Girls, "Old Loves"

The fourth episode of a "Girls" season has typically been a significant one.  (This was most notable in season 2, when "It's a Shame About Ray" pulled things together after the show had been floundering.) Given that this is a half-hour show with a lot of dramatic elements, it makes sense that it would take time for it to build to a crescendo.

But the crescendo doesn't mean much if the tune is no good.  This fourth episode does build to a climactic montage, but the centerpiece of it is the consummation of the frustrating Adam-Jessa relationship.  Although their sex is endearingly awkward, having both characters say "I've wanted this for a long time" doesn't make it any more believable.

As the title "Old Loves" implies, most of the rest of the episode is concerned with showing cracks in the facades of more developed relationships.  Fresh off their battle over nude selfies, Hannah and Fran have a prickly argument over grading.  Fran rather presumptuously starts marking up the grammar on one of Hannah's student's papers, showing an irritating type-A side to his personality.  Hannah, of course, does not respond well.  Rather than make an excuse  ("I spilled coffee on it!") and ask the student for another copy, she drags the poor young pupil into her boyfriend drama.

Hannah is told that she just needs to work things out by Marnie, who's having her own problems in her new marriage.  (This is the one terrific moment of the episode: we're always projecting our own situations onto the issues of others.)  Marnie is deluding herself that her marriage will work if she tries to be the bigger person.  But she's already the bigger person.  The imbalance between her and Desi has never been more clear.  Marnie has the fundamental tools, the drive and intelligence, to succeed.  She's just making bad choices right now.  Desi, on the other hand, is simply a fuck up, as demonstrated by his meltdown over the $3,000 wall he attempted to put up in their tiny apartment.

Perhaps an even bigger imbalance exists between Elijah and his new celebrity beau Dill.  Dill makes a (rather too) unsubtle threat about crossing him, and then more or less uses him as a sex toy in bed.  As Elijah looks at the gorgeous view from Dill's apartment, it's already clear that he'll be facing a Faustian dilemma.  Should he give up on love and do it (literally) for the money?

That kind of problem highlights one of the disappointments of "Girls": it hasn't done much to tackle the financial struggles of millenials.  The major conflict of the pilot is Hannah's quest to get more money from her parents, yet the show has rarely been interested in the challenges of paying the rent.  The characters' jobs only come up when it becomes convenient from a plot standpoint.  (Shoshanna's recent firing, for example, is designed to set up a love triangle, not put her in dire financial straits, though that may be a side effect.)  The show has barely tried to explain how Elijah, Marnie, and Desi make it in what may be the most expensive city in human history.  Jessa's sudden allusion to her "studies"--without even spending 10 seconds of expository dialogue to explain just what those are--shows how blinkered this show can be.