That Was Fast

Everyone claims to hate Girls, but everyone watches it, even my commie boyfriend. So I figured the above title was appropriate. Like any young, politically minded, Brooklyn-dwelling female, I have a semi-fraught relationship with the show, but I also love it immensely, so let’s dive in.

Elijah tells George he “fucked” Marnie, hence ending their relationship, but he won’t tell Hannah because he knows it would upset her. What this says to me is that he likes to have drama in his love life but not with his friends. Or, conversely: he cares about Hannah more than he cares about George. Or possibly: he thinks Hannah is way more fragile. Did it even really count as sex? He wears it like a weird badge of pride, like being bi would make him special and exciting.

Even though I generally find her to be an exhausting, uptight bitch who hates her friends and tries too hard to fit some preconceived mold of what it means to be a grown-up, I feel kind of bad watching Marnie be told by the worst potential boss ever that she is too square for the art world. Then again: she could stand to stop buying suits the same place as my mom, who only wears them because she is a lawyer and has to.

Can we give Shoshanna and Ray a medal for Best TV Couple Of All Time? Their conversation about bathing a pig is just amazing. And the way they deflate Marnie’s looming ego re: actually being a model vs. having a “pretty person job” is aces.

Jessa is supposed to be a beautiful, flighty fool, yet she’s by far the smartest of the group politically. She accurately fingers Bill Clinton for precipitating the financial crisis by killing the Glass-Steagal Act in one breath, then says some dumb shit about astrology the next. In a previous episode, she had the “crazy” idea to unionize New York’s nannies (which would actually be a very positive development if anyone could pull it off), right before losing a whole child. Is this Lena Dunham’s way of getting radical politics onto a mainstream show via their only acceptable vehicle? Or are we supposed to think Jessa’s ideas are naive? Dunham’s widely known to be a bougie Obama liberal, so I’m guessing the latter, but who knows?

And then Jessa says something like “Thomas John looks at my paintings the moment I show them to him,” and all is lost in a sea of mean laughter. It is supposed to be the latter, isn’t it?

Yes, Sandy’s politics suck. But Hannah has no clear idea why, and this isn’t about that, anyway. It’s about the fact that he didn’t like her essay.

Sandy accuses Hannah of exoticizing him because he’s black, and she says several things in a row that basically amount to “you scan as white to me,” hence making things worse. The line “I don’t live in a world that is separated like that” especially makes me laugh, because duh, yes you do, it’s just more along class lines than color lines, and also, that is something that Stephen Colbert says, in character, to make a point about conservative hypocrisy.

And then Hannah says “you look like a slutty Von Trapp child” to Marnie, and we remember why we put up with her. And then Elijah says “you look like a slutty Von Trapp child” to Marnie, and we wonder how he could ever be confused about his sexuality.

Now that we’ve talked about race, it’s time for Hannah to demonstrate her shitty brand of Liz Lemonism! Marnie has gone and gotten herself a pretty person job, because what young and attractive person in New York city hasn’t wanted to make a ton of money in the service industry, and Hannah is jealous and judgy. Like many “liberal” feminists, she blames the individual women who use their sex appeal to survive in a patriarchal society for bringing all women down, as opposed to a more systemic critique that blames the patriarchy itself. This is painfully, myopically wrong. Maybe she has more in common with Sandy and his Ayn Rand-reading ways than she thinks.

But enough talk about politics, for Adam is back and being murder-y in a sexy way. Sure, he was not that nice to Hannah when they were dating, and sure, he should respect her wishes and leave her alone. But to let himself into the house, speak the line “as a man living my man life, my desire for you cannot be repressed,” and then demand a glass of milk before he goes? I can see why Hannah loves this weirdo. Maybe someday they’ll get over themselves enough to feel the same thing at the same time.

"Even coming into spring, I had a couple knee issues," he said. "I had a couple surgeries coming into spring. I was trying to push the fast-forward button, making sure I was catching up and able to do everything I wanted to. This year, I've had a very productive offseason. I'm just excited coming in and being 100 percent and firing on all cylinders coming into spring right away."

"I was confident that I'd be back here," he said. "I thought I developed a good relationship with the coaches and the team. It's not as cut and dried as everyone thinks, but I really thought that I had a good place here with the team and I'm excited to be back, for sure.

"It's another chance to play in the big leagues and I'm excited. I understand the landscape of the team and what Matt Wieters' role is with the organization. It's always a blessing to be in the big leagues and my job is to just play the best that I can whenever that opportunity is. I'm happy to be playing here with Matt Wieters and to be playing on a winning team."

"Ultimately, you want to be an everyday guy and be an All-Star and all those things, but sometimes the chances aren't as often as you think," he said. "It's tough. So many teams have No. 1 catchers. That's kind of the mold teams would like, to have a No. 1 catcher and a No. 2 catcher who plays 40 games, somewhere in that ballpark, but a lot of teams are built differently. A lot of teams split time. As for right now, I'm happy to be part of a winning team and we'll see what happens in the future."