Girls Season Six Premiere Plot Summary:
Hannah (Lena Dunham) gets an assignment to write about a female surf camp in the Hamptons, where she meets an uncomplicated water-skiing instructor; Marnie (Allison Williams) tells Ray (Alex Karpovsky) that he needs to spend more time at his own place.
“I have a strong opinion about everything, even topics I’m not informed on.”
Ah, the wise words of a young twenty something…well not so much wise, as super honest. If this thought hasn’t crossed through at least one millennial’s young head, then I’m almost a hundred precent you’re lying.
Girls is back for its six and final season, and while the show may have over stayed its welcome a few seasons ago, the episode itself truly does start on some good footing.
While the characters still possess the selfish and non-diverse qualities that drove some viewers away some time ago, the humor and making fun of itself aspect is new and fresh in the season premiere. Dunham, as Hannah, has no hard time making fun of herself and what others think about her-see quote above- and it makes the show instantly more likable and mature…however I just wish this could have lasted.
The first half of the episode is witty and hilarious. Coming from someone who hasn’t been a fan of the show for sometime, those jokes landed and landed hard. Besides the quote from above, the best line of the episode, and possibly the series, comes from Hannah’s gay roomie and ex-beau Elijah, easily the shows best character played by Andrew Rannells, who says, “I’m going to f#*k my way to the middle.”
Truly living the correct American dream.
However, where the show found its strengths, it also found its weakness.
While the episode was strongly written by Dunham for the first half, it because lazy and redundant by the second. It focuses way too much on the unlikeable Hannah and too less on the actually good supporting cast. When she did finally decide to show more of them in the second half of the episode, she brought back the same cliches that made the show weak in every season…cheating on every person your with, unlikeable characters doing awful things, and so much white privilege. If the show just stuck with the fun and witty, self deprecating jokes that made the first half of the episode, and season one, so great this would have been a strong return and a strong goodbye, but sadly you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
However, the show and season does show a level of maturity but also proves too much of something good can turn bad super quickly. I have high hopes for Dunham’s swan song…but please stick with the witty jokes and less of Hannah, and then I’m sure as an audience we will start seeing these girls turn to women by the shows end.
