibility – even refusing proper treatment for her disorder. All I can say is that I hope that when this series eventually ends, it ends with Hannah being an utter failure and moving back to Michigan to work in a call center or something.
God, and that phone call to Jessa in which Hannah just whines and whines and whines and whines. Jessa doesn’t owe you anything, you worthless piece of shit.
Marnie – the guy who was devoted to you and you derided him as a man with a vagina. Now he’s rich, successful, and in demand, and now you are attracted to him again? I hope Charlie wises up and dumps her again. What a piece of filth.
Adam – he dates a cool chick, and messes up his several years long sobriety – his one redeeming character trait. The last thing you need to be around toxic Hannah.
Ray and Shoshana. Okay, I don’t hate these two. They break up. Meh.
While this could start to eat its own tail… there really is no difference if one of your “warts” (and that is very much in the eye of the beholder, kinda the point) is going around showing people your warts.
AGREED. and for the record, I would rally the troops to gang beat Chuck Lorre if it meant I could replace all the crap he has on TV right now with more substantial work, preferably without a fake laugh track. At least with Girls you have something that resembles a facet of reality.
Whedon is another story, but I think you give Abrams a bad rap. Someone once told me they thought “everything J.J. Abrams touches turns to gold” and I barfed immediately. But I can also recognize that he’s into a lot of really inspiring subject matter: espionage, parallel dimensions, hacking, virtual reality, psychedelics, government cover-ups and conspiracies, fringe science, puzzles and riddles, cultural mysteries, space exploration… all of which make for great entertainment and usually makes up for his lack of talent in any other area, and that is a bit more than I can say for Whedon. I still, to this day, am appalled that there are college writing classes specifically on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which I feel is some of the most boring, drawn out, predictable b.s. I’ve ever had the dishonor of putting myself through.
Well, I have an ex-girlfriend who took that class, so maybe I’m a little biased…
