Girls, "Homeward Bound"

On one level, you could view "Girls" as an audacious experiment in seeing how unlikable it can make its protagonists.  This may seem like nothing new; we live in the age of TV antiheroes.  But most of those bad boys (and they're mostly boys) are also badasses.  Tony Soprano is charismatic as well as cunning.  Walter White is a monster, but a brilliant one.  Don Draper offers Madison Avenue cool to help disguise his misogyny.

Our four titular girls are not quite so impressive.  True, they may not be wholly off-putting.  Hannah can write and joke, Marnie can sing, Shoshanna is sweet and diligent, and Jessa is the ultimate Cool Girl.  But "Girls" spends far more time focusing on the "warts" part of the "warts and all" equation.  This approach reaches its apotheosis in "Homeward Bound."

Consider the awful behavior on display: Hannah dumps Fran at the outset of their vacation, then sexually assaults and ditches Ray.  Shoshanna does a poor little rich girl routine, whining that she's going to have to go on welfare as she eats sushi.  Jessa is preoccupied with her feud with Hannah as Adam struggles to care for his nephew, who's been abandoned.  Marnie appears reasonable in trying to deal with Desi at a recording session, but their problems are framed as a byproduct of her anger management issues.

What's really amazing about "Homeward Bound" is the gender divide on display.  While the girls are being terrible, the boys are struggling to be decent.  Fran practically begs Hannah to let him give her a ride back to the city.  When she refuses, Ray comes up to get her.  She eventually hitchhikes with still another man, who turns out to be a victim rather than a perpetrator of domestic violence.  Meanwhile, Adam and Laird step up to the plate in caring for poor little Sample while Jessa whines.  Marnie's storyline is the exception that proves the rule: Desi is as terrible as ever, but he's enabled by a new girlfriend whose idea of conflict resolution apparently involves blaming Marnie for everything.

Look, we all know where "Girls" is going.  Our heroines will plunge to new lows, then emerge with a newfound sense of maturity, only to see it tested in the final season and come out stronger than ever.  But do they all have to hit rock bottom at the same time?