Opium Dreams: Girls Pilot

Picture this: You’re 24 and two years out of college with nothing to show for it except an unpaid internship you have been at for over a year. You get by on your parents’ monthly donation and do not expect that to end anytime in the foreseeable future. You live with your best friend, Marnie, who happens to be dating a guy she can hardly stand but keeps him around for, well, we don’t know why she keeps him around. Your friend, Jessa, has just moved back to New York City from Paris and is all long blonde hair and oozes bohemian sex vibes. Jessa is staying with her cousin, Shoshanna, who could be accurately described as a “Sex and the City Victim.” You know the type, thinking life is going to full of pink drinks and mind-blowing sex, thanks to Carrie Bradshaw and her cohorts. Lastly, there’s your fuck buddy, Adam. He routinely ignores your texts and is an unsatisfying lover anyway.

Meet Hannah Horvath. This is her story.

We begin with Hannah and her parents, who are visiting from out of town, eating dinner in a restaurant. Naturally, they ask about her internship, and Hannah informs them her boss is willing to read her book once she’s finished. The problem is Hannah’s writing a memoir, and she has to live it first. Without any further ado, her parents let her know they are cutting off the monetary support because according to her mom, they “can’t keep bankrolling [Hannah’s] groovy lifestyle.” Hannah tries to convince her parents that she deserves to be supported still because she spared them the tragedy of having a drug addict for a daughter and don’t they realize how lucky they are? The conversation ends with Hannah telling her parents she doesn’t wish to see them the next day because among other things, she will be busy trying to become who she is.

Okay, so it is possible Hannah is more than a little self-obsessed and quite self-aggrandizing. But, really, it would be more surprising if she weren’t.

The relationship Hannah has with her best friend and roommate, Marnie, is an interesting one. They fall asleep together watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show and bathe together, though Hannah has never seen Marnie naked*. Marnie seems to cling to Hannah because she is desperately avoiding any type of interaction with her boyfriend, Charlie. It is too early to tell if Charlie is actually a Stage 5 Clinger or if Marnie is just kind of cruel.

Hannah’s self-deprecating attitude toward her weight becomes apparent when the three of them, Marnie, Charlie and Hannah, are in the girls’ kitchen. Charlie calls the two girls angels. Hannah responds by pointing to the almost perfect Marnie and saying, “Charlie’s angel” and then pointing to herself and saying, “Fat baby angel.” When Charlie tries to argue that she isn’t fat, Hannah asks him to avert his eyes and leaves the room.

At the prodding of Marnie, Hannah agrees to tell her boss that he needs to hire her on so she can feed herself and, you know, be an adult with a paying job. Hannah goes into work and tells her boss the situation has to change. He fires her, but not before he reminds her there are at least 50 people a day clamoring for her internship position.

Feeling sad, Hannah calls the fuck buddy who never bothers to text her back, Adam. She heads over to his place for what we can guess will be awkward, shitty sex, which happens to be the kind most 24-year-olds have. Adam’s not a great guy. Comparing him to Charlie, Marnie’s boyfriend, would be like comparing The Situation to Romeo, only less Italian. When Hannah tells Adam she’s been fired from her internship, he laughs in her face. Despite the fact that he doesn’t respect her or take her seriously, Hannah has sex with Adam.

Please don’t expect the sex scenes in Girls to be the typical HBO fare. Lena Dunham has been writing awkward sex scenes that will either make you grimace or cover your eyes (or sometimes both) for at least 5 years now and shows no signs of giving up. Adam jokes about not using a condom and attempts anal before asking Hannah if she’s okay with it (she’s not). There are no moans of pleasure, or any hint of pleasure, for that matter. Hannah continues to ramble to the point where Adam asks her to play the quiet game. It is that bad, and it doesn’t seem like Hannah expects it to be anything but.

Meanwhile, Jessa, the recently returned expat, arrives at her cousin Shoshanna’s apartment. Jessa’s cool British demeanor is the exact opposite of Shoshanna’s delusional American peppiness. Shoshanna is thrilled she has a British cousin living with her, but she’s shocked when she finds out Jessa has no idea what Sex and the City is. “That’s like not being on Facebook,” Shoshanna marvels. And when Jessa tells Shoshanna she’s not on Facebook? “You are so fucking classy.”

Jessa heads over to Marnie and Hannah’s apartment sans Shoshanna for a dinner party being thrown in Jessa’s honor. Marnie and Charlie are there with one of Charlie’s friends, Ray, and some unknown girl, who must be a friend of Ray’s. Hannah is nowhere to be found because “she’s off having gross sex with that animal,” according to Marnie. That sounds pretty accurate based on what we saw.

Finally, Hannah turns up and the conversation lands on her recent job loss and the loss of funds from her parents. She figures she can survive in NYC for another 3 1/2 days based on what little money she still has. When it’s suggested she should get a job at McDonald’s, Marnie and Hannah both balk while Ray points out it’s a job and some sort of income at least.

During all of this, Ray is busy making a pot of opium tea. He tells Hannah it tastes like twigs (which she mishears as Twix and immediately agrees to try it), and she drinks a full cup.

Fast forward to Hannah, high as a kite, sitting on a bed with Marnie and Jessa on either side of her. Marnie is trying to convince Hannah she needs to tell her parents she’ll get a job, but she still needs financial support for the time being. Jessa, being the artistic free spirit she is, tells Hannah to stick to her guns and let her parents know she’s an artist and will die as an artist if she really has to.

Telling both friends she loves them and when she looks at both of them, a Coldplay song plays in her heart, Hannah sets off for her parents’ hotel, still really high.

Marnie confronts Jessa about Jessa’s irresponsible advice to Hannah, and during their argument Jessa reveals she’s pregnant. And of course, this pregnancy is unwanted**.

Hannah reaches her parents’ hotel room and begs them to read her book and reconsider financially supporting her. “I think I’m the voice of my generation,” she tells her parents. “Or at least a voice. Of a generation.” Keep in mind, Hannah is stoned out of her mind. She asks her parents to give her $1,100 a month for the next two years so she can finish her book.

Understandably, Hannah’s mother is livid. She wants to retire! And travel! This is bullshit! Why doesn’t her daughter just get a job and start a blog! She’s raised a spoiled brat! During the commotion, Hannah collapses from the opium. Her father is very worried and wonders if he and his wife shouldn’t stay a few more days to make sure Hannah is okay. We never get a definitive answer as to whether or not they’ll take pity on their screw-up daughter, until Hannah wakes up the next morning in an empty hotel room where she can’t order room service because her parents have already checked out without saying goodbye.

As Hannah takes the twenty dollar bill her mother has left for her (and the one that’s left as the housekeeper’s tip as well), we’re left wondering how the fuck this girl is going to survive NYC on her own?

Girls appears to be off to a strong start. The pilot was well-written, laugh out loud funny at some parts/grimace and wish you couldn’t relate during others, and the chemistry between the characters definitely comes off as organic. I predict Hannah will continue to have terrible sex with Adam until something better comes along (dear god, let something better come along), Jessa will sleep with Charlie at some point, and Shoshanna will morph into Charlotte York Goldenblatt midway through the season. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

*However, with writer/director/producer/star Lena Dunham’s lax attitude toward nudity, we’ve all seen her naked more than once.
**Part of the hype surrounding Girls is the realistic way an abortion is dealt with among a group of close girlfriends, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Girls airs Sunday nights on HBO at 10:30 EST.
Photo credit: HBO

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