Girls – Good Man

By: Ruth Anrep

After the season premiere of “Girls” bringing the majority of the characters together for Marnie’s wedding, in the most recent episode Good Man we are beginning to delve into the separate character’s home lives after a jump in time.

Good Man opens up with Hannah (Lena Dunham) trying to wake up her boyfriend Fran (Jake Lacy), as there’s quite a lot of noise coming from the living room. Fran investigates the sound (after many punches from Hannah) to find his roommate, Jacob (Christian Capozzoli) mapping out his own body on the floor. A half naked Hannah ventures out of the bedroom and only acknowledges Fran’s roommate by referring to him as “crazy” in the most obvious of ways – the form of a stage whisper. This only fuels Jacob’s manic state as he then goes on a small rant about how Hannah being half naked is not something he wants to see. Pulling down her shirt to reveal a left breast in an attempt to ease Jacob’s discomfort is how the episode begins.

Due to Hannah not dealing with Jacob’s mental illness, Fran is forced to move in with her (it appears temporarily). We then get a front row seat to the too close for comfort roommate relationship between Hannah and Elijah (Andrew Rannells), which includes a breakfast make out session.

As we move on to the next couple in the episode, Adam (Adam Driver) visits his sister Caroline (Gaby Hoffman) who along with Laird (Jon Glaser) are experiencing life as new parents. This involves Caroline making rather insane food and “personal time” demands, as Laird accepts them while looking as though he’s dead on the inside. Ah, the joys of parenthood! But at least they’ve got an adorable, happy baby for us to gush over. While there, Adam asks Laird for advice saying, “Did you ever have feelings for someone, but the situation is complex?” After the last episode, it is clear he’s talking about his feelings for Jessa (Jemima Kirke).

Heading over to Ray’s (Alex Karpovsky) coffee shop, Ray and Elijah are talking about their new competition across the street who are getting far more business. According to Elijah, their coffees are just better than Ray’s, but they also don’t supply lids. Thus, resulting in people buying coffee across the street and coming to Ray’s to steal his lids. Furious by this routine, Ray storms over to his competition to settle this issue, but comes across more than rude and then misgenders the person behind the bar.

As well as people not responding to mental illness correctly, I’m glad the topic of gender identity was displayed in this episode. Many individuals are misgendered on a daily basis, as gender identity is often just assumed by appearances alone and there are those who prefer to be gender neutral. It is important not to assume anyone’s pronouns. They/them- it’s not that difficult to grasp, people.

Meanwhile, Adam confronts Jessa after their A.A. meeting about their obvious feeling for each other, but Jessa maintains “nothing can ever happen” given Adam’s history with Hannah. So, they agree to just hang out as friends. This “hang out” consists of a day at Coney Island, playing games and involving the classic date montage that included winning toys and eating carnival food. Basically, it’s clear that this is going to be a “thing” soon and if history on Hannah’s responses is anything, her reaction to this ought to be a doozy.

While this is happening, Hannah gets interrupted while teaching 8^th graders about Philip Roth by a phone call from her dad (Peter Scolari). Upon visiting him at his hotel, he admits that he hooked up with a guy and left his wallet there. Clearly something out of his comfort zone, as he is not completely “out,” he asks Hannah to go and retrieve it, as he’s too embarrassed. Hannah does pick up the wallet and experiences an awkward hug with the man her father just “hooked up” with. Desperate to have someone more experienced handle her father’s “gay emergency,” Hannah calls Elijah.

One look into the restaurant window of Hannah and her dad hysterically crying, Elijah decides to avoid the entire drama and goes to a bar instead. This ends up having the best outcome for Elijah, who winds up having a date with a cute and somewhat famous man called Dill (Corey Stoll). There’s quite a lot of chemistry there and, thankfully, Dill gives Elijah his number. This could become a potential relationship in episodes to come!

At the end of this episode, and the day, we witness an almost touching moment between Hannah and her dad. They are walking toward the train station as Hannah’s dad continues to freak out to which Hannah reluctantly responds, “I’m here. I’m always going to be here.” Hannah taking care of her dad in this episode reiterates the message of the season so far being; the girls are growing up.