Girls Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Female Author
Leigh Raines
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We established after last weeks episode of Girls that Elijah can pretty much make any situation more fun.
In Girls Season 4 Episode 3 it's evident that his charm only helped Hannah out of her Iowa funk temporarily. The truth is that it's not really anything Elijah's doing, it's just typical Hannah behavior.
With only one class a week, Hannah isn't thriving in her workshop. She claims she is in a "pre-writing" mode, which is ridiculous considering writing is the whole reason she is there. She asks all of her friends back home about Adam. Meanwhile, we find out that in order to set boundaries they have agreed to only speak once a month.
Elijah, on the other hand, is thriving in Iowa because that's his personality. He's made friends, has an active social life, has taken up photography, and is overall pretty happy.
I just realized I got so good at taking selfies, I wasn't feeling challenged anymore.
Elijah
Hannah has a moment of being fed up with the judgmental nature of the other people in her group and gets offensively candid with everyone. It seems she doesn't enjoy being pigeonholed as the "Fifty Shades of Grey" girl.
Your whole story is like a winky face emoji followed by a poop emoji.
Hannah
The scene where Hannah rips apart every single member of her writing group individually, kind of felt like she was speaking to her real life critics, in a way. If you've read articles that interview Lena Dunham, she has a very strong and opinionated voice.
In her rant she makes the following points:
- There's nothing wrong with popular writing. There's no need to be so judgmental.
- In writing history, people are overly accepting of sexual stories written by men. (Hence the episode title "Female Author")
- It is easy to pigeonhole anyone, if you are a big enough ass to do it.
- You don't have to be miserable just to tell a good story. It's okay to be happy and cheery. It doesn't mean you should be taken less seriously.
Basically, the whole world seems to have an opinion on Lena Dunham because she puts herself out there in an unapologetic way. And guess what? She's sick of backlash. Things have gotten so controversial that she has now hired the real life Olivia Pope.
This episode and this scene in particular, felt very meta.
Outside of Iowa, the world on Girls progressed as usual. Jessa and Adam attended AA and then Jessa got arrested for public urination. Not shocking. Their friendship, however, surprised me in a good way. It feels natural. I think Adam is the first person I've seen Jessa drop her guard of BS around and say that she actually just needs more friends.
Marnie tries to make excuses for her pathetic scene of a relationship with Desi. She doesn't believe she is the mistress because he makes her look him in the eye as they orgasm, he touches her butt at Starbucks, they text goodnight, and she met his cousin. Also, he can't break up with his girlfriend because he's afraid to upset her health issue.
Marnie: I am not the mistress.
Ray: You are 1000 percent the mistress.
Marnie: Not if I end up with him.
This is the classic case of what so many 20-something girls are walking around NY spouting. They are making excuses for dates who booty call them, guys who treat them less than they deserve, and overall plain He's Just Not That Into You scenarios. I would know, I've been there.
Poor Ray, poor overlooked Ray, is the good guy who is upfront with Marnie and tells her not to settle for less. Granted it wasn't cool that he slept with his ex's friend last season, but Shosh is over it and we've moved forward. Marnie, and girls everywhere who are making excuses for behavior, need to stand up for what they want and accept nothing less.
Crap, I think Lena's whole message must've gotten to me in the end. I've found myself passionately reviewing an episode of television, something I don't often get very heated about. I guess that's the whole big deal about Lena. She gets you talking!
Catch up whenever you want when you watch Girls online!
