Review: Girls, S1, E4 – “All Adventurous Women Do”

Air date: Sunday, April 29, 2012, 10:30/9:30c on HBO

Rating: ★★★★★

What kind of man plays with a woman’s jelly rolls and asks if she eats for fun post-sex?

Answer: the type of man who is douchebag enough to irresponsibly lie about transmitting STDs.

The OB-GYN has bad news for Hannah (Lena Dunham). Who is to blame for her condition and will her diagnosis cause a ruckus in her life?

Adam (Adam Driver)is Hannah's self-centered love interest.

This week’s Girls begins with both Charlie (Christopher Abbott) and Hannah hoping their individual physical transformations charm their respective lovers.  One lover is shot down and the other is enthusiastically welcomed with such romantic pleasantries as, “Yo Kid!” and “Are you creeping around downstairs?” The lovely words come from Adam (Adam Driver) who is the embodiment of gallantry in this show just as much as Havana, Cuba serves as a metonym for the high-tech industry.

After informing him she’s contracted HPV, a defensive Adam announces he’s tested negative for it and demands an apology from Hannah. Somehow I find my hand rolled into a fist and I secretly wish Hannah gets a booster shot in self-esteem.

So, if it wasn’t Adam who gave her HPV, who did and will Hannah be okay?

“I’m fine and I’m not going to die,” Hannah says to calm Marnie (Allison Williams) down because she doesn’t take the news well.  The sincerity in Hannah’s voice makes me sort of believe her, and it works on Marnie too as she quickly reminds her that rent is due in a week.  “I have pre-cancer!” Hannah objects, reminding me why I love the writing in this show so much.

I’m excited to see Marnie finding the ‘edge’ she needs. His name is Booth Jonathan (Jorma Taccone) who, just like his name, is an irreverent artist with a fetish for Asian women. As expected, Marnie is intrigued by his crude bluntness and he wastes no time in messing with her head when he warns: “The first time I fuck you, I may scare you a little because I’m a man and I know how to do things.” What he says is more than music to Marnie’s ears because she’s desperate to be with a man who makes her feel something. His prediction sends her off to the nearest restroom for some self-pleasuring and I suspect Marnie will come back for more.

Jessa (Jemima Kirke) gets a job as a baby sitter and I’m surprised to see how good she is at it. However, she’s never far from trouble and the social commentary and irony of this babysitting storyline fascinated me.  The father embodies those middle aged adults lost in domesticity and parenthood, who undergo a mid-life crisis of sorts. Then, we see another parent perfectly ‘manicuring’ another generation of children. The mother fully supports her elementary age daughter’s ten page novel which she describes as “cute,” even though her daughter has written a first person account of a widow who just left Alcoholic Anonymous—a sign of things to come or just a smart, observant kid?

The quiet and natural flow in which the sarcasm is delivered via lines and acting is worth commenting on. I especially enjoyed the sofa conversation between Hannah and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) who wants her friend to do the right thing by telling her former lover about her contracting HPV.

Shoshanna: “Just like in the STD world, I think that is kind of courteous.”

Hannah: “Do you have to do it in person?”

Soshanna: “Um, I don’t know. Like, what are the other options?”

Hannah (Lena Dunham) is having a very bad day, starting with her 'sick' vagina.

Talking to former lovers about sensitive health topics is a tricky endeavor. Hannah’s friendly conversation with her college boyfriend of two years, Elijah (Andrew Rannells), goes south fast. Elijah is clueless of the fact that his complimenting Hannah for leading him to experiment with men is actually an insult. Dunham’s facial expressions are not only funny but priceless in this scene. When Hannah finally processes how much of a lie it was to date a man who ejaculated only 30% of the time (where do these statistics come from?!), the conversation turns into a jab fest. Regardless, the ugliness of their talk reminds me why I like Hannah: she’s a good, patient and non-judgmental person deep down. Elijah’s “fruity little voice,” as Hannah labels it, spotlights some venomous truths about Adam and hints of other ‘closeted’ people in Hannah’s life.

Hannah seeks refuge in social media and it circles back to the title of the episode: “All Adventurous Women Do.” The phrase encompasses the two main themes in the girls’ lives (self-discovery and sex), but it also turns a negative into an empowering positive. Jessa and I finally agree on something!

The Sex and the City poster isn’t the only reminder of the series: in the end when men fail them, the bonds of friendship hold the girls up. Robyn’s catchy “Dancing on my Own” infuses the scene with a playfulness the episode needed and as the girls dance, somehow I know their adventures will go on.

Tune in to Girls on Sundays at 10:30/9:30c on HBO. For more on the show, visit www.hbo.com/girls/index.html.

Follow @girlsHBO on Twitter.

All photos © 2012 HBO Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.