“Life can be scary. Life is much intense. And you kind of have to ride it like a pony or you’ll get a haircut, so…”
You can expect to laugh, cry and cringe (and maybe do a truly weird combination of all three) when you tune into a series like the very special HBO comedy series, Girls. But one can never be sure what Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow will have in store for a season topper. In this instance, all of the collective storylines come to a life-changing momentary close until the next season, in which all of our sweetly flawed young twentysomethings come face-to-face with their personal ordeals, but do not entirely prevail over them. In fact, many of them are still trapped in the hole they’ve been digging themselves all season, but that’s not the point of this installment at all and the season finale makes that very clear. One thing Lena Dunham has done this season is really make her viewers care about the incredibly irresponsible ridiculousness her characters have displayed. It’s something that takes talent and real self-awareness to pull off. And in “Together”, our characters are left grappling with the harshness of life while also reaching out--desperate to find someone--that one person--to suffer through it all with. Much like life, it’s not ideal, but having someone by your side during times of failure and devastation helps a hell of a lot…
I think it says a great deal that the episode opens with the couples of the show all having sex. The act of coitus is very intimate and revealing, yet none of these people are presenting themselves entirely to one another as they do it. Shoshanna hides, Charlie hides, and Adam hides, even as their respective halves try to get them to open up, which I think says something important not only about a certain young generation, but about our society and how we like to use sex as a crutch in a lot of stressful, personal situations. While everyone is enjoying themselves in bed, Hannah continues her downward spiral. Quite honestly, Hannah is wasting away and to make things worse, she has one day left--just one day--to finish her novel or she’ll be in a whirlwind of consequences, namely dealing with a lawsuit from her odd publisher who happens to have some sort of crush on Chloe Sevigny and her tiny hands. Hannah’s OCD has her searching morbid details about some of the most random things, while this new obstacle rears its ugly head. It’s become quite painful to watch in a lot of ways. Hannah’s phone call to her father begging for help out of this situation is definitely once again bringing up one of Hannah’s major faults. All season, Hannah has pushed everyone who cares about her away, and now she does it to her father by forcing his hand. Hannah barely even makes an attempt to write her novel in this day, but more so attempts to reach out to all those she has burned bridges with. It’s the ultimate reality check that puts Hannah over the edge as her deadline treads nearer and nearer.
During a day of attempting to ignore a huge consequence, Hannah finds herself unraveling, literally shriveled up and frail, cutting her hair and then finding herself with Laird who tells her directly what her major problem is, which is of course her inability to let people in and to see others as people. We see it clearly when Marnie makes a visit and Hannah hides from her like a scared puppy, leaving her laptop open: “A friendship between college girls is grander and more dramatic than any romance…” True story. The whole Hannah-Marnie friendship debacle that has transpired throughout this season has been stressful and opened up some very compromising and dark sides of both of these girls. And in the end of the season, both girls realize that they are holding each other back from growing. When Hannah and Marnie are together they seem to just revel in their misery. But as we’ve seen in this season, when they are pulled apart due to their own selfishness, they are both forced to find their own ways to realize their dreams and potential. Something they’ve been struggling to do this year. While I expect Hannah and Marnie to cross paths at some point in Season 3, I feel like a lot of their growth has to be done apart. Then they can realize each other--see each other--and continue at least a moderately healthy friendship. But there are no shortcuts here…
Yet, in all honesty, Marnie gets to take somewhat of a shortcut by finally coming to a connection with Charlie. I can’t entirely tell yet if that connection is totally genuine or not, simply knowing how Marnie has treated Charlie in the past, but I guess we’ll find out. The two are a physically charming pair, but they have a broken history together that is very unhealthy. Marnie’s insecurities throughout this entire season come to somewhat of an happy and fuzzy conclusion. Charlie is a perfect option for Marnie to latch onto right now. He has financial security and he’s also a familiar comfort who has seemed to do a bit of personal growing himself. One just has to hope their previous problems do not cause more bigger problems that hurts them both even worse. Clearly, Marnie’s singing ambitions were simply for show as they disappear in the finale as she clings to Charlie for dear life, ready to settle down and start over. Seriously, out of all of the resolutions in the finale, I have the hardest time with Marnie’s. As much as it seems settled, it’s quite bleak and raises a lot of questionable possibilities. Marnie’s found some semblance of direction with Charlie, yet it does not resolve any of her own insecurities, which I must admit is a bit disappointing to not see in this finale episode. Sure, it’s partially delightful seeing Marnie and Charlie reunite in the end and walk off happy together, but it doesn’t really say much of anything significant in terms of Marnie’s own personal obstacles. Which I guess, is not the main point of this episode…
I say this apprehensively, yet I think Marnie spilling her guts to Charlie about how much she loves him and wants to be with him (and have his little brown babies) is actually quite genuine. And here’s why: Marnie’s lost everything this season. Everything that she thinks gave her value. She spent the season basically asking everyone else who she was. In the third episode of the season, Marnie literally asks Booth Jonathan “Who do you think I am?” and he forces her into his world for a while, simply for his enjoyment, totally making Marnie feel like his world is her path, when it just ended horribly three episodes later. And then Marnie also lost her best friend, Hannah due to a bad decision under the influence of alcohol, meaning she didn’t have a safety net or someone to vent to, so she kind of just sulked by herself in her own pitiful sadness. Then Marnie sees that the person she’s treated like crap so many times is finding success in his endeavors and getting his life straight and she embarrasses herself trying to display that she’s also doing well, which is far from the truth. So in the end, she is left to be vulnerable and beg for Charlie back, when usually it would be the other way around. Charlie has learned not to give in so easily to Marnie after all that’s transpired between them. After all of his groveling, it is about time Marnie genuinely came back to scoop up her man. As totally screwed up as Marnie is (which Charlie knows), these two people can’t deny that they are drawn to each other. Again, they are not ideal, but for now it is a delightful comfort to have one another while they figure it all out. That said, I still can’t help but feel like the progressions for these two, especially for Marnie, kind of debunk everything that happened in last week’s stellar penultimate episode. It’s all a rather convenient end for both characters and it is frankly kind of unsatisfying. Thankfully, the rest of the episode makes up for it.
Shoshanna is at an impasse. She loves Ray, but he’s not good for her at this point in her life. Much like Hannah and Marnie’s friendship, Ray and Shoshanna aren’t progressing or growing, but rather stalling each other from making great leaps into adulthood and maturity. Shoshanna realizes that Ray is holding her back, and it took her sleeping with a doorman to come to that conclusion. Even after Ray secures a new job and career path, still linked to Café Grumpy, Shoshanna is forced to sever ties with Ray in one of the episode’s best scenes. Zosia Mamet is in perfect form here, as Shoshanna attempts to break down the reasons she and Ray are no longer good for each other. Ray, is that bitter old mean guy that yells at you from across the street for apparently no reason, yet he’s only thirty-three years old. By Shoshanna pushing Ray away, he makes a step into bettering himself, by getting somewhere new in his career at the café. If Shoshanna were to stay content and silent about her annoyance with Ray’s lack of ambition, he’d still be stuck overlooking Hannah as she gives some poor customer three types of syrup and soda water. Now he’s moving on up to a new café on Brooklyn Heights. It’s a start…
Probably Ray’s biggest blunder here is being lulled into a sense of security by a young girl who is just starting her life. We all assume Shoshanna as the naïve innocent one, yet here, it is Ray who was naïve enough to believe Shoshanna would be content with him while she figured her own life out. Still, Shoshanna’s biggest problem is her naïve and misguided ideas of what she thinks she’s supposed to have or want at her age. And that’s not Ray’s fault. They’re just two people who found comfort in each other momentarily. Shoshanna is coming into her prime, while Ray is just beginning to realize that he’s had one for some time now. Shoshanna isn’t dim-witted, but she ends up contradicting herself in this instance, which is excruciatingly evident when we spot her kissing an adult male blonde in a dimly-lit bar. Really, as Shoshanna is looking for is some passion...
It’s something impulsive that Jessa would do. Where is Jessa? Hannah attempts to reach out to her in a phone call that quickly turns into a voicemail full of desperation. I could have sworn I’ve gotten a voicemail vaguely similar to the one Hannah leaves Jessa once before in my life. This is again, Hannah trying hard to pull back those she’s pushed away this season. Everyone keeps leaving Hannah in some way and if you go back and view a few episodes in this season, a lot of the episodes end with someone leaving Hannah all to her lonesome, or in some way Hannah pushing them away so she can force herself to be an adult. But just like Hannah insisted in episode five, she just wants to be happy. She wants friends and a lover and people who care for her and help her clean up the shattered glass when she makes a mess. And boy, she’s made quite a mess this time! But Hannah’s seemingly inherent solipsistic behavior has her isolated and scared. It seems the adult world she was pining for all season is too much for her. Her fear of responsibility outweighed her ambition and forced something painful--something that happened in her childhood--that she thought she left in the past, back into her life.
In Hannah’s last effort to reach out to someone she’s pushed away, she calls Adam, who is in the midst of destroying his work--himself--stuck in a relationship with Natalia, who is adamant on changing him, which is making him a bit crazy as well. However, I feel like Adam’s relationship with Natalia is a needed step in his life. Natalia is someone who seems to be coaching Adam on how make a relationship a bit more two-sided than one that is solely on his own pleasure and stimulation. Adam might not like Natalia for that, but it is a needed growth period for him. Just as this nightmarish time Hannah is having dealing with stress and her OCD is a painful growth period for her. It’s a tough one, but it’s very necessary so that both parties can be forced to open their eyes to see one another in a new light and possibly be on the same page with one at the same time. I also find it striking that out of all the people in Hannah’s life, Adam is one of the only ones, apart from her parents, to know that she had previously dealt with OCD in high school, which highlights how safe Hannah had once felt with Adam and how much she needs him to notice her now, broken, abandoned and scared.
There is a quote that I love that insists, “No one likes you in your twenties.” The second season of Girls definitely lives up to that quote, by displaying why that is. Your twenties are a decade to be selfish with your time and energy, discovering what you want in your life, which is only just beginning. There are millions of opportunities, because who doesn’t love the idea of a new young, fresh face taking control. But what happens when those opportunities arise and said twentysomething doesn’t step up to the plate and just panics, doing weird stuff to their hair? Life is about going through struggles, exploring the idea of looking at yourself in the future, especially for those stuck in their twenties. Exploring different things and attempting to climb out of the mess you made when you were younger and foolish. It’s about painting a masterpiece. And often we aren’t able to hide the brushstrokes. There will be major failures and catastrophic losses, as we see in this season finale, but the idea is that one at least tries. And when we fall, it’s rather ideal to have someone who cares about you there to catch you. Which is what Adam and Charlie end up doing for Hannah and Marnie, respectively. No, women do not need to be rescued by some whisking knight in shining armor at all, but sometimes people (men and women) need to be rescued from themselves and the hole that they’re digging.
In a way, Adam rescuing Hannah from herself indirectly rescues Adam from himself as well. Hannah even making the call to Adam is a huge step, after how she’s been so adamant on avoiding him this entire season. So, the way I see it, it is Hannah rescuing Adam in order for him to rescue her from herself, if that makes any sense. Sure, one can view the final sequence as melodramatic: The guy racing off to be with the woman he loves! It’s an old clichéd trope, but when done well, it still can spark a warmth and heart that is undeniably charming. And Hannah and Adam’s relationship and separate conflicts are just charming and odd enough to make this convention work in a real way that turns out to be both humorous and heartfelt. After this experience, Hannah and Adam’s relationship isn’t the same. They’re both on the same page now. They’ve been through so many emotions with one another that they can finally see each other as very flawed people who are still worth loving. This isn’t the old unhealthy, questionable, emotionally abusive relationship they both had in Season 1. This is hopefully the beginning of a new relationship that is built on love and compassion and maybe even a little happiness, which is really what Hannah always wanted in the first place.
This season of Girls has seen a great divide amongst character dynamics, relationships and friendships, and in the end some of them come back together and some don’t. In a way, this series is at least half dedicated to the idea that we must split apart so we all can grow and come back together in the end, which I think is also the idea of this admittedly messy, but poignant season finale and of the entire second season. It’s a vital part of ‘almost getting it together’ and realizing that not everything can be perfect nor inherently disastrous. Nothing in life is that black and white. Yet there is a lot of gray that I think the girls are finally allowing themselves to see after a season of self-sabotage, irrational emotions and fumbling toward adulthood. Maybe it’s best to feel life’s scary intensity and it‘s happy moments--to have an interesting balance and ride it like a pony--together. The second season finale of Girls, “Together” is full of raw reality, heart, darkness and even beauty, and it gets a deserved 5 out of 5 stars! Now we hibernate until next season…
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© Patrick Broadnax 2013
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