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About two-thirds into the season finale of Girls, Jessa (Jemima Kirke) races into her apartment where she finds Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) and shouts with pride, “I’m going to become a therapist!” I wouldn't blame anyone for being taken aback by the sheer sight of Jessa and Shoshanna together in their apartment; though their rooming played a major part in the show’s early days, they hadn't been alone in a scene together all year, much less in that apartment. But then, more obviously, there's the absurdity of the declaration: Lena Dunham seems somewhat knowing about how ridiculous this character shift is, but even with that level of self-awareness, the fact that Girls had spent next-to-no time with Jessa this season makes Jessa's a-ha moment feel, well, a little unwarranted.
And that could go for way too much of Girls season four.
This season, the series divided its cast much more rigidly, dealt with a reduced episode order and spent three of ten installments with Hannah (Dunham) in Iowa, completely separate from the rest of the Girls world. Time was severely shortened, which only had a cascading effect on the fact that we were, for the first time, tasked with investing in characters individually as we had no reason to before. Dunham laboriously sketched out a season-long love triangle between Marnie (Allison Williams), her insufferable boyfriend-turned-fiance Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Ray (Alex Karpovsky), whose sudden love for Marnie was established with a substantial degree of randomness. Ray also ran for City Council and won, Shoshanna interviewed for a bunch of high-level marketing jobs before landing one in Tokyo, Adam (Adam Driver) felt out a rebound relationship with the not-quite-right-for-him Mimi-Rose (a very funny Gillian Jacobs), and Jessa chased after a guy for an episode or two before becoming a therapist! Some of it was interesting, some of it not, but all of it was given the short shrift. There's always plenty to like in Girls, at a certain point this season, there was a hollowness permeating it all, a sense of Dunham losing her way.
For a lot of this season of Girls, I kept telling myself I had just fallen out of Dunham’s rhythms. I’d taken more to the comedic intensity of Broad City, or the bouncy oddity of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, for my half-hour visions of New York. But its season finale, unusually framed around Caroline’s (Gaby Hoffman, who if nothing else, was damn committed) homebirth, confirmed that this is a show that has lost its way. There’s a fantastic breakup scene between Adam and Hannah, played beautifully by the series’ romantic leads, and some sharp one-liners here and there. But it’s so weightless, so distracted and ultimately so gutless. It felt like a C-level sitcom’s season finale, in which a bunch of characters who’d been so profoundly in the background all year make fairly baseless, life-changing decisions. Because so little of the Girls foundation seemed sturdy this year, Dunham and co-writers Jenni Konner and Judd Apatow's choice of a cheap albeit necessary six-month time jump to wrap things up felt all too right. Now Girls gets to reboot, with Jessa (presumably) trying out a vocation, Shoshanna in Tokyo, Marnie once again single and Hannah in a healthy relationship with a co-worker. It’s beyond not-so-relatable; it’s mostly preposterous.
If this all sounds a little treacly and random, it should. I admire Dunham for where she has taken her breakout success. This has always been a series about friends with tenuous bonds who begin to drift apart; it’s a conceit that compels a kind of follow-through few writers would execute, since the relationships are what built the foundation of the show. But Dunham has never resisted. The fourth season of Girls finds each character in decidedly different realms, with interactions far less frequent. In particular, the show demonstrates real growth when Hannah learns of Marnie’s engagement relatively late, but doesn't have much of a reaction. The Hannah of two seasons ago would have thrown a fit; now, it’s accepted, and understood.
But Dunham’s commitment to this concept has also been her undoing. The heavy lean on tertiary romantic subplots keep people sort-of tied together, but it’s hard to understand Dunham's consistent focus on Ray running for office -- a plot neither funny nor illuminating -- or on insufferable Marnie suffering with insufferable Desi. The discomfort humor so intrinsic to Girls has given way to airless discomfort; my irritation is now less focused on character behavior and more on “Why am I watching this?” The humor isn’t as sharp (or frequent), and the thin definition of the characters has come into unsettling focus. It’s laughable when Jessa decides on a new career after helping out with the homebirth, and even though Dunham knows it, it still lands embarrassingly: an admission that there just isn't enough going on.
Girls has always been best when focused on Hannah, and season four is no exception. Its second episode, set entirely in Iowa, plays sufficiently as a meta commentary on Hannah/Dunham, while Hannah's unusual night-out with Mimi-Rose upon her return to New York works as an odd, immersive standalone episode. Also effective: the season-ending arc of Hannah's father coming out as gay, if only because it gives both Peter Scolari and Becky Ann Baker more screen-time and better material than earlier seasons.
But in Girls, what happened around Hannah used to be related to what was happening to Hannah. Everything is so separate, and so thinly-realized, around the central Girls character at present that it just feels wasteful. And, perhaps unavoidably, Dunham seems increasingly out-of-touch with reality: towards the end of the season, Hannah promptly gets a job at a private school; a string of impressive interviews lead to an impressive job for fresh-out-of-college Shoshanna; and Ray goes from coffee shop manager to public official in about an hour. (And is Adam still on Broadway?)
There's a sharp, overt feminist zing to the season finale, made clearest in Caroline’s tirade against the birth-industrial complex, Shoshanna’s matter-of-fact dismissal of Jason Ritter’s request that she tie herself down for him, and Marnie’s epiphany that she needs to stop relying on Desi. It's indicative of a pointed approach that Dunham seems too often content to forgo. A show that once felt brazen and bold now feels antiquated and stretched-out. The season-ending time jump seems to imply that Dunham is ready to move forward with a fresh start. But as I see it, Girls' levels of humor and intrigue have been severely diluted over the past few years. I’m not sure if I care enough to see if they can pick themselves up again.
Grade: C
Girls has always been best when focused on Hannah, and season four is no exception. Its second episode, set entirely in Iowa, plays sufficiently as a meta commentary on Hannah/Dunham, while Hannah's unusual night-out with Mimi-Rose upon her return to New York works as an odd, immersive standalone episode. Also effective: the season-ending arc of Hannah's father coming out as gay, if only because it gives both Peter Scolari and Becky Ann Baker more screen-time and better material than earlier seasons.
But in Girls, what happened around Hannah used to be related to what was happening to Hannah. Everything is so separate, and so thinly-realized, around the central Girls character at present that it just feels wasteful. And, perhaps unavoidably, Dunham seems increasingly out-of-touch with reality: towards the end of the season, Hannah promptly gets a job at a private school; a string of impressive interviews lead to an impressive job for fresh-out-of-college Shoshanna; and Ray goes from coffee shop manager to public official in about an hour. (And is Adam still on Broadway?)
There's a sharp, overt feminist zing to the season finale, made clearest in Caroline’s tirade against the birth-industrial complex, Shoshanna’s matter-of-fact dismissal of Jason Ritter’s request that she tie herself down for him, and Marnie’s epiphany that she needs to stop relying on Desi. It's indicative of a pointed approach that Dunham seems too often content to forgo. A show that once felt brazen and bold now feels antiquated and stretched-out. The season-ending time jump seems to imply that Dunham is ready to move forward with a fresh start. But as I see it, Girls' levels of humor and intrigue have been severely diluted over the past few years. I’m not sure if I care enough to see if they can pick themselves up again.
Grade: C