'Girls': Superficial Changes and Free Snacks

This week on Girls, Hannah quit her job at Ray's to take a gig at GQ magazine, writing about stereotypical urban men as part of an advertorial campaign. And, amazingly, "Free Snacks" wasn't just about Hannah. Here's what's going on which all of the girls (and Ray and Adam).

Hannah

Hannah's luck is actually looking up this week, but it's not long before she sees it as being quite the opposite. The episode opens on Hannah at Ray's, telling Ray that she's quitting her job at the coffee shop (again). Ray is appropriately flippant about her announcement, and says he'll see her again next week when whatever bullshit gig she's quitting for falls through. It turns out that Hannah's writing got her noticed by GQ, but Ray rightly points out that she wouldn't have been recruited to be an actual GQ writer, and that she's probably been commissioned to write advertorial content (the paid articles that are really just ads in disguise) and is therefore both morally and creatively bankrupt. It hurts because it's true.

When Hannah gets to GQ, she's immediately won over by the perks, mostly the fact that the mag's kitchen is stocked with free snacks to which she oh-so-freely helps herself (full disclosure: I considered applying to work at GQ during this scene).

Hannah pretty much owns her job at GQ. She's great at stereotyping and being snarky, so her ideas are a big hit. Unfortunately, it puts her on bad terms with one of her fellow advertorial writers and leads to a discussion about how she's a "real" writer and assumes they are not. When she learns that they all have roughly the same aspirations and credentials as she does, she freaks out and half-quits the job, before taking it back and vowing to dedicate her nights and weekends to writing. That works about as well as it does for anyone who makes that vow (she ends up asleep on her couch moments after arriving home).

Shoshanna

Shoshanna comes back into the forefront this week. She has roughly her fifth quarter-life crisis and decides that her wild child phase is over and she's choosing to unchoose her bad choices. She decides that the best way to do this is to get into a committed relationship, STAT. She picks the cutest and dumbest of her hookups for the honor. It's cringe-worthy in what an obviously bad decision it is.

Marnie

Marnie continues to be abhorrently annoying, but Ray seems to be into it, presumably because she's hot? (She's not remotely nice to him, so it can't be that.) They go on an awkward date and he pretends to give a damn about her life. It's also bad news bears in the making. But when are the decisions on Girls not?

Jessa

Jessa is working at the children's store she applied to last week and convincing naive social climber moms that black, too-small-for-their-children dresses are good for Christenings. It's funny in a throwaway kind of way, but tells us nothing meaningful about Jessa or where she is in life. Considering her escape from rehab in the season opener, it would be nice to followup on her a little more.

Ray

Ray has always been my favorite character on the show, but I'm super disappointed by his decision to pursue Marnie. She's still in a doom-bound spiral and treating him like total shit. He deserves better and seeing him try to be the guy she wants (especially when she clearly doesn't know what she wants) is just depressing.

Adam

Adam got a callback for an acting audition. He's really excited about it and then Hannah falls asleep during his celebration and he's respectful and sweet and covers her with a blanket. So, basically, Adam is still in his own world and he and Hannah still have a pretty unbalanced relationship.

Overall, even though a lot seemed to happen to the characters this week and a lot of changes were happening in theory, everyone is very much standing still. Sorry, girls.

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