Girls Recap: Fumbling Towards Mediocrity In A Weird Bodysuit

Well, my #normcore fellows, we’ve only got two episodes of Girls left, but don’t be sad. HBO is already lining up more. And, while no season has yet to capture the bright-eyed, cocaine-induced frenzy of the first, this one certainly pulled off more punches than the second, and did so with aplomb. While nothing big happened in the finale — no one got married and no one punctured an ear — this season was about mediocre people settling into mediocrity. So, this batch of episodes ended not with a boom, but with a fittingly sad noise like, “pifft.” And, that wasn’t just Hannah’s love life.

Domestic life means settling into routines. It means not having kinky, objectifying sex because the person you are kinking and objectifying will then go make you eggs and nag you about dishes. Domestic life means dealing with your significant other smelling like vomit, then showering, then wanting to engage in intercourse with you.

This season was all about Adam becoming a redeemable, caring partner and, as such, Hannah leveraging that he treats her like a piece of furniture with female parts was a bit unfair. This is the guy who, not even an episode ago, dropped everything to make sure she was okay after she simply texted, “car crash.” That being said, it was refreshing to see Hannah complaining about the stuff that is typically relegated to the realm of man. Mainly, her lover didn’t get freaky enough. So, hoping to bring back that sort of spark, she got herself some underwear. (Using the term lightly, that is — the contraption looked like a medieval torture device.)

Speaking of not getting freaky enough — and of torture — we see Marnie hanging out with the human equivalent of pouring sand in your eyeball, Soo-Jin, who is actually so awful that I cannot wait to see her in other episodes because I simply want to savor her demise.

Apparently there are two other characters in this show and their narratives have become kind of shoe-horned together because neither one has anything compelling enough to go on alone. So, yeah. Who knew interventions and family reunions could be so uninspiring.

It is adorable to see Hannah acting like a younger woman imagining what an older woman imagines a younger woman to sound like. What isn’t adorable is her manipulation of the scene, which is mean and kind of painful, and ultimately selfish: Adam gets clocked because a helpful bystander wants to make sure a girl isn’t being taken advantage of. This is a great moment because it shows that Hannah is so clearly in over her head, desperately flailing to keep Adam’s attention. (And, Adam is just as confused as we are.) The entire interaction between Adam and Hannah feels very Season One, with painful yelling and a taste for punishment. This is a different kind of horrible sex for Girls; this one is aware that it is horrible, which makes it even more troubling to watch. To make matters worse, Hannah isn’t even committed to this role-play — she switches midway through to being a cheerleader, which insults Adam. He is serious-actor Adam now.

At the start of Girls, everyone had nothing to lose and the kind of post-college freedom in which your mistakes are temporary and your flexibility is boundless. But now, things are beginning to happen. Real things. Life-altering things, like being discovered on Broadway or finding out that your perfect plans for your very particular life are untenable. (How low has Marnie sunk with that beanie? I am still on Team Marnie, the team that never wins...) The trick to growing up is realizing that there is other "fodder for your Twitter" (Adam's words, not ours) besides drama and chaos. Even if drama and chaos are seemingly all that surrounds you.

Missed last week's recap: Well, here you go.

P.S. Normcore is a pretty bad term, right?