Review: Girls, S1, E7 – “Welcome to Bushwick”
Air date: Sunday, May 27, 2012, 10:30/9:30c on HBO
Rating:
Marnie (Allison Williams), Hannah (Lena Dunham) and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) head to a warehouse party and their arrival marks the start of an eventful evening. With “all of Brooklyn and two-thirds of Manhattan” already at the party, they run into familiar faces but their interactions are anything but usual. With tunes from Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez giving the episode a different feel, has Girls gone techno? I don’t think so but I think it’s a hint the show is about to mix things up!
Marnie (Allison Williams) may not be such a good friend to Hannah (Lena Dunham) after all.
As the girls debate what constitutes the best party ever, Jessa gets a mysterious text from a number she doesn’t recognize (she claims she never saves her messages.) Is this her way of reminding others of how unattached she is? There must be a reason she does this and I hope Girls explores it soon. Jessa opts to mess with the texter and invites the person to the party. Unlike the girls, I have a pretty good hunch of who it may be and I’m counting on this person to show up!
As they make their way around, the girls spot Soshanna, who’s her usual hyper-dramatic self, but she gets wilder as the night goes on. Mamet deserves to be commended for transforming a scene that easily could have looked dumb into a really funny one. So, what happened to her? Let’s just say “Sosh,” as Hannah calls her, gets high on crack by accident and what happens to her illustrates what a fantastic actress Mamet is. Her unexpected and very special bonding moment with Ray (Alex Karpovsky) surprised me. Instead of being the regular douchebag he is, Ray behaves like a decent guy, taking care of an extremely hyper Soshanna through her ‘crackcident’ high. Mamet excels at comedy and I hope the show starts giving her character some depth instead of just being used as comedic relief.
James (James LeGros), the texter, shows up and his bringing a bottle of wine to the rave is a dead giveaway of the type of loser he is. Did he think he was going to some sort of dinner party? Jessa enjoys playing a good cat and mouse game which ends up with James in the hospital, freaking out. What an interesting scene to watch! Jessa ends up comforting James (not so surprising) but what a pitiful, weasel-like maneuver he pulls on her (“I’m sick”) to try to get her to spend the night with him! All I can say is: where is your sense of dignity, man? I was fairly impressed at the way Jessa handled herself and the situation; how interesting that James isn’t the nice guy he had been pretending to be.
Andrew Rannells is fantastic as Elijah, Hannah's sassy-mouthed ex.
Marnie surprised me with her shallowness and selfishness, especially when she realizes her former doormat/ex-boyfriend Charlie (Christopher Abbott) has moved on. In spite of her clean cut look, her mothering of friends, and appreciation of good manners, Marnie is a very self-centered person. Witnessing her throwing Hannah under the bus during her talk with Elijah (Andrew Rannells) was hard to stomach, and I basically cheered when he slapped her. I wish Elijah were a regular character; I love how dramatic he is and his sassy comebacks are always amusing.
Hannah spots Adam at the rave and sees him in ways she’s never witnessed before. Although he still acts like a caveman, I barely recognized him with a shirt on! Then, we learn he belongs to AA and loves books! Seriously? The AA wasn’t a biggie but I would never have pegged him as a reader except for possibly reading something in the “Hooked on Phonics” range. Anyway, Hannah and Adam leave the party with her on his bike. From the minute I saw that, I knew disaster was on the horizon. Hannah goes airborne and faceplants on the pavement—disastrous but pretty funny. “Oh shit,” is right, Adam! However, just as we discover Adam isn’t as dumb and superficial as most of us have thought, mother hen Marnie arrives in a taxi. The dynamics that ensue are funny, dramatic and unexpected in an expected sort of way. If you’ve been keeping up with the show, you know exactly what I mean.
I enjoyed “Welcome to Bushwick a.k.a The Crackcident.” It took us down a different path that allowed us to see a different side of the people in Hanna’s life. In addition to the always present humor, I love how Girls strives to keep its storylines fresh.
I think it’s safe to say this wasn’t the best warehouse party ever for Marnie or Jessa but judging by the grin Hannah could barely suppress in the closing scenes, it was probably the best one for her yet!
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.
elleL
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