Review: Girls “She Said OK” – I Don’t Read Comments

“I don’t care about hair. It grows, it shrinks; you can’t get attached to it.”

Although Adam’s opening line of dialogue is in reference to his hair, the events that follow in “She Said OK” frame the quote in a very different light. Yes, “She Said OK” is another hilarious, party-centric episode of Girls, but it’s also something deeper: it’s a half-hour about maturity, about how toxic it can be to hold onto antiquated notions, feelings, and behaviors- and at times, a reflection on those meaningful bits of youth we carry with us all through our lives. It makes for a very subtle, layered episode – one that uses its cringe-inducing situations and reflective humor to shine a light on the complexities of ‘growing up’.

There’s a yin and yang to every single mini-narrative within “She Said OK”: it all begins with Adam and the arrival of his sister Caroline, which brings out a new, ugly shade of Adam we haven’t seen before. The normal hard-edged compassion is gone, replaced by a petty, resentful boy who stomps around and insists that his sister doesn’t ruin his life for him once again. Granted, she is a fucking piece of work, with her bullshit about disassociation during sex and whatnot, but the episode doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of his behavior, as he clings on to what he thinks he knows about his sister, a woman he clearly hasn’t seen in some time.

Adam’s pre-conceptions might be partly correct, but Caroline’s eventual bout of self-destruction comes about because of the cold shoulder Adam throws her way, not in spite of it. Adam insists she wanted to take attention away from Hannah with her life drama – but Liney didn’t “act up” at the party (ok, she did bite Ray), her depression only creeping up once she was home and her inebriated state accelerated her sadness over her brother’s rejection. All through the episode, Adam insists on moving away from the toxic behavior of his sister: it turns out, that behavior was a cry for help, ignored thanks to his inability to let go of whatever petty drama sat between them in the past.

Smartly, “She Said OK” doesn’t try to pass judgment on Adam – which it also doesn’t do with cringe-worthy Marnie, still reeling from her breakup with Charlie (and a vapid, Auto-Tuned music video he put up of her on YouTube). Marnie’s own depression has her acting to try and capture something that’s been lost since her self-proclaimed “best time of our lives” was happening. It’s why she tries to drag a reluctant Hannah on stage to sing a dated song with her: not only does she want to try and prove to the world she doesn’t need Auto-Tune, she wants to return to the safety of her memories, a time when her relationships were cleanly defined (as Adam assumes his with Caroline), a time when she didn’t feel like a fucking joke in front of the entire world.

However, the juiciest material of the episode comes with the two focal points of the episode: Hannah and Ray. As Hannah turns 25, she feels like she’s turned a corner: she’s got a great boyfriend, she’s writing, she’s conquered her OCD – but she’s still worried about her birthday being horrible, due to the fact that every single other one has been borderline traumatic in her life (as she explains to Adam). Just putting that thought out in the universe seems to materialize a lot of possible dramas for her: thanks to those lines, we’re all waiting for things to go haywire at the party, which they very nearly do (and kind of do, when Hannah’s coked-out literary agent throws an angered Ray into a table).

The difference between Hannah, Marnie, and the other characters of the episode is Hannah’s ability to let go of things: she doesn’t get mad at her agent (who “temporarily” downloads Grindr to her phone), she walks away from Marnie’s unwanted duet without flipping out, and she doesn’t heed Adam’s warnings about her sister, which actually appears to bring Caroline some temporary happiness (or slightly less-unstable-ness for a few hours, at least). Where Adam and Marnie are failing to let go, Hannah is succeeding – and it marks a major change for her as she turns the corner of 25th and Heading to 30, embracing adulthood in a way we’ve never seen before (she even rebuffs Adam’s sexual advances at one point!).

By the same token, Ray is showing some major changes of character, becoming a manager of the coffee shop and moving forward in exactly the way that Shoshanna wished he would when they broke up last season. However, he’s still not happy: he’s visibly bitter at the party, and becomes distraught and downright angry after he meets some random dude that Shoshanna told to meet her at the bar. He’s still living his life to make her happy, and it makes him miserable: and Girls punishes him for that inability to let go (just as it rewards Hannah’s positive thinking with a mostly-fun night), projecting his anger towards the DJ and eventually Hannah’s drugged out agent, who whoops his ass and leaves him bleeding and embarrass on the floor.

What really seals the deal for me on “She Said OK” are the quieter moments: the camera lingering on Hannah’s parents (her Dad’s “youthful” clothing is hilarious) as they dance the same dance they’ve done for twenty years, Adam giving Hannah his weird (and somehow perfect) birthday gift – and even the darkly comic closing moment, when Adam tells Hannah he doesn’t want to have sex anymore (“… that makes sense” she says, resigned). It ends one of the show’s more philosophic half-hours in recent memory on a poignant note, a culmination of interactions and overlapping moments that convey the ways we never grow up as humans; and how awesome (and awful) that part of the human condition can be.

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

– where the conclusion of season two made me question Hannah and Adam’s relationship, the first three episodes of this season have done a great job showing how well they complement each other.

– what the hell did Laird make for Hannah’s birthday? What a weirdo!

– apparently Shoshanna met Coby (Kobe?) when she yelled “know where I can get some dank weed?” at him from a crowded cab.

– Ray devastates Shosh after an embarrassing, revealing moment with her, with two simple words: “Cool cigarette.”

– Adam sees Hannah’s father as they walk into the bar: “It’s so fucking good to see you, Mr. Horvath.”

– Ray: “The queue is what separates us from the animals!”

– seriously: weirdest. birthday. gift. ever.