'Girls' Season 4 Spoilers Just Released

SPOILER ALERT — Girls will be filming in Iowa, so you know what that means. Hannah is going to choose to get her master's degree at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, after all. We don't necessarily know if this means she'll stay there — she may drop out for all that we know — if the program doesn't go well with her rather fluid artistic proclivities.

Director Jesse Peretz told Vulture that the show will be heading to Iowa to shoot (although not the actual University of Iowa itself, as the institution wouldn't permit filming there), which gave us the indication that we're going to have quite the "bi-coastal" — as Elijah inaccurately put it in the Season 3 finale — season next year.

If the production staff is committing to begin filming there, it's for real. So with this confirmation, what does this mean for the characters — namely Hannah and Adam (and Elijah? MORE ELIJAH IN SEASON 4, please!)?

For one thing, it will be great to see Hannah in a new environment (and let's be honest, her best interactions are with those outside of the female foursome), and not to mention, this very well might be what she needs — not so much because of the fact that she needs to be selfish and put her artistic needs first, but because as discussed in the recent essay collection MFA vs. NYC , there's a marked difference between the two worlds, and in order to fully decide in which world she belongs, she may need to see the other one. We know that Hannah thrives in New York (even if she inflicts struggle upon herself — see quitting her own job, not reading the fine print on documents for her books for further reference) — she got a cushy job at GQ , an E-Book deal and a bound book deal — all within one season. As she steps away to "hone her craft" (even if "writing is something that can't be taught"), she may find that the artistry found in an institution where everyone is primarily is focused on his or her art, that she may not feel... special.

In fact, Hannah said to Adam that she wanted to "find a hole in the shape of [herself] and fill it up," implying that that hole was in Iowa. What she has failed to recognize is that there are plenty Hannahs in Iowa — plenty of disheartened writers who, in New York, could easily score a book deal with their wits and talents, if not their connections, or lack thereof. What is Hannah if not defining herself against the backdrop of the people with whom she surrounds herself?

To that end, this means that we'll see a split-screen version of Adam and Hannah's relationship — if that at all. In the final shots of the final episode of Season 3 — before we saw Hannah clutching her acceptance letter (dare we say it: her future) in her hands — we saw a downtrodden Adam taking cast pictures. While the first time I watched the episode, I was largely distracted by Elijah hilariously sneaking into the picture in his short suit (also — more short suits, please, may I add!), but the second time I watched it, I honed in on a different detail, a female cast mate planting a flirty kiss on Adam's cheek. We know Adam doesn't do well without Hannah. We've seen him succeed in her presence this season — he's a far cry from who he was a season ago. Are we going to see more ugliness as we veer into the next season?

We might. Season 4 may be filled with disillusionment. However, I think it would be safe to say that Iowa to Hannah is what Paris was to Carrie Bradshaw: she must go there, because if she didn't she'd regret it...but she's going to come back to New York. Hannah's hole in the world may very well be in New York.

Image: HBO