GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

although I'm planning on watching season 3 of transparent this weekend so girls' characters may seem benign by the time I'm done with that

season 3 of transparent is a landscape of dickholes but it's a great show

Didn't realize that's Gary Shteyngart playing novelist Chuck Palmer in that good one-scene episode a few weeks back.

Fuck it, I'm wrong. That's Matthew Rhys.

Was really happy for Ray at the end of that ep

glad the show won't end up with hannah and adam back together, but i felt like i could see that episode's ending coming at the very beginning of it

Gotta say the scene in the restaurant where Hannah tears up and Adam gets the message was really well done.

maybe I was tired but I TOTALLY didn't get it! Not until the "inside this episode" when they talked about Adam and Hannah's Last Hurrah. I really thought they were just being super confused and emotional but were going to try it. I don't buy them going to that diner though. That's the worst diner in NYC. I don't think anybody who lives in brooklyn goes there.

Huh apparently i missed something

Gotta say the scene in the restaurant where Hannah tears up and Adam gets the message was really well done.

she's a great actress and this scene is the proof.

That's the worst diner in NYC

The one at Metropolitan G/L?

my wife is still committed to this but I really do wish this series would end with ever character getting murdered. Preferably by Laird. All plot mechanics point to a standard Apatow domestic bliss ending which uggghhh

― Οὖτις, Monday, March 20, 2017 3:26 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pmvic

i thought the restaurant scene was really lovely

yes morbs, Kellogs. I went there once before the "remodel", after DJing a halloween party at 184 Kent and got a BLT figuring, how bad can they fuck up a BLT? Pretty bad apparently.

Meanwhile, years later I was hosting an early 80s british post-punk band on their first ever trip to the states, to play at Cake Shop and Knitting Factory. I suggested they stay at Hotel Jolie which is right there more or less. I made them an elaborate map of all the best places to eat in Williamsburg and Greenpoint and further. They went to Kellogs for hamburgers like 3 times. On the last day I made them all come to Robertas because they weren't leaving New York having only eaten Kellogs' cheeseburgers.

oh my god this show is so fucking absurd, like on what planet would Ray and Aidy Bryant ever get together?? nothing abt this makes sense but it's actually all pretty enjoyable once you've completely divested yourself from it all and truly don't give a shit about what happens to anyone or how anything ends up.

its exactly no less absurd than ray w allison williams so

Eh I didn't have a problem with it but I don't know the actress so I'm just going off the character on the show. Ray and Shosh, and especially Ray and Marnie, were harder to swallow. I'm very ready for this show to end, it just keeps going in fucking circles

I started watching season 3 last night and I think I started halfway through and watched the wrong episodes. It took me a while to realize I was watching out of order.

It seems to me that season 3 is bad, worse than 1 or 2.

It is. S3 was where the dropoff began

After watching the penultimate episode, I've finally come up with what I want the last one to be. I want it to go full-on Hubert Selby Jr and expose Hannah as a pregnant homeless junkie, with all the happy endings of this season like Mulholland Drive before Club Silencio. Just be a series of cut scenes showing where Hannah is shown to be an unreliable narrator.

Hannah's dad isn't in a happy relationship, he went full blown and died during the AIDS epidemic while he was still trying to keep it secret/was in denial. Hannah's mum hit the bottle hard as a result and drank away every penny. Because of this Hannah has never really been able to live the trust fund lifestyle from the series that lets her dilettante around.
Elijah has been the one sustaining Hannah and paying for the apartment, and finally blames her for ruining things with his BF (who is still probably Dill but isn't famous) and his not being able to act because he felt responsible for keeping a roof over her head. Finally he lost patience (because a typical Hannah drama meant he didn't get the part in the musical) and kicked her out.
Shosh never left Japan, where she was happy.
Marnie and Desi were a successful act, but Hannah tried to split their relationship up after she tried to seduce Desi while she was stoned (maybe on the last roadtrip?).
Jessa and Adam are happily married with a kid, and everything we know about Hannah and Jessa (and their respective roles) are the other way round.
Ray died alone and pissed off in his apartment, not Hermie.
Laird is the baby's father, after he had a lapse back onto druqs.
Caroline was actually Hannah.
There is no Professor of Internet, just handjobs for cash in alleyways.
The final scene is Hannah giving birth, alone, behind the dumpster she lives at. Fade to black. Play something off Carrie & Lowell.

We can but hope. And be disappointed.

nice

so I guess this show is over now, huh!

Finale was kind of pedestrian. I think they were aiming for "provocatively low-key" but it ended up being boring and over-neat and thanks but no thanks for the baby formula lecture. Baby plotline over the whole season did not really yield laughs, or revelations, or say anything new, or even say anything old-but-still-interesting.

Rest of the season was pretty good though! Maybe best since the 1st or 2nd.

finale had a couple lolz when Hannah left the house (entitled teen pants exchange + cop following her home), and Becky Ann Baker is great (she's too good for this show, tbh), and Marnie was totally hate-able as usual. I thought the general pedestrian mom stuff + static emotional state worked. And I like how the ending book-ended the show, it ends up being about a v specific "young adult" period, that starts with Hannah living on her own in the big city and ends with becoming a parent, I just liked that v clear delineation.

All in all not a great show and some really annoying low points but Seasons 1+2 and some of this season were good.

welp that was the worst season overall I think

Lena or any character played by her as a parent = shift into the horror genre

no argument there

alas if only it were played that way

this may not be a popular opinion but I think the show peaked in s3

(with a fair number of very good eps throughout s4 and s5)

I liked the show, but the characters were awful people, which made it hard to watch at times. Broad City ended up being the show I wished Girls would have been.

i lol'd so damn hard at Marnie being like "Hannah, I'm still here. I'm your best friend. It's me. I won."

worst prize ever

Morbs, do you actually watch this show??

After watching the penultimate episode, I've finally come up with what I want the last one to be. I want it to go full-on Hubert Selby Jr and expose Hannah as a pregnant homeless junkie, with all the happy endings of this season like Mulholland Drive before Club Silencio. Just be a series of cut scenes showing where Hannah is shown to be an unreliable narrator.

Hannah's dad isn't in a happy relationship, he went full blown and died during the AIDS epidemic while he was still trying to keep it secret/was in denial. Hannah's mum hit the bottle hard as a result and drank away every penny. Because of this Hannah has never really been able to live the trust fund lifestyle from the series that lets her dilettante around.
Elijah has been the one sustaining Hannah and paying for the apartment, and finally blames her for ruining things with his BF (who is still probably Dill but isn't famous) and his not being able to act because he felt responsible for keeping a roof over her head. Finally he lost patience (because a typical Hannah drama meant he didn't get the part in the musical) and kicked her out.
Shosh never left Japan, where she was happy.
Marnie and Desi were a successful act, but Hannah tried to split their relationship up after she tried to seduce Desi while she was stoned (maybe on the last roadtrip?).
Jessa and Adam are happily married with a kid, and everything we know about Hannah and Jessa (and their respective roles) are the other way round.
Ray died alone and pissed off in his apartment, not Hermie.
Laird is the baby's father, after he had a lapse back onto druqs.
Caroline was actually Hannah.
There is no Professor of Internet, just handjobs for cash in alleyways.
The final scene is Hannah giving birth, alone, behind the dumpster she lives at. Fade to black. Play something off Carrie & Lowell.

We can but hope. And be disappointed.

― Mud... Jam... Failure... (aldo), Thursday, April 13, 2017 7:21 AM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so you want the show to end like Roseanne did?

i thought the last few episodes were great

esp this:

And I like how the ending book-ended the show, it ends up being about a v specific "young adult" period, that starts with Hannah living on her own in the big city and ends with becoming a parent, I just liked that v clear delineation.

like we all make so much of that time in our lives then it just kind of.....fades away....and you realize then it was just the precursor to trying to be an adult human not any end in itself

I also like how she didn't actually grow or transform as a result of that period - she's still an immature, incompetent narcissist, except now she has a baby she didn't want or plan for. the ending has a definite "the more things change the more they stay the same" sort of fatalism to it.

Haha you're right. I forgot Roseanne ended that way!

Well, this was pretty good I guess. Hannah behaving like a mom to the teenager and then realising that's how she was being was the real end of the show, the final stuff with the cop and Grover was just Lena Dunham closure.

I thought it was kinda lazy, the whole "Oh look, here's a convenient epiphany that I've stumbled across in the woods". And the young girl was a terrible actress. It's basically the same ending as the last five minutes of Mad Men.

I think yer all being a little harsh on the show, though - I've enjoyed all six seasons (to various degrees), and could've happily watched a Shosh-heavy 7th. Weird/interesting that Marnie and Elijah became the most interesting characters.

thought the finale was solid, some bad-ish eps this last season but its to be expected by trying to "wrap up" &c; lena is a good actress & i will remain interested in w/e she does next

i would have been a little happier if the penultimate episode was the finale and they left it a little more open ended

but there was a lot of good stuff in the last episode

i thought the final scenes between adam and hannah and hannah and jessa were really affecting....the "we were all just doing our best"..."our best was awful" was great, and the silent end of adam & hannah's relationship touching

one thing in both those scenes, i think dunham is really great at crying like she's trying to hold back tears in a very real way that doesn't seem over the top, both those scenes were particularly great

Haha you're right. I forgot Roseanne ended that way!

Well, this was pretty good I guess. Hannah behaving like a mom to the teenager and then realising that's how she was being was the real end of the show, the final stuff with the cop and Grover was just Lena Dunham closure.

― Mud... Jam... Failure... (aldo), Monday, April 17, 2017 2:24 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah the end of Roseanne is one of the weirdest fucking show finales ever and no one ever talks about it! and it was a hugely popular show....

i guess it reflects Roseanne's pharmacology at the time

Really awful 'Girls' piece by Elizabeth Wurtzel in the WaPo today. I'll spare everyone the link because you really shouldn't read it.

"Elizabeth Wurtzel" is warning enough!

I honestly don't get the "unlikeable" critique as a standalone... as if all the major characters on The Sopranos (except i guess Melfi) weren't inescapably unlikeable.

making sociopaths relatable was one of the Sopranos general strengths/m.o.s

HBO: making sociopaths relatable

haha

you need to pivot to marketing, Eazy

i <3 wurtzel ty

but yeah, Shakey, but only to a point. Just when Tony was on the verge of seeming self-aware and cuddly you were reminded what a homicidal fuck he was.

I haven't seen the last 3 seasons of Girls so i don't know if they've been regularly doing that or not.

sociopath has to be the most misused words on the internet

I agree re: Sopranos Morbz.

re: GIRLS, it's not quite so extreme (nobody's a murderer, for ex.) but it was also not handled as deftly imo. The show, especially in latter seasons, seemed to go out of its way to display characters' loathsomeness w out making them v relatable (imo), so when it came time for the viewer to give a shit about whatever emotional conflict was being foregrounded, it just didn't work.

was kind of an odd ending to a show. episodes that came before were a lot stronger i felt, though that seems to be a trend in tv now, penultimate episodes of seasons/series being better than finales.

they had hannah being a total nightmare and awful and freaking out about being a mother, then, seemingly inevitably she had that little epiphany out of nowhere, and went home, and was ready to deal with motherhood and could breastfeed all of a sudden.