Girls, "On All Fours"
For all of its plot detours and stop-start storytelling, Girls does flirt with standard serialized TV structure more often than not, the best example of which being its characteristic placement of grand climaxes in the penultimate episodes of each season. Last season's "Leave Me Alone" culminated in the first of many dramatic fights between Hannah and Marnie, but it seems downright frivolous compared to "On All Fours." Fitting with this season's general air of iconoclasm, this year's climax hits much harder - and in new ways too. Smartly, it divides its dramatic beats among all of its characters, instead of just between Hannah and Marnie like last year's did. This allows it to hit on a few emotional levels, continuing the general momentum kicked into gear last week. The episode revolves around three main plots, each with its own harrowing sequence at the centre, so let's attack them one by one.
The most immediately visceral development was the continuation of Hannah's trouble with OCD, this week manifesting as a sudden compulsion to stab a Q-tip into her ear. It was a fair guess to say that most of her problems would be forgotten by this week - Girls is a show that loves narrative dead ends almost as much as the Sopranos did. But to take that plot to such a dark place; well, that was just surprising. Practically every development in this story was pitch-perfect, none more than Hannah meekly asking her doctor to clean her other ear so it would match the one she stabbed. In a vacuum, it's a characteristically naive thing for her to be saying, but in the context of what she's going through, it's just heartbreaking. She needs to feel that balance, and if no one else will do it for her, she'll take matters into her own hands. It was a foregone conclusion what would happen when she asked to keep the Q-tip, but that didn't make the finale any less gutwrenching. Girls has gone dark before, but never has that darkness been quite so palpable.
Less visceral and slower burning was Adam's growing relationship with Natalia. In her, Adam finds the antidote to his relationship with Hannah. She's clear and honest, and considers his emotions without forgetting her own. But it's quickly obvious that Adam doesn't fully fit into her world. He's teetering at the edge of something, even as he's superficially happier than he's been in months. A chance encounter with Hannah on the street pushes him into full relapse territory, and he barges back into the bar to order a drink. (I loved his choice, a jack and ginger: it's not a widely known drink, and was obviously "his" drink before he went sober.) Later that night, drunk and feeling vulnerable, he tries to push Natalia toward rejecting him outright. His self-loathing manifests itself as something that's not quite sexual assault, but comes very very close. It's easily the most harrowing sequence the show has ever given us, and not just because of what's depicted: we know exactly what's going on in Adam's head as he does it, and our sympathy with him just makes it more disgusting.
It's telling that even the lightest of the three main plots was just horrifying to watch. Marnie finds herself at a party celebrating the high performance of Charlie's ridiculous app, and, encouraged by Ray's words to her last week, attempts to use the event to kickstart her singing career. Her song was textbook cringe comedy, but it managed to offer a new spin on the form. Her song isn't particularly bad, exactly: her voice is pretty good, and the song, a ridiculous reworking of Kanye West's "Power," is embarrassing but not quite terrible. What's wrong with her actions is that it's simply not the time or place to pull something like this. Like Hannah and Adam's plots, everything is pitched perfectly for this sequence to work. It's as if the Girls writers looked at last year's "Leave Me Alone" and realized that the final climactic fight kinda came out of nowhere. All of these plots are grounded in what happened before, even if a lot of that background just came out of nowhere last week. There's a throughline to everything that happens, and that's something that the show has struggled with in the past. And though Marnie ends up hooking up with Charlie in the aftermath of her performance, it's clear that it won't end well for either of them.
While I loved this episode, it's a hard one to talk about. It brings each of its characters (except Jessa, but even Shoshanna and Ray have some big moments without having a lot of screentime) to a very dark place, darker than we've seen on the show before. It's uncomfortable, and messy, and deeply affecting - in short, Girls at its best. And though it's obvious many of the characters will get respites in the finale next week, this episode will still remain as uncompromising to them. "On All Fours" goes somewhere new for the series, and pulls it off perfectly. And I don't know if I'll ever watch it again.
The most immediately visceral development was the continuation of Hannah's trouble with OCD, this week manifesting as a sudden compulsion to stab a Q-tip into her ear. It was a fair guess to say that most of her problems would be forgotten by this week - Girls is a show that loves narrative dead ends almost as much as the Sopranos did. But to take that plot to such a dark place; well, that was just surprising. Practically every development in this story was pitch-perfect, none more than Hannah meekly asking her doctor to clean her other ear so it would match the one she stabbed. In a vacuum, it's a characteristically naive thing for her to be saying, but in the context of what she's going through, it's just heartbreaking. She needs to feel that balance, and if no one else will do it for her, she'll take matters into her own hands. It was a foregone conclusion what would happen when she asked to keep the Q-tip, but that didn't make the finale any less gutwrenching. Girls has gone dark before, but never has that darkness been quite so palpable.
Less visceral and slower burning was Adam's growing relationship with Natalia. In her, Adam finds the antidote to his relationship with Hannah. She's clear and honest, and considers his emotions without forgetting her own. But it's quickly obvious that Adam doesn't fully fit into her world. He's teetering at the edge of something, even as he's superficially happier than he's been in months. A chance encounter with Hannah on the street pushes him into full relapse territory, and he barges back into the bar to order a drink. (I loved his choice, a jack and ginger: it's not a widely known drink, and was obviously "his" drink before he went sober.) Later that night, drunk and feeling vulnerable, he tries to push Natalia toward rejecting him outright. His self-loathing manifests itself as something that's not quite sexual assault, but comes very very close. It's easily the most harrowing sequence the show has ever given us, and not just because of what's depicted: we know exactly what's going on in Adam's head as he does it, and our sympathy with him just makes it more disgusting.
It's telling that even the lightest of the three main plots was just horrifying to watch. Marnie finds herself at a party celebrating the high performance of Charlie's ridiculous app, and, encouraged by Ray's words to her last week, attempts to use the event to kickstart her singing career. Her song was textbook cringe comedy, but it managed to offer a new spin on the form. Her song isn't particularly bad, exactly: her voice is pretty good, and the song, a ridiculous reworking of Kanye West's "Power," is embarrassing but not quite terrible. What's wrong with her actions is that it's simply not the time or place to pull something like this. Like Hannah and Adam's plots, everything is pitched perfectly for this sequence to work. It's as if the Girls writers looked at last year's "Leave Me Alone" and realized that the final climactic fight kinda came out of nowhere. All of these plots are grounded in what happened before, even if a lot of that background just came out of nowhere last week. There's a throughline to everything that happens, and that's something that the show has struggled with in the past. And though Marnie ends up hooking up with Charlie in the aftermath of her performance, it's clear that it won't end well for either of them.
While I loved this episode, it's a hard one to talk about. It brings each of its characters (except Jessa, but even Shoshanna and Ray have some big moments without having a lot of screentime) to a very dark place, darker than we've seen on the show before. It's uncomfortable, and messy, and deeply affecting - in short, Girls at its best. And though it's obvious many of the characters will get respites in the finale next week, this episode will still remain as uncompromising to them. "On All Fours" goes somewhere new for the series, and pulls it off perfectly. And I don't know if I'll ever watch it again.