Girls (Season 3)

[number8]

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Glad the show is back again. Always forget how much I miss it until that first episode returns.

First two episodes of S3 are free on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgJtd6hBeRc), btw.

[number8]

The cold open on the first episode was very Eastbound & Down.

[Lazlo]

The cold open on the first episode was very Eastbound & Down.

"Did you leave in a rush?"

Great episodes. So glad to have it back.

[ledfloyd]

Aside from the dinner party, the first episode didn't do much for me. The second, thankfully, was great.

[slqrick]

Liked the second episode much more than the first. Adam Driver bouncing his character off Hannah's friends definitely made for the best scenes, and it was smart to gloss over the awfully cheesy way the two got together at the end of last season. I appreciate that they're trying to make Jessa a human, but I thought her scenes were hit or miss. The complaints I've had from the beginning are still mostly there, but the dialogue and direction are trumping them at the moment.

[number8]

I agree that Episode 2 was much better (the Maroon 5 scene, oh god), but I'll be pissed if the next episode doesn't resolve the dangling plotline at the end of the episode about where they put the rocking chair after they picked up Jessa.

[number8]

"Did you leave in a rush?"

Ray laughing at that in the background was the best part.

[Lucky]

I'm starting to realize that I have a threshold for Shoshanna. She's better in smaller doses. Jessa was the highlight for me. Marnie needs something to do stat. Like date Ray.

[Henry Gale]

I always feel out of touch and confused with whatever issues people toss out regarding the show. Its tone and general formal strength is so astronomically above most other television that most of the time I'm just in awe of how deeply affecting and cuttingly hilarious it manages to be at once, while looking and feeling as unique as it does.

Some might find the way the show pulls its characters every which way without any consistency or long-term plans tiresome, but for a show that genuinely tries to reflect people in the age and circumstances they are, I'm not sure how alternative arcs with some stability would speak to them in any way. Marnie seems to have nothing to do at this point, but she also lost her job and long-term on-and-off boyfriend. I'd be much more upset and skeptical of seeing her magically bounce back, because that's not particularly dramatically interesting or realistic. The show has essentially made it clear that this is a show about people who are a mess and this bubble of personal relationships is the only way they manage to survive, but arguably also why they'll never thrive or escape their rut. They pull each other down, but they always need to pull together.

So needless to say, watched the first two episodes, liked them a lot, and really glad to have it back (for its longest season yet, no less).

[Sycophant]

There's gonna be 12 of these this time? That's wonderful news.

I adore this show.

Hanging out with Shoshanna would probably kill me, but I'm delighted every time Zosia Mamet is on screen. But I'd say that about any of the mains if they were used as rarely as her.

[Izzy Black]

great show, good eps

[Qrazy]

Religion... is a smile on a dog.

[Sycophant]

I think it was Todd VanDerWerff at the AV Club who observed that in its third season, Girls feels a bit more like a sitcom, happy to have hit a sort of rhythm. I think there's something to that, and I think it's to the show's benefit.

Last night's was super great. Marnie's musical humiliations are so painful and so sympathetic. Ray's exchanges with Shosh, her date, and John Cameron Mitchell were amazing. I feel like the show's in a really good place.

It's weird to me there are so many who say the key to liking the show is realizing all the characters are horrible people. This really makes no sense to me. If these are horrible people, we're all horrible people. Or am I just an exceptionally horrible person (like these characters)? (I may have made this point before)

[Qrazy]

I don't think they're all horrible people but I do think Dunham's central thesis is that we are a generation of narcissists.

[slqrick]

Liked this episode a lot. As is usually the case, I find myself enjoying the episodes more when they aren't focused on Hannah, and the show tends to do the party episodes really well. More Ray is always a good thing.

Adam's sister holding that glass in the bathroom...jesus.

[Qrazy]

I'm going to call bullshit on the nudity excuse as an accurate depiction of the life of these girls. Dunham works in way too many upskirt shots for no real reason for that to be the case. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching a fan service heavy anime.

[ledfloyd]

There are upskirt shots?

I liked that episode a lot. Hannah in that last scene though, jesus.

[number8]

There are upskirt shots?

Shrug. Didn't notice one in either of the two new eps.

[Qrazy]

Shrug. Didn't notice one in either of the two new eps.

In terms of Hannah there was one when she bent over after dropping her folder in this one. The one before that was when she didn't want to go for a hike in the woods. There are some other T&A shots of the other girls as well sprinkled around. Marnie had an ass shot in relation to her jogging last ep.

[number8]

I see. None of those registered to me at all. I remember the scenes you're talking about, but the shots just came and went.

[slqrick]

Probably my favorite episode this season. The show has done a much better job of pointing out the different ways Hannah's character sucks without just glorifying everything she does, and this was a really good ep for Dunham. The mediation session between Adam and Caroline made me laugh a lot.

[number8]

Really glad that Hannah changed her mind about quitting, because I need more Jessica Williams in my life.

[slqrick]

The Ray-Marnie dynamic is amazing.

[Gittes]

I'm enjoying this season quite a bit. I loved the conclusions to the last three episodes.

Did anyone else find it a bit odd that Caroline wasn't addressed in this episode? Given the way "Only Child" ended, I expected this issue, and its ramifications for her relationship with Adam, would be immediately explored. I guess Dunham and the writers are playing a deeper game: kicking Caroline out joins Hannah's affected depth from "Dead Inside" as another way of gradually eroding the supposed harmony ("She is my best friend") between Adam and Hannah.

[Bosco B Thug]

It's weird to me there are so many who say the key to liking the show is realizing all the characters are horrible people. This really makes no sense to me. If these are horrible people, we're all horrible people. Or am I just an exceptionally horrible person (like these characters)? (I may have made this point before) What I've come to like most about the show (binged in the past few weeks, am at Ep 3 of current season) is it doesn't make any effort to present any sort of idealized people. They aren't horrible, but the show's seeming MO in writing is a very liberated "stream of consciousness" when coming up with behavior - no formulas of character nobility. Just a general sense of how these characters are fallible yet always the undercurrent of genuine affection and reasons to respect them. It's watchable because I personally am not doing mental gymnastics about whether I should enjoy these people as much as I do. Plus, as someone who's witnessed this social circle of bohemian-ish liberal arts college girls through relatives, it's very accurate: they fuck up so much with each other, but their bonds are so ipso facto, they'll never stop inviting each other to their birthday parties.


The Ray-Marnie dynamic is amazing. I haaatteeedd Ray in Season 1. But this is all I want, speaking as someone who hasn't seen what this entails yet. :D

[Bosco B Thug]

Has it occurred to anyone/everyone that Marnie is the exact model of a Britta of this series?

Finally, regarding Marnie and Ray, I have been a Marnie advocate ever since she fingered herself to allay Booth desires in Season 1 and a Ray hater ever since he read Hannah's journal in Season 1. Feelings haven't changed, especially just in the context of Season 1, but interesting having my initial, very strong sympathies being happily tossed into the garbage like an impartial (garbage) salad by the showrunners. I'll happily start afresh with my feelings. I wonder what would be happening if Charlie didn't leave... (didn't like him, but surely it threw a wrench in the writer's room).

[number8]

Oh, Jessa.

[ledfloyd]

That episode was so good.

[number8]

This season has been really steadily solid. I love Hannah's aunts interacting with her mom. And her mom's appraisal of Adam was a difficult scene.

[Lazlo]

Thought the finale was super strong. Sat there begging Hannah to not tell Adam about Iowa before the play, knowing she would go ahead and do it anyway. Biggest laugh was the reveal of Elijah's shorts. Really felt for Shoshanna in this one.

This season was a step down from the first two but they capped it off strong. Hannah is a natural disaster.

[ledfloyd]

I think the season is just as strong as the first two, and this is the first time they've really been able to stick the landing. That was heavy. Ouch.

[Lucky]

Yeah, the finale this year was easily the best one. I was lukewarm on the season as a whole, but it didn't make any glaring missteps. I think the cabin episode was my favorite.

[slqrick]

I might be in the minority, but I thought this was the best season yet. The "sitcomy" nature that a lot of people didn't like seemed to really work for me, for whatever reason. Improbably, I was moved by a lot of moments this season, where in previous seasons I was pretty much hate watching at points. Most of the arcs were done really well, and I think the consistency on an episode-to-episode basis went a long way.

[number8]

It's the first season with very clear and consistent season-long arcs. Like it or not, definitely a departure from the first two. I liked it a lot.

Zosia Mamet KILLED the finale. That look Shosh gave Marnie during her confession.

[dreamdead]

In the past two weeks we've binge-watched the first two seasons and are halfway through the third. Doing it in a rush makes me realize that there's little chance that the Ray of season 3 would have rummaged through a girl's diary (as he did in season 1). Also, I wonder if he'd even be willing to sleep with someone who was with Charlie for four years.

Those incongruities aside, I quite like this season so far.