Girls Recap Season 6, Episode 8: "What Will We Do This Time About Adam?"

With just three episodes left before Girls puts itself to bed, there are an awful lot of ways this could end. This week’s episode explores the fairytale fantasy option — Adam, enamoured with the idea of a child and using that child to help him escape his own life, embarks on a dreamy fantasy day that casts him as Hannah’s saviour — the chance to escape his own life in favour of throwing himself full-tilt into someone else’s. A thin premise to be sure, but what is life if you don’t explore all the options?

Adam and Jessa are probably coming to an end because something — his higher power, or the need of the show’s creator’s to give this a happy ending and not a realistic one — has told him that he needs to help Hannah raise her baby. Jessa’s reaction is blithe, carefree, and eerily calm. Adam, expecting passion, romance, anger, something, asks Jessa why she’s not hitting him, yelling, screaming, or reacting in any way.

“Why would I?” she says with a beatific smile. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

The air-conditioner isn’t working, it’s nine thousand degrees outside, and Hannah’s pregnant. Her Paul Louis conversation really messed with her. “Imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t met my father,” she said. “I’m starting to think that I’m being a little naive for thinking this would all be so simple.”

Adam, who has apparently been running around Brooklyn in a heat wave looking for Hannah, finds her stuffing popsicles into her handbag in a bodega. Adam wants to talk — not about a sequel for that onanistic blob of a movie he made about his relationship with Hannah — but ostensibly to tell her that he wants to raise the baby in place of the improbably-monikered Paul Louis.

He misses her. He misses being with her. and the baby made him realise that they’ve got no time to waste — exactly the kind of thing an ex-boyfriend would say after, say, breaking a leg while skateboarding or thinking briefly that they were going to die on a ski lift but making it down the mountain just fine. Adam’s serious. He wants to raise the baby. He wants to be with Hannah. Later, back at her house, he is.

Jessa, on the other hand, is handling her breakup and her solitude as one does — trying to get cable while smoking a cigarette in a kimono I’m sure she’s been wearing for hours, taking breaks to throw up.

After two episodes of ideally hiding out from the shit her friends have been slinging, Shoshanna and Ray are hanging out again. Ray’s dealing with his own personal Ray-guilt of an inheritance — the detritus of Hermie’s life. He needs to do whatever it is he can to preserve Hermie’s legacy. Shoshanna offers some reasonable advice: just stick with the coffee industry, it’s fine and so are you. Relax. As she and Ray are in the middle of what could be a fight involving air quotes, who should appear from across the great divide but her old boss, Abigail (Aidy Bryant).

Ray makes the mistake of telling Abigail why he and Shosh are sitting on “her" block, in response to what was clearly a question asked out of politeness and nothing more. Also, Shoshanna doesn’t want to spend any more time with Abigail than she has to, but Ray’s impervious to social cues — even ones that are spelled out for him, right in front of his face. Do not engage Abigail! You’ll never get rid of her. But, it looks like it’s too late.

Jessa’s strange day of solitude continues as she takes herself to Laird’s lair, where he's now a single dad after Adam’s sister bounced, leaving him to raise that baby, Sample. She’s not doing great. Adam’s upstairs with Hannah, and Jessa’s wearing short-shorts and a fur bikini top, spilling the news about Hannah’s imminent child.

While Jessa lies in wait a floor down, two minutes away from a nervous breakdown, Adam seems to be stepping into the role of dad pretty quickly, much to Hannah’s delight. The moment between the two, post-coital and giddy, feels nice but also like too neat of an ending. There are two more episodes to go, of course — anything could happen. Part of me hopes that this setup of domestic bliss comes crashing down soon enough.

Looks like I get my wish! That pounding on the door is Laird, who felt it was absolutely necessary to tell Hannah that, should she need it or want it, his purpose in life was to help her raise the freaking baby. Laird, buddy, sorry to say, but I’m fairly certain it is not.

Ray, Shosh, and Abigail are still hanging out. Abigail and Ray are both possibly drunk, Shoshana’s not — but she is the third wheel on what’s turning out to be a highly unlikely first date. Maybe Abigail and Ray are perfect for each other, though no one in their right mind would see how that could work. Somehow, they both have the same “would you rather” question — Would you rather have an ugly building with a gorgeous view, or a gorgeous building with an ugly view? Somehow, they both have the same reason for picking the same answer. And, somehow, Shoshana has set up the one person she hates with the one person she truly likes.

Hannah’s fucking thrilled that Adam’s come back to her and she’s doing her best to hide it. There’s too much history, there’s too much good stuff for them not to give it a shot. The issue of Jessa hangs over this conversation and will likely color the rest of their interactions until that baby is born or until they break up, whichever comes first. Hannah can’t help herself and asks Adam what it’s like to have sex with Jessa. Adam answers honestly — she laughs a lot. This turns into an interrogation of how and why and what it means, hopefully proving to both of these jokers that maybe, just maybe, they all need a break from each other? They laugh it off, but this will come back again. Trust me.

Hannah’s anxieties about motherhood are on full display, manifesting in a variety of nightmarish scenarios that likely won’t come true but are easy to focus on when you’d rather draw your attention away from the practicalities of the larger issue at hand. Thank god for Adam, I guess? Actually, yes. Thank god for Adam, as he’s the only person to ask Hannah why she wants to have this baby. She makes an analogy about sleepovers that doesn’t quite land to me. Good enough for Adam, who seems to get her. “Don’t be scared,” he tells her.

Jessa’s day of reckoning continues unabated. She takes a cigarette into an empty bar, asks for a seltzer and the sports section, and tries her best to contend with being alone. Not for long, though. She came into this bar with the express purpose of trying to sleep with the lonely man sitting at the end of it. Looks like it’s going to work.

Adam and Hannah’s day of domesticity continues as they shop for baby stuff, but the site of a stock photo baby and mother on the box of a baby bathtub makes her realize that she hasn’t really talked to anyone about this. Adam’s motivations for wanting to raise the baby with Hannah are the same as hers. “I’m excited to just get out of my head for a little while,” he says. “Aren’t you?”

Ray and Abigail managed to ditch Shosh, who probably left halfway through that dinner. They’re walking and eating ice cream and getting right along. If this relationship happens, I’m here for it. Ray’s pasison is continuing Hermie’s peripatetic project of chronicling Brooklyn, but he hates talking to people. Abigail loves Ray, possibly, and so she’s doing the asking; that brings Ray out of his shell. They kiss on a carousel — a decidedly un-Ray-like thing to do, but something about this works for me.

Adam and Hannah’s day of domesticity ends at a diner, and talks of looking for a new place, together. Hmm, seems like most places want you to be a married couple. Hmm, maybe Adam and Hannah should…get married. Are they going to get married? Please don’t say they’re getting married. Hannah’s reaction says otherwise.

Adam doesn’t have his keys; Jessa lets him in with a small smile, interpreting his return to the house as a reconciliation. Who knows? Maybe it is.