Remember, way back when Hannah was in Iowa, and her father came to visit her acting very, very strange? As it turns out, he was struggling with something of a conundrum – he was trying to figure out if he was gay. Now Tad knows, Loreen knows, and Hannah definitely knows.
It really was too good to be true for Hannah. Just as she’s beginning to get over Adam, just as she’s found a job that she’s actually quite good at, just as she’s making new friends (even if they are teenagers played by Judd Apatow’s daughter Maude Apatow), she has this bomb dropped on her. It is a blow, because as Loreen angrily articulated, it’s not not about her. Tad’s revelation has repercussions on everyone around him, and as we discover, Hannah is perhaps more like Loreen than either of them would care to admit. Loreen, as it turns out, has secrets of her own; she’s had a fling with Avi, her close friend, and he’s in love with her. You’d think this would complicate things for Loreen, but she demonstrates that same unusual honesty and coldness that sometimes comes to the surface in her daughter, and rebuffs him.
I’m interested to see just why this storyline is occurring now. Is it to merely create drama for a character that has been perpetually insecure and unhappy? Is it to give us an insight into Hannah’s personality and upbringing? If so, I hope it’s perpetuated in future episodes, because Tad and Loreen’s storyline was more interesting than some of our girls’, even if it did seemingly come from nowhere.
All four girl are experiencing upheaval in their love lives. Hannah is rebuffed by Fran (guest star Jake Lacy), who points out that she is exactly the kind of drama-attracting woman that he is trying to avoid. Jessa is still trying to get Ace into her bed, but is finding that his attraction to his ex-Mimi-Rose is stopping him from realising he’s in love with her. Shoshanna goes on her first date with Scott (guest star Jason Ritter), and finds that she should never take dating advice from her cousin. She also discovers that Ray still has feelings for Marnie, and she’s not at all impressed. Marnie, meanwhile, goes through a rollercoaster of emotions with Desi, who spends all of their money on antique guitar pedals and then proposes to her to appease her after a fight, just as she’s telling him about why her parents divorced. Just when you think Marnie Michaels is finally getting her shit together, she goes and makes this woefully bad decision.
With two episodes left in the season, it will be interesting to see what the repercussions are of Tad’s revelation. Will Hannah go into a spiral, or will she lean on her friends to support her? Or, more to the point, will her friends even still support her, after everything that they’ve got happening in their own lives? Perhaps the most prevalent question, though: will Jessa actually get a storyline instead of one scene an episode where she acts incredibly awfully?
Review Score: THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Girls airs on Showcase weekly, 7:30pm AEST Mondays (express from the US)
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