Was season two of Girls a perfect season of television? No. It was a season, much like its characters, constantly in flux. It was a show changing from episode to episode to become something unexpected and occasionally incredibly experimental (“One Man’s Trash”, aka the Patrick Wilson sex romp, anyone?). Though it was an uneven season (at times more so than last season), it remained a great season of television.
There are very few shows attempting what Girls is. It isn’t
even that it’s about twentysomethings (we’ve seen plenty of series like that);
it’s that it’s a series about frequently terrible people who it wants you to
simultaneously be disgusted by and yet still like. Part of this is because we
can often see ourselves in the characters; I’m twenty so I sadly do see much of
myself and people I know in them. It's a show about people doing terrible things because they’re not completely tied down and they
don’t know what they want to be yet (The series plays around with the idea of
characters trying on new identities, pretending to be someone they’re not just
to see how that new identity fits). They're often too naive or feigning naivete about the consequences of their actions or the dickeshness of them.
But more importantly, the series manages this tricky feat by
often calling the characters out on their nonsense. It may have done it less
this season than last, but generally, Girls is a series that doesn’t let its
characters do terrible things without saying, “Hey, that’s a pretty terrible
thing. You shouldn’t do that!” And sometimes it can be far, far too subtle
about this point.
By season’s end my sympathies for the character were mostly
undone by the penultimate episode. I chose not to write a review for “On All
Fours” because it was a deeply dark and depressing episode, and my heart just
wasn’t into the whole idea of reliving that episode in minutia. Besides the now
infamous sex scene between Adam and his girlfriend, there are numerous cringe-worthy
moments (some funnier than others – particularly Marnie’s strange rendition of
Kanye West’s “Stronger”). All in all, it’s a painful episode to sit through,
and it even made me angry with the show's most likable character, Shoshanna, who has a taken
a turn for the worse.
The finale isn’t the season high point (“On All Fours” is
arguably the best episode but there are other contenders). Much of it feels
rushed. Shoshanna has been underutilized this season (despite being better utilized
than last season), and while her decision to break up with Ray isn’t unexpected
(it was something clearly in the making), it does come off very abrupt. On the
whole, everything is tied up a little too nicely and the episode feels like its
leaping over a few plot points to get to these endings. Part of the problem is that this season is
shorted which means the season feels less holistic than last season.
What shines through this all though is the distinctive
vision of Lena Dunham. Dunham has in her mind what she wants to do with the
show, she sets out to do it, and you can love or hate it but it’s her product
through and through. Frequently the show is more concerned with establishing a
tone than pushing the plot forward in some direction. There’s this cool,
autumnal color scheme that pervades every scene. It’s a dulled, earthy tone and
it’s a look and feel quite unlike any other show. It’s hard to anticipate where
an episode, or even a season is going, because big moments don’t have this
tragic aura to them. They’re not built towards in the traditional plotted
sense. The plot could go anywhere at any moment, and any character could carry
the story at any given time.
No one has learned anything by season’s end. They typically
avoid learning lessons. Hannah keeps being given opportunities for
self-actualization and she never takes them. Jessa marries Thomas-John despite
the fact on some level she knows it’s a bad life decision. She visits her
father, knowing that there’s nothing to be gained from such a frustrating
experience from a man who was never there for her. Does up and leaving mean she’s
learned anything? Probably not, but only time will tell. Marnie keeps turning
back to her ex Charlie, out of familiarity, though their relationship felt claustrophobic
and boring in the past. In the process, she wrecks his relationship with his
current girlfriend. Charlie knows getting back together is a terrible decision;
it can only end badly between again, but he’s so obsessively infatuated that he
can’t escape Marnie’s control. Shoshanna purposefully goes out of her way to
wreck her solid, stable relationship with Ray because it doesn’t align with her
fairy tale visions. She cheats on him and lies about it (with the most awkward
and awful euphemism: “I held hands with a doorman”). In turn she wrecks Ray who
is the only person willing to accept himself for what he is. Ray hates
everything (or so he claims), but the one thing he didn’t hate was Shoshanna,
and maybe he was wrong about that.
And then there’s Hannah. The show sometimes leans to heavily on just the character of Hannah and this can be frustrating. Many characters are short shrifted screentime because the show keeps returning to focus on this character even when it isn't her story ("Video Games" is an episode about Jessa that some what awkwardly shifts the focus to Hannah to put the thematic button on the episode). But for better or for worse, Hannah is the show's protagonist. And what an awful protagonist she is. By season’s end she
has isolated herself from every person around her. She’s pushed away Marnie, forced
Elijah to move out for hooking up with Marnie, got dumped by Sandy, and cut ties
with Adam for getting stalkerish, while Jessa has bailed. With no one to turn to her
OCD kicks in. Initially this feels like it comes out of nowhere, but it ends up
becoming a great part of the season (Hannah’s descent into mental illness parallels
everyone else’s lives falling apart around her wonderfully). She’s bizarrely
enough rescued by Adam, who romantically runs to her apartment and kicks down
the door.
Though the endings of the finale appear happy, it’s only
surface level. Charlie and Marnie can’t sustain a relationship with one
another. Adam and Hannah have been proven to be no good for one another.
Shoshanna might need some time to hook up with people, but it’s likely to leave
her empty in the end. So we’re back to the status quo of the Pilot but everyone is
even more fucked up then when we first met them.
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