Recap: Girls 5.5 "Queen For Two Days"
This week was probably the most honest episode of Girls I’ve seen in a long time – maybe ever. It seems impossible to rank the main characters' crazy, because amidst their craziness they found incredible moments of honesty with themselves that may actually evolve these characters we’ve grown to love, for better or worse.
Hannah
This was a big episode for Hannah and her mother; they both realized things about themselves and their current love-life situation while away on a yoga and spiritual retreat. Hannah reassures her mother that her and her father did not, in fact, ruin her growing up, but she comes to realize after exploring her sexuality with a female instructor, who cries at the end of it, that maybe she is more screwed up and than she thought. Hannah is constantly deflecting any sort of blame or real responsibility regarding things going wrong in her life, so her admitting she’s not in good shape is a big deal. Her relationship with Fran seems to not be doing her any favors, so now that she’s had this realization about herself, perhaps, she’ll clean up her life of things that don’t serve her anymore – a lesson I learned in yoga and one I’m sure was expressed at the spiritual retreat she attended. Likewise, her mother realizes that maybe, at her age, having a gay husband isn’t the worst thing to happen – after all, she won’t be lonely or taking care of someone she hardly knows, she’ll be with someone she loves and truly cares about.
Jessa/Adam
These two are still in the race for cutest couple ever seen on this show, next to Dill and Elijah. I don’t think Jessa and Adam have ever had a problem with being extremely honest, even when it would have been better if they weren’t. But, somehow seeing their honesty with each other feels more pure and vulnerable than any other time we’ve seen them tell it like it is. Usually, I find myself not thinking twice about the crazy, inappropriate things Jessa says has happened in her life, but when she was telling Adam about how her and her sister tend to somehow sleep with the same people and she’d understand if he wanted to sleep with her sister, too, she’d understand, I couldn’t help but think, “How terrible!” It was the first time I felt what Jessa was saying was not something she was proud of or embraced. I say this every week, so let’s all say it together, now: Jessa and Adam are perfect together!
Shoshanna
Poor Shosh. First, she gets fired from her job; Second, she breaks up with her boyfriend in a terrible way; and now she’s realizing she doesn’t even want to be in Japan anymore. While taking Abigail on a crash-course of all things Japan, she confesses for the first time Japan isn’t all she thought it would be and she’s really alone and unhappy. So, now what? Do we expect her to go back to the U.S.? Or, is she going to see how things are going with Yoshi? Either way, at least she’s now being honest with herself and, um, Abigail. Maybe she’ll find comfort in Abigail since they’re both sort of in the same boat, being they are foreigners in a vastly different culture and don’t seem to really have anyone else.
New episodes of Girls premiere at 10pm ET Sundays on HBO; all past episodes are available on-demand.