Review: Girls ‘I Have Ideas’ – She’s Not Good At Living

The most important scene from ‘I Have Ideas’ – Hannah and Sandy’s argument – is a very layered scene, dealing not only with Hannah’s narcissism and extreme attachments to vague ideas, but leveling many of the criticisms against Girls as a whole with Sandy’s remarks. Although it definitely represents the show when its working at its best – that is, challenging its characters in ways they don’t have an answer for, something happening all over the place in ‘I Have Ideas’ – but at the same time, feels a little too on the nose socially to have a great dramatic effect.

This is for a couple reasons – we don’t really know Sandy at all (my big complaint last week was that not showing their introduction robs us of the reason they’re attracted to each other), and not knowing him, Hannah’s non-grasp of his Republican views is amusing, but doesn’t give us a lot of real insight into who he is. So as an audience, we can latch onto his comments about Hannah’s writing feeling like it goes nowhere or doesn’t speak to everyone as she thinks it should – but its a surface attachment, something most viewers will only connect with because it aligns with many of the complaints against the show.

I hope Donald Glover sticks around for a few more episodes – his interactions with Elijah alone are enough to warrant him being a regular scene stealer for the entirety of the season. But if he’s going to be around just to throw Hannah into an emotional flux – and call her lily-white perception into question for a single scene – it will be a wasted opportunity. How are we supposed to invest in their emotions if we’ve just ‘met’ them as a couple, and are already breaking up in the second episode?

Most of ‘I Have Ideas’ is at its best when its challenging the two main characters of the season (through two episodes, Marnie’s been a noticeable focal point). Marnie was a self-righteous, spoiled little bitch in season one, and seeing her reactions in her interview was finally an example of the show digging into the budding professional lives of twenty-somethings – something early season one was quite concerned about, but has been largely abandoned in season two episodes, save for Marnie.

However, her transformation from art curator to club hostess – something she initially backed away from, until a pep talk from Shoshanna and Ray, the episode’s best scene thanks to their interactions  – feels a little glazed over in co-creator Jenni Konner’s script. She doesn’t want Shoshanna to call her friend who can get her a job, but the next time we see her she’s in uniform and hyped about it, a quick acceptance that I think undersells her identity crisis. She jumps right into it, hairdo and all, without any time to consider the fact she was asking a stranger what she’d be good at in life. Maybe its the paycheck, but I feel like there’s more to the industry Marnie thought she’d been in for most of her career basically rejecting her, and I hope the show digs into it more this season. Basically, she better hate her “pretty job” immediately.

Elsewhere, there isn’t much else going on except stalky Adam and the half-sex experience Marnie and Elijah are keeping a secret. The former is much more interesting: although again, my ability to buy into Adam’s hardheaded, uncomfortable obsession with Hannah can be a little stretched at times. Maybe it’s because I liked his character so much in the first season, it’s hard to correlate the depth and powerful presence of his character in the first season, with the half-smiling, unstable mess we’ve seen for two episodes. Like Hannah and Sandy, Hannah and Adam’s interactions suffer because of the jarring change between seasons. When we left them in season one, Hannah was trying to find his hospital room, and he hated her. But now, he’s making entire hostile albums (“ok, track 10”) about her, and all his charming moments (“Can I have some milk?”) are being disregarded to paint him in a more one-dimensional, obsessive sense.

There’s clearly a long game being played early on this season – Jessa/Thomas John’s wedding, the inevitable fallout 2.0 between Marnie/Elijah and Hannah, and Adam’s mental state are all clearly part of the show’s overall narrative to the season. I just wish some of those story lines had more than 30 minutes to breathe – in ‘I Have Ideas’, they run the danger of falling apart at times by not digging in deep enough to what’s going on in the heads of these characters. Events happen, insults are thrown, and mental changes and adjustments are made in ‘I Have Ideas’, but some of it is hit-and-miss because of the inability to be engaged emotionally at times by understanding the characters.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

– definitely one of the funnier episodes in the show’s run, highlighted by Ray’s discussion in bed with Shoshanna about bathing a pig. He thinks it would inspire an emotion in him – being that he’s touching what feels like human skin, but it’s not – and Shoshanna is TOTALLY ready to wash a pig with him.

– another Ray/Shoshanna note: she goes from hating him to having a couples-only cuddly afternoon in bed. It’s another jump that’s a bit hard to believe, but since we weren’t really given any insight into their original seperation, it’s easier to just buy back into the world we left at the end of season one.

– Elijah says George “won’t return my texts or Facebook messages.”  A great line speaking to his maturity – who the hell would have a serious relationship discussion via text or Facebook message? … oh wait, half my generation, my apologies.

– EVERY writer has heard someone say that something they wrote was “well written, but… ” the biggest backhanded compliment there is.

– as a writer, Jessa’s comment trying to parallel her paintings with writing was beyond laughable; “when I finish a painting, Thomas John comes and looks at it right away… If he’s not reading your essays, he’s not reading you.” Are you kidding me?

– PUPPIES!!!

– I like to think Marnie watching the art gallery owner going “In. Out. In. Out.” reminded her of Elijah’s “two, two and half pumps” (or thrusts) was like.

– correct me if I’m wrong, but the gallery owner appeared to be Lena Dunham’s mother (who co-starred with her and her sister in Tiny Furniture).

– Hannah has a sign that says ‘Best Fucking Friends Forever’ in her bathroom.