FASHION Magazine

It’s the final episode: does it feel like Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna have water-birthed their truth yet? Last week, that concept came to us courtesy of Tally, the former Oberlin classmate whose literary success was a catalyst for Hannah to seek out opinions on her own essays, and for the other girls to examine where they are with their lives. The results ranged from juvenile to serious: Shoshanna tried online dating, Marnie flung a toothbrush and insults at Hannah and the two threatened to move out, and Jessa listened as her ex-boss Katherine tell her that the drama she was drawn to was crippling her from becoming the person she is meant to be. But these decisions didn’t manifest action until this episode, which, I have to say was by far my favourite yet (second: that crazy party in Bushwick) and felt like an hour passed because so much happened. So grab a plate of leftover wedding cake and let’s dig in.

Wait, wedding cake? What were the girls up to in the finale? »

Well, last week Marnie finally got that girl-on-girl college experience she missed out on by dating Charlie. We’re grateful it was with Jessa, who didn’t let it become what the experience is usually about: a parlour trick for getting guys’ attention. Jessa may suck at being a Crack Spirit Guide, but Break-Up Spirit Guide is something at which she excels. In the throes of relationship bliss, Hannah risked rocking the boat by scolding Adam for his bad behaviour and was rewarded with genuine contriteness.

This week, the girls put on their party frocks and head to a book launch feting their former classmate, Hannah’s nemesis. Here we see the girls’ different outlooks on post-college success: Hannah is jealous (moreso because it’s in her field), Shoshanna is awestruck (though she is still a student so probably anyone with a nine-to-five job gives her the wows), Marnie is impressed and Jessa, as per usual, is bored. What the book really does though is prompt each girl to reevaluate where they are with their post-college goals and growth. So let’s see what those questions are…

It’s time to get hot for teacher! Read on »

If LMFAO had songs about the kind of party we saw on last week’s Girls, we’d be more likely to buy their albums—and we’re not just talking about singing “girls, girls, girls” instead of “shots, shots, shots.” Can’t there be an off-kilter techno hit about a girl in sequins who runs through the streets in a heart-pounding panic, with a verse about a girl who sees a new side of the guy she likes and finally gets him to commit? We’d dance to that.

This week on Girls it’s all Magnum condoms, cinnamon raisin swirl peanut butter and home videos in bed for Hannah and Adam, while Marnie’s trying to tune out her roommate’s loud sex while agonizing over Facebook vacation pictures of Charlie and his new girlfriend. This is the least problem-strewn episode for Hannah, as she’s happy with Adam: there’s an ice cream truck parked outside of her house and they’re doing coupley things like jogging. Her only worry is taking a shower—at least we think that’s what she’s written on her hand? Shoshanna is M.I.A. (maybe not recovered from her crack use, or busy giving nonsexual massages on street corners to pay for more?) and Jessa, well, she’s looking for sympathy. But let’s see if she gets it or gives it…

Ready to reach your threshold and push past it? Read on! »

Last week was more Girl than Girls, as we focused on Hannah’s solo trip home, which concluded with no rent money for her and a sex injury for her dad. This week, it’s back to full on Girlsdom (or Girls-dumb, as it were) as they go on a group outing to Bushwick. While I have been to many parts of Brooklyn, Bushwick is not one of them. So I can’t speak with authority about what the rest of it looks like, but the party they go to seems to be like if Burning Man was unpacked off a barge in an industrial area. Looking at what each girl is wearing it’s clear they had different expectations of this party: Hannah appears to be going to a barbecue, Shoshanna is out for tea with her aunt (the one who thought her place was the perfect bachelorette pad), Marnie is attending an Upper East Side lady’s handbag launch and Jessa is auditioning for whatever the bird equivalent of Cats on Broadway might be. But let’s see just what they got dressed up (or down) for…

You’re invited… to see what sort of problems these Girls got up to at the party »

Last week we saw what was hopefully the final nail in the coffee table that was Charlie and Marnie’s chemistry-free relationship. There was also Hannah quitting her job after an ill-fated attempt at a workplace affair and subsequent lawsuit threat, and Jessa exploring her unsmotability while Shoshanna watched on in horror. This week we’ve left […]

The post Girls Recap: Hannah heads home to Michigan to ditch her parents, date a pharmacist and blame everyone else for her boredom appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Last week’s episode ended with a well-executed vengeance song that made us wish our friends’ boyfriends were in bands so we could get them to sing pages of our diaries. There was also a former camp counselor that refused to do a kitchen raid on Shoshanna’s virginity and Jessa lost her charges but gained some Jeff sympathy. This week delightfully picked back up at Marnie and Hannah’s apartment and showed us the further destruction created by the latter’s diary. It also gave us a glimpse into Charlie’s apartment that is as neat and organized and boring as we imagine the inside of his head to be. But most importantly, we had a sexual harassment stand-off between Hannah and her boss that we’re sure she wanted to sound like Disclosure but came out more Nine to Five.

So. Many. Problems. »

My Twitter feed last Sunday was full of comments celebrating episode three as the best yet for Girls. I think that’s due to the girls teaming up with more supporting characters—seeing Marnie and Jessa in their work environs provided some new perspective. The first two episodes set up the group dynamic, and this week certainly offered a measured dose of self-discovery. Shoshanna tried to ditch her virginity baggage, Jessa realized that the easy job she took for easy money comes with two real responsibilities, Hannah decided what level of uncomfortable she’s willing to put up with and Marnie—well, Marnie got an actual table and then had the metaphorical tables turned on her.

Let’s discuss this week’s problems »

How are you feeling about the girls of Girls right now? Do you like them, or are you siding with critics who can’t keep from pointing out the show’s flaws? Have you resigned yourself to not liking the characters and just getting through this whole thing with them in a vote of female solidarity? (“If we don’t watch, the Two and a Half Mens of this world win!”) Or, maybe like me, you like them simply because they’re not trying too hard to be liked (unlike Marnie around a hot artist)?

Last week, we saw how our foursome each reacted to an abortion in their midst, experienced two distinctly awful rounds of sex, discovered there was a virgin in the pack, and saw how easily an unwanted pregnancy could disappear. This week there was no sex but lots of body image talk. From Adam playing with Hannah’s belly fat to Shoshanna telling Jessa it wasn’t a good thing that she could see her belly—it wasn’t exactly Our Bodies, Ourselves but there was masturbation and STDs. The narcissistic tunnel these ladies have us trapped in was given a light by the introduction of a few outside characters: Marnie’s tit-tape-dependant gallery director, Hannah’s now-gay ex and the NYC-version of a nuclear family Jessa is babysitting for. (Aside: was the name of the neighbour in the kid’s novel called Shamaia Grimes, like the kid did not know how to spell Shenae Grimes’s name properly? Yes/No/Maybe?)

While we loved seeing the girls run like pack animals in the last episode, it was interesting to see how they operate away from one another this ep. Marnie seems like the grown-up of her group, but in the so-called art world she’s low on the social order and just as capable of being intimidated by a guy she wants to like her. But let’s get back to the body talk.

Let’s talk about sexy ba-by »

Last week we met the girls of Girls. This week, they’re the “ladies” according to Shoshanna’s self-help dating manual, but mostly we’d just call them clueless. Not in a Dumb and Dumber way where they’re idiots, but in a way that kind of makes us sad.  Have you ever heard the Four Burners Theory of success? One burner represents your family, the second is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work—to be successful you have to turn one off, and to be really successful you have to turn off two. Well, never mind turning off a burner, at best these girls barely have two turned on! Speaking of getting turned on, there’s not much of that happening this week: sex isn’t bringing any of these girls happiness—so let’s see which problems prompt the girls to camp out at a SoHo health clinic.

Bring on the problems! »

Welcome to our weekly recap of Girls, the new show from HBO that media are touting as Sex and the City for Millennials. It’s likely journalists just like to compare things that share numbers, like New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys had five guys singing to teenage girls, because while Sex and the City and Girls both take a concerted look at the lives of four women living in New York City, that is where the similarities awkwardly pause. Girls is mostly concerned with Hannah, who is 24, works in publishing and lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn like a current-day Emily Gould. Hannah lives with her gallerist bestie Marnie. There’s also their friend Jessa, who has just arrived back in the city from some kind of spiritual quest/pearl shucking/bazaar shopping expedition and is living with her earnest, velour-tracksuit-wearing cousin Shoshanna.

Like any girl in her early twenties, post-college or no, these ladies have problems of the guy/work/family/friend variety, so let’s see how they go about solving them, or more likely, making them worse. Each week we’ll take a look at the two main problems affecting the Girls and how they go about trying to find a solution. Ten years older than the Girls, and having lived through her fair share of humiliations, your recapper will also weigh in on whether these problems are just rest stops on the road to better character or psyche damaging pile-ups that will follow them the rest of their days.

Mo’ (or less) money mo’ problems »