Hannah running into Adam is only one of the ruinous situations in this episode.
As the season comes to a close, the girls (and boys) are starting to unravel at an uncomfortable pace. There was once a time earlier in the season where everything wasn’t okay, but the characters were mostly having fun while experiencing the downs of life. It wasn’t so long ago that Hannah and Elijah were traipsing around Brooklyn high on coke. But at this point, there’s no point in covering up how ruinous their lives are becoming. The perk of being in your 20s is that nothing can stay that way forever, but it sure sucks for now.
There were moments in this episode that were almost too painful to watch — Hannah jamming a Q-Tip in her ear, Marnie doing a bizarre cover of Kanye West’s “Stronger,” Shoshanna trying to mask her infidelity and Adam bossing his new girlfriend around his nail-covered apartment. There were some bits of humor that helped drive the episode along without it getting too dark such as Ray saying he “dabbled in the Macintosh arts” and a whimpering and pants-less Hannah berating her doctor about cleaning her ears. But on the whole, everything is pretty awful for everyone on Girls, and there’s only one episode left to tie everything up.
Hannah: It appears as if Hannah hasn’t made any progress from last week’s hospital visit concerning her OCD. It doesn’t help that her publisher hates the material she sent him and accuses her of being too virginal for what he wanted. While attempting to write, she gets a bad splinter in her thigh that turns into accidentally shoving a Q-Tip in her ear. At the hospital Hannah acknowledges her deteriorating mental state as the doctor painfully drips medicine into her ear. Her day only gets stranger when she runs into Adam, who has taken on the role of “nice boyfriend” to his new girlfriend (who is virtually the anti-Hannah). He sees Sandra Bullock movies and attends engagement parties with her. Hannah’s and Adam’s interaction is startling on both ends, and Adam flees when Hannah becomes emotional after he calls her “kid.” The encounter leads Adam to drink for the first time in years and brings him straight back to the slightly cruel and abrasive Adam we first met on the show.
Marnie: Marnie decided to take Ray’s encouraging speech to heart and is now working on her career as an aspiring singer. It’s strange to see Marnie, who was once the uptight yet completely together character on the show, to be spiraling so drastically. Her attempts at trying to Garageband her tracks are pitiful, as well as her attempt to reconnect with Charlie, who is now the most successful person on this show by a mile. After forgetting a lunch date, he invites her to his work party where she puts on her impromptu performance to a confused crowd and an embarrassed Charlie. He brings her into his office to try and talk some sense into her, but they just end up having sex. Guess he doesn’t have the small hip girlfriend anymore?
Shoshanna: Shoshanna is still reeling from her fleeting affair with the doorman of her friend’s building and is attempting to fix it by obsessively tending to a Snuggie-clad Ray. This being her first real relationship and her first real mistake in a relationship, she is choosing to deal with the guilt in the strangest of ways. Not only does she try to take care of Ray, she also throws herself at every male she talks to (she tells Charlie he looks so good that she would have sex with him at her own party). Ray’s not blind and picks up on her odd behavior, but Shoshanna only admits to “holding hands” with said doorman. Ray finds her supposed slip-up endearing and embraces her, but Shoshanna’s grimace shows that everything won’t be resolved that easily.
Jessa: Still missing.
