After last week's debacle, Hannah and the gang return for a much more
typical (and clothed) episode. What's even better, is that once she
gets over her wave of panicked nausea, Hannah can start working on an
e-book. Her mentor may have only given her 1 month to complete the
project, and he may or may not actually know what a pistachio is, but I just don't see how there's any way this can turn out badly.
On
the other side of town, Booth Jonathan and Marnie are lying in bed when
it's revealed that Booth's assistant, Sujin, tasted some of his rose
water ice cream. Clearly, this is a fire-able offense and Sujin is
relieved of her duties, permanently. Shorthanded and now in a bind,
Booth asks Marnie if she wants to host a party for him that evening.
Marnie, ever the social climbing wannabe debutante, interprets the
request as hosting with Booth and not for him. So, while
she thinks that things are starting to happen on "a fancy, nice level"
for her finally, she's nothing but hired help.
Shosh wants
nothing more than to give Ray's life a bit of a kick start, but this is a
tall task. Ignoring Shoshanna's prodding to try out a business seminar,
Ray has his ambitions fixated on a much more important goal: retrieving
his lost copy of Little Women.
Unfortunately, the book is somewhere in Adam's lair, and it now falls
on Ray to retrieve it. Adam greets Ray with a tornado of fury, as
anything connected to Hannah is enough to send him into a blind
emotional rage at this point. Adam's outburst is nothing compared to his
newly acquired watch dog,
though. When Ray finds out that Adam actually stole his new junkyard
pet, he dresses him down something fierce. Dog is an asshole. Dog is not
treated that well by others. Dog is a victim. Dog deserves a shot at
redemption. Dog is an extension of Adam.
With the show's two best characters finally put together for a significant amount of screen time, Ray and Adam sojourn to Staten Island
on an Odyssey to return Dog. As the dynamic duo trudge through the muck
and grime of the worst outer borough, they reflect on past
relationships. Perhaps because they are both honest men, or more likely
because they are kind of "weird looking", their views on women and most
other things are remarkably similar. Well, similar on matters other than
Hannah. When Ray drops some knowledge about Hannah being difficult,
selfish, unattractive, and a somewhat terrible person, something in Adam
snaps. In spite of his best efforts to rid himself of any emotional tie
to Hannah, Adam's love for her is still deeply engrained. Overwhelmed
by his own emotional display, Adam ditches Ray with Dog and goes home.
Left to his own devices, Ray can't even convince the dog's rightful
owner to take it back. Ray's a loser; this is something he has come to
accept about himself at this point. His relationship with Shoshanna is
one of convenience, laziness, and immaturity. He has no real ambition
and no clear way to break out of his funk. He's just a fucking loser, a
faggot who wears faggot pants, a kike lookalike, dog fucking loser from
yogurt town. Not my words, but they'll do just fine.
While Ray
cries all alone in self pity, Marnie is surrounded by all of her new
"friends" at Booth's party. Hannah can only last through a half
conversation involving periods, Dairy Queen, e-books, and other art
shows before she pulls an Irish good-bye.
As the night winds down, Booth attempts to pay Marnie for her work that
evening and it is only at this point that she realizes she was not
actual hosting the party...but working it. Marnie inevitably breaks down
when she realizes her misunderstanding of the situation, but if she's
looking for sympathy from Booth, she's barking up the wrong tree. You
see, Booth had a different understanding from Marnie as well. He was
under the impression that Marnie actually liked him for who he
is...rather than the idea that he represents as an artist and a
socialite and a minor celebrity. Once Booth throws a couple of wine
bottles for dramatic effect, Marnie takes this as her cue to go home,
leaving Booth with his own mess to clean up.
By the end of the
night, Hannah is in bed and stuck on page one of her yet-to-be e-book.
In need of some comforting consoling, she calls Marnie who is just as
happy to be comforted after her night. But instead of an open
conversation, the two hide behind facades of faux happiness. Hannah lies
about her progress on her book and Marnie lies about her night also,
pretending to be watching fire flies in Booth's garden, rather than
huddled up next to a subway grate. The phone call stalls awkwardly as
the breadth of their distance becomes obvious and they hang up,
disappointed. If they can't be honest with each other, recognizing how
much worse off they are when separated, there is little else to discuss.
Expectations. That's what this is all about, isn't it?
Expectations and happiness.... What we expect from our professional
success (Hannah); what we expect from our relationships (Marnie/Booth);
what we expect from the people we care about (Shosh); most importantly,
what we come to expect of ourselves (Ray). It's a reflective episode,
more so than many others and it's not like Girls is ever light on the
introspection. Charlie Brown might say other wise,
but in my book, happiness is pretty easy to quantify. It's the
relationship between what we expect to have, and what we actually do.
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