Girls Maturity Level Threat Watch: Episode 9
HBO
Hannah
For her latest adventure in accidental self-harm, Hannah abraded her eardrum during an overzealous session with a Q-tip; an incident based on something that actually happened to Lena Dunham if she was telling the truth in her tweets about how she ruptured her eardrum by Q-tipping it too hard. Hannah can’t do anything without overdoing it. She has a lot of problems with restraint. She always wants the whole jar of olives, but that means she consistently ends up with a huge wooden splinter lodged in her ass. She was drawn immediately and then continuously to Adam because she identified with him; they share the same contradictory mixture of strict asceticism and crazy appetites. Hannah’s OCD has the spiritual tinge of compulsive prayer, and she literally cannot stop touching herself. She goes only to extremes, either zero or 11. On the plus side, other than her wails of pain, grisly body horror close-ups, and pathetic call to her parents, Hannah basically dealt with her ear issue like a grownup, even if her emergency was exactly like something a toddler might do.
Maturity Level: Eerie Canal
Adam
You have to give Natalia credit; she rolled with it. She was ready to get weird and just see how she felt afterward. She knew there was no going back after “get on all fours.” That’s when she would’ve gone for the door if she’d wanted to leave. The beauty of this horrible, riveting scene was how long it took to find out what Natalia thought about it. After all, not everyone is like Hannah, and even Hannah regularly admits that pushing her body past its limits just because she can isn’t always the best idea. Although Adam and Hannah’s relationship morphed from one kind of serious power imbalance to another, Adam loved Hannah because he could be himself, his real self, around her. He didn’t have to sit through Sandra Bullock movies or go to strangers’ engagement parties. She never asked him to pretend to be normal, and so he gladly never did. His relationship with Natalia was bound to hit this event horizon eventually, but they could’ve had three months of Fiona-Apple-soundtracked, red-lit bliss before the first real bump, had Hannah not showed up outside the party in a sweat-soaked hospital T-shirt to ruin Adam’s weeklong streak of not fucking everything up. Adam, with his intensity jacked up to full speed by booze, decides to fully expose himself to Natalia after merely a week. A week is pretty fast to turn off the charm, but then again, a week is also a really long time to spend every day with someone new on your best behavior trying to fit into their world. Adam’s roughness with Natalia was mostly role-play. His real crime was refusing to listen to her, specifically when she said not to Lewinsky her blue dress. Unlike Hannah, Natalia was incredibly clear with Adam about what she liked sexually. And while not-so-secret submissive Hannah might have wanted Adam to override her desires with his own, the obviously uncomfortable Natalia absolutely did not. Now we know why Adam doesn’t drink.
Maturity Level: Peter Pan
Shoshanna
The driving motivation of the girls on Girls is not libido, not status, not money, but simply to hone their preferences into a sharp plastic point they can shop with. The only way to do it is to get out there and, well, do it. Shoshanna doesn’t know how hilariously expressive her face is, so she doesn’t understand how Ray sees that she’s lying to him. I mean she’s clearly not mature enough to be in a serious relationship. She might have a yellow structured dress you could wear to a Sterling-Cooper party, but just look at her hair! What is that front-bun? It’s like a Princess Leia on the half shell. I hate it.
Maturity Level: Heartbeeps
Ray
Ray continues to be the most likable character strictly by default. He calls bullshit on Charlie’s casual new money web pizza party, even if he stays to reap the slices. What is Charlie doing wearing that shirt with the worn-through ringer to his office party when we know he has button-downs? Is that the affectation he puts on to compensate for selling out? Thankfully the world is full of guys like Ray to point things like that out and make everyone more insecure to help modulate their own all-consuming insecurity.
Maturity Level: Tony Clifton
Charlie
Charlie, is your last name Brown? Because you are the Charlie Browniest.
Maturity Level: Oh, Brother
Marnie
Just like she interpreted Booth Jonathan’s art party to mean she should wear a plastic dress and be severe, Marnie decided the FORBID app party was the perfect place to premiere her terrible cutesy cabaret take on Kanye West’s “Stronger,” replete with awkward dancing. Of course, Marnie would do one of those twee versions of a rap song. Her favorite band is probably Karmin. Marnie’s singing made me cringe even harder than Adam’s, you know, performance. That’s a pretty impressive feat. One of the guys shown rolling his eyes during her song was Ricky Van Veen, the cofounder of College Humor and Allison Williams’s real-life boyfriend, who we predicted last week might show up in this fictional start-up milieu as an inside joke about how start-ups are a goof.
Maturity Level: Hot or Not
Natalia
You guys, don’t worry; she was acting. Shiri Appleby is OK. I promise.
Maturity Level: Totally Got Swimfanned
Amy Schumer
Amy Schumer played Natalia’s friend whose engagement party it was. This is just to say that Amy Schumer is a really funny stand-up.
Maturity Level: Trish the Intern
Filed Under: Girls, Girls Talk, HBO, Lena Dunham
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