GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

and i guess relating to my first paragraph, i would think that the lapses into conventionality, while i agree with you that they are annoying, might be necessary for the show to remain recognizably within the young-people-living-in-the-city comedy genre which has such a long history in American television. really, Girls is only interesting when seen as a break with the conventions of this genre and this history. also, i think i might just be in a mode where i just want to justify everything about this show because i like it a lot, and i hope this isn't annoying.

i agree with you about the mainstream success of this show; it's clearly struck some sort of chord but it's odd that it's been so neatly and quickly monetized and then left weirdly unexamined. it's a grenade in the shape of a grenade that people are treating like a cupcake.

i dunno about successful exactly i do think marnie has gotten what she "wanted": relationship with arty guy that didn't pan out (remember, she walked out on her job because he invited her home) because he wasn't serious about looking after her and then the confrontation with charlie and the too pat "you know it's not about your money" semi-confession. i share the pity/sympathy you feel and i think we're meant to because dunham is really indicting the system that funnels marnie down this path more than the individual. regardless, it can be shocking how rough she can be with the character; her grabbing the candelabra was a particularly shitty touch of the "Well if i'm here" variety that suggests dunham's utter disdain for the character's deeper inner life.

i don't think your desire to justify the more formulaic elements of the show are annoying, i just think they're as unnecessary as the formula itself is. She's on HBO! She has a hit show! She's proven she can get away with anything! Why adhere to played out structures? Probably because she's still working on producing her voice in full and without restraint and is being led along by apatow and a production crew that knows how to make the trains run on time. Little by little. She's only improving.

and are you new here Pat? don't think i've seen you about.

(weirdly unexamined by the HBO marketing team i mean; i'm well aware the crit storm is part of what makes this show a media darling)

forks you have some good insights here but man I thought the music cue at the end was hilarious, how can you complain about that

yeah I thought the music was meant to be pointing out how fucking idiotic and narcissistic Adam and Hannah were being

I think this is the least unexamined programme in the history of television !!

lol I was gonna say.

(weirdly unexamined by the HBO marketing team i mean; i'm well aware the crit storm is part of what makes this show a media darling)
― i petted a bodega cat today. (forksclovetofu), Monday, March 18, 2013 6:38 AM

forks you have some good insights here but man I thought the music cue at the end was hilarious, how can you complain about that

― my god i only have 2 useless beyblade (silby), Monday, March 18, 2013 2:49 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I thought the music was meant to be pointing out how fucking idiotic and narcissistic Adam and Hannah were being

― ( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) (sic), Monday, March 18, 2013 6:22 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

I guess we can go around and around about whether the Nicholas Sparks style music and reunion was meant to be ironic but I thought it was soooo lame. forks otm in most of his posts.

Shoshanna's big speech was ok ... "I can't be the only thing that you like!!"

the rest of the episode was pretty wack

Charlie/Marni scene was shot at Roberta's, right? lol.

given the fact that many of these characters seem motivated and constrained by certain notions of a "script" (domesticity, being an artist, success) i almost think that last scene was really on point and hilarious (and it's allowed to be touching at the same time). I dunno, I'm not that cynical about it. something can be moving and bullshit at the same time.

I can't even begin to unpack the gender issues forks brought up, the music was so out-of-tune with the rest of the series, and mixed so hot, that I just assumed there was probably some eleventh-hour editing room fuckery going on and I was left feeling confused. Ray was 'not bad' in this episode. I liked Hannah's voicemail that she left for Jessa.

The abrupt tonal shift from Marnie + Charlie fighting to "we'll stay together forever" was so dissonant I was like ugh somebody let an executive in the editing suite I think

i also liked the voice message

i felt that tonal shift was kinda cool and part of the point.

i feel like there are specific ways you can watch this show and it's interesting how we fall into camps in our expectations and appreciations and issues and how they divide fairly neatly depending on which camp you fall into. not sure this is applicable to other shows? louie, breaking bad, justified not so much.

i think LD was going for a frission and didn't really pull it off.

that's possibly true. i dont think these kind of "grand unironic gestures" are really out of the norm for her---i thought last season ended on a similar note of reaching (and it forms a neat symmetry with the end of this season).

i would suggest comparing this to the "grand unironic gesture" of the dancing on my own jumping around bit or the "all adventurous girls do" tweet
those are corny and po faced but they fit into the characters and their arcs much better and more honestly imo
maybe it's a question of how broad the statement is? something small and personal resonates more than a "everybody works out their relationship issues with one conversation" + sweeping score move

yeah fair enough

I rarely read something as wrong as this.

lol agreed, with one exception:
"In this episode, we learn that — even if she’s not friend enough to crawl under the bed and drag Hannah out — Marnie still has a key to the apartment. It’s sad that she and Hannah can’t commiserate about their awful year, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little annoyed there wasn’t any female solidarity in the finale. Instead, we get a screencap from Hannah’s computer: “A friendship between college girls is grander and more dramatic than any romance ... ”"

I'm not sure this final episode passed the bechdel test!

hannah didn't even talk to her mother iirc

and that's one place where i smell the influence of apatow

Yeah, this show could use a bit more of the Girls just shooting the shit and being funny together.

This is cool, but if it came out that a man wrote this episode they'd get tons of shit for writing such dumb dependent female characters.

I think I agree with pat finn up above; everybody's being set up for the fall

the finale episode was co-written by apatow and dunham

Totally. Adam is still an unhinged creep. And lemme guess - next year Charlie's gonna get screwed out of his company, and Marnie's gonna dump him "for totally unrelated reasons."

(x-post)

xp i agree that this reset is a set up for further drama of the same kind next season, that's clearly the purpose
but it's an old and pointless contrivance. the characters could grow and develop closer into grownuphood instead of looping them in the groundhog day of eventual made-for-syndication bullshittery that the hamster wheel refix provides.
basically i want more "one man's trash" episodes and less continuity horseplay

given the fact that many of these characters seem motivated and constrained by certain notions of a "script" (domesticity, being an artist, success) i almost think that last scene was really on point and hilarious (and it's allowed to be touching at the same time). I dunno, I'm not that cynical about it. something can be moving and bullshit at the same time.

― ryan, Monday, March 18, 2013 1:34 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, this - feel like hannah's arc was sort of about the deconstruction of the successful freelance artist script? or maybe that in itself is a wellworn rut, idk. def know some freelancers irl who I'm like, damn, not that glamorous huh. feel like dunham is self-aware + smart enough about narrative and genre that she knows where she's pointing the ship with this final episode.

http://hollywoodcrush.mtv.com/2013/03/15/girls-season-two-finale/

"I'm very proud of the season finale," Judd said by phone earlier this week. "I co-wrote it with Lena [Dunham], and you know, the last three episodes are almost like a three-part mini-series. I think it has a beautiful ending, and I think people are really going to like it."

i rather think apatow knows where he's pointing the ship and it's to chaching town

i dont think ive watched enough apatow to be the apatow whisperer and to know the mark of his scent but if u say so

i kinda have and i don't mean to be the apatow whisperer, just saying that this show has some wild leaps of narrative vision and scripting voice, often within the same episode and i feel like i can discern which voices are which
i don't think apatow is forcing dunham anywhere she doesn't wanna go; this is her second season on a runaway success and she's trying to write a book so i think she's doing some episodes as experiments for her, doing a lot of direction and exploring and apatow is helping keep the project on the rails. he's not faust, he's just kinda uninterestingly conventional when he's the one with both hands on the wheel imo

anyway when shosh went off @ ray i stung a lil inside, i hate colors too

can we get a Thomas-John spinoff?

I would actively not-watch that.

wish they had just let him speak in his normal accent and not a strangled at American

*attempt at

hannah's phone call to jessa was also pretty good

zosia mamet is a really good actress btw; she's made the most out of every scene this season and she hasn't had a lot to work with

cosign. consistently one of the most enjoyable performances on the show.

When Marnie said the thing about "Little brown babies" it was a huge turnoff for me on so many levels.

And yes the part at the end where she walks by Adam running through the streets, I thought we were one crossfade away from a smartphone ad.

I thought that was a tremendously lame last five minutes (ironic or not) to an otherwise terrific season. Mamet is still amazing 'tho.

still love this show but the second half of this season didn't do it for me