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While I am still trying to finish my To Rave About for a movie that managed to land itself on to my most favorite movie list of all time, I am completely raving about this week's episode of GIRLS.
This isn't the first time I blogged about GIRLS. I did mention it before in a post, but the mention is very minimal. And given that I rarely blog about TV shows, I guess it should be telling that I am taking this time off to blog about Girls.
Girls, in case you haven't seen the series yet (and you should), is produced by Judd Apatow's Apatow Productions and airs in HBO. Written and directed by the very young (and very talented) Lena Dunham, GIRLS premiered to polarizing online community opinion--deriving criticism for its portrayal of young women: unlikable, self-absorbed, twenty-somethings doing unlikable things. But to encapsulate Girls in that view is limiting oneself to traditional TV and its norms of having a strong likeable lead. On the show's defense, the online community has praised Dunham's for its eerily accurate portrayal of the millenial generation. Often described as self-absorbed, vain, always online, tech-savvy, and almost always broke, Millenials in Dunham's GIRLS paints with all courage today's youth, tomorrows upcoming leaders or broke bums.
After last week's episode's straying into Louie (weird and surreal TV show from FX, another one you should try) territory, not my favorite episode to be honest, GIRLS comes back strong with this week's series-defining episode. The mini film of an episode managed to squeeze in several banters while dishing out emotional punishment to its cast and its audience that are in the same age bracket, experiencing the same struggles, all the while explaining what each character represents to this generation. It's an amazing episode that compares and contrasts seemingly different and seemingly similar personalities to prove otherwise--what seems similar is dissimilar and vice versa.
SPOILERS START HERE
What separates this episode apart from the other episodes so far is that this one dissects the different character's insecurities and the youth they represent in real life. The series has progressed in such a way that we are now familiar with each character and we know how they behave. But this episode, entitled Boys, penned by Claudia Weill and directed by Murray Miller, takes the focus from Hannah (who's been all over season 2) and puts it on these characters' interaction and their deep-seated insecurities, with a centerpiece on the oddest pairing in the series so far: Ray and Adam.
This pairing, brought about by Hannah leaving Ray's copy of Little Women in Adam's apartment, brought a lot of banter and male perspective normally absent in the series. While on the boat ride to Staten Island to return the dog that Adam stole, Adam and Ray discuss a few things about the women they've been with. Initially, we are made to believe that Ray and Adam are very similar. By dialog, both seem intellectual. They both haven't achieved much. And both live on the kindness of women (Ray on Shoshanna's and Adam on her grandma's). This similarity is further bolstered by the duo's affable conversation on the barge and agreements on women. And as Adam admits, "we're both kind of weird-looking." But this is later smashed as Ray tried to chime in on Adam's dislike of Hannah.
The sudden turn of events from cordial to sour puts into the perspective the differences of Ray and Adam. Adam, who almost always appear as dumb until he speaks something deep, is acutely aware of his problems and his difficult behavior ("Everyone's a difficult person. She was accepting of my brand of difficult.") and in a way, has accepted his failures and learned to live with them.
Adam represents the youth comfortable with their own inadequacies. He lives on his grandma's money, aware that he doesn't have a job and does not feel bad about it. He's so comfortable with his living conditions that it is impossible to talk him into cleaning his apartment simply because he'll probably give a good reason why he shouldn't. Adam is the sort of stubborn youth who doesn't mind what people think simply because he's so sure of his convictions (contrast this with Jessa later). Adam likes work (theater) but he wouldn't do it unless he's really into it, unless it gels with his convictions. He is rarely affected by others' opinion (not even Hannah) and could usually do without much care for what is being said or done to him.
Ray on the other hand couldn't.
At 33, Ray feels like he missed the ship (the last shot where he sits with the dog as the barge blows its horn for its last trip is a very nice metaphor for how Ray feels). Ray represents the youth who hide their own shortcomings brought forth by their own choosing of the easy way out (as Adam points out that his relationship with Shoshanna seems confirming of this behavior). He is smart enough for Hannah to ask advice for with her writing, but unlike Hannah, Ray is easily discouraged and wouldn't pursue a job that taxes his intellect.
Meanwhile, Marnie and Hannah take their turns. Hannah has been offered to write an e-book by the editor of PUMPED magazine due in a month (!!!), while Marnie basks in the glory of being reigning queen of Booth Jonathan's art kingdom. While Hannah's focused on her career, Marnie's focused on her lovelife. Both have once obsessed to have what they have now. Marnie to have Booth as her boyfriend, and Hannah to be a writer. The contrast is that while Marnie who's once upon a time curating art in New York while enjoying a relationship with Mr. Right Charlie is now settling for hosting restaurants, Hannah seems to be on the rise, being recognized as a voice of her generation, at least by the feedback she's been getting from her employers, after being let go in her former internship in favor of the girl who knows Photoshop.
The scenes at the party relate to how insecure and how driven both women are in hiding these insecurities--flaunting to each other things that are conveniently disguised to be nice. The phone call that happened after is one of the saddest moments of this season--both women unable to admit just how much they are failing--a common trait among today's millenials. Today's generation would rather tweet it than to relate it to a close friend who's doing well in fear of being judged, fear brought about by their own vanity. They represent the struggling millenials who still has the drive to finish what they set out but are too proud to admit their missteps.
Anyways on to the other characters:
Shoshanna, who's only present for a short time in this episode, represents the complete opposite of Ray. As most millenials graduate college, they are optimistic and idealists. They have a naive idea about the corporate world, work, and success. These new millenials have little insecurities given how naive they are or are only insecure because older people tell them to be.
Jessa on the other hand, for the short screen time she had, represents the negative version of Adam's failure-accepting character. While Adam is comfortable of his shortcomings and openly does not value other people's opinion of him, Jessa secretly desires approval and is uncomfortable with her own failure. She pretends to be cool to hide her own discomfort with her screw-ups (but she doesn't realize all of this until she breaks up with her husband 2 episodes ago) and wishes everyone to feel the sadness she feels. Jessa has accepted failure not because it's comfortable but because she can't do anything about it and she wishes no one sees it.
Booth represents the millenials who have it made but feels as if they don't or insecure that they people might notice that they haven't really got it made. Booth is afraid of being idealized because, for some reason, it might not chime in with his person and he might fail to meet those expectations. He hates everyone that adores him because it's another expectation to meet. Perhaps he also finds people calling him a hack (like Marnie did) irresistible because it's easier to prove people right by failing than to prove people wrong by not meeting their expectations. In other words, some people find it less scary to prove they're a failure to people who dislikes you than to fail the people who believe in you.
What ultimately links this episode to each of the subplots going on is that all these people have insecurities they deal with. And the way insecurities were portrayed is painfully real (genuinely human without feeling overly pathetic), with almost all characters closing the episode with sadness or tears to a sad score. It is the sensitivity and vulnerability of this episode that marked very well. One of 2013 TV's finest 30 minutes.
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| Initially, Ray and Adam share tons of similarity |
This pairing, brought about by Hannah leaving Ray's copy of Little Women in Adam's apartment, brought a lot of banter and male perspective normally absent in the series. While on the boat ride to Staten Island to return the dog that Adam stole, Adam and Ray discuss a few things about the women they've been with. Initially, we are made to believe that Ray and Adam are very similar. By dialog, both seem intellectual. They both haven't achieved much. And both live on the kindness of women (Ray on Shoshanna's and Adam on her grandma's). This similarity is further bolstered by the duo's affable conversation on the barge and agreements on women. And as Adam admits, "we're both kind of weird-looking." But this is later smashed as Ray tried to chime in on Adam's dislike of Hannah.
The sudden turn of events from cordial to sour puts into the perspective the differences of Ray and Adam. Adam, who almost always appear as dumb until he speaks something deep, is acutely aware of his problems and his difficult behavior ("Everyone's a difficult person. She was accepting of my brand of difficult.") and in a way, has accepted his failures and learned to live with them.
Adam represents the youth comfortable with their own inadequacies. He lives on his grandma's money, aware that he doesn't have a job and does not feel bad about it. He's so comfortable with his living conditions that it is impossible to talk him into cleaning his apartment simply because he'll probably give a good reason why he shouldn't. Adam is the sort of stubborn youth who doesn't mind what people think simply because he's so sure of his convictions (contrast this with Jessa later). Adam likes work (theater) but he wouldn't do it unless he's really into it, unless it gels with his convictions. He is rarely affected by others' opinion (not even Hannah) and could usually do without much care for what is being said or done to him.
Ray on the other hand couldn't.
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| A crying Ray with the stolen dog |
At 33, Ray feels like he missed the ship (the last shot where he sits with the dog as the barge blows its horn for its last trip is a very nice metaphor for how Ray feels). Ray represents the youth who hide their own shortcomings brought forth by their own choosing of the easy way out (as Adam points out that his relationship with Shoshanna seems confirming of this behavior). He is smart enough for Hannah to ask advice for with her writing, but unlike Hannah, Ray is easily discouraged and wouldn't pursue a job that taxes his intellect.
Meanwhile, Marnie and Hannah take their turns. Hannah has been offered to write an e-book by the editor of PUMPED magazine due in a month (!!!), while Marnie basks in the glory of being reigning queen of Booth Jonathan's art kingdom. While Hannah's focused on her career, Marnie's focused on her lovelife. Both have once obsessed to have what they have now. Marnie to have Booth as her boyfriend, and Hannah to be a writer. The contrast is that while Marnie who's once upon a time curating art in New York while enjoying a relationship with Mr. Right Charlie is now settling for hosting restaurants, Hannah seems to be on the rise, being recognized as a voice of her generation, at least by the feedback she's been getting from her employers, after being let go in her former internship in favor of the girl who knows Photoshop.
The scenes at the party relate to how insecure and how driven both women are in hiding these insecurities--flaunting to each other things that are conveniently disguised to be nice. The phone call that happened after is one of the saddest moments of this season--both women unable to admit just how much they are failing--a common trait among today's millenials. Today's generation would rather tweet it than to relate it to a close friend who's doing well in fear of being judged, fear brought about by their own vanity. They represent the struggling millenials who still has the drive to finish what they set out but are too proud to admit their missteps.
Anyways on to the other characters:
Shoshanna, who's only present for a short time in this episode, represents the complete opposite of Ray. As most millenials graduate college, they are optimistic and idealists. They have a naive idea about the corporate world, work, and success. These new millenials have little insecurities given how naive they are or are only insecure because older people tell them to be.
Jessa on the other hand, for the short screen time she had, represents the negative version of Adam's failure-accepting character. While Adam is comfortable of his shortcomings and openly does not value other people's opinion of him, Jessa secretly desires approval and is uncomfortable with her own failure. She pretends to be cool to hide her own discomfort with her screw-ups (but she doesn't realize all of this until she breaks up with her husband 2 episodes ago) and wishes everyone to feel the sadness she feels. Jessa has accepted failure not because it's comfortable but because she can't do anything about it and she wishes no one sees it.
Booth represents the millenials who have it made but feels as if they don't or insecure that they people might notice that they haven't really got it made. Booth is afraid of being idealized because, for some reason, it might not chime in with his person and he might fail to meet those expectations. He hates everyone that adores him because it's another expectation to meet. Perhaps he also finds people calling him a hack (like Marnie did) irresistible because it's easier to prove people right by failing than to prove people wrong by not meeting their expectations. In other words, some people find it less scary to prove they're a failure to people who dislikes you than to fail the people who believe in you.
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| Hannah's sad smile as she hears how happy Marnie is. |
What ultimately links this episode to each of the subplots going on is that all these people have insecurities they deal with. And the way insecurities were portrayed is painfully real (genuinely human without feeling overly pathetic), with almost all characters closing the episode with sadness or tears to a sad score. It is the sensitivity and vulnerability of this episode that marked very well. One of 2013 TV's finest 30 minutes.
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