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In the interest of full disclosure (a prerequisite for all good TV recaps), I watched last night’s episode after attending a fundraiser at New York’s UCB Theatre featuring monologues by Lena Dunham. As such, I am experiencing an all-time high when it comes to my personal opinion about the Girls creator. “Simply the bees’ knees” would be my description of her right now, so please take this week’s installment with a grain of salt. Or rather, eight grains of salt, thrown eight times over my left shoulder, because ladies and gentleman, introducing for the first time ever, Hannah’s crippling OCD!
Between her stressful split from Adam and the deadline for her ebook looming over her, the compulsions Hannah battled in high school are back with a vengeance. Looking over the shoulder, slamming the door, eating a precise number of potato chips, chewing them an exact number of times: anything Hannah does, she must do it in sequences of eight. Having recently diagnosed myself with Purely Obsessional OCD in a moment of panic after reading the Wikipedia entry (Read it! I bet you $5 you’ll think you have it too. Read the “Relationship Obsessions” part!), the grey area between “neurotic tic” and “life-altering anxiety disorder” is of particular interest to me.
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Fortunately/unfortunately, Hannah’s parents are in town to fight with their only child during the painful reemergence of her anxiety disorder. “If your head is filling up and you’re getting count-y, we can help you,” her dad tentatively offers. I’m honestly not sure why Hannah needs to deny her diagnosis of OCD despite her worsening symptoms, though I’m assuming it has something to do with her mom being a huge asshole about the whole thing. “We’re still married. We never raised a hand to you. It’s not our fault,” her mom declares during dinner. Man, these two need to have a screaming match one of these days, just so we can get into where all the mutual aggressive comes from. Not that her mom is the only nutbar in New York. “Fuck, you just hit me like five times,” a grown man yells in a swanky restaurant after Hannah nudges him over and over again. “It was eight times,” she meeps. Judy Collins was also there, looking like the beautiful, ethereal witch-goddess she is while humiliating Hannah. “Where you going, sweetheart?” she calls from stage when Hannah ducks out to get her count on. No wonder Hannah is forced to recite “You are fine and good” to herself in the bathroom mirror over and over again. She blew it in front of Judy Blue Eyes herself!
With Jessa still disappeared, we finally have a little Shoshanna room in the show. “Where is she? What is she wearing? Is it linen?” Shosh muses about her missing cousin. Ray and Marnie are less than sympathetic toward their absent buddy. (If those two hook up, I swear to God . . .) With a misanthrope like Ray at home, it’s understandable why Shoshanna would leap at the chance to fly solo at a party thrown by Radhika, a rollerblading bon vivant who knows how to throw a party (White Castle burgers, champagne, mermaids filled with ashes.) Shoshanna might not consciously be aware of it yet, but the fact she ended up dry-humping a hot doorman while Ray waited in his pajamas at home means the nervous virgin we knew and love is dead and gone. Not that Shosh doesn’t still worry what will happen when the doorman leaves his post. “A tranny walked in last time and he was just walking around the floors, but it was nothing,” he reassures her as they go at it in the mailroom. “I swear to God.”
Meanwhile Marnie . . . oh, God, Marnie. Things are going to get a lot worse for Marnie before they get better. Shocked to learn Charlie has sold an app for real cash money (and equity, I’m assuming), Marnie shows up at his office in flip-flops and boot cut jeans. Flip-flops! She should have been escorted out by security and taken immediately to a sanitarium for that alone, but instead she willfully endures the indignity of hearing about his app (Forbid, a app that prevents you from calling Marnie in the middle of the night) and having her mind blown by the lipdub-parties-and-free-Jake-Johnson-album-ness of it all. “I’m just here for support,” she says with a smile. “From me or for me?” Charlie retorts under his breath. Come on, man, the woman already has flared jeans on. How much lower do you need her to go? Besides, it’s not like she made you go up to the roof at Hannah’s party that one time and ostensibly ruin things with your new lady friend. Those aren’t magic flip-flops she’s got on! “I thought he was going to be broken for like six years,” she rages about Charlie at home. All of which is nowhere near as humiliating as when Marnie admits to Ray that her secret beyond secrets is wanting to sing. “. . . What’s the second thing you want to do?” Ray inquires. Marnie counters with a little Norah Jones. It sounds fine. Marnie and her magician’s assistant outfit are in for a world of pain, and I’m excited to explore it with her!
And then there was Adam. Despite the fact that last time we saw him he abandoned Ray in Staten Island with a dog and literally ran away, Adam seems to be doing a lot better for himself, other than accidentally drinking rancid bedside milk. (On a side note, are kids not buying soy milk to avoid accidentally drinking spoiled milk anymore? There were two characters drinking regular milk in this episode! Two! Oh, how times have changed!) Revealing a surpassing mental maturity for someone with so many unfinished ladders in his apartment, Adam takes his ass down to AA, where his monologue turned into one of the more memorable emotional highlights of the show so far. “I wanted that chance to show someone everything,” he somehow ranted without making it cheesy. Taken by his honesty, height and “fresh look,” fellow group member Cloris begs him to go out with her daughter Natalia. I prayed that Natalia would show up and be an insane megamutant, but instead she’s gorgeous and equally hot for Adam. Mwuh uh! Hmmm, Adam laughing on a normal, fun date while Hannah discusses her compulsive masturbation with a new therapist? Hope Natalia enjoys getting punched in the face eight, 16 or 64 times. That’s all I’m saying. Though who would like that? No one. Not one person.
Last week: Manifesting the Solution