Elliot: "Thanks for having me. Bring it on."
Connie: "I wonder if it's because Lena can't really figure out how it is guys talk to each other."
Nathan: "I think a larger issue is that these guys are just too strange. It's hard to think of them as regular peeps, so anything they do is pretty unpredictable."
Annie: "Agreed. they're not archetypes at all. It's not like everyone has a woodworking, psychopathic, dog-stealing ex in their back pocket."
Connie: "Which brings me to something that's been bothering me. Girls (and I'm talking about real-life girls) OBSESS Adam, and I have no clue why."
Annie: "Wait… girls think he's hot?"
Nathan: "Do they?"
Elliot: "I think a lot of girls, especially in Brooklyn, like a man's man. You know, beard, does woodcrafting, makes pickles, etc." [Ed Note: Good to know what qualifies as a man's man in Brooklyn, these days.]
Nathan: "Yeah, but he's only a man's man in-so-far as he makes things, and not even. What is he building? He just bangs on a table."
Nathan: "Ray is definitely more 'normal,' I guess. Your typical loser-ish guy in his 30s…"
Elliot: "The dude you get introduced to a party and then spend the rest of the evening avoiding."
Connie: "Yeah, the only women he goes after are the one he knows won't ever work to really understand him — because even he knows he's a textbook loser."
Nathan: "There's not really more to understand. There's not much hidden depth to that character. He's a dick when you meet him, and he turns out to be a loser. It's pretty depressing."
Connie: "Totally. And just when he puts himself in a situation where he thinks he's hot stuff (getting asked to accompany Adam as 'back-up muscle,' going into Staten Island as a Brooklynite), that Webster Hall girl really hands it to him. When he tells Adam on the boat about the time he got asked to join a threesome and turned it down — which is perfectly unbelievable, and just the kind of story that he would tell — his point is basically that Staten Island girls are hot and really nice. He expects that they'll be as naive as Shoshanna, and instead, he gets his ass handed to him. Within two seconds, she hits every single insecurity he has."
Annie: "Cut to talking to a dog and then sobbing."
Nathan: "I'd watch a show about the Webster Hall girl."
Elliot: "What do you ladies think? Is this revenge for the way women have been cast for years? Part of Lena's agenda to turn the tables?"
Annie: "No, I think Ray exists somewhere. I think her point is to show guys that are losers just the way the girls are. Like Marnie, she is delusional. Hannah is a narcissist. Jessa is a mess. Ray is a loser. The flaws are pretty evenly handed out across genders."
Nathan: "He's like the anti-Paul Rudd."
Photo: Courtesy of HBO/Jessica Miglio.
Annie: "You know what's interesting? That none of these people have any real power — or seem to really want it. Except for Booth. He wants all the power, but he hates it because he's essentially constructed a world of vapid morons in the process — in a way that really exists in NYC."
Nathan: "So, as guys, we have two choices: Be a powerful asshole, or be an loser asshole?"
Connie: :(
Connie: "Which one are you guys?"
Elliot: "I'm a nice Jewish boy who loves punk rock."
Connie: "Just wait until episode 7."
Connie: "I was thinking that throughout the episode. You're 33, you're both scared that everyone knows you're a loser and also unwilling to improve yourself. Is there anything that can be done? Even when he's crying at the end, I didn't feel like he was feeling anything other than self-pity."
Nathan: "Yeah, is a guy like that totally hopeless?
Elliot: "I know plenty of dudes, myself included, who are like, 'I sorta suck, and I need to fix this.' But this guy expresses no desire to do things differently. And that's really sad."
Annie: "I almost hope they write Ray off. I'm not sure what he brings to the show other than an opportunity for more Shoshanna time, which is of course great."
Elliot: "Ladies, another question for you. If they wanted to show a greater variety of NYC male assholes, who's missing here?"
Annie: "The guy who thinks mixology is an art?"
Connie: "There's the pickup artist. And the guy who thinks anything that's not about celebrities or fashion needs to be explained to you."
Nathan: "There hasn't been a DIY band asshole yet."
Connie: "The 'let me tell you about my startup' asshole."
Nathan: "Man, New York has so many assholes. I think what we can glean from this conversation is that single ladies have it really rough out there."
Did we miss any? Share your own favorite genres of NYC assholes — male or female — in the comments.