Girls Recap: A Girl Walks Into a Bar

Last week, Hannah and Adam got fake married. This week, Hannah deals with the problems that many settled married couples must confront: routine, boredom and ambivalence.

Remember when Adam used to be an insanely jealous hookup who wanted Hannah to have degrading sex with him? Hannah does, too. And she misses that guy.

The episode begins with Hannah getting drunk with coworkers, throwing up what looks like an entire egg yolk and staying at a male friend’s house (he even throws her in a bathtub, which feels really unnecessary). Hannah returns home offering a dramatic, practiced apology to Adam, who doesn’t seem to care that she got sick or stayed at a friend’s place. When Hannah later tries to have sex with Adam before his rehearsal, he politely declines.

So Hannah decides after a conversation with Elijah that she needs to do something drastic to save her nice, boring relationship with this nice, now-successful guy. Best part of the Elijah-Hannah exchange?

Hannah: “Adam is one of the best people I know?”

Elijah: “Is he?…I guess I don’t know him that well.”

Meanwhile, Marnie interviews for a job with her 24-year-old friend opening an art gallery (don’t worry, the friend is going to tell everyone who comes into the gallery that she’s only 22). It turns out, though, she would have to be this young girl’s assistant, a fairly humiliating step down on the career ladder.

Later, Marnie meets with Desi. They have an awkward music session in which Desi asks her to sing whatever she feels in that moment. Marnie apparently only feels song clichés involving jetplanes and mountains and flowers in the attic. Desi shows her how its done, singing about how much he wants to have sex with his girlfriend. You can already see the wheels turning in Marnie’s head as to how she’s going to break this couple up.

Over at NYU, Shoshanna cannot deal with coked-out Jessa and her old druggy-lover Jasper anymore. She decides to invite Jasper’s estranged daughter to dinner with them. As Jessa makes snide remarks, Shoshanna enjoys the made-for-TV drama unfolding as father and daughter reunite.

Shoshanna accomplishes her goal, and Jessa ends up alone. Though it may not have been Kosher for Shoshanna to meddle in that relationship, at least she is showing more concern about her drug-abusing friend than the rest of the girls, who two episodes ago shrugged when Jessa fell off the wagon.

Back to Adam and Hannah: Hannah dons a blonde wig and meets Adam in a bar. She pretends to be a financier’s wife. Adam starts playing along, and when Hannah asks him what kind of women he’s into, he gamely replies, “Married sluts like you.” She throws a drink in his face and storms out. He follows her and begins groping her on the street. She screams and then refuses to break character when a passing man asks her if she’s alright. The good samaritan punches Adam in the head, assuming he’s trying to rape Hannah. Hannah screams, “Don’t punch my boyfriend.”

“Break up with her, she’s a psycho,” the good samaritan reasonably advises.

The charade continues when the couple reaches Marnie’s apartment (where is Marnie sleeping?). Hannah changes the story on Adam again, claiming she’s a cheerleader who usually sleeps with jocks but is now sleeping with the weirdo. Adam, sick of the playacting, finally explodes (this last scenario might have also hit a little too close to home).

Hannah defends herself saying that she’s only trying to re-enact what their sex life used to be. But Adam says he never planned out elaborate sex scenarios like this. He only said what he felt in the passion of the moment:

Had Adam matured and changed? Has Adam channeled the energy into acting rather than expending it on alcohol and sex?

It was only a matter of time before Hannah and Adam’s not-so-healthy past came back to haunt them. Adam says that he’s moving out during rehearsal. He’s already asked Ray if he can crash on his couch, which means he was planning on leaving before the couple’s disastrous sex-capades that night. Hannah is left crying alone.

I expect she’ll later interpret this break as the fulfillment of Pattie Lupone’s prediction that Adam would become selfish and difficult and want to have sex with his cast mates, rather than confronting the fact that Adam has changed.

Choice Quotes

Hannah:

“He’s treating me like an ottoman with a vagina.”

Marnie:

Desi: “You’ve got some darkness in you” (referring to Marnie’s lyrics)

Marnie: “A lot of that is stuff I wrote on Ambien.”

Jessa:

When she and Japser arrive for dinner with Shoshanna: “You said the meat would be waiting.”

Shoshanna:

When Jasper’s daughter offers, “Shoshanna’s going to look after Jessa,” the doubtful, confused look on Shoshanna’s face is better than anything she said this episode.