GIRLS: SEASON 4 EPISODE 5: SIT-IN RECAP & REVIEW
Rhea: Girls gives us exactly what we want this week, picking up right away with Hannah, Adam, and cold-pressed-juice-drinking Mimi Rose in the Awkward Apartment. Hannah always doubles down on the awkward, which, in this case, means sequestering herself in her old bedroom with a blanket over her head. Adam is left to frantically phone her friends and cagily try to eavesdrop outside the door, trying to read how Hannah is doing, and, more importantly to him, when she’s leaving.
Shoshanna swoops in like a social worker there to save a child after Protective Services alert call, only with fabulous hair. She promises Hannah that she, Jessa, “and-or-slash-Marnie” are going to see her through this, which is the only kind of Marnie I can tolerate. Shosh’s break-up tactics are all spy-based, as we’ve seen with her stalking of Ray, so she has Hannah watching Mimi Rose’s TEDx talk in no time, a choice she instantly regrets. Hannah goes from not wanting to be a “woman-googling person” to eating that shit right up with a spoon. Everything happens at lightning speed in this episode, lending a disjointed comedic quality that really works with the subject matter of a serious break-up.
Jessa is next on the scene, flatly calling Adam a twat and rolling up her sleeves to dive right into the Hannah situation room. Since Jessa is a terrible friend, it quickly comes out that she was the one who set up the “rando hussy” with Adam. There’s always been a violent rage simmering in Hannah and Jessa’s relationship, and under these stressors, it erupts. Hannah is on her worst behavior in her old apartment, which she insists is “seething with intruders,” and she ends up in a hitting match with Jessa, pissing inappropriately in a garbage can, and taking one of her less convincing fake showers.
All of that is overshadowed by the triumphant return of KING LAIRD. He is, of course, “creaming the feet” of Caroline, who is dressed like a pregnant cult member. They attempt to entrap Hannah in a quasi-threesome, but she gets out just in time. Next up is Ray, who is way too self-absorbed to rescue Hannah. I mean, aren’t they all? But Ray is the only one whose visit leads to Hannah having a third degree bacon burn, so perhaps he wins the narcissism award this week.
Did someone say narcissism? Herrrrrrrrre’s Marnie! She’s been too busy woodshedding with her Mumford and Son (good burn, Ray!) of a boyfriend, Desi, to answer her phone and come to Hannah’s side in her time of need and/or squatting. Once she does arrive, however, she offers the only bit of actual advice Hannah receives the entire episode, which is to let Adam go. Hannah is sad that they are not going to have a “great artistic love story,” which is a concept that needs to die a huge bloody death with a meat cleaver.
Adam and Hannah find a way to say goodbye, for now, and he promises to move out in a few days. Since none of her friends are other-centered enough to offer her a viable place to stay, Hannah ends up right where Adam put her — in the storage unit with all her cheap mid-century modern furniture.
Victor: After having to deal with the pervasive multiculturalism that plagued the Iowa segments these past few weeks, it’s SUCH a relief to be back in Brooklyn, the whitest city on the face of the Earth!
Not that we get to see much of it this week, as we’re trapped in Hannah’s apartment (and her head) for the entire episode.
I’ll say this much about “Sit-In”: it’s pretty impressive how they manage to wring genuine pathos out of the final death spasms of relationship I’ve been calling for an end to for a season and a half.
So assuming that we won’t see Adam for a while, if ever again (fingers crossed), now seems as good a time as any to pay tribute to one of the most fascinating characters in recent television memory.
Adam started out as a kinky pervert, became a loving boyfriend/kinky pervert, a pretentious actor/missionary position booster, and finally a happy person (as everyone is quick to point out to Hannah, who does NOT want to hear that shit). Trying to find a thru-line in Adams behavior in four years is like trying to find a hedgehog at a coffee house: Sure, you could probably do it eventually. But by the time you’re done, nobody’s going to care anymore.
Which is why all props are due to Adam Driver, who turned a collection of weird and occasionally incongruous personality traits into something resembling an actual character, if nothing close to an actual human being.
With Adam doing what he always does in times of stress (spastically watching from afar while others clean up his mess), the emotional weight of the break-up falls on Hannah, and Lena Dunham gives the best performance she’s ever given. Hannah has never been this much of a raw nerve, and never been so emotionally transparent. No longer is she ‘Little Miss Melodrama’, trying to make her life the most interesting and most dramatic (though, granted, locking yourself in your bedroom doesn’t exactly scream ‘grown-up’). The difference is that this time she’s processing genuine hurt and genuine confusion, and it brings out the best in everyone around her.
Though when I say that, you have to keep in mind that these are still the characters from Girls.
So… grain of salt, people.
Shosh shows up first, and I feel like from now on she should always arrive dressed like she’s just come from a job interview at the Neiman Marcus buyers’ office. Shosh is unusually attentive to Hannah’s feelings, which just goes to show that last week wasn’t a fluke and Shosh really is becoming a better person.
Also, Hannah’s nickname is ‘Banana’. Because of course it is.
Then Jessa comes, bless her blackened heart, and casually reveals that she’s the one who set Adam up with Mimi Rose (which retroactively makes the fact she referred to her as ‘whatshername’ a couple weeks ago kind of hilarious). I loved her confidence going into the room, and I love the phrase ‘flicking our clits’, which makes masturbation sound like a sweet game of paper football.
Caroline shows up just long enough to subtly imply that her pregnancy is a figment of everyone’s imagination, and Ray brings home the bacon to fry it up in a pan, which, aside from refuting old perfume commercials, is also delicious.
Incidentally, there was a brief moment where I thought Ray and Hannah were going to kiss. Man, I can’t read a room for shit…
But it’s Marnie (of all people) who kicks the truth all up in Hannah’s ear: it’s over. Move on and move up.
This is an impressive bounceback considering that when she showed up talking about ‘woodshedding’ and ‘cell phone diets’, I came very close to conceding defeat in my quest to get Rhea to love Marnie.
Though, in her defense, I think it’s obvious what happened here: Marnie and Desi’s ass-play has gotten to the point where he’s up in her to the elbow and using her like a puppet. That’s the only logical explanation for why she would say such things, no?
With the wisdom of Marnie comes acceptance. Hannah says her final goodbye to Adam, and to her childhood; that is to say, she won’t be responding to ‘Kid’ anymore.
And as we fade out and the music swells, we are left exactly where all of us who have ever dared to love find ourselves at one time or another: alone on a couch in a storage locker, unsure of what’s going to happen next.
Usually that’s just a metaphor, though…
RHEA’S QUESTIONS FOR VICTOR
1. Have you ever reared back and hit a friend like that? If so, what was the context? If not, what would make you do that?
No, I can’t think of a time when I hit one of my friends like that, because I’ve learned not to associate with people that make me want to hit them. Which is interesting, because as you know, I kind of want to punch everyone all the time. Not out of malice, mind you… just to see how they’d react. So if you’ve ever met me, just know that at one time or another, even if it was for an instant, I seriously considered punching you for no real reason. So, to answer your question, nothing. Nothing would “make” me do it, because I’d just do it. Reasons are for suckers.
2. This week, I finished Michelle Tea’s book How to Grow Up, and in it, she introduces the concepts of the “breakover” and the “breakcation.” Let’s prescribe one of each for Hannah. What will she look like after her breakover, and where (and with whom) will she go on her breakcation?
Hannah’s gone long hair, she’s gone short hair… I think now is the perfect time for a pompadour. Yeah, a pompadour and kind of a Raggedy Ann thing going on, sartorially speaking. That’s how to heal a heart. And for her Breakcation, I think she should go to Amsterdam, girls only. And when I say ‘girls’, obviously I mean Abbi and Ilana.
3. Is this a good move for Adam? Everyone keeps saying he’s “so happy” with MRH, but is Happy Adam the true Adam?
Getting away from Hannah is a good move. I don’t think happy Adam is the true Adam, but the true Adam is pretty much a big bag of uncut dicks. So fuck that guy.
4. Whose cameo in the Awkward Apartment was your favorite, and why?
That’s actually a little hard to answer, because I like bacon. A lot. So my instincts say ‘Ray’. But there was something weirdly cathartic about Jessa and Hannah hitting each other. Also, after they hit each other, I kind of thought they were going to kiss. Again, not so good with the room reading. But in the end I have to go with that little voice in my head that says ‘Marnie’, because she managed to recover from saying ‘woodshedding’ and actually be a good friend and give sensible advice.
5. What’s the best break-up food? Is it burned bacon?
Bacon is the best food, period. But if you eliminate bacon due to its unfair advantage, then the best break-up food is obviously revenge.
Serve it cold, baby.
VICTOR’S QUESTIONS FOR RHEA
1. Which one of the Girls cast members (by which I mean Hannah, Marnie, Shosh, or Jessa… no way would I give you the easy out of Laird or Elijah!) Would you most want to be at your side during your hour of need and why?
I mostly like to be left alone in my pain, so I’d have to say Jessa. She’d show up, make me laugh a little with her ridiculous suggestions that help no one, piss me off with her complicity in whatever situation was bumming me out, and then most likely never call me again.
2. Come to think of it, let’s speculate: where WAS Elijah in Hannah’s hour of need?
Elijah is totally still in Iowa. He’s ice farming with a friend named Thad, wearing a paisley ascot and writing about it for Vice.
3. What would your TED Talk be about?
Why it’s okay to be a bit of a fuck-up.
4. Does it make you think more or less of Laird to see how much he seemed to be into the whole ‘feet creaming’ thing?
When it comes to Laird, I am unshockable. Also, pregnant ladies have feet that are akin to floatation devices, so any attention anyone is willing to give them is greatly appreciated, even if it’s in the gross packaging of “creaming her feet.”
5. This week we learned the phrases ‘woodshedding’ and ‘cell phone diet’, both of which we know had to have came from Desi. In your best Desi-speak, give me an epigram designed to comfort Hannah as she goes through her ‘negative life dealings’ (you can have that one for free)
Wait but I still don’t know what either of those phrases mean! I do not speak ‘Desi.’ Little help, Mumford and Sons Translator?
Tune in next week to find out if Victor really does speak Mumford and Son, and if Elijah’s VICE piece about big square ice cube farms will break the internet.
