Alright ladies, let's get down to the nitty gritty with this one. This week's episode of Girls "Leave Me Alone" didn't just cover the traditional territory of Hannah being an idiot/ Adam being strange, but went a bit deeper and darker into the super rich topic of women vs. women, girls vs. girls.
First we met Hannah's "nemesis" who recently had a book published, based on a recent tragedy of her boyfriend committing suicide. The whole thing goes over well in the trivial book-celebrity world, but Hannah can't help but feel a mixture of resentment, jealousy and disgust. She should be the writer, not some hack who wants to be "so skinny people think I have a disease." Hannah felt superior in her pessimism, when in reality it was just a fear of succeeding in such a way, so-called "selling out."
Then we had the meeting between Jessa and her old boss Katherine. Katherine (played by the incredible Katherine Hahn) has a complicated relationship with Jessa, mostly stemming from the strange relationship Jessa had with her husband. We also get a fair amount of jealousy here, but Katherine also has a mixture of pity, matronly duty and identification. Katherine was probably similar to Jessa back in the day and she knows that there isn't happiness in the life of the scenester.
Finally, we had the epic blow out between Hannah and Marnie, one important for the season and tone of the show. These two have finally had enough of each other (even though we probably both identified a bit more with Marnie on this one). Tough things are yelled, the two called each other "wounds" which is something that in girl-speak rips at the very soul of a 20-something. Often, we (yes, we) are so concerned with trying to have it as "together as possible" that implying that we're hot messes is our worst fear. Even though, most of the time we are hot messes. Ah, self loathing.
More than important plot points, a lot of things were addressed in "Leave Me Alone." Mostly, the battle between women. Now, this is an incredibly wide topic. It could even be argued that the battle between women is a nonexistent and pointless topic of conversation bred from pop culture obsessions and over analytic TV. People, not just women, have wars of competition, jealousy and resentment all the time. It's more to do with the aforementioned mention of wanting to "have it together." When we see someone, similar to us, succeeding in the ways that we want, we have complicated emotions. What does SHE know that I don't? Why can't I be her?
I assure you that this doesn't just lie in jealousy or personal superiority. It lies in the fact that we are a generation raised to be the powerful, smart, sexual and capable women that we can be. Sure, not all things are great for the ladies these days and this barely skirts a wider conversation about feminism, but it's true. We (sometimes foolishly) believe in ourselves and our dreams and we're impatient. Thus, seeing someone succeed and seeing ourselves fall behind in pace is infuriating, personally and outwardly. Is this just a female thing? Maybe, I don't have a dick to really know.
What did you think of tonight's episode?
SumOlogy: The heat is on for next week's final episode.
Grade: A
Songs in this episode:
"Hong Kong Garden"- Siouxsie and the Banshees
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