The TV gods must have heard my complaint last week that Jessa has been a practical nonentity this season, because last night in the cold open, boom, there she was. Apparently she’s together with Spock…I mean, uh, Ace now, because they’re having sex. (That’s how Girls lets us know about relationships—it shows them having sex in the cold open.)
But it’s a strange place to start, because this episode, titled “Daddy Issues,” is really about Hannah and her reaction to the surprising news that her dad’s gay. At the beginning of the episode, she’s being surprisingly chill about it. Tad’s come to New York, and at a meal out together with his daughter she tells him that she’s proud of him for coming out and that “it’s not really about me.” Which, if you’ll remember, is pretty much the exact opposite of what Lorraine said last week. Of course, Hannah’s not quite as OK with the whole thing as she’d like to think. She’s actually quite torn, and in an interesting and believable way I don’t think I’ve ever seen represented in fiction. Essentially, Hannah wants to be supportive because her politics have conditioned her to celebrate the different ways people express their identity and sexuality—but at the same time, this is her dad we’re talking about, so, you know, GROSS. She doesn’t much want to hear anything about her dad’s sex life, and that would be true whether he was straight or gay. She doesn’t want to talk to Elijah about her dad “getting his ass pounded by an insurance adjustor”; she certainly doesn’t want to listen to her mom sob on the phone about Tad “sucking dick.” And who can blame her?
But the first sticking point isn’t sex; it’s marriage, which in this case turns out to be a completely separate thing, since apparently Tad and Lorraine are talking about maybe staying together through this whole thing. Hannah expresses angry disbelief at the notion that her parents would keep a sexless marriage alive—and Tad, getting defensive, fires back that she doesn’t understand because she’s a kid, not an adult. Hannah’s right, though, it doesn’t really make sense; then again, maybe Tad and Lorraine’s marriage is more about companionship than sex anyway, and why should they explain themselves to their daughter? But any discussion of the real issue at hand gets buried under this business of whether Hannah’s a child or an adult or not.
It’s not the last time that particular issue will come up this episode. When Hannah has an inappropriate conversation with Clio at school—she calls Clio a bitch, basically—she gets pulled into the principal’s office for a conversation about professional boundaries. It’s an important talk for Hannah, even if the dumbass principle can’t get it right: he keeps making it sound as though Hannah should never share personal things with others, when what he should really be saying is “You can’t talk to the students like that. You’re their teacher, not their friend.” As a substitute teacher, Hannah needs to be the adult in this situation; Clio, no matter how cool and mature she seems, is still a kid.
Later, on the phone with Lorraine it’s Hannah who’s the adult, no matter what Tad may say—Lorraine’s sobbing, a total mess, and Hannah’s the one who needs to comfort her. Meanwhile, it’s Hannah’s friend Elijah who’s taking Tad out on the town to “teach” him how to be gay. Essentially, Elijah (who called Tad’s sexuality back in Season 1) is really teaching Tad to be just like him, but whatever, it completes the role reversal. Lorraine and Tad may be the adults here, but it’s the kids who are holding their hands and getting them through this thing.
But enough about Hannah—back to Jessa, who’s running around with Ace on the way to dinner when they just happen to come upon the block where Mimi-Rose Howard and Adam live. Ace suggests they visit, but it turns into more than a visit when Mimi-Rose suggests that Adam cook up some sausages and they can all stay in for dinner. Adam seethes through the meal, but you can tell by Jessa that she knows they’re both being played—Ace is using her to make Mimi-Rose jealous, and Mimi-Rose…well, what exactly is Mimi-Rose up to? Her bald statement that she’s “experiencing feelings of jealousy” is typically blunt for her, and yet there’s something stilted about the way Gillian Jacobs delivers the line. Same deal with her later summation of the quandary she finds herself in: “What should I do?” Jacobs is too good an actor to sound this stiff; my guess is that she was directed to play Mimi-Rose as if she herself was playing a part, playacting in the drama Ace’s presence has constructed for her. When she theatrically announces that she supposes she’ll choose neither Adam nor Ace but be alone, Jessa gets up and leaves, pulling Adam with her.
Following their abrupt exit, we get the first hint of a real moment from Jessa since she pled for Adam to be her friend outside the police station back at the beginning of the season. Jessa admits that she only went after Ace as a distraction: “Ace is someone who didn’t give me a chance to think. I don’t do well when I think.” But that ends when they roll up at Ray’s election day party—an election that Ray appears to have won over a pissed-off Marc Maron.
Every episode of Girls has a character or five who get short shrift, and in last night’s episode, they were all at Ray’s party. Not Ray himself, of course—for a guy who was basically a walk-on back in season 1, an awful lot of attention has been paid to his story this season. No, I’m talking about Shosh, who is basically reduced to project managing the party, making sure there’s bunting and balloons and a cake with Ray’s face on it. (If she continues to have trouble finding a job, she might have a future as a party planner.)
There’s also Marnie, who continues her streak of using parties as an excuse to be awful and self-involved in public. Arriving with Desi, she at first wants to keep their engagement a secret, but not thirty seconds later she’s seeking out Ray to tell him the “good” (that is, bad) news. Ray, who once told Marnie that Desi’s not good enough for him, is clearly heartbroken to hear of the engagement, though he’s a good sport about at least pretending he’s happy for the couple. Later, Marnie takes the mic (“She is so not sorry to interrupt,” quips Hannah) to share the news with everyone—many of whom don’t know her or care. Nonetheless, there’s a smattering of applause, and Hannah and Ray share this dynamite bit of dialogue as a close to the episode:
Ray: That’s great news. I’m so happy for them.
Hannah: I’m so happy for everyone.
Ray: I’m faking it.
Hannah: I’m faking everything.
And cut to credits.
It was a great little episode, but there are an awful lot of story strands still dangling, and I’m concerned that next week’s finale won’t be able to wrap them up before sending us off to the season break. We’ll see, I guess.
