Girls Grows Up

 

So, we’re almost five seasons through the HBO series Girls, and I have to say I’m a fan. Color me super surprised.

When Girls premiered, I watched it with a great deal of trepidation. I was sure it was going to be a poor knockoff of Sex and the City (love!), except with a big dose of whiny, entitled Millennials. And to some extent, it is just that, as we watch 20-somethings Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna and Jessa navigate post-college life and love in the Big Apple. But aside from four female leads against a backdrop of New York, the two shows really have little in common.

Girls is a much grittier, realistic look at life in the characters’ tumultuous twenties as they journey to self discovery, whereas SATC’s gals were clearly grown women, established in their careers and (for the most part) confident in who they were and what they wanted out of their relationships.

Girls also takes a lot more chances than SATC — not in its risque-ness (of which both shows have plenty), but in the creators’ steadfast refusal to create wholly likeable characters. Nowhere is that more on display than the lead Hannah Horvath, portrayed so bravely by Lena Dunham. Dunham doesn’t shy away from any part of Hannah – not her selfishness, or her self-absorption, or her – at times – inappropriate behavior. (Yes, that was our girl pulling a Sharon Stone – Basic Instinct to get out of a jam with her boss in a recent episode.) And yet ….

I can’t help rooting for her. Maybe it’s Hannah the writer who appeals to me (what would-be writer hasn’t felt, at one time another, what she voices in the series premiere as she tries to convince her parents to keep bankrolling her, “I think I’m the voice of my generation – or I’m a voice of a generation”). Or maybe it’s her vulnerability that hits me in the gut, like her struggle with OCD, her being dumped by boyfriend Adam for another woman, or her realization this season that sometimes she has to be the adult for her parents as Dad (Peter Scolari – remember him from Bosom Buddies and Newhart? So glad to see him again!) and Mom adjust to Dad coming out of the closet. Pretty much any time Dunham cries on camera, she’s got me  emotionally invested.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’m in Hannah’s corner because I see more of her in myself than I care to admit.  After all, we all at times have selfish tendencies and a desire to make everything about ourselves – we just don’t always act on them. And there’s slow but sure evidence that Hannah is learning to curb her worse character traits this season. Ok, sure, she did just break up with her boyfriend via text and then try to hide from him in a public restroom … perhaps not her most mature act to date. But at least she realized that she and Fran the drip were really poorly matched, and had the brains and the guts to put that relationship out of its misery. Hey, who ever said growing up was easy? It’s one step up, two steps back.

Unfortunately, where Girls falls short is its support characters – at least the female ones. Ironically, for a show supposedly about girls, it’s the boys that are a hell of a lot more enjoyable to watch. I cannot say enough about Adam Driver as Adam, the quirky, somewhat disturbing – but ultimately somehow heroic – on-again, off-again love interest. Adam’s progression has been the most pronounced over the years, evolving from Hannah’s kind of sleazy friend-with-benefits, to her knight in shining armor (Remember when he ran shirtless through the streets of New York to be by her side during her bad OCD episode? Bestill my beating heart.), to not-so-nice boyfriend who dumps her (although to be fair, it was Hannah who ran off to Iowa), to ex-boyfriend who’s now taken up with Hannah’s friend.

Adam’s often displayed questionable behavior. Believe me, there are many reasons to hate this character but for some reason I – and I suspect most viewers – just can’t bring ourselves to do it. Kudos to Driver for an extremely gutsy and brave performance – he’s not afraid to do anything on camera and like Dunham, he’s not afraid to portray all the good and all the bad, weird and ugly that makes Adam, well, Adam (Side note: So looking forward to Driver in Star Wars going forward – I was disappointed in some aspects of Episode 7, but Driver did a great job and I’ve got to think that big things await in the next two films). But on Girls, Adam’s also often been the most mature voice and nowhere has that been more on display than the last episode when he chides Jessa as she freaks out over baby spit-up: “You’re an adult; she’s a baby. Why do you need more help than a baby?”

Like Adam, the other non-girl Girls character, Alex Karpovsky’s Ray, is also often the voice of reason. As the more mature 30-something, Ray is kind of the grumpy old man on the show, but he’s a good counterbalance to the Millennials who surround him. And there’s also Elijah, Hannah’s hilarious gay ex-boyfriend who’s mostly been comedic relief up to this point, but whose storyline this season has been touching as he hopefully finds true love – but more likely heartbreak.

Unfortunately, the actual girls who make up Girls are a bit more one dimensional than Hannah, although reckless Jessa seems to be deepening through her relationship with Adam. It could very well be that Adam and Jessa are the pairing that lasts; they do seem to be a good match on many levels, but I still can’t help hoping for Adam and Hannah to somehow find their way back to each other. Meanwhile, it’s hard to drum up sympathy for shrill and judgmental Marnie -despite a strong showing in this season’s episode Panic in Central Park – and Shoshanna desperately deserves more screen time. Her character had great growth potential this season with her move to Japan, but thus far, with two more episodes to go, we just haven’t seen enough of her to know one way or the other.

As we count down to Girls’ end (next season is set to be the last), it feels right for the series to come to a close. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends with our girls going separate ways. Unlike SATC, and despite the series’ name, this show has never really been about the strength of female friendship. On the surface, maybe, but scratch just a little deeper and you’ll find that these women don’t really like each other all that much. Think about it: Could you ever imagine Hannah and company vowing to be each others’ soul mates, despite husbands, babies, etc., like Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte did? Um, yeah, not so much.  But that’s ok, because that wasn’t what Dunham et al set out to do. Just like in real life, there are some relationships in your 20’s that fall away. Either way, I look forward to seeing our Girls become women and their story come to a close – wherever there paths may lead.