Girls "It's About Time"

Last season, after Jessa’s (Jemima Kirke) surprise wedding, Hannah (Lena Dunham) was ditched by her boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver). On her own, she caught a late train home and fell asleep during the trip. She was awoken by the early morning sunrise, still curled up in her seat, she realised that her purse was missing. Hannah had reached the end of the line in an unfamiliar stop, and with no money, she wanders off to the nearby beach and relaxes. After being financially cut-off by her parents and being laid off from her job as an unpaid intern for a small publication (which she amazingly stuck with for two years), Hannah is an unemployed writer living in New York, and the final scene of her laying on the beach, alone and broke, watching the sunrise was lovely yet dismal. And as season one closed I was eager for more of Girls (created by Dunham and produced by Judd Apatow). However, the highly-anticipated series return of this invigorating series was somewhat ho-hum.

What drew me to this series was my guilty pleasure for Sex and the City, but only to find that Dunham’s Hannah Horvath is nothing like Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw. Girls doesn’t possess the glamour Sex and the City had, arguably because the women in this show are girls – well, they’re young women just out of college – who are trying to settle into the realities of adulthood. So, Girls is essentially an unglamorous Sex and the City for Generation Y. This little show has made its mark for its structured spontaneity and gloomy eccentricity – the hardships of starting a life after college in a troubled economy, the sometimes-disturbing and unusual characters, the seemingly unrehearsed sex scenes, and Lena Dunham brazenly flaunting her flawed body. I say flawed only because the media depicts beauty through Victoria Secret models, when in reality most women look like the frumpy Miss Dunham. Girls maybe getting attention for its shock value, but the characters are weird, wonderful and complex, and the rapid dialogue is expressive and lively. Each of these girls has a unique sense of self: Hannah is the sometimes-selfish writer who constantly eats when she’s depressed, Marnie (Allison Williams) is the beautiful one who thinks she has her life sorted, until she breaks up with her with her long-term boyfriend, Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) is a student who’s pressuring herself to lose her virginity, and Jessa is a wild Brit who doesn’t seem to have an idea of what to do in life. They’re quality characters with likeable and annoying traits. A group of women who are young and lost, and they’re trying to balance fun, independence, relationships, sex and purpose.

Season two begins with Hannah in bed, amicably snuggling with her gay college ex-boyfriend, Elijah (Andrew Rannells from The New Normal) – much like the same way Hannah and Marnie opened season one in bed together – thus depicting that Hannah and Elijah officially agreed to be roommates. Then, in the next scene Hannah is banging her new lover (played by Donald Glover from Community), despite still being affiliated with Adam due to the accident which she caused on the night of Jessa’s wedding. Whilst Hannah is guiltily nursing Adam (as well as trying to figure out a way to break up with him) Marnie loses her job at the gallery due to downsizing, and catches up with her voluptuous mother (Rita Wilson). Shoshanna deals with her de-flowering/one-night-stand with Ray (Alex Karpovsky). And Jessa makes a brief appearance at the end of the episode as she arrives home with her new husband (Chris O’Dowd) from their honeymoon. The episode centres on a party being thrown by Hannah and Elijah with some very uneasy moments: Shoshanna is trying to avoid Ray, Marnie continues hating being single as her ex-boyfriend Charlie (Christopher Abbott) and his new girlfriend make an appearance, Elijah is embarrassed for his rich, drunk boyfriend, George (Billy Morrissette), who makes a scene whilst doing karaoke, and Hannah is called in by Adam who needs to be tended to back at his apartment.

The only pivotal moment in this episode is when Marnie and Elijah had an intimate conversation about sexuality – she admits that she was lonely and he considers being bi-sexual: “People are so prejudice against bi-sexuals though, they’re like the only people you can still make fun of” says Elijah – and subsequently they almost had sex (well, he was inside her for a second and went limp).

Another interesting feat in this episode is Rita Wilson’s appearance as Marnie’s mother who simply just wants to be Marnie’s friend. She’s very single and very open about her sex-life which is screechy to Marnie’s delicate ears. Marnie herself is suffering in her love-life as she continues maintaining a friendship with the ever-so-sweet Charlie, who she regrettably kept pushing and pulling during the prime of their separation.

Season one ended so well that I had high hopes for the season two premiere. However, I simply felt that the events in this episode are all too familiar or perhaps we need to see what else is to come in the new season, and hoping that Lena Dunham hasn’t lost her momentum (or maybe the gag of showing off her unusually small breasts is wearing off). I highly consider Dunham to be in the same realm of what Ricky Gervais did with The Office and what Tina Fey did with 30 Rock, and like them, Dunham has won Golden Globes for her performance and for best comedy series.

As I’ve scrolled through the IMDB discussion board, it appears that some viewers have a problem with the unruliness of this show and deem it to be tasteless, winey and depressing. However, I think many middle-class westerners can relate to these girls. For some of us, post-university life isn’t as “dazzling” as we hoped it would be – you know the ideal plan: Study, socialise, meet your future wife or husband, graduate, party, start your career and settle. Maybe we’re just too selfish. Maybe we expect too much. Maybe we feel the need to be perfect. Maybe we fear too much about failing, or if we fail at a young age we’ve failed for life. I think Lena Dunham illustrates a fairly accurate picture of us Gen Y-ers.