Girls, "Good Man"

Any show fortunate to live a long life is going to have some episodes that feel pretty inconsequential.  It's inevitable: more than 20 hours into a show, particularly a relatively light one like "Girls," not everything is going to feel like compelling drama.

Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, the cowriters of "Good Man," come up with a pretty good solution to this problem: they throw a ton of stuff at the audience so that the energy never flags.  (Now we know why last week's episode felt like a cost-cutter, neglecting to show any of the non-principal wedding guests.  This week is bursting at the seams with characters.  All those actors didn't come cheap.)

Fran moves in with Hannah after his roommate experiences a psychotic break.  Hannah teaches Phillip Roth to eighth-graders, which is just a prelude to her helping her dad through the aftermath of an awkward sexual encounter.  Adam visits his niece, which is just a prelude to him continuing his courtship of Jessa.  Elijah gets a new suitor, who just happens to be a famous news anchor.

The strongest of these storylines is Hannah's time with her father.  Up until now, the "Hannah's dad is gay" subplot has mostly been used for jokes about how Hannah doesn't want to hear her parents talk about icky sex stuff.  But "Good Man" moves things into more dramatic territory.  Hannah meets her dad's new fling and learns that he's a pretty nice guy.  She takes a stormy phone call from her mother, who's demanding a divorce.  These developments are forcing Hannah to view her parents as the messy, flawed human beings they are.  It's a tough lesson that people tend to learn as they start treating their parents as peers rather than authority figures.

Unfortunately, the other material here just doesn't measure up.  Adam and Jessa's developing relationship continues to make no sense.  Wouldn't these two have hooked up already if they had such a strong connection?  Even leaving that aside, their day spent mooning over each other at a carnival didn't feel true to these characters.  Adam and Jessa are both impulsive people making a bad decision.  This feels like the kind of fling where two people suddenly collide and then instantly regret it, not something that would develop through puppy dog love.

Meanwhile, Ray faces stiff competition from a neighboring coffee shop.  This thread isn't completely devoid of worthwhile material.  Helvetica is a pretty great name for an annoying store.  And Ray's confrontation with a barista of ambiguous gender is a great illustration of a peril of living in New York.  But this feels like a rerun of Ray's storyline from last season, in which he got pissed off about something and found a way to take action.  Will Ray use his political muscle to force Helvetica to use lids?  I may need some coffee to stay awake for this storyline.