by I first found out about the HBO show Girls when I was heading home from the office where I work — there were ads at the Lexington Avenue / 63rd Street station showing the main characters from the show sitting together with just the name of the show, “Girls”, on it. The image was striking in its simplicity and I discussed it with my wife Elizabeth, and we decided to give it a go. (We hoped it would go better than Gossip Girl, which is finally coming to an end after seemingly every character has hooked up with every other one…)
The show Girls is about a woman in her early twenties named Hannah as well as her friends and the relationships in which they find themselves. The show kicks off with Hannah getting cut off by her parents financially — they no longer wish to support her while she continues meandering through life, working as a volunteer for an organization while doing work for which most people would be paid.
One thing that we both noticed while watching the show is that we felt incredibly old and sometimes quite wise. There was a scene in which Hannah does research online to find out if it is possible for her to get a venereal disease from the inner sides of the condom worn during intercourse. What? Throughout the course of the first season, Hannah has an on again, off again relationship with an interesting character named Adam who I felt alternating waves of loathing and respect depending on the episode and what was going on with him. Out of all of the characters, he seemed to be the only one who spoke to Hannah on a completely frank level and always told her exactly what he wanted out of a relationship with her. In the following clip, for example, he encourages her to not give up while out running.
If you had told me that there was a well known film producer on this show, I would have guessed Judd Apatow because of the humor that is employed throughout the show and that is exactly the case. With this as with many HBO shows, the fact that there were so few episodes meant that every single one of them had to be good and with Girls, there were home runs with all of them. HBO recently did a Girls show marathon and showed every episode from the first season. If they do not do this again, you should definitely catch it when it hits DVD. It is worth watching, I felt.
Thanks for the interesting review, Gordon. I was unaware of the show and I will have to search it out on HBO.
I believe that it is a show you can watch on HBO Go if you have that.
Thanks for the post. I have only been seeing reviews on the show written by women so it is interesting to see a guy’s perspective. As a woman in my early 20’s and the intended target market, I would like to clarify that we are not all like the characters portrayed in Girls. Yes, it is true that I have found myself in similar situations that these young women face, like getting cut off from my parents. The difference is I didn’t react like a toddler who lost her parents in the shopping mall. Instead, I picked myself up off the ground, worked hard, and landed my job at Dish. I too feel wiser watching these girls struggle through daily life. In fact, that is one reason why I lost interest midway through the season; that and Adam’s character really bothers me. I still have them saved on my Hopper DVR box so I’m sure I will get to them eventually. That thing has tons of memory on it so I might just let them stack up and start watching again once Hannah finally breaks up with Adam.
Thank you so much for your fantastic comment. I’m glad you reacted better than Hannah. I would suggest watching through because really, it is only ten episodes to the whole season.