Girls Review: “Only Child” (Season 3, Episode 5)

In a way, the same could be said about the end-of-episode meltdown where Hannah kicks Caroline out of the apartment. We only met Caroline two episodes ago, and from the very first moment it was obvious her character was written in to create a conflict between Hannah and Adam. As with a number of the subplots this season, it seemed like this one was being rushed toward a conclusion that maybe was not entirely earned. The same fast pace that has made this season so exciting to watch has also in some ways been a detriment as the cracks in its foundation have started to show.

That’s not to say that this one episode has thrown the entire season off track. There have certainly been weak episodes in past seasons of Girls, and the show has always recovered. It has also set up enough conflict to basically last the rest of the season at this point, so the writers are now afforded the luxury of letting some of these conflicts play out instead of quickly building to the next one. They will just need to do a better job of making the conflicts convincing and compelling.

There have been a fair number of comparisons made between Girls and the new Comedy Central show Broad City. Like Girls, Broad City is centered around female characters who are portrayed as, let’s just say, imperfect. The main difference between the two shows is that Broad City plays those characters’ many faults for laughs, whereas Girls aims for a mixture of laughs and pathos. It has largely succeeded in hitting those marks so far this season, but with Hannah it risks forfeiting the pathos in favor of just a constant low-level revulsion. Luckily, it has been more successful with other characters.

Whereas in the past the show has been criticized for its weak male characters, Adam and Ray have been absolutely essential to this season so far. Jessa’s return has been one of the strong points of the season as well. While the conflict between Hannah and Adam will obviously need to play out in future episodes, it would be nice to see the writers finally do something interesting with Shoshanna, who has largely been wasted so far this season, and also hopefully stick the landing on the whole Ray/Marnie thing.

While “Only Child” was not necessarily a bad episode of Girls–it at the very least gave the show some forward momentum toward future conflict–it was definitely the weakest episode of this season so far. It fell into the show’s bad habit of occasionally being too much of a bummer for its own good, and much of its plot points didn’t feel like they were earned. Still, with the episode ending with Adam setting off in pursuit of his now-missing sister, things could get very interesting next week.

Random quotes:

• “This is a space cigarette, invented by Stephen Dorff.”
• “Mindy Kaling’s not writing about choking on long balls.”
• “Like Kathy Griffin on truth serum?” “What the f–k is truth serum, Moe?”
• “How many pairs of underwear do you wear?”