The Death of Girls

The season 3 finale of Girls aired this week and like its fellow HBO stablemate Looking, it went out with a bang after a midseason stunner (Beach House). While there was so much unpleasantness in the first 5 episodes, by the end, it was a reasonably interesting and entertaining season - not least because the finale provided interesting closure to the storylines this year.

Death, or at least the end of things, seemed to be hover over the characters this season. From the deaths of Hannah's editor and grandmother, Flo, and the near death of Bedelia, to the end of the Girl's relationships after the amazing Beach House episode, death and destruction was everywhere.

This was also a season where their hopes kept getting dashed. For all the characters, all of their personal and professional relationships that they were building throughout the season, fizzled by the end. But as always, when one door closes, another opens. Of the supporting characters, Ray had to get his heart broken before he could be more grown up. Flo had to be on her deathbed to bring her family together. And  Bedelia had to swallow the pills before she knew she didn't want to die.

And for our girls? Of course there's another season to go, so they can't learn all their lessons yet, but the show is putting them through pain to get there - Shoshanna realising that her plans of sex and study couldn't work out, Jessa getting kicked out of rehab and losing those around her, and Marnie going through humiliations after humiliation, constantly seeking validation from men. And Hannah - she had to lose her writing contract, lose her grandmother, lose her creative soul at GQ, and lose her relationship with Adam.

Yes, they whined, complained, generally acted with limited self-awareness, but at least they had a plan, put themselves out there and tried. Their faults meant that they were doomed to fail, but its pretty hard not to feel sorry for Shoshanna when she's been rejected by both her university and Ray, and its hard to see Marnie continually being kicked on. And I actually thought Hannah had tried really hard with her relationship with Adam. It's after all this, then, that her acceptance into graduate school, and the final shot, feels earned.

All of this sounds great in hindisght, but the actual experience of watching the show was not pleasant. There was so much narcissism, obnoxiousness and social awkwardness that it was a chore to watch this season. Perhaps Lena Dunham thought that the audience, like the characters, had to go through all this pain before things could get better. And better it did get. For me, the best moments were when all the girls were together, such as in Beach House

which also brought Elijah back ...

and his thighs...

There were also the moments of genuine warmth, like Hannah on her grandmother's deathbed,

or the genuine love and joy Marnie and Hannah's parents showed when she told them she got into Iowa.

Big changes are never small stakes, honey

But if this season showed us one thing, it's to be wary of neat happy endings - disappointment and death is just lurking underneath. That joy from her parents, like all their scenes this season, was tinged with some hidden sadness from her father (cancer?). The show is waiting for another day to plunge into this storyline, and I hope for Hannah's sake that she's gone through enough disappointments and growth to deal with the loss of one of her parents. Bring on Season 4.