Girls has taken us on quite a journey over the past three years, from Season 1 (“The Season That Launched a Thousand Think Pieces”), to a dark and confusing Season 2 (“You’ll Never Want to Use Q-Tips Again”), to, finally, a refreshingly enjoyable Season 3 (“They Might All Be Kind of Starting to Grow Up”). But while the stories have become more interesting and some of Hannah’s outfits have improved, the Flavorwire staff has noticed a disturbing trend: often, Lena Dunham and Co. will plant a particular plot seed, then refuse to water it or even hint at its existence ever again. … Read More

Who knew Adam was so in touch with his emotions? For someone who opts to communicate mostly in grunts these days, it turns out he’s actually given some thought to his creepy sexual idiosyncrasies and why they vanished out of thin air this season. The problem is that he’s never opted to share much of this introspection with his girlfriend (that is, not that we’ve seen), and by the time she forces it out of him, it’s too late. Hannah’s relationship finally implodes in “Role-Play,” but for once, it’s not entirely her fault. She’s just making a last-ditch effort to save her and Adam in the only way Hannah knows how: going completely over-the-top. … Read More

God bless Shoshanna Shapiro.

Girls has kept its sometime MVP on the sidelines for so long, I forgot how good it feels when the show puts her in her rightful place as the foursome’s resident Cassandra. She’s deployed to spectacular effect in “Beach House,” an episode’s that co-written by all three of the show’s heavy hitters. The idea of a vacation that strikes a friend group’s killing blow by ripping the group’s tensions out into the open has been done before, obviously. But Lena Dunham, Jenni Konner, and Judd Apatow combine their talents to render a chick-flick cliché in nightmarish detail. “Beach House” pulls this off by showing the way this particular group would implode, demonstrating such a perfect understanding of its characters and the dynamic between them that it’s easy to forget that Girls has been keeping its protagonists separated for so long. … Read More

It’s an occupational hazard of any writer writing about a writer trying to be a writer. Girls has never been as concerned with being “relatable” or “real” as some expect it to be, but any series has to have conflicts most of its audience can, well…care about. And Hannah’s venture into the world of sponsored content smacks of some serious inside baseball, a dilemma few people outside of a few hundred Manhattan media types even know exists. I kept asking myself just what percentage of this show’s audience even gets jokes about n+1 and advertorials. If it’s any higher than ten, I fear for its ratings.

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When did Girls become a CW drama meets Community? Lena Dunham’s been on a meta kick lately, what with last week’s discussion of online snark, and Hannah’s narcissism has turned from something the audience is expected to call out on its own to a running joke on screen. “Only Child” brings the navel-gaze to a whole new level, culminating in Ray’s description of Marnie as a “sympathetic character.” That face-off exemplifies both the self-awareness that’s traditionally the bailiwick of a certain NBC sitcom and the increasing insularity of the show’s universe. The reshuffling of characters is fast approaching the randomness of a seventh-season teen soap, and it risks becoming just as unbelievable. … Read More

Just when Girls has you convinced it’s gone full sitcom, it gives you the nightmare image of a pantsless Gabby Hoffmann shattering a glass with her bare hand. Hoffmann’s great at playing unhinged, but where her character in Crystal Fairy and the Magic Cactus was ultimately benign, Adam’s sister Caroline is a whole new order of instability. She’s the kind of whirlwind that shows up out of nowhere just to suck all the oxygen out of the room, leaving broken dishware and possibly damaged romantic relationships in her wake. And even though the show wrings some comedic value out of her craziness, no one’s laughing by the end of “She Said OK.” Least of all Adam.

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