‘Girls’ season 3, episode 4 review: Hannah ‘deals’ with death
On tonight’s episode of “Girls” season 3, we had a series of stories that were really more depressing than they were funny. Not only only did we learn that Hannah’s publishing mentor David had died, but that she has no real ability within her to be able to cope or deal with it. Not only that, but she tries to use it as an excuse to further show off some bad behavior.
Before we dive too deep here, we have to recognize that Hannah is not some altogether horrendous person for feeling this way. She is actually so much more of a normal person given that there are a number of people in life that tend to handle death with the same sort of nothingness in their hearts, and a desire to think only of themselves.
We suppose the reason why her actions come off worse than a Sheldon Cooper or Walter White is that to an extent, is because there were misdeeds or annoying ticks that were either celebrated or exploited; “Girls” makes it clear that Hannah is in the wrong, and makes no effort to try to endear her to you. Instead, they simply make her come across worse. To us, the lowest moment for her was her using an increased aplomb in various conversations to show just how close she was to the David, who was not even invited to her birthday party … the same one that Ray punched him in the face at.
The most messed-up scene was Caroline taking Hannah to a graveyard, and then the two of them and Laird having some sort of random runaround there. Meanwhile, Jessa was off learning that her supposedly dead friend was actually still alive, and that in turn created a flurry of new problems and questions about how she could deal with these situations moving forward.
It may be an afterthought, but Marnie also quit her job working with Ray, who seemed to still be getting great joy out of that viral video of her that Charlie still hasn’t taken down. This was an afterthought even more because it felt shoved into this episode where Marnie really didn’t need to be included.
The problem with this episode is not necessarily that it wasn’t funny, but more that we don’t really feel like we went on any sort of journey. Hannah didn’t really learn anything about herself, and there were no revelations about the world. It was basically a thought bubble extended into 30 minutes. Typically, we find “Girls” to be a bit more profound and poignant than that. See the brilliant Patrick Wilson episode in season 2. Grade: C.
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Photo: HBO