Hannah has tried on a number of identities in her escapades
to become the “voice of her generation”. A task she’s discovered, as she
pointed out last episode, to be exhausting.
Shoshanna is as refreshing as she often is because of how
sincere she is. She rarely if ever is hiding her true identity; it’s there for
all to see (the case is similar with Adam). Her alarming honest unnerves Ray
who is at a crossroads in his life. Ray, at 33, is older than the rest of the
main characters. He knows who he is, but he’s not exactly where he wants to be
or hoped he’d be at when he was Hannah and Shoshanna’s age. He feigns to have
his shit together, but deep down he feels like a complete “loser”.
Hannah believes her career is taking off just as she’d
anticipated, but she’s lying to herself. The e-book is a nice starting point,
but as the random partygoer notes, “It’s not a book. It’s just an e-book”. This
isn’t what Hannah wants to be writing about. Even the “12 Fruits that Make You
Fat” article on her laptop is more appealing to her than writing this drivel.
Marnie deep down knows her relationship with Booth Jonathan
isn’t anything special or meaningful. But Marnie is so desperate for attention
that she willfully ignores the telltale signs that douchey artist Booth could
care less about her (as if the slightly disturbingly misogynistic undertones of
how he treated her weren’t enough). So when she lets it slip out that she
thinks they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, she’s given a rude (but not all that
unexpected) awakening.
Just like Ray and Hannah, she’s lying to herself. None of
them want to be where they’re at. This lack of enamoration is true both of
their mindset towards their life goals as well as the particular, specific
situations they’re in. Ray just wanted to get his copy of Little Women and be done with Adam, but instead he’s forced to
traverse to Staten Island to return a stolen dog. In the process he’s reminded
of how unhappy he is with his life.
If the point weren’t clear enough, the next to last scene finds
Marnie and Hannah calling eachother. They both want to speak what’s on their
minds; they want to fix their friendship, but neither can admit it. Rather than
do the one thing they want, they continue to accept the touted identities they’ve
adopted and lie to themselves and eachother.
Marnie and Hannah may be barely concealing tears (as well as
their real selves) by episode’s end, but Ray, finally by himself, is free to
shed the identity that has become his cross to bear. The final shot is of him
crying, completely honest about who he is.
Stray Observations:
-Adam was too good of a character for the series not to find
some way to bring him back, and Ray and Adam make a surprisingly funny and
well-matched pairing.
-Adam named the dog “Dog”.
-“This is what it must have been like to storm to the
beaches of Normandy” – The whole conversation between Adam and Ray on the ferry
is great.
-Jessa doesn’t get much screentime but I love “depressed”
Jessa noting “This book’s not going to matter”
-Adam’s “carnival game” analogy of Hannah felt pretty
accurate to me.
-“She was accepting of my brand of difficult”
-The woman we meet who is the daughter of the dogowner was a
smidge bizarre. I don’t know if the language here was pushing the limits.
-“You’re a hostess for a living”
-“I think I liked the idea of you”
-The episode didn’t feel like it warranted the title “Boys”.
Sure, there a fair amount of time spent with Adam and Ray, but it didn’t feel
like it deserved that title.
Grade: B+
What did everyone else think?
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