Should Hannah on 'Girls' Break Up with Adam?

Last night on Girls, the relationship between Hannah and Adam took center stage in the most inevitable way possible: the talk of futures. After meeting Hannah's — shall we say — intense family, the question was posed that we've been wondering about all season: should Hannah and Mr. Man break-up, or are they prepared to make it for the long haul? It's been the polarizing question on everyone's mind since the duo got back together at the end of season two, and it looks like the end of season three might bring some sort of ultimatum to the mix. A super-necessary step on Hannah's path to fully actualized and mature humandom.

Following Hannah's trip to see her dying grandmother during Sunday's episode, "Flo," several questions about her relationship with Adam were brought into the mix. Already we saw her questioning the strength of their bond following his casting in a Broadway show — complete with naysaying advice from Patti LuPone and several others. Insecurity is still the name of the game for both Hannah and Adam's operative motives, so naturally this sort of power imbalance is going to mess with the status quo. Both have found themselves in positions that are, for all intents and purposes, positioning them on the upward mobility path towards their dream careers — at least from the outsider point of view. But that's just one piece of the puzzle.

Hannah and Adam aren't bad together, per se. There's plenty of good stuff going on in their relationship: they communicate and express themselves open and honestly, they're in touch with what the other person needs, and they both clearly love each other a lot. In their relationship, both have been able to heal certain wounds and find a stability of emotional connection that works for them. Their care and compassion for each other is really something quite lovely — taken out of context of how these two dysfunctional and broken people got to this place to begin with.

But with insecurity driving Hannah (and the rest of the girls) forward in her relationship, the cracks are there for her family to exploit — unknowingly or otherwise. So it's no surprise that her mother begged Hannah to tell grandma Flo that she and Adam were actually engaged, and that conversation with Adam brought up feelings she was ill-prepared to deal with ("[This conversation is] making me extremely stressed and a little angry for reasons that I don't understand so I have to go now. Bye."). Because Hannah's not actually looked at what she wants from her relationship with Adam. She's just always assumed if she went with the flow that water would ultimately send good fortune and what she wants her way without having to think about it.

Not thinking about it is what ultimately brought them both to this point — getting back together and being actually, emotionally vulnerable with one another. But because they healed together, they're also inextricably linked in many ways that aren't so healthy. Namely, their dependency on one another. As Hannah's mother explained last night, "I don't want you to spend your whole life socializing him like he's a stray dog; Making the world a friendlier place for him." Now, poor-timing and narcissism-baiting aside, her mother has a point. Hannah, for all her narcissistic tendencies and navel-gazing, actually doesn't really do anything that she wants, actively, in her relationship with Adam. She's the buffer, the line-smoother. Sort of like a human puppy, which is decidedly not good. At all.

So should they break up? Yeah, it seems a safe bet. Though doing so would not discredit all the good the two have done for one another, as messed up and terrible as their actions have been (and likely will still sometimes be moving forward). But whether or not Hannah and Adam stay together will depend on the growth of each of them outside of the relationship. Which is, hopefully, what getting jobs and following their passions will do for each of them. It is likely that we'll see what sort of growth each of them has attained next week, when Hannah is forced to deal with her grandmother's death — and for maturity's sake we hope it's better than how she dealt with David's. But if the preview for next week's episode is any indication, the biggest test will be whether or not Hannah's mature enough to see that their relationship may have run its course.

Images: HBO