A word of fashion advice: The next time you’re invited to a Sooper Sekrit Fancy Party, don’t wear white. You just never know when a wedding will break out!
The inaugural season of “Girls” ended on Sunday and they packed a lot into thirty minutes. The wedding? That was Jessa and Thomas John (yay! more Chris O’Dowd!). Remember him? The last time we saw him he was pouting because Marnie and Jessa wouldn’t let him play in their girls-only club. Jessa apparently quickly got over her instant dislike of him, accepted a dinner invitation and the rest, as they say, is wedded bliss. Or not. Call me sappy but I’m rooting for those crazy kids!
Also being served – Rhosh. Didn’t I call it? Huh? Huh? I totally called it. Shosh has a bit of a mini-meltdown (No one told her it was a wedding! She’s wearing white!) but Ray is obviously fascinated by her and has no problem telling her he wants to go home with her. His “you vibrate to a very strange frequency“ line is great but IMO her response “Fine. Just stay out of my emotional way“ is even better. What the hell does that mean? And how can I work it into my everyday conversation?
Marnie is also feelin’ the luv and finds herself smitten by the sweet but awkward and hopelessly unfunny Internet minister who officiates the wedding. On first viewing I thought this was just the latest in Marnie’s new “I’m going to unwind my uptightness” mantra. When I watched the episode again, however, I made sure to pay attention to her reactions and, call me a hopeless romantic, she actually did react as if she found him funny and interesting and cute. And he was, in a Jonah-Hill-before-he-got-skinny kind of way. It was surprising in that Marnie definitely seems to have a type and this guy isn’t it but maybe it’s not really that odd because as everyone knows, if you are funny you are automatically better looking. (I read that on a Facebook meme so I know it’s true.)
Weddings may be all about the bride but for my money, this episode was all about Adam. Watching him react to the situation and to Hannah was (for me) a revelation. I’m on record – damn Internet that never erases anything! – of hating on Adam pretty stridently at the beginning of the season. How could I know that what we were being shown in those early episodes was at the very least incomplete and shaded by Hannah’s own personal shortcomings and, maybe, just completely false. Can I take it all back? No? Well then, I will at least admit I was mistaken.
Don’t get me wrong – he’s still the jerk who lied about the STD test (although Elijah did admit that he carries HPV) and he’s still the guy who had no compunction about backing out on a commitment at basically the last minute (he may have done the performance in the end but he was serious when he first said he was finished). So yes, Adam has issues. But we all have issues and he doesn’t fit the irredeemable asshat pigeonhole to which I first assigned him.
The mistake he made was thinking that after Hannah spent “six months chasing him like the Beatles,” she’d still want him after she caught him. Hannah doesn’t know what she wants. Or, Hannah is afraid of what she wants. Or, Hannah just can’t stop sabotaging herself. Is there a fourth option? Feel free to offer it in the comments. At the end of the episode, Hannah sat alone on the beach eating cake like one of Marie Antoinette’s subjects but it was Adam who lost his head (or at least suffered a concussion).
What do you think about the season as a whole? Ten episodes later, was it what you expected? More? Less? Did your opinions of specific characters change? Talk to me!
3 replies on “What I Watched Last Night: HBO “Girls” Season Finale”
I’m not sure I agree that Adam’s characterization changes totally based on Hannah’s perceptions. He still did and said some pretty awful things, you know? He might just be the sort of guy who’s always changing what he likes and wants. I’m also not sure if we were supposed to think that he realized he liked her when she went to Michigan and he found himself missing her. Or did he just finally grow to like her?
I hope Marnie and Shosh are living together next season. They’re both uptight in different ways.
I’m not sure Hannah’s own perception of Adam has changed. This makes twice he’s very emphatically told her “You don’t know me” and I mostly agree with him. Just like when she didn’t know about him and AA, her comment about his ears was the best she could do.
I definitely agree that he’s still an ass but where I give him points (if that’s possible) is that he’s never really hidden that. He’s been a jerk and treated her badly and yet she still went after him hard. Now that she’s got him, she seems to want to pull back.
Marnie and Shoshanna would be great next season!
I think what’s changed is that Adam has some depth now. He’s still often an asshole, but now we’re seeing that Hannah is often a jerk to him too, if unintentionally, and he has actual feelings about that behavior.