Girls Review: “Flo” (Season 3, Episode 9)

The same holds true for Hannah and her cousin Rebecca, who at first seems rather one-dimensional in that her chief defining characteristic is that she really, really dislikes Hannah. There have been many characters throughout Girls‘ run who have disliked Hannah, but for the most part they’ve all had some pretty valid reasons for doing so. Rebecca, at first, just comes across as an unreasonably bitter person. There is an emotional arc to her and Hannah’s relationship throughout the episode, though, which really ends up becoming the most interesting part.

We also get to see more of Hannah’s relationship with her mother, and in particular her mother’s feelings toward Adam. She doesn’t think very highly of him, and it is quite obvious that a good deal of the reason for that is her feelings toward her own husband. “It’s not easy being married to an odd man,” she tells Hannah, and there is no ambiguity there as to whom she is really talking about. Hannah’s indignant response is, for once, entirely well-earned, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some element of truth to what her mom is saying, and that on some level Hannah might worry that she has a point.

There are three episodes left of this season of Girls, which puts it at two episodes longer than the previous two seasons. This is a good thing, because it feels like there is still a lot of emotional ground to cover before the season is done. There’s the whole thing between Ray and Marnie that doesn’t feel like it has entirely been resolved yet. There’s the question of what will happen to Jessa now that she seems to be backsliding to the very same place in which she began the season. There’s… Shoshanna.

Most importantly, there is the question that has been building in intensity since the beginning of the season: will Hannah and Adam stay together, or is the gravity of reality forcing them out of each other’s orbits, leaving them to spin off into separate parts of the galaxy? Girls has always first and foremost been the story of Hannah, but this season it has been the story of Hannah and Adam. With Adam starting to see success with his Broadway career and, in real life, Adam Driver starting to see success with his film career, there’s a very real possibility that Hannah and Adam’s relationship will come to an end. For what it’s worth, that would really bum me out. At the same time, though, at least it would put an end to the will-they-or-won’t they act that threatens to grow stale really soon.