The hard truths of adult life are front and center in ‘Boys’, where reality comes in to shatter many-a character’s dreams. Watching our dreams pass us by, dealing with failed relationships and friendships – and most importantly, realizing we may not be the people we think we are is all apart of life – whether 24, 33, or 50. ‘Boys’ is an episode whose title and writer (Murray Miller, the first male writing credit for the series) suggests that Ray and Adam’s adventure is front and focus – but really, it’s every character, finding small truths in the hopes and lies they’ve surrounded themselves with.
In many ways, Ray talking about Staten Island is an allegory for the entire episode: everyone wants to be in a specific place in their lives, but the veil is being pulled back, and they’re seeing what pile of shit is really in front of them. It happened already with Jessa – that’s why she’s able to be almost invisible for the entire episode, providing some brutally honest advice to Hannah about her e-book: nobody is going to care about, neither the people that read it, or Hannah herself. It’s also happened with Adam, whose insight into his relationship with Hannah isn’t as enlightening as him pointing out to Ray that he’s with Shoshanna because she makes him feel safe, not because he actually likes who she is. There are hints Shoshanna doesn’t like who he is, either – we see her trying to get Ray to attend an entrepreneurial class where Donald Trump is going to speak.
This of course carries over to Marnie, whose relationship with Booth comes to a screeching halt when she finds out it’s not a relationship at all: he’s just fucking her, and plans on paying her for working his party. Unfortunately, neither Booth’s character or Allison Williams’s acting is quite up to the demands of the scene, which perfectly embody the themes of the episode, but comes off flat with Booth’s underdeveloped personality (which is essentially “arty douche”) and Williams’s performance when Marnie breaks down, which is uncomfortable to watch, but not in the ways its supposed to be.
Of course, even an episode that focuses on naked Booth and Ray and Adam’s ferry-riding adventures comes back to Hannah. Hannah might not be the focal point of the episode’s second half, but the themes of the episode ultimately work because of her. Hannah’s scenes embodies much of the show’s message: modern narcissism and self-importance clouding the realities around us. She’s excited and feels important because someone wants her to write an e-book – until she goes to Marnie’s party and hears about Sketch, a hipster who’s writing an e-book (“it’s just an e-book”, someone tells Hannah outside the bathroom). It works on a lot of levels: with Hannah’s character, the show’s portrayal of modern young people, and finally, the self-importance dilemma every memoir writer has to face at some point in their professional career.
There are times when ‘Boys’ fumbles at its meaning, or paints it in very overt tones – Marnie and Booth are always painful to watch – but its certainly Girls at its most resonant, especially when it comes to Ray and Hannah, the two cornerstones of the episode. Combine it with some of the most entertaining, honest character interactions in the show’s history (with Ray and Adam, of course), and it more than makes up for its weaker moments near the end.
Grade: A-
Other thoughts/observations:
– sorry: never lived in Brooklyn, so the real estate politics and in-jokes have no meaning to me.
– In this week’s Allison Williams No-Nudity Clause Awkward Scene, she pulls an entire comforter off the bed to walk into the bathroom. Maybe she’s just a never-nude.
– Adam named his dog Dog, of course.
– Ray: “I’m Greek Orthodox!!!”
– Little Women relates to Ray’s shit – at least, that’s what his godmother tells him. He might be a Marmie, but Hannah thinks he’s more like the dad who dies from influenza.