Episode Title: 'All Adventurous Women Do'
Writer: Lena Dunham
Director: Lena Dunham
The show may be called "Girls," but this third episode had a lot to do with men. What it means to be a man, what kind of men women want and what kind they don't.
The episode opened with Charlie (Christopher Abbott) continuing to kill Marnie (Allison Williams) with his kindness. At first, she's horrified by his newly shaved head, comparing her boyfriend of four years to an earless Mickey Mouse. It doesn't help when she learns he did it to support a co-worker going through chemo. Charlie truly is a good guy. Unfortunately for him, it's a total turn-off to Marnie.
Hannah (Lena Dunham) decides to surprise Adam (Adam Driver) by dressing up like a goth hooker. The next morning, Hannah gets a call from her gynecologist, informing her she's got HPV. Any comfort from Adam quickly turns to anger when Hannah suggests she got the STD from him. As jerks go, Adam continues to outdo himself with each episode.
After aborting her abortion, Jessa's (Jemima Kirke) found employment as a babysitter. Thankfully, Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) has the good sense to tell her cousin that a sheer dress is a bit "threatening" for a nanny gig. After spending the day reading the first draft of little Beatrix's novel, eating string cheese and decorating art toys, Jessa gets high with the kids' Dad. An oafy unemployed hipster, he's not exactly in her league but the fact that she's babysitting his kids means they'll probably have sex, or at least come dangerously close to it.
With Adam claiming to be clean, Hannah begins to suspect her college ex, Elijah is the one who gave her HPV. At Shoshanna's urging, Hannah reaches out to her once clingy former boyfriend. The two meet in a dark cozy bar, where Hannah hopes to clear the air with Elijah and possibly have meaningless sex with him. However, her plans on thwarted with a double whammy. Men can't get tested for HPV and he's gay. It gets worse when he attributes his attraction to Hannah to her "handsome" good looks and suggests that her father's a homosexual.
While at an art opening, Marnie meets Jonathan (Jorma Taccone), an artist whose work she admires. After a rather forward introduction from her boss ("you should f*** her"), the two head off to the Highline where Marnie makes it known that she won't kiss him. But Jonathan's not the "nice guy" she's used to. Before walking off, he let's her know he might scare her the first time they have sex because "he's a man and he's knows how to do things."
Well, he certainly knows how to read people because it's exactly the kind of thing Marnie wants to hear. After heading back to the gallery, she finds a little seclusion to satisfy herself, after Jonathan left her wanting.
Hannah heads home from her disastrous reunion with Elijah and decides to share a bit of wisdom from Jessa about STD's on Twitter. According the free-spirited world traveler, "all adventurous women" have them. Marnie comes in to find Hannah dancing in her bedroom and the two have a laugh about Elijah's sexuality before dancing the night away.
Three episodes in and "Girls" has yet to falter. "All Adventurous Women Do" was another extremely funny half-hour that managed to touch on another hot-button issue with humor and honesty. Like last week's "Vagina Panic," there were plenty of outrageous lines, social parody and some party-pooping common sense, most of it coming from Shoshanna.
A few additional observations of "All Adventurous Women:"
- Jessa has somehow managed to make genital warts glamorous
- "My best dyke friend works for a d*ck doctor" – Adam
- No Beatrix, homelessness is not like camping
- Shoshanna is a virgin with IBS. Surely, Jessa can find a way to make that sexy.
We learned a bit more about the girls and their boys, both past and present in this episode, while weathering another fairly serious health scare. Some critics have taken issue with the show's subject matter and what they perceive as the girls' laissez-faire attitude towards sex and its sometimes unpleasant consequences.
But like anything, it comes down to a matter of personal taste. For me, the appeal of "Girls" is in its sense of humor, not in its characters ethics or morals. I'm not here to judge these women, but to laugh at them or with them, as the case may be. To that end, this episode was extremely satisfying.
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