Last night’s episode of Girls felt like a shorter version of Tiny Furniture. Free Download Video Girls 27th May 2012 Episode On HBO Tv Online Tv Live Streaming Video .Online Watch Girls Full Episode Watch Stream HD Video on Internet TV .“The Return” focused all its attention on Lena Dunham‘s Hannah, omitting the rest of the cast. Hannah traveled back to her hometown where she encountered lots of people from her past, much like the aforementioned film. We also saw the reappearance of her parents, played by Becky Ann Baker and Peter Scolari.Hannah packs up her trash bag and heads back to Michigan for her parents' thirtieth anniversary. It starts off with smiles, but that doesn't last long. Once she's trapped in the back seat of their car, they unleash a string of questions about work and her life in New York. This wouldn't cause one to tense up unless one just quit their job and didn't want to tell one's parents yet. Hannah gets snappy and her dad responds with, "You've got a mood on."
We see Hannah's old bedroom that has been frozen in time -- Goo Goo Dolls poster on the wall, high school graduation pictures. (Enjoy reminiscing now Hannah, it's only a matter of time before that room becomes a home gym or office.) The next morning, Hannah is sent to pick up her mother's menopause prescription. She stops for a coffee and runs into an old acquaintance who tells Hannah the story of Carrie. Apparently Carrie had the same exact fate as Natalee Halloway. And there will be a benefit held for her that night.
This episode made me have a lot of Feelings. Feelings about what the word home means, Feelings about parents, Feelings about New York City. I would like to blame Judd Apatow, who co-wrote this episode. We’re a half-dozen episodes into the show and it seems an appropriate time to take a step back, a breather, and get the hell out of dodge. Time for Hannah to visit the family homestead in Michigan!
She arrives with all of her clothes in a giant black garbage bag, because obviously Hannah doesn’t own a suitcase. Hannah’s dad picks her up from the airport with a picture of bananas, for Hannah Banana. Such a (probably gay — Elijah, you are in my head) dad! They have “fun Netflix, and curried vegetables.” Girl, you’re in for a rough weekend.
I love that we get to see what Hannah left behind (in addition to her Goo Goo Dolls poster, which I don’t believe for one hot second), both physically and emotionally when she left for the city. The most telling object in Hannah’s all-pink childhood bedroom is a poster for Parker Posey’s Party Girl, which hangs on the ceiling over her bed. It all makes sense — teenage Hannah watches Parker eat falafel and take drugs and make out with handsome guys. New York City has never looked better. I’m only surprised that Hannah didn’t become a librarian.
Mom sends Hannah to pick up her hot flash medication at the pharmacy, but before she gets there, she visits Former Best Friend Hot Blonde Heather, who works at a coffee place and is wearing a beret and a scarf and a tank top. (It’s, like, French coffee.) Heather tells Hannah about a benefit that night for a missing girl from their high school who seems to have been abducted and murdered on a spring-break-style vacation, à la Natalee Holloway. Apatow and Dunham, you guys are a dream team. This episode is three clicks away from being a sequel to Drop Dead Gorgeous, so thick and wonderful are some of these bits of satire. Hannah looks like she wandered onto the set of Dawson’s Creek, with all these giant human cheekbones walking around. Is this what life is like in Michigan? Blondie wants to move to Hollywood to become a dancer and says, “I know enough to know that you don’t really have to know anybody,” and a sad wall goes up between Heather and Hannah, because even I can see the soft-core porn in this girl’s future.
I was waiting for the cute local boy, and here he is — Eric the pharmacist. He has dimples, cheekbones (obviously), and a hairdo like the poor man’s Waspy Tim Riggins. They flirt, and Hannah buys her mom’s pills, and then heads back to the car to sing along to some Jewel, which I really hope is on cassette tape. Eric then runs back to the car and offers her mom some personal lubricant, on the house, because the hot flesh medication can dry you up. Hannah doesn’t make nearly the weird face I would make in this situation. In any case, they set up a hot date for the missing girl’s benefit and Hannah bails on her parents’ anniversary dinner.
In the pregame pep talk Hannah gives herself, she says that “the worst stuff that you say sounds better than the best stuff that other people say,” because she’s from New York, and they are not. This both makes sense to me and doesn’t — after all, Hannah isn’t from New York, she’s from Michigan. How quickly does New York City enter the bloodstream? I’m not sure. It left me wanting to see her interact with more people from home who make her remember things she actually likes about Michigan, as opposed to just highlighting the differences between them. But, then again, that doesn’t sound funny, that sounds like the plot of Hope Floats (which I loved, because Harry Connick Jr. should star in everything). I suppose that for Hannah, the choice to move to New York is enough of a marker of her specialness, of how different she is than the people she grew up around.
As a native New Yorker, this argument doesn’t hold much water for me, because the people who move to Brooklyn from Points Unknown always seem to, you know, end up making sculptures inspired by the landscapes of their native South Dakota, or whatever. From the beginning, I thought this was one of the potential flaws of the show — getting the audience to believe that Hannah and her friends weren’t actual New Yorkers, but I guess that speaks to relatability, and notions of privilege, and if Hannah and company were all from New York then we wouldn’t have this amazing episode, so let’s just listen to some John Mayer and move along. What’s important here is that Hannah has drunk the Kool-aid and no longer associates with these people. My husband is from Florida and literally has a mental breakdown every time we visit. I’m familiar with this problem.