A UTI is pretty standard fare for Hannah on Girls, but when she went to the ER during the March 5 episode, "Painful Evacuation," she learned there was something else going on with her body. Spoilers follow. After her doctor ended up being Patrick Wilson's Joshua (whom she slept with all the way back in Season 2), he ended up revealing that Hannah is pregnant on Girls. If finding out that you are carrying an unplanned child isn't bad enough, finding it out from a man you had sex with before makes it all the worse. Hannah indicated that the father was Riz Ahmed's character Paul-Louis and also denied Joshua's initial offer to have an abortion, so Hannah is going to need to make a big decision before Girls comes to an end.
The beginning of the episode started with Tracy Ullman's Ode Montgomery telling Hannah in an interview, "I am not a mother and there's a reason for that — because childlessness is the natural state of the female author." She emphasized that point, making Hannah write it down, so perhaps it shouldn't have been too surprising that in a cruel twist of fate, Hannah found out she was pregnant. Unfortunately, even if the viewer could later see that this was coming, Hannah was blindsided by this information — especially since it came from her weekend fling from years before, Joshua.
As Girls creator Lena Dunham is a vocal advocate for women's rights and the right to choose (which has led to a fair bit of controversy), Hannah is most likely going to consider having an abortion in episodes to come. While she was understandably upset at Joshua's immediate assumption that she would abort her baby, she will eventually think about her options. And Girls is perfectly suited to create thought-provoking episodes about this complex issue. So, although Hannah becoming pregnant was nothing that I would have expected — or even necessarily wanted — to see on Girls, I know that Dunham and Jenni Konner will handle this twist with the nuance and respect that it deserves. And, if Hannah chooses to have this baby, expect her to become a woman before the series is over.
