‘Girls’ season 2, episode 2 review: Is it over for Donald Glover already?
Two episodes into “Girls” season 2, and our complicated relationship with the show continues. There is little doubt that this is indeed a fantastic piece of storytelling, as its Golden Globe award for Outstanding Comedy Series serves as pretty much all the validation that it needs. On a personal note, meanwhile, it’s difficult to root for a leading lady like Lena Dunham’s Hannah when she goes so far out of her own way to make herself extremely unlikable.
This week, she did so by causing the run of the wonderful Donald Glover to end largely because Hannah refused to actually try to understand the fact that the man is a Republican. Note to hipsters: this does not necessarily make him a bad person, and leaning right does not necessarily guarantee that you are pro-guns and anti-gay marriage. It wasn’t so much the fact that she ended the relationship that frustrated us so much as it was the fact that she did so without even trying to understand his beliefs or his point of view. Instead, she dumped him because he didn’t like her essay and she projected politics onto it. Is it realistic? To an extent, but we don’t many times in whcih a conflict has escalated so quickly.
This was just not a good week all around for relationships, and Elijah is not only single again following the end of his relationship with George, but he is still convinced that actually telling Hannah about hooking up with Marnie is a bad move. Considering how she blew up about Sandy not liking her essay, this is going to be a nuclear fight to end all fights. Nonetheless, this story and Marnie taking a job as a hostess were the two strongest stories of the hour, mostly because they felt realistic while not giving us a visceral reaction to any one character.
Perhaps the other main issue we have with “Girls” season 2 at the moment is that somehow, Jessa and Shoshanna have been seriously marginalized in the past two episodes. Considering their lack of screen time, you may as well just name this show “Two Girls” (or “2 Broke Girls” on HBO consider the money that Hannah makes at her job). We’ve never been a huge champion of the Shoshanna character, but we’d rather have a lengthier story with her or nothing at all rather than just a 30-second teaser of her and Ray in bed.
Don’t get us wrong here in that “Girls” is, as Sandy himself would say, very well-written. It’s also funny, but we’re not really sensing any real evolution at all from one season to the next. All of the characters are acting largely the same, and the intriguing mysteries to us (such as Jessa’s marriage) are being tucked away while Hannah screams at Adam before inadvertently getting him arrested.
Is “Girls” making you both happy and frustrated at the same time? We want to hear your thoughts below, and you can also read some more “Girls” season 2 scoop over at the link here.
Photo: HBO