Girls - Season 2 - Sundays on HBO

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destrudo said:
I'm starting to suspect that the critics are all in on some kind of joke. I mean, I enjoy the show, but when you read some of that hyperbolic shit like in the Sepinwall review you start to wonder if they're being sarcastic.
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From my experience, when a once-promising show goes bad, it take critics one full season of defending awfulness before they get over their egos enough to admit that a show they once rallied around is now shit.

See:
Lost
Glee

Coming soon:
Homeland
 
royalan said:
From my experience, when a once-promising show goes bad, it take critics one full season of defending awfulness before they get over their egos enough to admit that a show they once rallied around is now shit.

See:
Lost
Glee

Coming soon:
Homeland
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GAF is ahead of the curve, it hates that show already!
 
Average human being? I didn't know the average human being blames others for their failures to the point of driving them out of their lives almost completely.

That GIF of the scene with Laird perfectly describes the type of person Hannah is.
 
ZaCH3000 said:
Average human being? I didn't know the average human being blames others for their failures to the point of driving them out of their lives almost completely.

That GIF of the scene with Laird perfectly describes the type of person Hannah is.
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Yes, she has flaws. He called her out on them. Everyone has flaws. She is very self involved.
 
Jitters said:
Yes, she has flaws. He called her out on them. Everyone has flaws. She is very self involved.
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Are you suggesting all flaws are equal? Because one way of interpreting your argument is by saying all human beings are average in spite of human complexity.

You may believe that but from my understanding of average people standards Hannah is indeed a horribly flawed person that deserves whatever she gets because she brings a lot of it on herself. Despite this low locus of control, she manipulatively poisons the lives of those around her without once taking their emotional needs and capabilities into consideration because she is selfish and immature.

Hannah exemplifies the type of adult you never want to be when your 26 years of age for your parents, friends and colleagues sake.
 
ZaCH3000 said:
Are you suggesting all flaws are equal? Because one way of interpreting your argument is by saying all human beings are average in spite of human complexity.

You may believe that but from my understanding of average people standards Hannah is indeed a horribly flawed person that deserves whatever she gets because she brings a lot of it on herself. Despite this low locus of control, she manipulatively poisons the lives of those around her without once taking their emotional needs and capabilities into consideration because she is selfish and immature.

Hannah exemplifies the type of adult you never want to be when your 26 years of age for your parents, friends and colleagues sake.
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I'm not saying all flaws are equal, I think she is VERY flawed, but I don't think that makes her an awful human being.
 
Jitters said:
I'm not saying all flaws are equal, I think she is VERY flawed, but I don't think that makes her an awful human being.
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You don't need to believe she is an awful person like I do, but understand calling her an awful person is not an outrageous statement.

Saying her neurosis would lead to mass homicide would be outrageous, but saying she is an awful person in the normal sense is perfectly reasonable.

brianjones said:
you would think zach is describing tony soprano

are all 26 year olds you know church going MDs
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Jeez, I'm only 22 and I've probably been through a 1000x more shit than you have.

See I can make baseless inferences too. Get off it, dude. You don't know me and I don't know you so chuck that type of discussion out the window.
 
No AV Club review yet? I can imagine the discussion in the editor's room...

"This episode, like most of the season, was shit. But if we don't give it an A-, we're going to stick out like a sore thumb from all those other hack tv critics."
 
royalan said:
From my experience, when a once-promising show goes bad, it take critics one full season of defending awfulness before they get over their egos enough to admit that a show they once rallied around is now shit.

See:
Lost
Glee

Coming soon:
Homeland
Click to expand...

Also:
Community (starting even during season 3 before Harmon got fired)
 
Looks to me like the last three episodes (aka Hannah going psycho) overshadow what was otherwise a good season of television. Certainly not up to S1 in quality, I feel like this season really missed a central storyline, like the Adam&Hannah realtionship in season 1.

In Season 2, the lives of the four girls +adam never really intervened, with everyone breaking away from each other midway though the season, and stumbling into another persons live for an episode or two. This made the whole series feel really episodic, and while some of these episodes were interesting ("Boys", "Bad Friend"), the season as whole just didn´t work. Having a chamber play and a road trip episode in one season didn´t help, and it broke up the season into three parts. (1-4,5-7,8-10)

Sadly, episodes 8-10 are a mess. Hannahs OCD could have been interesting, if those episodes were actually about her. But for the last three weeks Hannah storyline was the least compelling. I was actually surprised to see her from time to time, in a way of "Oh you´re still here? Still ocd? Alright, back to shosh and marnie." Even though I´m sure there was a lot of screen time given to her story.

Oh and last night´s finale was stupid.
I´ll stick around for season three. Let´s see Hannah and Adam being happy for a few episodes, before dragging each other down and eventually splitting up again.
But I´m sure there wouldn´t have been this kind of backlash if S2 had ended on episode 5 or 7
 
im still catching up, not really reading these last comments cause I havemt watched the finale yet

only reason im posting is because I found myself fast forwarding through the daft punk/kanye singing

holy shit man, I never do that. They achieved the pure essence of cringe. I couldnt watch it
 
What the fuck was that?!? Did someone from Lifetime write this episode.

I was positive that this episode was going to end with Hannah waking up from a dream, because everything felt overly cliche. What a lame and predictable finale.
 
Hannah going crazy was stupid when it was out of the blue and just happened without much forshadowing. By this episode I'd accepted it and I thought Dunham did a good job playing the role, and found Hannah's breakdown pretty believable.
 
i actually dug this season, but it's waaayyyy too short, and the ocd thing came out of nothing.

that one episode that ended with ray and the dog... ;_; i wish there was more of him.

and lena dunham is so brave for cutting her hair like that.
 
I love how the primary conflict of the episode - the book/lawsuit - is just casually thrown away in favor of the Kate Hudson rom-com ending sequence. It will probably be addressed in the beginning of Season 3 (maybe), but it's still really fucking lazy to just abandon it like that.

I also love how idiot Marnie thinks Charlie is "brown." Well, I guess he's about as brown as it gets on this show (if you don't count Donald Glover, which I sure as hell don't).
 
peterb0y said:
Wait u can? Huh.
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Yeah, you can.

I don't know if you can Facespace over 3G, though.

BertramCooper said:
I love how the primary conflict of the episode - the book/lawsuit - is just casually thrown away in favor of the Kate Hudson rom-com ending sequence. It will probably be addressed in the beginning of Season 3 (maybe), but it's still really fucking lazy to just abandon it like that.
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To be fair, I would throw it away as soon as I possibly could too. It was hardly a storyline.

I'm still not even sure who that guy was and how he knew her.
 
kingocfs said:
To be fair, I would throw it away as soon as I possibly could too. It was hardly a storyline.
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For once I'd just like to see Hannah deal with some tangible consequences for her cuntish behavior.

This show just keeps kicking the can down the road until it forgets about the can entirely.
 
it's okay, next season adam will suddenly become a millionaire rolling stone columnist and best selling author out of nowhere and pay the rent on her fancy new york apartment.
 
Dave Meltzer said:
Not being able to write a book isn't especially cuntish. I think she's more childish than cuntish.
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Well, she cites her ear problems as a primary reason she hasn't been able to write, which were at least partially self-inflicted.

But I can't really offer a solid definition of "cuntish," so it's open to debate.
 
royalan said:
From my experience, when a once-promising show goes bad, it take critics one full season of defending awfulness before they get over their egos enough to admit that a show they once rallied around is now shit.

See:
Lost
Glee

Coming soon:
Homeland
Click to expand...

Shut your goddamn mouth.
 
Colin Quinn and Ray spin off please. Also, Ray is going to make hell of bank in Brooklyn Heights. Shit's like the Redondo Hills of New York.

(I just wanted to say "Redondo Hills")
 
Well that was anti-climatic.

- I'm glad Marnie and Charlie are together again
- Adam running down the street and kicking down Hanna's door was boss
- Hanna is such a mess (which I don't like) and it sucked the book angle wasn't used more
 
Charlie deserves Marnie.

I've known several Charlies (some male, some female) - genuinely good people who insist on being with emotionally manipulative partners. At first, you feel sorry for them and chock it up to naïveté and try to talk some sense into them, but eventually you figure out they're just too goddamned stupid to be with someone who would treat them with a modicum of decency.
 
BertramCooper said:
Charlie deserves Marnie.

I've known several Charlies (some male, some female) - genuinely good people who insist on being with emotionally manipulative partners. At first, you feel sorry for them and chock it up to naïveté and try to talk some sense into them, but eventually you figure out they're just too goddamned stupid to be with someone who would treat them with a modicum of decency.
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I am not sure it is fair to wish Marnie on anyone. OK, maybe Hitler.
 
The relationship critics have with this show is reminiscent of a guy getting drunk at a bar and bringing home an unattractive girl that he thought was attractive due to alcohol. When they sober up it will be hilarious. This reminds me of high school. A small group of people start doing something that is incredibly stupid, but because they're popular it catches on. Before you know it, half the school is wearing or saying something wildly lame, but everyone deep down knows that to be exactly true. But they're so invested in something so terrible that it's too late to turn back.
 
ThisWreckage said:
The relationship critics have with this show is reminiscent of a guy getting drunk at a bar and bringing home an unattractive girl that he thought was attractive due to alcohol. When they sober up it will be hilarious. This reminds me of high school. A small group of people start doing something that is incredibly stupid, but because they're popular it catches on. Before you know it, half the school is wearing or saying something wildly lame, but everyone deep down knows that to be exactly true. But they're so invested in something so terrible that it's too late to turn back.
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The show is just so goddamned amateurish - both its writing and its acting. Some of the relationships and character dynamics are genuinely interesting, but it's so poorly plotted and badly acted that it just falls apart for me.

Lena Dunham should still be learning her craft, but instead she has already been crowned as a voice-of-a-generation wunderkind and showered with praise and awards. And that will only stunt her growth as a writer because she's never going to learn from her obvious mistakes.
 
She's never been a good writer and the heaps of praise bestowed upon her for drivel like Tiny Furniture makes this even worse. I fully expect people to start comparing her to Weiner before too long.
 
BertramCooper said:
The show is just so goddamned amateurish - both its writing and its acting. Some of the relationships and character dynamics are genuinely interesting, but it's so poorly plotted and badly acted that it just falls apart for me.

Lena Dunham should still be learning her craft, but instead she has already been crowned as a voice-of-a-generation wunderkind and showered with praise and awards. And that will only stunt her growth as a writer because she's never going to learn from her obvious mistakes.
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And she deserves the praise. Sure it´s overblown, but that´d just "the media" being "the media". Still Dunham created a tv-show interesting and well written enough to become part of pop-culture. At 25. All the backlash right now is hyperbole. It´s a good show, certainly good enough to warrant the attention it get´s.

And your idea about her future, I really don´t see where that comes from. Can you point me to some other writer whos progress was hampered by being successful early on?
 
elkayes said:
And she deserves the praise. Sure it´s overblown, but that´d just "the media" being "the media". Still Dunham created a tv-show interesting and well written enough to become part of pop-culture. At 25. All the backlash right now is hyperbole. It´s a good show, certainly good enough to warrant the attention it get´s.

And your idea about her future, I really don´t see where that comes from. Can you point me to some other writer whos progress was hampered by being successful early on?
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Two can play this game. If anything has been hyperbolic, it's been the praised directed toward her. Just because the show is part of pop culture that hardly means it is of quality. Other scripted shows like The Big Bang Theory are enormously popular. Are we supposed to assume that the show is of quality just because a lot of people treat it as background noise?

I know I'm going to get crucified for this, but Tarantino is a writer who was stunted due to overwhelming praise. Pulp Fiction had critics proclaiming him as the savior of cinema and he was viewed as some sort of trailblazer. He's proceeded to go up in his own ass further and further sans Jackie Brown because of that.
 
elkayes said:
And she deserves the praise. Sure it´s overblown, but that´d just "the media" being "the media". Still Dunham created a tv-show interesting and well written enough to become part of pop-culture. At 25. All the backlash right now is hyperbole. It´s a good show, certainly good enough to warrant the attention it get´s.
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You can't be serious.

At the end of the finale, Adam literally kicks her apartment door down when she won't let him in, and it's the most heroic damn thing I've seen on television in forever.
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that concluding sequence with Adam and Hannah was one overflowing cauldron of emotion. I need some time to let it sit with me, but that was one dazzling piece of filmmaking: at once a bundle of familiar tropes and something that felt wholly new and exciting and moving.
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This isn't hyperbolic, but criticizing season 2 for a lack of direction and poor story cohesiveness is?
 
iammeiam said:
This show and I apparently operate on vastly different wavelengths. Hannah spends most of the episode trying to manipulate the people in her life into buying into her drama. She tries to get her publisher to buy a BS injury, her dad to rescue her from her publisher, Laird to take advantage of her faked dizzy spell to... Feed her ego or give her book material, I'm not sure. She reaches out Jessa and berates her for, essentially, living a life that makes her unavailable when Hannah needs her. Hannah treats everyone like not-people, and the script has her admit that she hasn't been thinking of Laird as a person. So when Hannah 'accidentally' FaceTimes Adam and winds up showing off her OCD, prompting his run to the rescue, I didn't read the scene as two people finding each other or whatever, it felt more like Hannah trying one more background player in the drama that is her life, and this time actually succeeding in getting them to buy into her bullshit. Not a triumphant and romantic moment, but Hannah finally managing to get someone to clean up the glass for her. I though it mirrored Marnie's decision to take the easy way out and hook up with Charlie, again. Going forward alone is the scary part of growing up, so I thought this episode was about two characters failing to move forward in their lives.

The reviews seem to indicate I'm wrong, though, and these relationship reunions were supposed to be because of how the characters have grown? So I feel like I should rewatch the episode and try to see it from that angle.

Shoshanna's probably the shallowest character, but she's the only one who seems to actually grow in a way I can follow.

I enjoyed the first season but really don't know what to think of the second and have no idea where the third could head.
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Astaereth said:
I think people for some reason get hung up on the show's intentions. "How can the show expect me to like this character when she's so selfish?" "Am I supposed to think it's a good thing that Marnie and Charlie are back together?" The show is fiercely ambivalent about everything, though--it's good for Marnie to get back together with Charlie because she'll stop self-destructing (hopefully), but it's also bad because she's doing it for the wrong reasons and he won't make her happy (just like in Season 1, she'll just feel stifled again). Likewise, Adam and Hannah at the end is a triumphant moment and an absolute failure for both of them.

Case in point, a lot of reviewers seem to take Shoshanna's reasoning for breaking up with Ray at face value, when the show clearly intends you to question it.

...
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Yeah, you guys nailed it. If they're saying otherwise, the critics are lazy. Enough to be praising a shallow rom-com reading of the show. Which is odd, because regardless of its embedded ambivalence, this was a pretty obviously disjointed season. Not sure if I'll be back for round three.
 
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