illustrations by Alex Bedder.

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Please welcome The New York Observer’s recap illustrator Alex Bedder as tonight's visiting scholar-in-residence of Girls studies. Alex Bedder comes to us as an associate professor of pop culture from Paper magazine university, and is the author of a New York Times best-selling Tumblr. Catch his Grammy-winning* podcast, "Let's Talk About It Pod."

1. This episode seems to be following last week's spiraling dark tone of the show. I never thought I'd say this, but I long for the days when Marnie making out with Jessa was the worst thing that could happen in a Girls episode. If you were comparing the two seasons together, which of these analogies make you want gnaw your wrists open the most, and why?

A) Picking splinters from your ass is the new eating cupcakes in a bath.

B) Black Swanning your ear drum is the new overdoing it on the eyebrow pencil.

C) Falling off the wagon and practically date raping your new girlfriend is the new accidentally smoking crack and massaging Ray's penis.

D) Charlie's "Let's fuck in the middle of my office party" is the new "Let's fuck and pretend you are a child with a Cabbage Patch lunchpail."

E) Shoshana is the new Marnie.

F) Marnie is the new character that we secretly adore because she just puts herself out there and is so cute with her cover songs.

Tonight’s dark-sided episode was a buffet of cringe-worthy moments, and there were several that made me get up and sit behind the couch for a second, a method of handling discomfort I perfected as a child by not being able to watch that scene in Titanic where the ships crew assumes Jack assaulted Rose.

All of the analogies make me miss those simpler times of confronting your gay ex-boyfriend about contracting HPV so much that it's almost too hard to choose! Because I did not secretly adore Marnie's Karmin-esque cover of "Stronger" (that could just be attributed to a personal fear of impromptu musical performances), and even though the concept that Shoshanna is the new Marnie is almost as bad as finding out a new character is BOB on Twin Peaks, it really comes down to Hannah's self harm via Q-tip and Adam's sex scene as the analogies that made me want to gnaw at my arm like I was in 127 Hours.

Adam's boozed up, watch-it-with-one-eye-open self-destruct with Carol Kane's daughter from Roswell seemed to be just looming from their vanilla post-Sandra Bullock movie-night hookup. Comparing Natalia learning that Adam may not be out of place in his "dark" apartment to Ray discovering just how quirky and engaging Shosh is while she was tweaking out of her mind was is a pretty devastating thought. However, I'd have to go with just misuse of the Q-tip as the worst bite-your-wrist moment, because it makes me miss when the worst thing Hannah used to do to herself was not being able to say no to people who'd make her look like Bon Qui Qui.

2. Two out of three of Hannah's health care specialists (save last week's therapist) have been Indian-American and kind of mean. Does this count as diversity or stereotyping? You may answer the question culling from Dunham's real-life experiences as we know them, save for that shit going down at Oberlin right now, which has nothing to do with Girls; seriously, are you people insane?

You could read it as stereotypical that both of these characters are Indian-American, which is more in line with the arguments from the first episode regarding the Asian girl who knows Photoshop and the appearance of an African-American homeless man. If a minority is cast in these contained, one-off sort of roles, does it appear as very stereotypical? Did we raise the same question (diversity or stereotyping) with Donald Glover's Sandy the Republican or last week's Radika, "the wealthiest Hindi that Shosh knows"? It could be that these smaller roles make us more unsure of which end of the spectrum these characters fall into, while a character with however much more to do is easier to make a call on.

In regard to them both being seemingly rude to Hannah, I think that has more to do with her presenting them with a juvenile and awkward situation. The doctor in this episode was dealing with an unhinged 20-something who had lodged a Q-tip in her ear canal, and in her first season visit to the clinic she basically told the health care professional who was about to test her for STDs that she wanted AIDS. In my experience if you do or say something incredibly stupid regarding your health, a health care professional sets you straight.

3. What throwaway comment best reflect 2013's New York/Brooklyn douchebag scene thus far?
1) "Sandra Bullock or whatever is really charming. I only wish the best for her."
2) "Restaurants are my passion. Going out to dinner is just part of who I am."
3) "Marnie told us about the AMUs. We are both exceedingly happy for you! Oh my god, twenty thousand? That's like, insane.
4) None of the above/choose your own.

Things to consider: The feasibility of Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock starring in a rom-com this year (or anyone outside of Ryan Reynolds saying they "wish the best for her"); the pronunciation of M-U-A as AMUs; foodies being the most despicable breed of self-describers on the planet.

...Bonus 3.5. Sorry, just remembered three more lines that were so dead-on in capturing the actual voice of this generation: "I dabble in the Macintosh Arts"; "How pissed are you for missing the game?"; "Except Mother Teresa never blew my cousin. But seriously, we love this girl!"

I haven't been actively rooting for Sandra Bullock since While You Were Sleeping, so I would almost go with Adam's newfound appreciation for her. But really, can you get more douchey than asking why your significant other is catering to you by referring to their adorably neurotic behavior as "geisha shit"?

4. John Cameron Mitchell has some great lines this week as her e-book agent (publisher?). "I can't wait to not read those." "Where's the sexual failure, where's the pudgy faced slicked semen and sadness?" "I just had an epiphany, if you aren't getting fucked, make it up. Can you make it a novel?" Not to mention an Anaïs Nin/Jane Austen literary scolding from a guy whose morning read consists of "Kardashian Splashin'" and wants to name Hannah's book "Life on My Back." Though Hannah took it to an extreme, the desire to "empty out" after such a foray into the post-Frey publishing world would be natural. What would you suggest for purging those bad feelings?
4. Nothing quite as toxic and icky as watching John Cameron Mitchell's publisher ordering his twinkish assistant to stop working out before prompting you to dish about your awful sex with a teenager. Legal or not? Who knows! Who cares! That's what people want to hear! Lindsay Lohan in The Canyons is going to be great!

There's many ways that Hannah could relieve the negative feelings she is harboring after that meeting that don't involve jamming a foreign object into her ear. Compared to that, even getting hammered before five is a healthier option. Obviously talking to a friend, or that therapist from Waiting for Guffman, would also be an excellent purging option, but since she's avoiding her issues, also very unlikely. I know the responsible answer would be exercise, or meditation, or volunteering, or shopping, but for Hannah I'd recommend she just get a piece of cake, fall asleep on the F, and eat on the beach for a bit.


5. Marnie's trajectory this episode can be read as either "flailing" (by Charlie and Shoshanna), or a positive life choice (as seen by Marnie and Ray). Like objectively? She's definitely doing better than Hannah or fucking Adam's impression of a Williamsburg boyfriend on a very special episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Is she really being delusional about her singing career--a fucking bassoon? Kanye?--and if so, does it matter if it makes her happy? Basically, how should we read her statement to Charlie: "I'm really good, actually. And sometimes being good all the time feels really bad."

There's been some discomfort about Marnie pursing a singing career, mostly because you know Allison Williams can actually sing from when she put lyrics to the Mad Men theme. I've been steadily wondering if this will be some out-of-nowhere redeeming arc after breaking down Marnie for so long, or if this whole being a singer is just the final dive before a dangerous mental breakdown. You almost can't tell if she's completely delusional yet--is the room's response to her cover an indicator that she's just, as Charlie puts it, not that bad, "but not good," or that she should just stick to Norah Jones or a good Corinne Bailey Rae tune?

In the end, it does not really matter, because she's just happy doing something she wants to do. And not "just happy" in the way that she's let go of her ambitiousness and become more aware and complacent. Taking up performing has only made her more self-involved. (She did hijack the party that was celebrating the success of ex-boyfriend's app that was created to avoid her. The ENTIRE night was about her, in multiple layers.) But now instead of being driven and self-concerned in relationship to something that she thought she needed to do, it's toward something she enjoys doing. She's totally comfortable with commandeering the party, and it maybe not going over so well. Being kind of a mess makes her feel good, while while being "good" and put together all the time can be exhausting and disappointing.

*Web edition

Illustration via Alex Bedder.

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Even though the episode seems to insist that Hannah's OCD has been brought on by the stress of writing the book, the first time we see her exhibiting this behavior is when Adam calls her and she instinctively looks behind her--paranoid (but really, not that paranoid) that he might be following her--and then looks seven more times. And she mentions the book to the therapist only after she mentions Adam. Being that at least part of her OCD involves her persisting in behaviors that she originally does accidentally or without thinking (looking behind her, bumping into the guy at the show), how might we read her disorder as a response not to work-related stress but to Adam-related stress? And what does this say about their ongoing, if unacknowledged, relationship?

FIRST OF ALL, can we just stop for a moment and acknowledge how hard we were emotionally toyed with by HBO's DEF (Delusionally Empowered Female) programming last night? I actually spent 20 minutes trying to find dictionaries that would agree that "delusionally" was a word, just to avoid thinking about the panic induced by watching Girls and Enlightened back to back. My compulsion when stressed is to reinspect losing scratch-off Bingo cards over and over, so I actually missed most of the visuals this week. Was Shosh's hookup black or Hispanic? (Either way, can't wait for the racial Donnybrook that encounter will cost us.)

But if I have to get into it: both Hannah's trigger and her compulsions are related to sex. See also: the masturbation issue, which was alluded to last season in a throwaway line by Marnie, "You've been crazy since middle school, when you had to masturbate eight times a night to stave off diseases of the mind and body"; her ambivalence about Adam; her ambivalence about Adam regarding sex; her ambivalence about sex in general post-Joshua.

I mean, yes, the looming e-book deadline would be intolerably stressful, especially for someone like Hannah, who definitely does not have it together. With her anxiety, she couldn't even power through it on no sleep and Adderall, the way most of America's 20-somethings deal with looming workloads. Poor Hannah.

I'd say whatever the main or original trigger for Hannah's relapse--whether it's the book or Adam or her parents coming to town-- it isn't something you can deduce from the show, nor is it useful to think about. It's all of the things. Six of one, half dozen of the other, and 8-16 climaxes in one night, Jesus Christ.

2. The chorus of the song Judy Collins sings, "Open the Door," goes:

Open the door and come on in
I'm so glad to see you my friend
You're like a rainbow comin’ around the bend
And when I see you smilin’
Well, it sets my heart free
I'd like to be as good a friend to you
As you are to me

How would each of the characters understand these lyrics in relation to what happens to him or her in this episode?

Marnie: Why can't Charlie and Hannah be as good of friends to me as I am to them?

Ray: If Marnie starts singing Judy Collins right now I am just going to lose it.

Shoshannah: I don't even remember the last time I saw a rainbow. Ray is the opposite of a rainbow. He's just like ... rain.

Hannah: You are fine and good, you are fine and good, you are fine and good, you are fine and good, you are fine and good, you are fine and good, you are fine and good, you are fine and good. You are good and fine, you are good and fine, you are good and fine, you are good and fine, you are good and fine, you are good and fine, you are good and fine, you are good and fine.

Adam: This song is just so fucking real right now. I don't care how corny it sounds, no one should ever apologize for Living. I am just looking at this girl's smile and I am thinking 'Hol-y shit, yes.' Yes! You know? Fuuuuuckin' ... You just got to keep that door open.

Charlie: "That's right, Marnie. You get out what you put in. I'll be just a good of friend to you as you were to me." Unless ... maybe I should call her? No. She's not worth even 10 of my dollars. She means nothing to me. Thanks, Forbid. (Texts Marnie.)

3. Some shortsighted people suggested a few weeks ago that Patrick Wilson's character was not real but existed only as a figment of Hannah's imagination. While nothing in that episode remotely hinted at that, several elements of this one (not least the brilliant casting of the oddly vatic Carol Kane as her mother) seem to imply that all is not right, or not real, about Natalia. Is it possible that Adam has projected a fantasy woman, and if so, why is she a detective's assistant?

No, Natalia is not a projection. Adam's decision to go to AA instead of continuing to accidentally drink from the urine jar showed him taking action towards improving his mental state, which is more than we can say for the rest of this truly messed-up bunch. (It's like thanks Girls, I actually just saw Silver Linings Playbook. I don't need to watch all of you dissolve in some heretofore unknown, DSM-IV criteria-meeting chemical imbalance too.)

There is a catch to Natalia, though. Firstly because nobody's perfect, not even girls with the best jobs ever. But mostly because Natalia's independent identity may be perfect ... as a foil to Hannah's needy, messy train wreck of emotions.

4. Ray tells Marnie to decide what she wants to do "before the clay hardens." To a certain extent, Girls has consistently portrayed its female protagonists in a more unformed state, a early 20-something period of trying on different selves or different lives to see what they want to be. Given this premise, is Ray simply projecting his own fears of being too old and set in his ways onto Marnie, or is the show suggesting that unless these characters make up their minds soon, this prolonged adolescence will end in them being stuck? (Things to consider: Shoshanna realizing she doesn't really like parties, Hannah not realizing she still needs her parents, the fact that rollerblades can now be called "vintage.")

Neither. Girls would never suggest that this period of time for the characters is in any way an outlier to normal behavior, because that would essentially be telling viewers who identify with the show that their feelings are abnormal, instead of communal. Plus, it's just not true: you are not set in stone (or hardened clay) with the decisions you make in your early-to-mid 20s. Or ever, really.

And Ray isn't projecting, he's doing what he does best ... pushing someone into action. It's easy to see Ray's needling of Marnie (And woof, have they been co-habitating in Shosh's studio loft all this time? Or is it a one-bedroom? I cannot believe these living conditions have been left unexplored till now) as him somehow yelling at himself to get his shit together, but he's not. First of all, he's not dressed like a magician's assistant. But more importantly, he definitely has an answer to his own quickfire challenge, and it's the paradox du Ray: he doesn't want to be anything.  If he could do anything he wanted, he would do nothing.

So mainly this scene was to provide audiences with the experience of hearing an advance version of Allison Williams's debut album.

5. Imagine you are a psychologist who writes children's books involving a bionic dog. Create a plausible plot for such a book that you might use to illustrate the pathology behind one or more of the following: Marnie budgeting six years for her boyfriend to be a mess after she breaks up with him; Ray insisting that coming to a college party with his girlfriend is creepy because he is too old, but seeing no issue with sleeping with a college girl in the first place; Adam falling for Hannah because she acted like a helpless child around him; Shosh obsessing over getting more practice for when people are going to need her too much.

Billy the bionic beagle was a very special dog. He had a heart that would live forever. But even though Billy was a very loyal and very good dog, he was sad. He was sad because his friend Brian was no longer a young boy for him to play with. Brian was an old man now. He no longer wanted to throw the ball, or play fetch or take Billy to the dog park. But Billy the bionic beagle was still a puppy, and would never grow old. Or at least it felt that way, you know?

One day Billy went to the foot of the bed, where he and Brian had started so many adventures.

"Let's go play in the dog park!" Cried Billy.

"I can not, for I am too old to play," said Brian. "Plus, it is really creepy to see a very old guy hanging out at the dog park."

"I am sorry, Billy," said the old man to whom Billy had served many long, faithful nights.

Billy was one sad beagle, but he set his tail up straight, and snuffled his way over to the park on 62nd. Billy had not been to the park in a long time. He could find no new doggie friends to play with, because it had been so long since Brian had taken him for a visit.

Billy's bionic beagle heart felt like it was going to break. But it wasn't, as  it was made out of titanium and plastic and nanobots. Still. It didn't feel great. Billy was sad about Brian and about all the time he missed out on at the park while taking care of his owner. But he was also angry at Brian, who was too busy dying to be a very good friend.

It was time to move on. Billy had to find someone new to have adventures with, to love and nurture and watch old episodes of Ally McBeal.

"Bye, Brian," Billy barked. "Bye."

Billy the bionic dog had an aunt he owed a visit.

Bye, Billy. Bye.

Illustration by Alex Bedder.

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. The celebrity cameos on Girls are starting to seem fraught with significance. Is this an attempt to subtly imply that Petula (played by Rosanna Arquette) is--behind the literally bunny boiler faux-hippy persona--“desperately seeking" a different life? Her flirting with her (maybe) gay son's (maybe) boyfriend seems to suggest a flipped version of her role in The Executioner's Song.

And let's not forget daddy dearest: Ben Mendelsohn, the Australian answer to Gary Oldman, who is probably best known for his role as the corporate snake trying to undermine Wayne Enterprises in The Dark Knight Rises:

Or Russell, the tweaked-out heroin addict in the recent Brad Pitt film Killing Them Softly (based on Cogan's Trade, about low-level mobsters who fuck up their big heist and then have to skip town.) Or the sleazy boyfriend in the Florence + The Machine single "Lover To Lover."

Florence and the Machine: Lover to Lover on Nowness.com.

What is Girls trying to tell us--if anything--with the recent cameos that seem to reference something outside of the world of the show (i.e., John Cameron Mitchell, Patrick Wilson, Donald Glover, Rita Wilson)?

When Donald Glover first showed up, I thought Girls was engaging in some regular old stunt casting, which does exactly what you are talking about--tries to pull some residue from an actor's other work into the present show (have you noticed that there is this stable of sci-fi actors, mostly from Firefly and BSG, who show up as guest stars whenever any show wants to give itself some geek cred?). But then his character didn't seem to have much to do with Troy, and was a Republican. And Rita Wilson was somehow perfect as Marnie's mom (oh does that mean Chet Haze is somehow Marnie's pseudo-sister, because please, yes), but again, not the nurturing figure we were expecting. It is almost as if Girls is poking fun at our tendency to typecast actors, and using the huge stable of actors who want to be on the "It" show to be able to do so. John Cameron Mitchell was the most obvious example of this for me, playing a fairly stably gendered and non-sexual (except for his comment that pistachios look like little penises) character.

But perhaps the pendulum has swung back the other way, as Patrick Wilson's character seemed more like classic typecasting, and Patricia Arquette's full-on stunt casting: playing the weird hippy-dippy character with a darkness at her center has been her stock in trade for decades now. Whatever the intention behind it, they could hardly have cast the part better. She was pitch perfect, as was Mendelsohn. (And their extremely strong performances in turn brought out better than usual performances from Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke, making this one of the strongest episodes yet of the show.)

2. Pretend that you are an officer from D.A.R.E. program and are giving a lecture to kids about the dangers of doing drugs. Describe Hannah's relationship with narcotics, starting with the opium tea and progressing to cocaine and whippets. Bonus if you can work in Elijah's diss that snorting coke wasn't going to be like "driving around in your mom's Volvo with a bottle of cough syrup and a box of cold McNuggets."

At some point in the late ’90s, mainstream TV started to shift away from dealing with drugs in that after-school special/Jessie Spano kind of way, when D.A.R.E. officers could use a "very special episode" of any given show to illustrate the twin dangers of drugs and peer pressure. But even though drugs are no longer presented as the ultimate evil, they're still always just a metaphor, usually a stupid one that just makes everybody act more like themselves. At least Girls has the guts to make drugs, like sex (see question 5) as weird and complicated as they are. But they're still dumb metaphors (roughly: opium = painful truth, coke = false friendship, whippets = the stupidity of youth). So, you know, don't do drugs.

3. The name of this week's episode was "Video Games," which meant I was waiting for the other trashy Lana Del Rey shoe to drop for the entire episode. But it's in fact a reference to Petula's belief that life is a video game, a simulation like The Matrix or that one Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode. Create a video game for Petula: is it an old Nintendo game, or a really choppy version of the original Doom, or Grand Theft Auto? Is it the Holodeck from Star Trek? Farmville? What is the objective of the video game that Petula calls life, and what are the glitches/obstacles she has come across? Bonus: Describe the Game Genie cheats for Petula's life.

Petula's whole life is a series of Game Genie cheats for the video game she calls existence. There is no game here, there is only the shirking of responsibility that comes with thinking life is not real. Everyone is the main character of her own story, but if you think of the world not as a book but as a video game, not only are you the main character, you exist in a world that, for all its threats and pitfalls, was designed specifically for you. Hannah isn't just a minor character in Petula's story, she "manifests" her as a "cushion" for her relationship with Jessa.

On this level beyond self-centeredness, there is nothing but destruction: "If you're not with me, you're against me, so get out of my way." Like Amy Jellicoe on that other amazing female-centered HBO show, Enlightened, Petula is a destroyer who believes she is a benevolent healer. She raises bunnies and then kills them for food, and seemingly remains unaware that she is basically starving her son in the process. She can do nothing but destroy. She may think she is in some nurturing Sim Earth-type game, but her language is all first-person shooter. And the enemies, of course, are other women: Jessa, Jessa's dad's former girlfriend, her daughter who may or may not still be named Lemon, etc.

4. For two seasons now, we've been hearing about Jessa's mom (and Shosh's oft-referred-to aunt) as a sort of insane, absentee parent. But meanwhile her father has been living upstate, and there's been a history of her not showing up when she had plans to visit. Then her dad leaves her at a supermarket, right after their cathartic breakthrough. ("You think I can rely on you? "You shouldn't have to! I'm the child! I'm the child!"--the most heart-wrenchingly sad thing to happen on Girls, ever.) Does this excuse her behavior at the end of the episode, or make it even less excusable? Haha, just kidding, Jessa is always the worst. Feel free to make up the phone call between Shosh and her aunt regarding her first live-in boyfriend, if that's preferable.

There is not and never will be an excuse for Jessa acting the way she does. But even though this episode didn't redeem her as a person, I think it went a long way toward redeeming her as a character. That is to say, there has always been something cartoonish about Jessa, something stupider-than-life that made her hard to believe, when everyone else, for all their character flaws, seemed like real people.

But the truth is I know plenty of people in the real world who seemed that way when I met them too. You know when, usually in college, you meet someone's parents for the first time, and you're like, oh, of course! That person makes total sense now. Sort of like that.

Or a commentary on that, because the most telling thing about her dad wasn't the lateness or the unreliability or the immaturity or the paranoia, but him saying to Jessa, "You know we're not like other people." Underscored by that fantastic Aimee Mann song "How Am I Different," it really drove home the essence of a parenting style that could create a character so obnoxiously removed from reality.

5. Urinary tract infections are the WORST. But they're often caused by an imbalance of microorganisms that colonize the vagina, also called the "vaginal flora." With her HPV and now being de-flora'd, there's definitely a trend of sex = bad, painful things. If you think about it, Sex on Girls is never just a casual encounter, or one that is portrayed as having positive consequences. So far we've seen intercourse lead to a) Marriage; b) Being forced to stare at a doll while being starfished; c) Completely speeding up the normal process of a relationship and making it untenable; d) Ruining a perfectly good Ping-Pong table and e) causing gay couples to break up and friendships to be ruined. Is Girls actually sending out a pro-abstinence message? Or does Hannah just need to drink more water and cranberry juice?

It's not just the consequences of sex, but the sex itself that is often bad on Girls, and whatever else people will say about the show in coming years, one thing is clear: no show to date has shown so much bad sex and shown so much of what can be bad about sex, and that is an important thing for TV. Not only does Girls not look away from bad sex, it also doesn't make it into a tragedy, or a dealbreaker. After Marnie gets starfished, she cracks up, and then happily calls Hannah. It's depressing, but it is also realistic and necessary. Sex, and specifically female bodies in relation to sex, are so inflated and elevated on TV that they become impossible to really talk about. If sex isn't simply tiptoed around, it is treated as a metaphor, something people are either having or not having. For better or worse, Girls is willing to look at real sex, like it is willing to look at real women's bodies, and say, this is a significant thing, but it is also a part of life, and like everything else, it is flawed and can be weird and ugly and uncomfortable and stupid. And when it is weird/ugly/uncomfortable/stupid, we still get to say, "I want to keep doing this/I don't want to keep doing this/Here's how we can make this better" and so on. If all you ever see is sex treated as a holy sacrament, it's a lot harder to say these things, or even know that you can.

Boys (Illustration by Alex Bedder)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. The title of this episode, "Boys," is clearly meant to be read as a contrast with the name of the show, and though it spends a lot of time with Hannah and Marnie as well, it certainly gives us a fuller picture of three of Girls’s male characters. Given this theme, what is the implication of the episode's opening scene, which features John Cameron Mitchell, an artist well known for gender-bending, but here playing a fairly straight role?

I also loved the Hedwig cameo! Though I don't think it had any subversive meaning in relation to the show's title. Much like all the cameos this season (Rita Wilson, Patrick Wilson, AndrewAndrew, Donald Glover) Mitchell's appearance was a tad haphazard. Almost random. Apparently every older person in the world wants to be on Girls, so it's hard to read too much into these guest appearances. Strangely, we haven't seen anyone playing themselves--outside AndrewAndrew, who didn't have any lines--in that corny Saturday Night Live trope, or even in that less corny Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion. Maybe if David Mitchell comes along playing Jessa's dad, but as David Mitchell, we could transcend into some meta-commentary. But I'm pretty sure from next week's previews that's not happening.

2. Based on what you know about Ray, Shosh and their relationship, why does she ask him whether the character in Little Women his godmother compared him to was Marmie or Amy (the mother and the youngest daughter), rather than, say, Jo? And why does Hannah suggest he is the father who dies of influenza, rather than Beth, who dies of scarlet fever?

Well obviously, Ray would be Jo, the hot-tempered one. But the fact that both Hannah and Shosh see Ray as a parental figure is a pretty big clue: not only do they still view him as the "responsible adult" (despite his cries to the contrary, which I guess we'll just ignore, like Ray ignored Hannah's quitting in last week episode), but as a provider as well. The funny subtext here is that Robert March is a lot like Ray: he was a scholar, there was an implication of debt and the impression that he was mooching off his friends' charity. So ... if the shoe fits!

Hannah's comment is meant derisively: "First of all, you're not a Marmie. You're probably the dad, who died of influenza at the war." She's trying to drop some gangsta Louisa May Alcott knowledge on him. Like "You're the dad, not the mom, idiot!" The reason Beth isn't brought up is because she's not an older, parochial character. For someone who is supposed to think outside the box (or, uh, her comfort zone), Hannah stubbornly refuses to cast aside gender roles when assigning her friends characters from a book. Hope she does better with her own! Oh God, do you think her ebook will be called Girls?!

3. Why does Ray shout, "I live in Brooklyn!" as his parting shot in his fight with the Staten Island girl? In his interpretation of Staten Island as a metaphor, Ray calls it an island full of people looking longingly at Manhattan but unable to get there; couldn't the same thing be said of Brooklyn? What does Brooklyn represent for Ray?

I noticed that too, re: Ray's Staten Island metaphor being applicable to Brooklyn. But in Ray's mind, I think, Manhattan is too corporate and soulless (have we ever seen him in the city?), and he has a lot of Brooklyn pride for being anti-establishment and full of people with "meaty ideas" like Adam and himself.

His parting shot was in response to that amazing woman's line, "Go back to Yogurt Town, kike!" which is based on his shirt, which does read "Yogurt Town." What's striking isn't that he corrected her on the nonsensical apparel-based diss, but that he immediately jumped on the Jewish slur, and responded not by being offended that she used such a horrible word, but by explaining that he's not Jewish. ("I'm Greek Orthodox!")

That being said, I am going to start referring to Williamsburg as Yogurt Town from now on. Though, hmmm ... Manhattan has a lot more of those Red Mangos and Tasti D-Lites and other bullshit fro-yo places than BK. Maybe that's why Ray needs to counter her attack with Brooklyn pride.

4. Adam says that Hannah is a good person, she just has her own ideas of right and wrong. Can there be said to be such a thing as a moral foundation in Girls, or do the characters make it up as they go along? Moral quandaries to consider: stealing a dog because its owner seemed to be treating it badly and it licked your face; firing your assistant because she tasted your ice cream; asking the naked girl in your bed to back you up on the moral rightness of this firing; doing so without telling said naked girl that you have had (or possibly are still having) sex with the assistant too.

Hoooooold up there. I don't think a moral foundation on the show can be proved or disproved by the house of cards that is Booth Jonathan's huffiness. (Although I did have a long debate with myself about the ice cream issue: like, if you were someone's cleaning person, would it be acceptable to take a bite out of newly bought rosewater ice cream? No, right? But personal assistant is such a malleable line ... it's an intimate enough position that your boss can have sex with you and give you orders while lying naked in bed, but it's unacceptable for you to have a nosh at his place? On the other, other hand, I think I'd be a little grossed out if I opened my groceries and there were chunks taken out of my food. Especially because that girl was also pretty heinous about the scenario. She could have just said "Yeah, I guess that is weird, sorry!" but instead acted self-righteous enough to quit over it. She must really love Carly Rae Jepsen.)

As for the characters' "morality?" I think they abide by more of a philosophy of interpersonal ethics. Hence, stealing a dog isn't wrong, until a friend (or acquaintance) yells at you and makes you feel bad about it. Like how Elijah and Marnie's sexcapades wasn't "wrong" to them for the normal reasons--he's gay! He's dating someone!--but is considered bad only in how it affects their relationship with Hannah. More to the point: only feeling bad when you "get caught" is a warning sign for sociopaths and narcissists, of which Girls has many.

5. Imagine for a moment that you are Mikey the dog, but you can understand every word that is said in front of you. With whom do you end up identifying more closely, Ray or Adam? What does your doggy mind think their argument is really about?

"Bacon? Are they fighting over bacon? Is 'Hannah' a code word for bacon? It has to be. Why else would these two men-boys yelling at each other over bitches? There are enough bitches in the world. This is definitely not about bitches or bacon ... but damn, I really hope I didn't give Adam my rabies. Or does he always act like that? What are 'graffiti cut-offs'?

You know what? I couldn't really care less about these ridiculous humans and their white people problems. I'm not even a person. This argument does not reflect the barks of my generation at all."

Our feelings exactly (HBO)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s GIRLS. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. Um, holy shit. What?

I know, right?? I totally didn't see Marnie making out with Bobby Moynihan's "awkward rabbi" character. As well as those other b-a-n-a-n-a-s plot developments. Actually, all of the finale. What was up with that?? Look, I made a GIF of the reaction shots for you! (Spoilers ahead...obviously.)


2. Compare and contrast the wedding of Jessa and TJ with the famous pairing of Hedda Gabler and Jørgen Tesman. How are they alike, or different?

Whoa, very good question! A++ question, and I mean that. I guess the biggest difference is that in Henrik Ibsen's late 19th century play, it is revealed over the course of several acts that Hedda only married Jørgen because she was bored by her own life. In GIRLS, it's immediately clear that Jessa's only doing this because of the advice Katharine gave her on last week's episode that 'adult' Jessa will be happier, if not cooler. (This is why you never listen to wisdom from grownups!)

The whole marriage stunt felt totally random and forced as a plot device, and I question the show's decision in bringing back a character who we've only seen as an abusive, pathetic prick as a serious love interest. Even if Jessa's looking for something new and exciting to speed her along the road toward to the actualization of adulthood, nothing in her character suggests that she'd delude herself into falling for JT, of all people. How will she ever cope with his "mash-ins"?

We're supposed to view this as Jessa's poor judgement, but it's the show's acumen I'm worried about. I know GIRLS loves taking its one-off cameos and bringing those characters back to demonstrate that people are multifaceted, layered little snowflakes; each filled with unique quirks that weren't automatically apparent, like a subtle parfait of personhood. And that works when we're dealing with Hannah's parents, or Elijah. But as much as I loved Chris O'Dowd in Bridesmaids, JT was a one-dimensional loser whose vitriolic diatribe about bourgeois hipsters doesn't jibe with a sudden desire to spend the rest of his life with a girl he last referred to as "Mary Poppins."

3. Ray tells Shoshanna that she “[vibrates] on a very strange frequency.” Calculate the frequency response function in MHz for Shosh. Find the magnitude and phase. Show your work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7qrcwLOQkg
This is Shoshanna's frequency: 3.39 MHZ during a hurricane. Didn't Ray claim several episodes ago not to be a "JAP daycare"? Oh, how the tables have turned. I predict Shoshanna next season actually sticking to her "most non-virginy virgin ever" credo and totally rebuffing Ray, who will be totally smitten for her.

At first the pairing of these two seemed arbitrary and unnecessary as well, like the writers' were just tying up the loose end of Shoshanna's virginity by calling back the chemistry of her and Ray in the Crackcident. But from what we know of his character, it's clear he'll probably become attracted to Shoshanna's ability to live in the real world and not some artistic la-la-land. Shoshanna goes to school. She takes kickboxing classes. She's trying to put her foot down about letting people just randomly crash at her off-campus housing. Her tolerance for the "girls'" B.S. has significantly lowered over the course of the season, which puts her disdain right about at Ray's level.

Plus, now Ray gets to finally have sex with someone who ostensibly could be related to him. (If you subscribe to the idea that all Jews descended from the same 13 tribes.)

4. After a dramatic argument with Hannah, Adam is injured by a hit-and-run driver and taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Tally the injuries that have occurred on season one of GIRLS. What is wrong with these people?

Actually, I saw the car coming, which is more than you can say for poor Adam (who obviously doesn't understand the laws of television foreshadowing). He almost got hit by a car two episodes ago and had a major rage session...add the death of Tally Schifrin's boyfriend in a vintage automobile from last episode, and you'll get a fatalistic streak on the show as apparent as the one that predicted Lane Pryce's suicide Mad Men. Hannah even screams at Adam to get out of the street when he's almost sideswiped during the fight!

With all the craziness in this episode, I thought this might actually kill Adam, so I'm glad it's just a broken arm. As for the amount of injuries on the show, you have:

1. Hannah OD'ing on opium tea.
2. Jeff getting the crap kicked out of him by crusties.
3. Ray getting hit in the junk by a cracked-out Shoshanna.
4. Marnie slamming her head while having sex with Charlie.
5. Hannah falling off Adam's bike.
6. Adam getting hit by a car.
7. Possibly the death of Tally's boyfriend. (Though that one may not count since it's off-screen, and we never meet him.)
8. Hannah's dad knocking himself unconscious during shower sex.
9. Elijah chopping Marnie in the face after she says he was a terrible singer.

With the exception of numbers 2, 7, and 8, all of these accidents can be chalked up to Mark O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion. Meaning that they essentially have no physical repercussions, and the acts of violence to the characters are treated as a comedic punchlines instead of potentially painful mishaps. Related: Do any of our heroines have health insurance? Perhaps under Obamacare...

I've said before, but GIRLS sometimes takes the position that young people are as invincible as they think they are...although Adam's injuries are a nice reminder that Lena Dunham is a less frivolous writer than Hannah.

5. The season ends with Hannah waking on an F train as it pulls into Coney Island. Spying a group of partiers on a rooftop, she asks where she is and is told she’s in Heaven. Then, she walks on the beach. How does this scene evoke the famous religious poem, “Footsteps.” Has God abandoned Hannah Horvath, or is he carrying her?  

The first one. D'uh. I mean, have you ever fallen asleep on the F train? Or had your purse stolen on the subway, rendering you helpless in a society that forces one to rely entirely on their cell phone, wallet, and metro card? I'm surprised Hannah doesn't flip the EFFFF out. Instead, she reanacts the iconic moment from Stranger Than Paradise, but with a nod towards Sloane Crosley's debut collection of personal essays. Which, of course, would be on the top of Hannah's reading list.

How very clever, Ms. Dunham. You win this round, though I wouldn't exactly mind it if season two opened with Hannah, Ray, and Shoshanna finding out that JT, Jessa, and Marnie died in a tragic Mexican standoff. Or wait...is that racist?

"Your boyfriend should die. You deserve that." (HBO)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. Michael Imperioli, best known for his role as Sopranos capo Christopher Moltisanti, plays Hannah’s former college writing professor. Compare and contrast the New York literary scene with the Italian crime syndicate, La Cosa Nostra.

Oh that's who that guy was? I thought he looked Indian. Either way, I think this episode proves exactly how crime syndicates are like literary circles: you're not made until someone dies.

2. Following Jessa’s awkwardness with Jeff, his wife Catherine begs her to return to her nanny job, admitting, “I need you and my girls need you.” How does Jessa exemplify the ways in which nannies, governesses and other maternal surrogates have often been perceived as threatening to the family unit? (Please include a reference to Mr. Belvedere in your answer.)

Much like Tony Danza on Who's the Boss, or Mr. Belvedere, or Mary Poppins, maternal surrogates are often frightening because they are only necessary when a mother is absent...or too absent to take care of her children. Much more revealing is Catherine's dream, where she devours Jessa and then poops her out. So is Jessa a lesbian now?

3. At the coffee shop, Ray berates Hannah about her writing, suggesting that intimacy is a trivial subject compared to death and various societal woes. A similar accusation has often been lodged at GIRLS itself. Is Lena Dunham embracing this critique, or subtly answering her antagonists by collectively lampooning them as a douchebag barrista?

Well, it's an interesting critique coming from Ray, who has mentioned that both his parents are dead, and who never receives any financial help himself. So he's actually coming from a place where he's allowed to lob that criticism at Hannah and her world. Or at least he's better situated to make those complaints, whether they are right or wrong. Ironically, the actor who plays Ray, Alex Karpovsky, makes a lot of feature-length documentaries about non-trivial subject matter (like birds, and improv comedy,) and has expressed that GIRLS is the only acting he plans on doing. So like, there's that. I'm not sure if that undermines or underscores Ray's feelings about Hannah's writing, but it's something to think about.

4. Examine Marnie and Hannah’s dispute about who is more of “a wound” in light of the crucifiction of Jesus Christ. Who is the bigger martyr? How does Lena Dunham herself resemble the Son of God? How do they differ?

Oh god, those two going at it. The whole season was kind of building up to this, and yet I found it so unwatchable. Maybe it's just because I hate how girls fights? Like girls never fight about whatever ostensible subject is at hand...they fight about everything, and the longer they fight, the deeper they have to mine each other's personal histories for ammo. So by the end you don't even know what they are yelling about, but for some reason it has to deal with Hannah's inability to have any friends from pre-school?

Who still has friends from pre-school???

Anyway, those two both need to get down off their crosses because we need the wood...to build this totally awesome chuppah in the backyard and perform non denominational dog ceremonies.

5. The episode begins at a book party for Lena’s former writing classmate, Tally Schifferin, whose new book explores the death of a boyfriend. Imagine you are Tally. In her voice, write a chapter of her book.  

James Dean. Jimi Hendrix. Amy Winehouse. I used to idolize all those rock stars who died young and left only their legacies behind, until my boyfriend committed suicide by crashing his vintage car while on Percocet. That's when I realized that it wasn't just legacies that got left behind when a legend died...sometimes, it was girlfriends too.

Don't steal Chris O'Dowd's sunshine (HBO)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. This episode of GIRLS is characterized by an ambient soundtrack of jangly acoustic guitar. How does the background music reflect Hanna Horvath’s inner emotional state?

I didn't notice this, as I was too busy rocking out to that rad "Steal My Love/monkeys laughing hysterically" mash-up. Oh my god, and what about "Field-Nice": that "Steal My Sunshine"/"children laughing" track? Can I buy that on iTunes?

This episode did make my boyfriend realize that he should never say to total strangers, "My one regret in life is that I never learned to DJ," which I think we can all count as a positive.

2. Hannah attends a tech rehearsal for Adam’s play. His costar breaks out some dubious hip hop slang, enraging him. Discuss the history of minstrelsy in America. When is it acceptable for whites to employ African American vernacular for comic effect?

First off: was Adam's monologue supposed to be good? I was confused. I know Adam Driver is a good stage actor, but was he (the actor, not the character) intentionally trying to do a kind shitty performance, to show how ridiculous monologues in memoir plays are? It was like one of those Fred Armisen parodies of one-man shows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcyJW-GeMDc
And why hasn't Adam figured out the rest of his monologue...the play is opening in two weeks!
Gavin definitely needed to cut it down to only one "yo," but it's funny, I haven't heard someone say the word "wigger" since 1999. Another race issue that Girls is just diving headfirst in? I don't know. I don't think Josh was mocking African-American culture so much as trying to make a statement on white people who co-opt that culture in an effort to remain hip, which ironically backfires, since Gavin doesn't have enough confidence in his own abilities that he has to pull out that stereotype (of a wigger) for laughs.

Actually, if you go back and listen to what Gavin says during that scene --"Yo yo yo, I love boy scout camp, who says we be getting too old for this shit? (Makes record scratching noises)"--it kind of makes you want to know more about that play! Adam hasn't been on that river in a long time, but they are in boy scout camp? Which, to be fair, would place them around 9-13 years old...exactly when white kids are most likely to start emulating hip hop artists and other black entertainers because they seem cool. So maybe Gavin was tapping into something real there.

Also Gavin, in an effort to be funny, was playing up the character of a white guy who thinks he's black which is totally different than a white comic that does impressions of black people, or makes racial slurs. OR IS IT? Discuss.

It's sterile

3. Adam joins Hannah in the shower and urinates on her. Discuss the infantile pleasure of micturition in light of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents.

I'd rather discuss Adam's rage issues and anti-authority idealism in light of Civilization and Its Discontents, but fiiiine.

Freud had this idea that when someone feels "an oceanic feeling of wholeness," (something that arises during the first stages of love, say) they can regress back into a stage of pre-ego infantilism where the identity between the person and the object is blurred. Pleasure principle and so forth.

So while it is totally gross, Adam peeing on Hannah can either be seen as a sign that he is truly opening himself up and falling for her...or that he's just a big weirdo that wants to incorporate water sports into their sex play. I assumed the latter.

4. After Marnie and Jessa pick up a venture capitalist in a bar, their possible menage a trois is cut short with the defilement of his shag carpet. How does this scene crystallize the class conflict inherent in the late capitalist project?

What a weird scene. The first time I saw it, I thought, "This is the first wrong note the show has played all year." Because yeah, Girls is not especially adroit at keeping their "adults" three dimensional, but when that venture capitalist flips out, it's almost too emotional. It was an uncomfortable scene, and it was trying to play for both laughs and for drama, and that guy from Bridesmaids had to revert to using some sort of weird caveman speech impediment so his accent wouldn't come out.

Though I did love his "mash-ins", especially the part where it's just kids screeching over Len?

The second time though, I thought that this scene was so uncomfortable precisely because it was so well-written. This is why you don't let strange corporate guys take you home, especially if they live in one of those creepy high-rises in Williamsburg that I thought literally no one lived in. He has this nice-guy act that complete falls away when he realizes he's being "excluded" from the sex games, and even though he pouts that he wants to "balls deep in something...I don't even care what it is," it's actually coming from this non-sexual place of wanting to be part of the group. Despite the fact that he has money and this expensive rug (and is a total goober), why is this guy so furious?

He's mad because he considers them to be over-privileged hipster shits whose parents pay for anything, who look down on him because he's not "cool." He is not wrong: if there's one thing show has taught us, it's that working hard for something if it isn't relationship-based isn't worth the effort.
That being said, this guy would actually be a perfect boyfriend for Marnie; as they are both so tightly-wound yuppies trying who would be happier just accepting that they are fundamentally mainstream and middle-class. They shouldn't have to hide their resentment towards parasitic friends who don't have any cash.

Oh, and is Jessa a lesbian now?

5. Is Roxy Music the most amazing band ever?

Kind of, but it loses points for being my dad's favorite band. Or at least I think it is because he loves Velvet Goldmine so much. You tell me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVeEBMJt8vs