Girls, "Together"
"I can't be surrounded by your negativity while I'm trying to grow into a fully formed human."
About halfway through "Together," Girls turns itself over to a series of the best scenes it's done yet. It's a far cry from it, but it reminded me at the time of the Sopranos' first season finale, "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano," which similarly wrapped up all of its plotlines, one by one, in unexpected and satisfying ways. "Together" doesn't break any new ground, or do anything particularly shocking, but it might've been my favourite episode of the show so far. It makes the season's structure obvious after the fact, and that structure was surprisingly simple in retrospect: just like I hoped, season 2 of Girls does indeed have a shape, and it's a great one. It was a long story of hope and sadness for the four main characters, with Jessa given a big sendoff in "Video Games" so she could sit out the last three episodes. Even better, in its final moments, it brings all the characters back to the situations they were in during the pilot, only now having grown and changed in the meantime. And by doing that, Girls makes its first two seasons feel of a piece with each other, giving shading to a lot of the more disappointing episodes in between. "Together" includes showcase scenes for Zosia Mamet and Alex Karpovsky, who have been shining all season long as Shoshanna and Ray. And it finds a way to include Jon Glaser, for whom I still feel a lot of residual love after his Delocated finale. In its final moments, it deploys a sequence that feels genuinely heroic and cinematic, despite that sentiment falling apart when you actually think about what's going on. That sequence gives the season a happy ending that's completely invalidated by its subtext. What more could you want from Girls?
About halfway through "Together," Girls turns itself over to a series of the best scenes it's done yet. It's a far cry from it, but it reminded me at the time of the Sopranos' first season finale, "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano," which similarly wrapped up all of its plotlines, one by one, in unexpected and satisfying ways. "Together" doesn't break any new ground, or do anything particularly shocking, but it might've been my favourite episode of the show so far. It makes the season's structure obvious after the fact, and that structure was surprisingly simple in retrospect: just like I hoped, season 2 of Girls does indeed have a shape, and it's a great one. It was a long story of hope and sadness for the four main characters, with Jessa given a big sendoff in "Video Games" so she could sit out the last three episodes. Even better, in its final moments, it brings all the characters back to the situations they were in during the pilot, only now having grown and changed in the meantime. And by doing that, Girls makes its first two seasons feel of a piece with each other, giving shading to a lot of the more disappointing episodes in between. "Together" includes showcase scenes for Zosia Mamet and Alex Karpovsky, who have been shining all season long as Shoshanna and Ray. And it finds a way to include Jon Glaser, for whom I still feel a lot of residual love after his Delocated finale. In its final moments, it deploys a sequence that feels genuinely heroic and cinematic, despite that sentiment falling apart when you actually think about what's going on. That sequence gives the season a happy ending that's completely invalidated by its subtext. What more could you want from Girls?