The HBO series “Girls,” created by Lena Dunham, has been following the lives of Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna for the past five years, and came to a surprising yet slightly dull close this Sunday.
STARS: 2/5
The beginning of the controversial and intriguing series followed a group of friends trying to figure out their careers, relationships and lives in New York City. A lot has happened in the past five seasons, and the final season has a twist that fans were surely not expecting.
For context, the girls are still not settled into life at all throughout the entirety of the show, even though they are in their late twenties and have been through their fair share of ups and downs over the years.
In this final season, wild and seemingly carefree Jessa has gotten involved with Hannah’s ex boyfriend Adam. Marnie is still picking up the pieces from her failed marriage and music career and was recently evicted from her apartment. Shoshanna still struggles to accomplish her “dream” life and Hannah finds success with her writing, but eventually finds out she is pregnant and wants to raise the baby. This reveal was a huge shocker and ultimately set the tone for the rest of the final episodes.
The final episode, “Latching,” is set five months in the future. Hannah’s baby has been born, a boy named Grover. Marnie and Hannah are living together in upstate New York, where Hannah has started a new job as a writing teacher. Marnie has agreed to devote her life to Hannah and the baby, putting her own life completely on hold, but not for completely selfless reasons as it may appear.
Tensions are clearly rising because of Marnie’s unhappiness with her lack of a life, and Hannah is struggling to come to terms with the difficulty of motherhood. Hannah is, as per usual, still immature and self-centered, which is often annoying, but even more frustrating because she is now a mother and continues to act childishly this far into her life and the series.
It was clear that Hannah was unaware of all that was in store for her when she decided to keep the baby and start her life anew in upstate New York, but her breakdowns still come across as unwarranted, leaving audiences wondering if she put much thought into motherhood in the first place. She takes out all of her frustrations on Marnie and things reach a peak when Hannah’s mother flies in to set her straight.
Hannah eventually gains some perspective on taking on the challenge of single motherhood and seems to be at peace by the end of the episode after talking with her mother and bonding with her child. Marnie, on the other hand, ends on a stagnant note, unsure of where her life will turn next.
This series finale episode was honestly quite weird and not fitting for the overall feel of the show. Dedicated viewers, like myself, surely share the feeling of unrest with the abundance of unfinished plot lines, abrupt change of scenery, and disappointing and disjointed finishes to what was once an interesting conglomerate of life stories of characters not commonly seen on TV.
Hannah’s pregnancy was obviously a huge change of pace for the show and it almost seemed trite and even ridiculous. The group of friends that we grew to love and hate now just seems hastily wrapped up with no real direction or proper conclusion to their dynamic growth or lack thereof throughout the show.
Never in a million years would anyone have guessed that Hannah would end up moving away to raise her child, a story which was not fulfilling to watch, like one would expect from a conclusion of six good seasons.
Besides the confusion with how Hannah’s life turned out, it is also unsettling to watch Marnie just sit there with no real moves made in her own life, but ironically, this is a more fitting end than Hannah’s. It is weird for Hannah to be more put-together than the seemingly flawless Marnie, which was probably done on purpose.
In the second to last episode, it was revealed that Shoshanna is engaged and on her way to success, even if it is fake, and Jessa and Hannah bury the hatchet over their shared love for Adam, which was very necessary.
The girls are ultimately shown dancing and enjoying each other’s company, which is nice to see since they have all been on the rocks with one another. This episode was where the series should have left off, not with the unusual epilogue we were given.