Girls S3 E4

This week’s episode gets off to an awkward start with some great moments and some ‘why is this here?’ moments.  While Hannah’s story arc starts off great, a bit of black humour weaved into a terrible tragedy.  It’s too bad we are quickly whisked off to watch Marnie run around the city. And chin up, several extremely fake looking chin ups. I guess it was supposed to show her trying to move on with her life or something like that. It really isn’t clear since, having a post workout snack doesn’t really instill a sense of empathy or endearment within me.  It’s okay though, since Dunham and co. make up for this later.

The episode centers on Hannah’s inability to feel any kind of empathy after the death of her publisher David. She is fully committed to the idea that she and her upcoming eBook is what is truly the victim of this tragedy. Along the way we encounter what are some clichéd moments that are wonderfully dark and comedic. Hannah’s detachment from the entire affair is perfect. Dunham finally gives relents and shows Hannah for what she is, a horridly self-interested young woman who makes believe that she is a good person. The end of the episode, with Hannah sitting there, spinning her faux tale, is probably one of the best written indictments of Generation Y put to screen. The way Hannah steals Christine’s story without a hint of remorse or sheepishness is diabolical.

This is where we see Adam finally shine, aside from one moment early in the episode which can be easily brushed off. For two seasons the show has used Adam as a piece of furniture until now, this season he finally shows signs of growth. He calls Hannah out on her lack of empathy and generally carries on with an insightful intelligence that has only been hinted at before. It’s kind of odd that it took the show this long to actually develop a character.

The other bright spot of the episode is Marnie, who for the first time this season is not a waste of screen time. The scene where Marnie rips into Ray and his boss is mature and verbally brilliant in its delivery. Her moment of comedic weakness forever haunts her, but Marnie uses it as a jumping platform to finally break out from her funk. The great thing about this is that it perfectly captures the frustration of gen Y. Told to go to school, earn good grades and follow your dreams. Congrats now you can work at a coffee bean! Marnie’s frustration with this is palpable and finally finds common ground between her whiny bitch character and the audience she serves.

Sadly not all is wonderful, as great in this episode at this point my review will change tone, drastically. Christine, as Adam warned us in the last episode, has vastly over stayed her welcome. The whole time Hannah spends with Christine and Laird is one big cluster fuck of wasted time and potential. It’s full of zany and quirky moments, god I wish you could hear the sarcasm in my voice as I type these words. Cartwheeling in graveyards, dead turtle in bottles and Laird even cries as he and Christine has a psychotic emotional connection. Fuck you Dunham! The last half of the episode is bloated with all this zaniness. It’s as if, while writing they couldn’t decide what zany thing the crazies should do. Instead, they decided to cram it all together into one shit meatball which reeks of the show’s great failures. The forcefulness of the scene robs all the emotion from the meaning and Christine dissolves into nothing more than a wacky for the sake of wacky character.

Another problem is Jessa and Shoshanna. Firstly, Jessa needs a new shtick. Her pseudo-freshman psychology bullshit has outgrown its tiny boat. It goes nowhere and just makes the show look dumb. Then after this all said and done we get what Dunham thinks is an apology? A joke? A reference? I’m not sure what it’s meant to be, but it sure as shit doesn’t work on neither a dramatic nor comedic level.  Jessa winds up finding that one of her supposedly dead friends isn’t dead and is really just trying to ditch Jessa. It’s quite pointless up until the caricature from the IT Crowd strolls in. He’s black, he’s got a fro and he’s hip, aka he’s got no fashion sense. The scene is so douche and handled so poorly that you’ll exhale in relief as soon as the scene is over.

Finally, we have Shoshana. She has no story arc, no growth and almost no screen time. In fact, she shouldn’t even be in the episode, but I guess Dunham wanted to stroke her own ego by showing everyone that she’s just like Seinfeld and David and can include every character in every episode. And that’s how we learned about Shoshana’s bandana collection. Just ignore it, it doesn’t last long and it’ll be forgotten by next week.

The last three paragraphs said and done I must say, the episode is good. Dunham uses Hannah in this episode as possibly the greatest critique of my generation thus far. Vain, self-involved and out of touch with what should really concern us. While possibly the smart commentaries on this new media literate generation it is half the time to bloated to be completely effective, filled with unnecessary quirkiness that steals attention from what matters. Marnie’s story gets off to a rocky start but actually pulls through ahead and for the first time this season.  Jessa’s terrible arc can be largely ignored, mainly due to the strength of the philosophy and good, sharp writing.

Halfway through the season and we have yet to see a terrible episode. Maybe, the show has turned it around. I’d like to think so, but on the other hand I have a sinking feeling that when the show does trip and fall, it will be the biggest slap to its viewership in the shows history. Prove me wrong Dunham, prove me wrong.

Fuck me next to your dead mom!

You’re Next Review

A film that embraces its genre trappings with glee and merriment while at the same time feeling fresh and vibrant in a sea of schlock and over complicated plot that dominates the genre.

The film starts off with Crispian and Erin on their way to Crispian’s family cottage for his parent’s anniversary.  Upon arrival it is evident that all is not well, both with the house and the family. The house is eerie, full of dark corners that squeak in the night. Meanwhile Crispian is the black sheep who struggles to achieve the seeming success of the rest of his brood. Meanwhile Erin is left in the focus as being somewhat strange and different. It doesn’t take long for the lives of this WASP style family to crumble all around them.

It all starts with a funny rip on pretentious filmmaking, before devolving into a trifling argument between siblings. All seems set for your typical family drama about meaningless life achievements when your piggy bank can never run dry, courtesy of your really well to do parents.  That is, until, BOOM! A character is killed mid-dinner. From then on it’s an all-out struggle to survive as these privileged white folks scramble for their wits. No you’re generic bloodletting does happen but it happens in an interesting manner.

There is no discernible order in which to expect a character’s death and yet all the plot clichés are there. You see each death coming but part of the surprise is which character will fall to the specific method of execution. The deaths are gruesome, but not overly so. Unlike the torture porn films of the Saw franchise, the film does not revel in the kill by drawing it out. Instead it focuses on having you soak in the atmosphere that embodies the scene of each kill. In a credit to the writer, the kills themselves are fairly quick and are in completely appropriate in their approach to the goal of the killers. To say anymore may give away far too many details. You know you can’t help but you plead never the less.

It is in these moments that the last girl cliché gets up, but not to run as we have come to expect. Erin is an ass-kicker and Vinson does it well.  In contrast to all the screaming and whimpering vixens and victims that populate these films, Erin takes the lot that life has given and deals with it. The filmmakers take great care to show that she isn’t your typical horror lead who takes three quarters film to finally start kicking ass with an almost magical, instant competence. Erin on the other hand maintains a rock solid competence throughout the film, creating a sort of predator versus predator dynamic.

The look of the film is typically, full of deep dark colours and bold, icky blood. The real pleasure is the tone that the music invokes. A blend of synth-pop and creepy tones sets to invoke a mood of idyllic despair grown from years of broiling yuppie discontentment. While it doesn’t completely serve to engross you in the moment it does serve to show you that the film knows its roots and it knows how to intelligently achieve its goals without straining the realm of plausibility, as we’ve come to expect with the low end thriller films.

As a point of interests, fans of Hotline Miami will definitely feel at home thanks to the masked villains and a similar soundtrack.

At the end of the day this film is no game changer like what the first Saw was. But maybe that’s a good thing. Shot cheaply and smartly the films serves to harken back on old genre tropes while also twisting them just enough to breathe some fresh air into a genre that is short on originality. That and it gives us one of the best lines in film “Fuck me next to your dead mom”.

Banshee Season 2 Episode 2

As usual, Banshee plays fast and loose with dramatic tension and borders being extremely impossible, even for a show that bends the term to its will willy-nilly in just about each and every episode. The episode continues to follow the fallout surrounding Rabbit’s invasion of Banshee and Kai’s ongoing war against Alex Longshadow.

Lucas Hood’s struggle with his dual role of Sheriff of Banshee and professional thief seems to be drawing to a close, but by the end of episode two, it would seem that the affair will play out slowly and carefully.  Frankly, if the quality level is maintained then Alan Ball and company will have no trouble retaining viewership.

The episode plays perfectly upon the repercussions of both the last season and the previous episode. Hood and Carrie real as both get some sort of comeuppance, Carrie heading off to jail and Hood struggling with the fact that he alone is responsible for it. Starr and Milecevic  brood and grimace as is appropriate for a show of such pulp nature. Frankly speaking, this entire arc is handled with more depth and care than many ‘serious’ shows can achieve. This may be attributed to the fact that the show being on Cinemax is free from the pressured to deliver critical applaud, allowing it free reign to experiment. This pays off in spades as Starr is given room to breath and go beyond his character’s simple genre limitations.

Meanwhile Kai and his niece are dealing with the brewing war with Alex Longshadow and the reservation. Thomsen as usual brings the appropriate dread to his presence as he uses his banked favours and wide reaching power to threaten and intimidate and ever unsure Lonshadow. The writers wisely use this as a moment to re-establish the fact that Kai is not merely just some backwater hillbilly crime lord, but rather a man who makes the best of his situation without ever once outreaching his depth. On a side note my personal theory is that Kai will meet his doom by the end of the season, from what looks to be an ever desperate Lonshadow, leaving his niece, Rebecca, to take charge of the family business. 

Beyond that the episode seeks to expand the side characters plot lines further. Deputy Lotus ‘ suspicions of Hood grow further based on his brief but necessary exchange with proctor. The scene also gives us insight into how things worked before Hood’s arrival, with the BSD asking the right question but not actually caring what the answer is. It will be interesting where Lotus’ loyalty ultimately lie. Meanwhile deputy Kelly must deal with her abusive ex-husband. It plays out in a very typical fashion, that said it properly serves to establish the idea that everyone in Banshee has their secrets and frankly it serves to give even more of the side characters depth and feeling.

The culmination of Kelly’s issues with her ex-beau are fantastically played out side by side with Carrie’s first day in jail. Both are required to prove a point and both do so with a bang. This is not just sexy girl violence that a show of this pedigree usually thrive upon. The violence on display shows these women as not just sexy killing machines, but rathe, people. They don’t fight in tights, they don’t grunt in a sexy voice. They fight like animals, they fight to survive and they get hurt in the process. The two fights seem to encompass and overlooked part of the show, strong women. Yeah the show has a lot of nudity, but it doesn't shy away from also making the women badasses, ones who do it in everyday clothes rather than the skin tight sexified outfits Hollywood is typically used to.

Sadly though the episode has its share of failings, mainly ones come from the trappings that the show itself has established upon itself. Firstly, the use of jarring cinematography. The show loves to establish anxiety or unease through a series of disorienting shots, which typically is fine, but this episode seems to overdo it well past the best before date and it does it all in one sequence. When Carrie finally goes to jail, we focus on Hood’s anxiety issues due to reliving his own first day in jail. Problem is, we've been there and done that and the jarring camera work does more to distract than enhance the sequence. Secondly, Kai Proctor already had Hood rescue his daughter to his desire not to send his ‘army’ onto the reservation and yet he seemed to have no trouble slipping into Alex’s house late at night to prove a point later. If he was always capable of this then why not do it in the first place and save the favour owed by Hood for later, when this turf war escalate. Minor gripe? Maybe but it has the scent of the show begging to break out of its trappings only to willingly resubmit to them for the sake of expediency.

Overall this was a fine episode to add to the series lexicon. It won’t bring converts over, but it most definitely will reinforce the loyalty of the viewers it already has.

Save your cash, your ass will thank you

American Hustle

The film is chalk full of good performances, too bad they’re drowned out by weak storytelling, blathering dialog and an unsure sense of style.

Bale, Cooper, Adams, Lawrence, Renner and the rest all give solid performances. Bale as the self-assured conman is as usual, methodical in his performance.  Cooper is rightly over the top in his role as the overly self-involved FBI agent. Adams is rock solid, albeit Russell and the wardrobe department seem to think her cleavage should have top billing. Lawrence does her Silver Linings shtick and does it really well. Renner is wonderfully charismatic as the naïve corrupt mayor. And yet all these parts do not add up to a great or even a good movie.

The poor storytelling that is on display in this film well, it wastes all the strength of its performances.  The film is merely a series of events strung together to deliver the semblance of a story. The film starts of quickly enough, but quickly spirals out of control as the narration speeds through events and character development from one set piece to the next. The audience has no time to breathe or take in any of the atmosphere that Russell rushes through on his way to fill the tale with detail.   Characters are introduced and then promptly discarded as if they were nothing more than set pieces (poor Michael Pena). Major events are set up that have the pacing of a teledrama, like the documentaries on crime you see while skipping through the history channel in the morning, albeit with a few fucks more. It’s such a flurrying buzz of events and information presented in a disorganized fashion that by the end you’re not entirely sure what you’ve just sat through. Sure the story is all their, the pieces fit, but the elegance of the man who brought us The Fighter, Three Kings and such is nowhere to be seen. The narration does not help things, there are three different narrations and their used in an ad hoc manner as if they weren’t sure whether to use them or not, so instead they cut it down and sprinkled it down at random points throughout the film. All this combines to create an environment where even a great performance is easily lost to sloppy filmmaking. By mid-way through the film you realize, that you might be more interested in reading the Wikipedia article about the Abscam then actually finishing this meandering film.

Lawrence’s manic energy is drowned out to make room for as much story as possible. Her character has no moments of connection; she is all energy all the time. There is no respite from her whimsy, she exits only to do bafflingly stupid things and is given no redemptive qualities. Lawrence does her best, and I can imagine a lot of her performance was left on the cutting room floor, but she can’t get over the fact that her character is nothing more than a means to an end, like the car that gets them from point A to point B. Renner fares little better as the nice but naïve mayor. His character is made to look like such an oaf you begin to wonder how he ever became a mayor of anything. These two are the main supporting cast so if they’re treated like furniture, imagine how the third tier cast is treated.

Cooper and Bale are good in their roles, but their resolved to acting out specific scenes that rarely tie into the previous one. This makes it seem as if their performances are uneven and at time all over the place. By the end of it, the two seem to blend in as almost one character that could be interchangeable were it not for the hair styles. Russell should’ve look to The Town to see how it is that a film makes a clean cop look like the bad guy.

Adams on the other hand is evidently trying and the camera pays her a lot of attention. Wait no sorry my mistake, it pays her breasts a lot of attention. Apparently the films wardrobe didn’t allow for a dress or shirt that didn’t show of her mammary glands. In a film like this, this kind of attire distracts from the performance, which I think was pretty good, but thanks to the camera’s constant focus on her tits or hair I can’t be sure. In fact this brings up a great way to Segway to the next point.

With films dull, textbook like narrative structure one might be prone to dose of or possibly even turn of the movie and save yourself at least one hour that this movie robs you of. In my case that wasn’t the case, I strove to finish it even as my brain screamed at me to just read the Wikipedia article to see what happens. Thankfully I stayed which allowed me to experience the good part of the film. No not the end, that was just as boring as the start. No, I talk of the technical side and visual style of the film. The camera work is fantastic. As the camera flows and weaves through each set piece, it’s almost like floating through the film on a cloud. You find yourself ignoring the blathering dialogue and enjoying the picturesque view of the film.

The art deco and cinematography both do a wonderful job, even if they falter once or twice. The glitz and glamour of the Abscam world is brought to vibrant light as the characters navigate their harrowing odyssey. The disco scene in particular is stunning to behold. The colours, the movement, the sound all match up perfectly. They almost make you forget that you’re watching a shit film. The only odd part about the deco style of the film is when they try to throw in some gritty realism. It instantly looks out of place and knocks you from the daze. The start of the disco scene is a prime example of this. It’s as if they are trying to be an ode to seventies style fog machine but winds up looking cheap.

All said and done, the film is really just a montage of events padded to a two plus hour’s length.  That or the film is really three hours long and was cut down without care for structure or pacing. The performances are good, but they are good enough to overlook the storytelling problems that painfully populate the screen. A film with tons of stuff happening, but lacking in tension. The Globes and the Academy might be giving Russell a pass, by I sure as hell won’t. But hey, at least it looks pretty.

Oh and it has a pretty decent soundtrack.

The man with the orange cat

Inside Llywen Davis Review

What strikes you first about this film is the stunning cinematography. From the opening shots, the music melds with the view, to create a warm aura that invites us to come join Llewyn on his journey. It’s second only to Prisoners, the film that stole Deakins away from the Coens. The palette is appropriately bleak for a film about the depressing and muted life of one Llewyn Davis. The film does an excellent job of showing the morose, seemingly endless sadness of the disappointment that follows the lead around on his quest to not just find success, but find his place in life. The bleakness that follows Llewyn is starkly contrasted by those who have found joy and purpose in their lives.

This muted sadness applies to all the struggling musicians in the film, from Jim and Jean to Al Cody and the rest. They struggle and have little to show for it and yet they stay true to their goals. Some, like Jim and Jill are hinted to be on the breaking point, while others like Johnny Five, just can’t seem to catch a break. The opposite is shown for their counterparts who have seemed to accept their lot in life, like the Gorfiens and Llywen’s sister. These characters lives are filled with colour and joy even if, according to Llywen, they have settled. Each actor plays their role with a quiet depth and soulfulness that is typical of a Coen film.

F. Murray Abraham brings heart to his cold efficiency as a number money driven talent manager. Abraham’s, Grossman brings to light the kind of creative sacrifice that Davis is unwilling to submit to. Along with the script, Abraham manages to deliver the final blow in such a way that it makes Llewyn look the fool, rather than Grossman being a villain.

Carrey Mulligan proves once more that she is the best young actress in the mainstream as the unfaithful Jean. She brings talent well beyond her years, outmatching many of her more experienced counterparts in the business. Timberlake once more brings his magnetic presence to the naïve Jim. Llewyn’s relationship with the Jim and Jean is a two sided coin, showing the difference between someone who is trying to succeed through talent alone and those who work hard and are willing to make small and great sacrifices in order to achieve their goals.

The entire supporting cast does a wonderful job as is par for a film of this pedigree, but at the end of the day it is Isaac who really shines. The Coens wrote a wonderful part about a man who has lost his way in the world. He knows he has talent, but knows not how to make the light shine down upon it. After having losing his musical sidekick he floats through Greenwich, never knowing what’s next or how to reach the treasure at the end of his journey.  It’s a wonderful role that finally brings Isaac to the leading man’s role which he has been hinting at quite a bit with his past performances. He brings depth and great timing to the role. His ticks are always on cue and his grimaces say more about him and his thoughts than words ever could.  It’s a shame he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.

Sadly, the film’s not all muted sunshine and roses.  The muted tones and bleak story, mixed with the Coens unusual sense of humour may leave you wondering, why? What am I watching? Where is this going? About halfway through, this is what I found myself asking of the film. As usual the contemplative nature of their films leaves you with more questions than it answers. These questions aren’t really meant to be answered though, they’re meant to be pondered so that the audience can come to its own conclusion. The ending is also appropriately bleak, so don’t expect to walk out with a skip in your step.

In closing, this is a really good film, but those who aren’t fans of Coens dramatic comedies may very well be left bewildered. Those who stick through the entirety of this poetic film will find it filled with wonderful performances, tiny little throw away jokes, “shahkmateh?” that add to the world and some great folk music and a deep and ultimately fulfilling tale of the crushing strive to be an artist.

Girls Season 3 Episodes 1&2

Girls is a very peculiar show, seasons 1&2 were full of promise and lofty goals but, and it’s a big but, they both fell far short of their mark. To basically sum it up here is the preface description of the first two seasons, taken from my conversation with a friend.

“It touches on some good ideas and almost develops them before sliding back into its shell of white girls “struggling to survive” tropes. One interchangeable white bitch gets a decent paying office job, the horror! Another gets a book deal at 24, fuck me that’s awful! And then they bitch during meaningless conversations that ignore moments of genuine cleverness and satirical smarts as if they’re cliché and some sort of annoyance. Season two made The Newsroom look smart.”

Having seen episodes one and two of the new season twice brings me hope that the show is finally going to start delivering on the promise, even if it hasn’t quite gotten there yet. The following review will be of both episodes at the same time.

Episode one starts of by reintroducing each character and establishing the effect of the previous season’s events. Hannah is back together with Adam, Marnie is mopping over her lost love, Shoshanna is still growing and figuring out her style and way of life as she prepares to graduate into the real world and Jessa, well turns out she ran off to rehab.

Hannah and Adam seem to be the most problematic part of the series and yet in this fresh start it is showing signs of growth. Instead of jumping into the tiresome rehash of Hannah trying to work through her issues and get writing, we see her make progress. She has the book deal in place and is working at it. She retains her annoying, and at this point dull personal quirks. Though the first two episodes show these quirks changing and evolving as the character grows, finally! This season retains one problem for Hannah as a character and that is Adam.

Let’s be clear, Adam is a useless hamper to the series. As a character, he was all used up by the end of season one. By the end of season two they were beyond straining to keep him as a character. Rude, obnoxious, no redeeming characteristics what so ever and yet they twisted the story, painfully so, to keep Adam and Hanna together. At the end of the day, he is no longer a character; he is more of a personality quirk for Hannah. He is dull and uninteresting, his antics are distraction that is a waste of air time and his fits of childishness are contrary to the realistic nature of the show. Adam has less growth than Sheldon Cooper at this point in the series. He bogs down not only the show but more importantly Hannah. For the first two episode he bounces back and forth between logic  and  boorish man-child. The logical aspect of Adam is as always, well done, but these moments are too few and far between. So long as he remains, Hannah can’t grow. She will remain a ghost of the character Dunham wants to portray. Ditch him and have Hannah get into the relationships the show hinted at in season two. Just to be clear, Adam is not quirky, he is fucking annoying.

Meanwhile Marnie remains in the same role as always. The privileged white girl who whines about her life as if it’s in some sort of wreck. Enough is enough. I get that she is supposed to be dealing with heart ache, blah, blah, blah!  It’s not that her arc is terrible, not at all, it has some great moments and opportunities for growth, but the show doesn’t take hold of these instances. She always comes off as whiney and pretentious.  Adding more of her mother to the show is a great choice. She bridges the gap between Girls and Sex and the City in a wonderful way, but it also goes to show everything that’s wrong with not only Marnie but all the characters on the show. Amy, Marnie’s mom, is a strong, self-assured woman who can almost be a surrogate for the audience. She tells Marnie in not so many words, to grow up and stop hanging your dreams up on a boy. Marnie brushes it off as if she is a teenage girl. This is a shame because they’ve had her doing this for two seasons already. What’s really bewildering is that Amy is a fun character who can be both tender and serious and this is obviously where Marnie is headed. Too bad they’ve had Marnie, like much of the rest of the cast, stuck in the same spot for two (hopefully not three) seasons in a row. In the first two episode Marnie jumps back and forth between, grown up women in charge of her own world and insane mess. The dinner scene is a perfect example of how Marnie’s ‘depression’ comes off more like a mental.

On a side note, whenever Marnie and Adam share a scene, the character problems seem to fade away.  When these two collide the show always manages to make it interesting. The dinner scene is a perfect example of this. The two mindset and philosophies seem to merge naturally and make the scene worth watching. Too bad as soon as the two go back to their own little boxes the problems arise once more.

Then we get to Jessa, the free spirit, who’s wise beyond her years. At the start of the season they reveal she is now in rehab and this seems great at first. Finally, a character facing the real world and the consequences of her actions! In fact Jessa and Shoshanna are the only characters who have done this. Her marriage falling apart, her free spirit ways, her affair to a married man, they all come with consequences that Jessa can’t handle even if she appears to be the most advanced of her friends. This season it seems that they have finally decided that Jessa should finally have to own up to her follies instead of running away. Sadly though, this falters. Not too badly, but badly enough that you start thinking about how it could have been handle better. The problem is that the rehab story is very clichéd. It looks as if the show has taken all the wrong parts of Californication and applied them to Jessa. In the first two episodes she is portrayed as a young, female version of Hank Moody with all its snark and laisez faire attitude. Yes I know that Jessa already wore that hat, but the rehab and how it is handled is just too much, it pushes Jessa from being a real person and into the realm of self-parody. That is a terrible shame though, as this could have been so much better if these scenes had sincerity too them. Instead, the clichéd atmosphere of the scenes ruins any touching moment that seemed to be boiling beneath it all just waiting for an escape. It becomes painfully evident when characters make jokes that would be great, but they flounder since these scenes have no weight to them. They aren’t heartbreakingly sad, but they aren’t cheesy god awful (like what seemed to happen by the end of Californication), they are just there.

The last character, probably the best, is Shoshanna. The air headed kid of the group, the one that all the other girls look on with a kind of envy and protectiveness. She is the only character so far who has sustained any growth throughout the series and she continues it here. In season one, she is an introverted princess, so frightened by the outside world that she keeps herself bottled up, while lying to herself about her openness. In season two, she finally steps out into the world, she finds it terrifying but she has the courage to grow and face the world head on. Now in season three she has become bolder, more self-assured, even if her bubbly ignorance still follows her sticks to her like glue. She is by far the only truly likeable character in the series, this may be because she is the only character with a backbone. Where everyone else runs back to the comfort of what they know best when trouble strikes, Shoshanna faces it head on, even if the outcome is not in her favour.  She is her own woman, much more grown up than any three of her friends, without the burden of wallowing in self-pity. She does not seem to be afraid of the future, but relishes the opportunity.

There is one great scene in the second episode where she and Hannah discuss Jessa. This season sums up both characters perfectly and does it with more skill than was displayed with character development over the last two seasons. Hannah moans and complains about how hard life is (the one with a book deal, and a steady job that can pay for a decent apartment in New York, yeah you’re really down on your luck), this moaning and groaning sums up Hannah’s pessimism perfectly. Meanwhile Shoshanna is upbeat and ready for the challenge of the real world. Where Hannah looks to the past, Shoshanna is all about growth and stepping into the future. I would venture to guess that this is also why Shoshanna is the only likeable character. In a show about whiner and mopes, Shoshanna glows with hope and optimism, committed to overcoming her obstacles rather than complain about them with a bucket of ice cream.

Phewph! That took longer than expected, or probably needed. Don’t worry though, soon as I can afford an editor I’ll fix it up.

Character gripes aside, the first two episodes of the season were pleasant. The dialog has improved greatly from last season. While the show has always been well written, it’s been a tad too spot on for me. It has always sounded like a regular mundane conversation that you could have with your friends. I know that this is supposed to be the appeal of the show but, the lack of pizzaz in the dialogue always leaves me unfulfilled as a viewer. We watch shows like this to escape, not get sucked back into the monotony of the everyday. Thankfully the first two episodes show a pulse when it comes to the dialogue. It’s clever and witty without losing the weight of the subject, for the most part. Amy Schumer’s brief appearance is a perfect example of this. The vitriolic lashing that she gives Adam is great fun to watch while also being something that you might one day encounter for real.  Dunham seems to have finally taken Apatow’s tips on how to merge real world drama with fantasy land wittiness to heart.

Unlike the last two seasons which have now become mostly a mishmash of events in no particular order (except the scene’s which brought forth nothing but my animosity towards the show, how they handled Donald Glover’s character arc being a prime example), this show already has two really good  scenes, both of which are from the second episode. The opening starts of pretty standard, but is tells you everything you need to know just as Adam slams the radio several times to break it. It foreshadows that the episode is all about expectations vs. reality.  Hannah expects something cool and hip but instead ends up with a doldrums affair. Here Lena Dunham shows that she is getting a hang of melding a realistic take on a show about the daily life of twenty-somethings and the realities of this being a TV show. It shows boredom without actually making the viewer bored. The second scene is the one detailed above about Shoshanna and Hannah sitting in the motel hallway. Its glimmers like this make the show worth watching.

The only real problem I had with these first two episodes, is the stench of the last two seasons lingering around. Marnie’s whiny nature lags in the first episode but Girls handles it better in the second episode by having the culture clash of generations played up. Sex and the City versus Girls is handled well without it being a stabbed at the former. One thought though, what the fuck is gimchi and safora?

Finally as previously mentioned, the idea of Jessa having to face the consequences of her actions is a great idea, but it is not handled well. The scenes have no weight and the good jokes drown in the mediocrity. The idea of her older British companion being a mirror into the future for Jessa is great but at the last minute it is all dashed by an instant one eighty in characteristics. I expect that this is more of a stumble than a fall for the season. Jessa will probably take all season to truly grow up. Hope she doesn't just up and disappear again, it grows tiresome.

Overall, the show still has a long way to go before it can live up to its potential. The acting is and always has been good to great, but the stories have always dragged down the performances. Season three seems to be on track to rectify this though.  The characters are all positioned in such a way that growth seems to be in their future, even if the handling of this growth will be rocky at times.  A promising start to the season, sadly so were the last two premiers. Let’s hope this time they deliver.