Awhile ago, I decided to take the plunge and see what all the fuss about HBO's acclaimed show Girls was about. I watched the pilot episode and was less than impressed. I found it annoying, superficial and entirely irritating and slightly over my head- (a 'men are from Mars, women are from Venus' thing) and I honestly didn't know why there was such a large section of the commentariat swooning over it.
Turns out the Missus was curious too, so she bit the bullet, got the rest of the season on Amazon Instant Video (this was my first experience with Amazon Instant Video. It was a pleasant one!) watched 'em and liked 'em. She wants the Soundtrack (I've taken note of that for future holidays, special occasions, or random 'I love you' moments.) And then I felt slightly ashamed... one shouldn't judge an overly hyped sitcom by it's pilot episode alone, after all. So I sat down and began consuming the first season of Girls.
It's still irritating- but it's not rage inducing by the end of the season. That, I think is certainly worthy of some faint praise. All the characters evolve over the course of the first season- granted, some of them evolve more than others and by the first season finale, all of the characters are bearable- which is more than I could say at the end of the pilot episode. I have the least amount of sympathy for Marnie (Allison Williams). She basically takes her college boyfriend for granted, scorns him for actually being a somewhat decent guy and treats him like shit. He, in turn pulls a fantastically douchey move and they break up and most of the rest of the season is spent dealing with the aftermath of this.
Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) is probably my favorite character. She's a fast talking virgin (her particular cross to bear for the season) kind of neurotic but also the one speaker of unintentional truth that managed to make me laugh out loud- and there weren't too many moments in the dramedy that made me do that.
Hannah (Lena Dunham) remains annoying throughout the season. Like I said in my review of the pilot- I'm not going to lay claim to having all of my shit together even now and goodness knows getting your collective shit together is part and parcel of growing up but dear God, she's clueless. She seems to have an aversion for rolling up her sleeves and getting to work, has a frankly weird boyfriend (Adam Driver) whom she wants to commit to/have a relationship with and who in the end isn't that weird and actually commits which freaks her out.
And Jessa (Jemima Kirke)... well, Jessa just kind of floats around, almost sleeps with her married boss (a nicely post-Ally McBeal James LeGros) and then does something totally unexpected in the season finale that would seem jarring except that her character is so random, it's a totally credible WTF moment that actually makes for a brilliant end to the first season.
Does it live up to the hype? I don't know. I certainly don't think so but then again, I'm a dude and somehow I don't think a show entitled Girls is necessarily going to speak to me. I think it gets better as it goes along despite the fact that there's the obligatory ham-fisted touchstones of modern feminism they have to hit up- abortion, sexual harassment in the workplace and losing your virginity. The guys in the show? They kind of get a bum rap, I think but by and large aren't horrible people- they just have to have the patience to deal with all these self-absorbed, superficial women they're dating.
Is it the voice of a generation? I don't think so. It's got acres of potential to be a really, really good show- but do the travails of a group of mid-20s hipsters in NYC speak to a generation? I doubt it. The process of finding ones self is important, I suppose- but out here in the Boonies, there's a certain practicality that gets pounded into kids growing up, yea, verily even here in the People's Republic of Johnson County. Namely: self-esteem don't pay the electric bill. But what the hell, I guess even the privileged scions of the white upper middle class deserve their own sitcom too.
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