Last night's episode of
Girls gave me many feelings.
The whole internet is teeming with collective feelings. I've read numerous recaps that have described it as "the worst episode of
Girls ever," and to those people, I issue a giant faceful of New York curb slush. Last night's episode was strange and brave and vague and awful and intensely emotional, and if Patrick Wilson lived in your neighbourhood, don't tell me you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing. What gets me about the show is how wildly it can swing from satire to genuine, difficult truth, and how messy all of that can be when you try to take it in all at once. I can understand why people hated last night, but it felt, to me, like this stylized microcosm of a relationship, how one moment someone is telling you you're beautiful and you suddenly understand that they actually
mean it, and maybe no one has ever meant it before, and then how sometimes that's almost too much to take, and you have to break it just to feel stable again. Which is not to say that Josh(ua) could have saved Hannah, or that he was meant to be anything more than a game of naked ping pong, but rather that we all, when confronted with the possibility of happiness, even just its blue shadow, have the potential for panic. We all do this. You do this too.
In other news, I bought a pair of cheap-o running shoes this weekend that are hologram and neon. Such a thing exists now on my feet.
Also, I saw Lena Dunham having dinner with her boyfriend and mom and friends a few weeks ago, all sublimely happy and gleeful and open, and it was all I could do not to just go and hug her and tell her that she's beautiful, but that also it doesn't matter, because she's goddamn brilliant and an inspiration to young women everywhere so there.
In Brooklyn Heights?? Where? (Once I walked by Jason Schwartzman eating at Siggy's and told my friend, probably loud enough for him to hear me, "Hey, that looks like Dmitri Martin," and I have felt like an idiot ever since.)
ReplyDeleteI echo your feelings on that episode of "Girls," even / especially since my brother, who is usually an intelligent consumer of popular culture, was one of the "Ew, worst ep ever" voices this time around. Some guys feel entitled to see only normative nakedness on their teevee, I guess, and find anything else an assault. It's disheartening.
Noodle Pudding! It was so incongruous that it took me far longer than it should to place her. Am I wrong in thinking she seems like someone who would pull up a chair if you went to say hello? I didn't want to test my theory, but I sort of thought we might become best friends if given the chance.
ReplyDeleteI'm sort of fascinated by the idea that this entire episode could be read as an extended fantasy/dream sequence, which in some ways fuels the "but he'd never sleep with her" flames, but also opens up a whole realm of possibilities in terms of Dunham's willingness to experiment with the form. It excites me.
(Also, I'm very happy you're here. Having pseudo-stalked your blog for years now, this makes the fan girl in me quite chuffed. Hello!)