Girls Season 3 Review

Girls Season 3 Recap:

Girls season the third is over and the finale posed many great questions to keep a viewer like myself interested into what will happen next.  The greatest question is how the show will deal with Hannah’s departure to Iowa (I assume that her holding the acceptance letter up with a smile means that she will be attending the graduate program)?  Will the show create a duel focus to juxtapose her life in Iowa with the rest of the crew’s life in New York or will they assign a character (most likely Elijah) to have her face time with the group at important moments?  Perhaps they will jettison two years in the future to show Hannah’s triumph return to New York after completing her graduate program or they will zoom to the summer after her first year to see her discuss her struggles/triumphs with the group.  What the show does with Hannah will be interesting.  Hopefully she will learn a thing or two about timing and about giving somebody their moment.  While her acceptance into the Iowa Writer’s Workshop is excitng, telling her boyfriend minutes before he gives his Broadway debut that they may have to change major details about their relationship should be filed under the heading of poor timing.  For Hannah to throw the curveball of moving to Iowa just before Adam takes the stage for his Broadway debut is downright irresponsible.  At least this time she seemed genuinely happy for somebody else’s success, as Ray expertly noted, and didn’t do it to intentionally mess up Adam’s performance.  I’m glad Hannah’s revelation didn’t throw Adam off during the show with flubbed lines or pained stares towards her and just played out his simmering anger in an alleyway fight.   

The master of bad timing and making somebody’s moment all about you goes to the reigning hot mess of the season: Marnie Michaels.  Shoshanna has hit an all-time low after finding out she won’t graduate on time due to her failing a class.  Marnie hears this and immediately goes into a self-serving story about the good old days with Charlie and then casually brings up the fact that she slept with Ray and feels disgusted and ashamed by it.  She’s not ashamed that it was a friend’s ex, but rather that it was Ray, the guy with the Andy Kaufman cutout and the Buster Keaton bathroom photo.  Throughout the entire episode, Marnie verges on psychopathic behavior.  She shows little to no empathy to Shoshanna’s situation, brushing off Shoshanna’s obvious pain by telling Hannah that she’ll be fine.  She can only feel glee watching Desi and his girlfriend breakup and views her earlier kiss with him as a wholehearted positive and win when everybody from Hannah to Elijah (who stole the episode with his blazer shorts combo) predicts danger.  What will happen next with Marnie?  She ends each season with a romantic victory and then begins each subsequent season broken and shattered.  Here’s to seeing what happens to the character we love to hate in season 4.

Shoshanna finally had some good scenes in this episode.  Outside of the Beach House episode, she has been neglected and relegated to her odd couple pairing with Jessa.  Her tackling of Marnie was cathartically beautiful and her moments with Ray were simply heartbreaking.  Her line about m&m’s was one of the best of the night.  In terms of her not graduating she can always take a summer class and then be done with school and the like.  It’s a minor setback, not a huge life altering goal.  The show never mentions if she has anything lined up directly after college that would make taking a summer class impossible.  Shoshanna’s development for the fourth season will be one to watch due to the season placing her farther and farther away from the group.  At the present moment she hates Marnie and merely tolerates Jessa.  She and Hannah have a peace between them but a two year friendship break could change things.  How or if Shoshanna fits into the main friendship group will be an interesting development next year.

Jessa suffered this season from having virtually nothing to do.  She sat on the sidelines either kind of working or giving into a wily old British man’s urges to relapse.  She spent the whole finale with Louie Lasser when I felt her stir up the pot attitude could have been better served at the play where everything was dissolving for the group.  I would have loved to see her reaction to the play or to the revelation that Ray and Marnie were sleeping together.  Her shit kicking attitude was greatly missed in those scenes.  My prediction for Jessa was that she and Adam would either become great friends or have an affair after she started attending AA meeting with him.  My big prediction for the season would be that Adam would have sex with one of her friends but that went quickly by the wayside.  With the amount of uncertainty in Hannah and Adam’s relationship for next season, maybe Hannah returns after a year or two from Iowa and see Adam in a relationship with one of his Major Barbara castmates (the nice lady who pecked him on the check) or Jessa/Marnie/Shoshanna.

I greatly look forward to the next season of Girls as I enjoyed this one a great bit.  As always I await the overwrought thought piece on the show’s every failing and more discussions on Lena Dunham’s body.  Bu until then let’s just all sit back and enjoy Shoshanna telling Marnie she hates her.  Good times, good times.