'Girls': Hannah Suffers from "Only Child" Syndrome

If you thought Hannah Horvath's reaction to the news that her editor had died was bad, just wait for how she acts at the funeral. On this week's episode of Girls, "Only Child," Hannah attends her editor's funeral only to show move grief for the fate of her own book than for his death. She actually gets kicked out of a funeral for being an asshole. It's kind of amazing.

Still, it's easy to empathize with Hannah's disappointment, even if she was completely inappropriate in how, and more importantly where…and to whom (the widow) she expressed it. She finds out that the book she's been working on for months is shelved indefinitely. It sucks.

But the extent to which it sucks and how it seems to get better and then sucks even more (more on that later) is basically the entire focus of the episode. Girls has always focused primarily on Hannah's struggles and perceived struggles, but it's becoming almost a joke to imply that the show is about more than one character. Here's what happens in the episode, broken down by character, to illustrate that point.

Hannah

Hannah attends David's funeral, where she pretends to give a shit about his death and networks with his publishing industry friends. It's a skeevy thing just to watch. When she clicks with his widow (she points out that a lot of people thought he was gay, but assures Hannah that he usually wasn't), she finds out that his company has decided to indefinitely suspend all of the projects he was working on, including Hannah's eBook. She shows more mourning in this moment than she has in the last two episodes combined and ends up asking David's widow for a contact at another publishing house so she can shop the book around. The widow agrees to give her a number if she'll leave the funeral since she's being a complete dick. Hannah agrees, but gets her number.

And it works out. The new editor loves the book. She calls Hannah the next Mindy Kaling, but if Mindy Kaling were willing to push further. She adores the book and the only snag is that her company doesn't do eBooks, so it will have to be published as a real, honest-to-god book. Hannah is ecstatic and calls her dad.

Here comes the bad news: Since her previous publisher paid her an advance for the book, they own the rights to it for the next three years, even if they never publish it. Hannah is devastated and gets in a huge fight with Adam's sister Caroline, kicking her out of the apartment. The episode ends with Adam pissed at her for doing this and Hannah woefully depressed.

Marnie

Marnie has the second-most screen time in the episode. She calls Hannah early in the episode, as she's playing Dr. Phil for Adam and his sister, and begs her to come over and see the new kitten she's adopted. Then, later, feeling bummed and rejected by all of her friends, she goes to Ray's apartment and asks him why no one likes her. He lists the multitude of reasons with his typical awesome blunt honesty and somehow, this leads to them having sex. Afterwards, he asks her to keep their tryst on the DL and she scoffs, remarking that he's crazy if he thinks she wants to brag about it.

Jessa

Jessa and Shosh have one brief scene at Shosh's apartment in which Shosh yells at Jessa for always being around and not having a job. Later, they walk on the street together and Jessa spots a help wanted sign in a shop window and marches over to get the job.

Shosh

See above. That's all she does and the scenes are barely about her.

Hannah is interesting, for sure, but so are the other girls. I for one would love to see more what's been going on with them before the season's over.

Image: HBO