Note: Do not read on if you have not seen Season 1, Episode 9 of HBO's "Girls," entitled, "Leave Me Alone."
The days of dancing around their apartment to Robyn and taking baths together are long gone for Hannah and Marnie. Sadly, the two are on the outs. But it's not like I didn't see it coming. You couldn't pay me to live with Hannah.
She's whiny, selfish and still jobless. Seriously, how has she managed to survive in the city without a job? Does Adam bankroll her cupcake addiction? Not to mention that last week, her bedroom floor was covered with used condoms. Needless to say, Marnie has had enough.
"You judge everyone and then you ask everyone not to judge you," she yells at Hannah. Then Hannah replies, "That is because no one can ever hate me as much as I hate myself." Sigh. Of course you would say something like that, Hannah. Mean things were said and tooth brushes were thrown. It wasn't pretty. Before we get into the gritty details of Hannah and Marnie's epic fight, let's go back to where it all began.
The episode begins at a book launch for Tally Schifrin (guest star Jenny Slate), Hannah's former classmate and current nemesis. She just published her melancholy memoir, "Leave Me Alone." How does a 24-year-old with no outstanding accomplishments write a memoir? No idea, but it probably has something to do with Tally's super sad true love story.
Unfortunately for Hannah, she didn't have a boyfriend who killed himself by crashing his vintage car while on Percocet. "She's so lucky," cries Hannah. "Your boyfriend should kill himself," says Jessa. "You deserve it." The more this show goes on, the more I realize that I love Jessa. She's really the only character in the entire series that has shown some kind of growth. Not to mention, she's the only one who calls Hannah out on her bullshit.
It's becoming more apparent that Hannah didn't want Adam to be her boyfriend for the right reasons. She just wants a story. Oh, you want to pee on me in the shower? Well, that's kind of gross, but at least it will make a great chapter in my memoir! Let's face it: Adam is great source material.
Now if she could only find a way for him to kill himself ... kidding! Hannah may want that, but I definitely don't. Adam is an enigma, which makes him one of the most interesting characters on "Girls."
At the book launch, Hannah confronts her nemesis Tally, and the two exchange passive aggressive comments, like, "No I don't have an agent; I have a boyfriend; He's alive and well" and "That's really great; Hopefully, he's hetero." It reminded me of Hannah's argument with Elijah in Episode 3. Although, I was on Hannah's side this time. Once Tally said, "It was like I just water birthed my truth," I knew I hated her.
After her run-in with Tally, Hannah chats up her former professor, Powell Goldman (guest star Michael Imperioli), who invites her to his weekly essay reading. Hannah being Hannah, says that it's not a very "me thing to do." When Powell asks her what a Hannah thing to do would be, we cut to Hannah lying in bed with Adam, his entire body wrapped around her, while she looks like she'd rather be anywhere but in that bed with him. Even when their scenes aren't intentionally awkward they still manage to make my skin crawl.
For those hoping there would be more Adam/Hannah "cuteness" this week, unfortunately, we only get a few short glimpses at the perpetually shirtless recluse.
The next morning, Hannah tells Marnie that she thinks her life has been "one ridiculous mistake after another." She went to summer camp and didn't even water ski (#mistakesGIRLSmake). Meanwhile, her nemesis Tally took chances. She wore lipstick to class and even got her boyfriend to kill himself. What a risk taker!
Marnie probably wouldn't mind if Adam killed himself either. She is already trying to convince Hannah to go after Powell, which Hannah seems kind of into. Of course, when Hannah asks Marnie for her opinion on what to do about the reading, she doesn't like Marnie's advice. Then she accuses Marnie of not supporting her, to which Marnie reminds Hannah that she's been supporting her financially and emotionally for months.
But Hannah doesn't have time to think about things like that. She has to run to her first trial shift at Café Grumpy. Unfortunately, she wears a white dress, which I guess is a big no-no when it comes to food service. "You're just inviting people to fuck with you," says Ray.
I love Ray. He may have only had two minutes of screen time in this episode, but those few minutes were easily the most enjoyable. He started off as a one-dimensional character with a few one-liners here and there, but in the past few weeks, he's grown into someone that I could see myself caring about. For instance, I think Ray and Shoshanna would be adorbs together.
Ray's most LOL-worthy line of the episode: "Forget all of the BBC you watch at home with your cats and pick out an appropriate outfit."
Hannah, who is now wearing a "cute top" and "slim cut" jeans, tells Ray about her reading. She really wants to read this essay about this guy she met in college who was a hoarder. But Ray's not really into trivial stuff like that. He tells her to write about something other than her fear of intimacy, like cultural criticism or acid rain or racial profiling and death. "Death is the most fucking real." Hannah being Hannah, then writes a new essay, on the subway on the way to her reading, about this guy she met online, named Egor, who died. Died.
Powell was not impressed with Hannah's last-ditch effort.
After an unsuccessful reading, Hannah heads home, but instead of finding a cupcake waiting for her in the fridge, she finds Tally's book on the kitchen table. Not only did Marnie buy Tally's book, but she also told Hannah that she liked it. "She's a really good writer. She captures something really true about the uncertainty of being our age. I cried twice."
And thus, the epic roommate fight begins.
Hannah tries to tell Marnie about the book reading, but she was in no mood to talk to about Hannah and her problems. I'm not saying that I'm on #TeamMarnie -- I'm actually #TeamSwitzerland when it comes to these two -- but I can see why she's upset. Hannah just doesn't know when to quit. Marnie wants to be left alone, but Hannah "needs closure."
So this forces Marnie to say some pretty mean things to Hannah, who she knows has major self-esteem issues. Marnie calls Hannah a "big, ugly wound," to which Hannah replies, "No, you're the wound!" Seriously, these girls end up calling each other a wound for the next minute or two.
But it all comes down to this: Hannah doesn't care about being a good friend. She said it. It took Marnie a few moments to process it, but she looked relieved by Hannah's confession. It's obviously been something that she's thought about before, but to hear Hannah finally say it was probably equal parts freeing and heartbreaking. As much as it hurts to take a break from a friend, sometimes it is necessary.
Amidst all of the fighting, Marnie's line, "Why do you always eat my yogurt," was a nice touch. It was authentic. When you're fighting with your roommate, things like peanut butter, yogurt and toilet paper always get brought up for good measure.
Some friends are just better off being friends and not roommates. They both need time to figure out what they want and living together wasn't helping the situation. Marnie is grappling with being single for the first time in four years, and Hannah needs to get her shit together.
Now that Marnie is supposedly moving out, how is Hannah going to afford rent? All of the Café Grumpy shifts in the world won't pay for that apartment. She should be watching Photoshop tutorials on YouTube instead of worrying about her story (h/t to Halle Kiefer at Rolling Stone for making a similar joke last week). But seriously, WHY IS SHE NEVER FREAKING OUT ABOUT MONEY?
As it turns out, Marnie wasn't the only one of Hannah's friends reading "Leave Me Alone." Inspired by Tally's memoir, Shoshanna does something "crazy" -- a.k.a. she makes an internet dating profile. She's already made a match. His name is Bryce ("Great name"), he's totally perf, totally Jewish and he works in product development, which is totally perfect because Shosh loves products.
Meanwhile, Kathryn Hahn returns! You see, she's been having dreams about Jessa. You know, normal ones where she repeatedly stabs Jessa and then cuts her body into tiny pieces and then starts to eat her. The zombie apocalypse is here, people. Even Lena Dunham knows it.
She says she's dumped Jeff and asks Jessa to come work for her again, but Jessa declines the offer. Of couse, Kathryn knows that she shouldn't have asked, but she strangely wants to offer Jessa some motherly guidance.
Jessa has travelled to as many different countries as she's had boyfriends, and as we've seen, she tends to wreck havoc wherever she goes. When things get complicated, she bails. She's "unsmoteable." However, this week, Kathryn Hahn knocks some much needed sense into Jessa's brain.
"I bet you get into these dramas all of the time, where you cause all of this trouble and you don't know why," Kathyrn tells her. "In my opinion, you're doing it to distact yourself from becoming the person you're meant to be."
And just like that, the unsmoteable has been smoted.
The Season 1 finale of "Girls" will air Sunday, June 17 at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.