How Long Will 'Girls' Be In Iowa This Season?

When we last left Hannah Horvath on Girls, she'd just been accepted to the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop. When the show returns on January 11, she'll be packing up, saying goodbye to Brooklyn, and heading out to the Midwest. But just how long can she last out there? How long will Hannah Horvath stay in Iowa on Girls ?

If you'd ask me to guess without any official information, I'd say not long at all. Hannah is a quitter. She's quit her publishing internship, her advertorial job at GQ, and several of her relationships, romantic and otherwise. The Iowa Writers' Workshop is one of the most respected writing programs in the country, which means Hannah will be surrounded by people who are as talented as she is, if not more so. Remember how thrown she was when she found out the caliber of writers she was working with at her GQ job? It kinda indirectly factored into her decision to quit. I can only imagine how outmatched she's going to feel at Iowa.

Hannah also has an infuriating habit of blowing up her life when things are going well (see again: giving up that steady, hefty paycheck at GQ). Even applying to and accepting a placement at Iowa is sort of an act of self-sabotage, since it definitely threw a wrench into her relationship with Adam when it seemed to be going well.

So, if you'd asked me a while ago, I'd say the fourth season premiere of Girls would start with Hannah getting on a plane to Iowa — and end with her getting on a plane and coming right back to New York City.

Apparently I'm not that great of a Hannah Horvath Behavior Predictor. The synopses for the first few episodes of the fourth season have arrived, and — spoiler alert — it looks like Hannah is staying put, at least through the first three episodes. There are only ten episodes total in this season, so it looks like she'll stay in the Midwest for the first half of the season at the very least. It's possible she'll even be able to last for the entire season, which she could consider a personal triumph.

It's probably better that way. As interested as I am in seeing what happens when Hannah and Adam are together, we've seen them make up and breakup before. Seeing them try to work out the distance thing will be novel. And while I'm afraid that it's going to make me want to crawl into a hole and hide, watching Hannah in her Iowa classes will at least be a new way to watch her totally embarrass herself. (It wouldn't be Girls if there wasn't a prolonged feeling of I-can't-stop-cringing.) As much as I dread it, I also can't wait.

Images: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO; Giphy (2)