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Worldly Distractions: Girls 3.12 - Two Plane Rides


crazyforkate

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Season finale, and our girls have had their ups and downs the whole way. What on earth can the insane mind of Lena Dunham come up with next?

Previously on: Adam moves out, Hannah and Elijah go see Patti LuPone and her fake husband, Bede hires Jessa, Hannah quits/gets fired, Marnie unsuccessfully hits on Desi, Hannah catches Marnie in bed with Ray.

Hannah goes to grab her mail and unexpectedly runs into Adam's crazy sister, Caroline. Turns out she's shacked up with Laird. They seem really happy, have gotten into a whole bunch of hippie shit, and are expecting a baby together. She also hasn't been in contact with Adam since she left, but is just as convinced as everyone else that he'll break up with Hannah. Sorting through the mail, Hannah finds something unexpected - a letter with BIG NEWS. She does a happy dance. Opening title.

Hannah goes over to Marnie's. Of course, Marnie thinks she's about to get bawled out for the terrible crime of sleeping with another single person, but Hannah's not interested in being a jerk right now. Well, not too much anyway. Instead, she tells Marnie the news - she got into Iowa Writer's Workshop, a prestigious graduate school. Marnie is thrilled, but when she brings up that Hannah would have to move to Iowa, we see some hesitation on Hannah's part.

Over at Bede's workshop, she has just asked Jessa a huge favor. She wishes to be euthanized. Jessa refuses, whereupon threatens to fire her. After a beseeching plea on Bede's part, Jessa is flummoxed, but not exactly ruling it out. Meanwhile, Shoshana gets some bad news of her own when the university informs her that she will not be allowed to graduate. Something about missing credits and Glaciology. Outraged, she goes home and trashes her apartment. Oh, honey - that was literally my worst nightmare for four years. I feel you there. Marnie shows up and they have a heart-to-heart. They both wonder if she was distracted by too much sex. Marnie admits that when she was first with Charlie, she went crazy and ruined things for herself at university. She also chooses this moment to break the news about Ray. Shoshana stares like a deer in headlights, then pins her to the bed and screams in her face.

Faced with another turning point, Hannah does what all twenty-somethings do - she calls her parents. Mom advises her to take the opportunity, Dad says to consider all her options. What's more, they appear to be paying for it. But at least they're proud of her, possibly for the first time in the entire series.

She then barges in on Adam right before a performance, which he clearly does not appreciate. Showing all the sensitivity of a brick, she tells him her big news, raising all the relationship questions this would necessarily entail. He's happy for her, though. Everyone else shows up for the big performance. This includes Ray, Marnie, and Shoshana, which creates an extremely awkward dynamic. Shosh is spitting nails. Marnie goes backstage to stalk Desi a bit. She brings him a present - a guitar pick which once belonged to James Taylor. Desi's overjoyed. Soon enough, they have a smash-the-dressing-room makeout session. Marnie tears herself away. She makes the mistake of telling Hannah, who is ready to tear her another one for boyfriend-stealing when the lights go down.

Throughout the performance, they prove themselves to be total theatre etiquette morons. I mean, I grew up in small-town Canada and knew not to whisper during a Broadway performance. Put a sock in it, Shoshana. At intermission, they discuss Marnie's love life and Hannah's upcoming move. Elijah is both admiring and disparaging of each opportunity. Meanwhile, Shoshana and Ray have their long-overdue chat, where Ray defends himself as a single man pursuing a relationship, and Shoshana admits she wants him back. She thinks he makes her more stable, and you just know the university debacle has prompted all this. Ray tells her that though she helped him move forward in many ways, he's not interested in starting things up again. As she begs him to take her back, the intermission bell rings.

Hannah watches the second act with delight, as Adam is very good. Once again, they behave like total boors during the curtain call. Still, it's a triumph. In the theatre bathroom, Marnie runs into Clementine, Desi's girlfriend. She has deduced what Marnie is up to and is not pleased, calling Marnie a "sad, pathetic mess". Oh, and they're both in green - interesting costume choice. Marnie is thus duly chastened and stands at the sink moping.

Jessa gives Bede the fatal pills. Bede is fucking thrilled to be on her way out, though she warns Jessa not to even think of touching the leftover meds. Jessa agrees to wait it out with her until the end.

Elijah and Hannah wait at the stage door while Elijah rattles off a list of all the celebrities he's met. The other actors are happy to see fans, but Adam's in a mood. He thinks the show sucked, and blames Hannah for dropping the news on him just before the show. Elijah scuttles away so the two of them can have the fight they've been building to all season. He accuses her of being overdramatic. She solemnly congratulates him on a good performance and walks off. Looks like the romance of the century is finished?

Jessa sits with Bede, who's in distress. Bede suddenly asks her to call 911 - she's changed her mind. Shoshana cleans up her wrecked apartment. She finds a book Ray gave her, which she throws into a mirror. Desi and Clementine fight while Marnie peers at them from the shadows. Adam is photographed with the cast, but can't stop glaring. Hannah comes home, picks up her grad school acceptance letter, and smiles. Fade to black.

After a season of relentless pessimism and some astonishingly cruel character-destruction, this episode hit a more ambiguous note. Shosh's life went off the rails, Marnie basically treaded water, Hannah appears to have lost in her personal life but taken a professional leap, while Jessa's story is extremely up in the air. Ultimately, it's a good summary of how the entire season went. There are implications of how things will go, but no definite conclusion - and Dunham really could take us in any direction. I guess we'll have to wait until next January to see what comes next. This season, meanwhile, has been maddening and incredibly rich, giving us many different perspectives and directions to explore. For all the complaining viewers have had, the show always offered us something substantial - even if it meant facing the parts of life (and ourselves) we'd prefer that TV ignore.

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  • Posts

    • Maggie Mae

      Posted

      On 5/14/2024 at 1:24 PM, MargieB said:

       

      Artemis wants $500 for miscellaneous travel expenses such as food, masks,  and paper plates.  $500 for these type of items?   $50.00 at the most.  Their greed is incredible.

      A box of masks is 2.99 for fifty. The longest flight in the Contiguous US is Miami to Seattle, which is six hours. They can pack some sandwiches, or just be hungry until they get to the new location.  They don't need paper plates until they get there, and they are still like .. idk, internet says $1.50 from Dollar Tree. Those are just weird priorities. Especially if you are selling all your stuff - you should have $40 for a meal if there is a long layover, but since they are claiming "privacy" it's not like any of us can offer up some low-cost solutions/tips & tricks for the layovers. They also shouldn't worry about getting multiple travel litter boxes and "travel litter" whatever that is.  They should be looking for harnesses so that when they go through TSA, and TSA is being douchy and refusing to allow them into a room, they can feel secure when they pull their cats out of the carrier.  TSA makes you put the carrier through the metal detector.  Like think about these things, not weird Instagram ads for retro/cool-looking travel litter boxes. 

      We had such high hopes for Art. 

       

      On 5/13/2024 at 2:29 PM, Ozlsn said:

      I would be surprised at Art not going the "ID is a tool of the government" sovereign citizen route except I think they're found it useful. NJ looks like $24 for a license, $35 for real ID. Maybe passports, although that would be undercosted. Are there are additional costs around getting license/ID photos that aren't covered in the quoted cost?

      ID cost is different in every state.  They claim that they need to to get Ryann one from WA state, renew Art's WA ID, so they can get on the plane (even though they don't actually need ID to get on the plane, TSA will let you fly without ID, you just have to get there really early.  People lose ID on vacation all the time and don't have to wait for their home state to mail them one three weeks later.) ANd then go ahead and get the new state ID. 

      They also take expired ID. https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification 

      I am curious as to where they are moving and wonder how long they will keep it private. 

    • hoipolloi

      Posted

      Mike seems to be OK, judging from Shoshanna's FB & IG posts. A number of NGJ articles have his byline which fits with what is shown on social media. Who knows what's really happening. IIRC, Mike & Debi didn't hesitate to seek fairly conventional medical care when they themselves needed it for his stroke or her back surgery a few years ago. Debi might write a bunch of shit about herbal cures in NGJ but I bet you won't catch her or Mike spending $50+ K on a Mexican health spa run by quacks.

      31 minutes ago, noseybutt said:

      she returned to her parent’s property after her divorce

      She & James were living in that same house for some years before their divorce - the same one where she is now and where her "friend" Eric seems to be doing a shitload of home improvements for her. Maybe heʻs getting paid with Plexus swill.

      1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

      The thing is her parents are emotionally and physically abusive. And they write books teaching it.

      All of this. Their abuse manual for infants & children - TTUAC - is designed to produce adults that will either inflict or accept abuse from others. Michael & Debi Pearl are monsters. 

      • Upvote 2
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      • Thank You 1
    • noseybutt

      Posted

      Another vote for Chief's won't care. 

      This was Benedictine College, a deeply trad Catholic college, and his remarks were apparently well received. I am sure there were some (many?) women in the audience annoyed and rightly offended since this was the celebration of the graduation of ALL students, female and male.

      I read somewhere that he was at that Stronger Men conference in Springfield MO along with Sen Josh Hawley. The one where Mark Driscoll got the drama ball rolling.

      So yeah. Butker is a shit stirrer.

      • Upvote 1
    • GuineaPigCourtship

      Posted

      My brother was diagnosed with Asbergers as a child and probably also ADD because they put him on ritalin.  He loved it because he could totally focus and do his work but he developed some sort of shoulder shrugging tic on it so they stopped it and never did anything else.  As a recently-turned 40yo he is still dealing with a lifetime of thinking he was stupid and incompetent because he couldn't learn or work in a traditional way.  He is a TREASURE of a human being whose life has been made immeasurably more difficult because no one really followed up or took his issues seriously.  I don't know if he'll ever seek help for it as an adult but I wish he would - he still thinks it's possible everyone else in the world knows how other people work and nobody will just tell him.

      • Thank You 1
      • Love 1
    • noseybutt

      Posted

      16 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

      The thing is her parents are emotionally and physically abusive. And they write books teaching it. So who knows what she considers abuse. When you grow up surrounded in normalized abuse, how can you see abuse for what it is?

      There is complexity here in that she is deeply self-centered and probably unable to recognize abusive behavior in herself and in others, both.

      I may have the story wrong, but it sounds like she returned to her parent’s property after her divorce which is…bizarre. Her enmeshment with her oldest son is also bizarre. 

      And now this rewriting of history that crosses over from bizarre to totally enraging.

      It’s a mix of poor boundaries and a diva complex that IMO makes it impossible to believe what she says. (And I say that recognizing there could have been abuse. There could also be a husband tired of the crazy and pushing back for the sake of the children and that might have felt abusive to her. Or some mix of both.)

       

      30 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

      That's what makes this worse than if she were trying to actually soften their earlier teachings. She's not. She's outright claiming now, in 2024, men are beating their wives and those abused wives aren't who their books were written for. Those abused wives - THOSE DEAD CHILDREN - are literally who they wrote their books for! 


      How many women did they privately shame into staying with their abuser? How many women over the DECADES did they tell to "just try harder," and "open your legs more often," and "if you were as submissive to him as you're telling us you are he wouldn't have beat you. You need to stop lying to yourself and to him and god will bless your marriage"?

      HOW. MANY. WOMEN?

      How many women did you, Debi, counsel to accept being raped as a normal part of marriage? 
       

      And how many more abused children that never died and so we never heard your book was found in their parents bedrooms? HOW DARE YOU LIE AND MAKE YOURSELF SEEM INNOCENT!

      I want to add that most of the dead children were adopted. They were kids already traumatized. I share your rage.

      • Upvote 2
      • I Agree 2


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