HBO’s “Girls” returned Sunday Jan. 13 in a two-part season premiere that put to rest some of the unanswered questions of last season. We last left the women of NYC lost in love and heartache with Hannah being rescued by the ever shirtless Prince Charming Adam, Marnie and Charlie figuring out they were soulmates, Shoshanna ending her relationship with the flaky Ray and Jessa disappearing without a word after one disaster of a marriage and when her meeting with her estranged father went sour.
Season three opened up the same way the previous two have — Hannah in bed, wrapped up with her current roommate, which is (finally) Adam. As Hannah tells her therapist later on, Adam takes care of her, though some would think that “care” implies more than giving her orange juice with her OCD medicine. Hannah appears to have a handle on her OCD — or so she tells her editor who has faith in the progress of her book — and is not going to sue her after all. We also saw Shoshanna in bed wrapped up with a man, though the identities of him and his roommate in the bunk below him, remain a mystery.
While Shoshana is living out her newfound sexual education, Marnie is stuck mourning her relationship with Charlie that apparently has just ended for the third time. She is back with her mother, the returning Rita Wilson, who does not seem to be a big fan of her moping while wrapped in her Rainbow Brite sheets. And finally, the whereabouts of Jessa are revealed with her giving up on washing plates — at rehab. She has apparently been there for months with little recovery success as she is angering both the attendees and therapists at group therapy.
The entirety of the show was focused on Hannah, Shoshanna and Adam as they traveled upstate to pick-up the released Jessa. Adam was reluctant to get her because one, he reasoned that if Jessa is in rehab, she must be there for a good reason, and should stay in; and two spending any time with Hannah’s friends is something he vocally expresses to not have any interest in. He ends up going and renting the car as neither of the girls are over 25. Adam is forced to be smothered by the presence of Shoshanna and her love of pop music while Hannah laments over the fact that not only is she wasting valuable writing time, but the whole road trip is not providing for any usable material for her book. Meanwhile, Jessa is under house arrest for the fraternization she took part in with fellow female attendees. Though she makes friends with the fellow British attendee, Jasper, who has the makings of being a real paternal figure, he only wants to sleep with her in the end.
Besides the tagline for the show this season, “Happily Whatever After,” there does not seem to be any direction for this season. All of the characters are still fumbling around, trying to find their places in the faux adult world they have created for themselves. Hannah is still writing, Jessa is still using her family’s money, Marnie is still trying to pick up the fragments of her structured life, and Shoshanna is still, for a lack of a better description, Shoshanna. She may have the most to deal with as she graduates this semester, but if the other ladies are any indication, she will not get far. Of all the characters, the one with the most potential for any sort of development is Adam. Since he thought that having sex with Hannah while Shoshanna was in the same hotel room was an okay thing to do, the way he understood and accepted Jessa’s addiction and pushed Marnie to change herself after her break-up with Charlie showcases that Adam has a heart. And who did not love his confession that Hannah was his best friend?
In this premiere episode, it is still obvious why both Girls and Lena Dunham have been winning awards with the most recent being at this past Sunday’s Golden Globes. Dunham’s writing was witty and en pointe for her characters with the scene-stealer being Shoshanna because no one could top her reasoning behind buying a chair at the road-stop diner. But the characters are still one-sided and ever oblivious to the fact that the world keeps turning outside despite their problems.
If any predictions can be made for this season, this episode will not be the last we see of the side characters of Ray and Natalia and their respective relationships with Shoshanna and Adam will continue to be messy. We may also finally get to see Marnie become independent while alone in her dump of an apartment. Her development could be amazing, if done correctly. There is not any indication as to what story arcs are going to be recycled, besides the obvious one of the girls continuing to fumble through the everyday events.
Girls returns Sunday nights at 8 p.m. on HBO.
