GIRLS – S5xEp05 – ‘Queen For Two Days’

At the beginning of this week’s episode, Hannah and her mom are in the car together, en route to a retreat. Loreen is trying to decide whether or not she wants to actually get divorced from Hannah’s dad. Hannah seems to be leaning toward wanting them to split up — and Hannah’s mom admits that, for whatever problems that Tad’s coming out has created for their marriage, the sex is actually better than ever. Hannah is clearly taken aback and more confused than ever.

Loreen tells Hannah about her decision in a speech that’s a realistic acknowledgement of what home means to her: “I know it sounds sad to you,” she says, “but I like our house, and your father’s very nice, and he makes me laugh when he does that Chris Rock. And he plays Scrabble really well. These things count for a lot.”

If one is deciding to go down the experimental road and cheat on her boyfriend with a woman, perhaps a steam room with an instructor isn’t the best way to kick off those sexual urges. There was nothing hot about Hannah’s hookup other than the physical temperature; instead we were left with pure awkwardness. To be fair, that’s kind of how we’d imagine that kind of thing going down in real life, so we can award some points there.

Anyway, who knows what this means for Fran and Hannah. I would assume that Hannah will eventually come clean (since she was about ready to dump Fran anyway) and their relationship will end, but this show tends to subvert expectations so most likely something far more eccentric will happen.

In the city, Jessa and Adam are mid-thrust, engaged in a bizarre sex fantasy that they’re both super into. (I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to interpret it as further proof that they are totally on the same page/meant for one another.) Jessa confesses that her half-sister is in town and wants to have dinner together the following night. Before she can even ask if he wants to go, Adam volunteers. She’s unconvinced for a moment that he really wants to go, but he assures her that he does. And so, it’s a plan.

After Adam’s often brusque treatment of Hannah when they were a couple, it’s nice to see him so unhesitatingly have Jessa’s back when her sister undermines her, with one in what has clearly been a lifelong barrage of passive-aggressive attacks. On the other hand, his impulsive offer to pay for Jessa to get a degree in psychology could be a mistake, since introducing money on that scale into a relationship generally leads to trouble.

We may have thought Japan looked good on Shoshanna, but as it turns out she was just masking all of her American pain under Hello Kitty stickers and a new job as the assistant manager at a cat café. Some of the best parts of the episode were of Shosh and Abigail (guest star Aidy Bryant) having a grand old time on the town, marveling at the fact that they felt as though they had been transported somewhere inside Katy Perry’s vagina. Bryant as Shoshanna’s boss is always a fun addition to an episode, thanks to her quippy one-liners and surefire delivery. So it was great to see her come out to Japan and attempt to talk some sense into Shoshanna, rather than having it be Scott doing the old hero-to-the-rescue routine. As much as we would love to see Jason Ritter again, Abigail was much better suited to lead Shoshanna into self-discovery territory than he would have been. The only loss is that “Yosh & Sosh Take the City” may now never happen, and that’s a TV show pitch we could have gotten behind.

Girls is so good partly because the decisions they’re making now, as opposed to five years ago, are pretty sober. They’re decisions that could actually affect how the next parts of their lives go. They’re constructing trajectories. So even though Hannah is a narcissist, I assume she’ll never think about the yoga instructor again and that’s great. Her focus remains on whether Fran is good for her or not. What else is good for her or not. Similarly, Shoshanna, in ‘outer space’, has to figure out how or if she’s going to make herself happy again. These are big decisions. They make for good TV.