Hannah and Fran disagree…again. Elijah and newscaster Dill take a step forward in their blossoming relationship. Jessa remains conflicted about her feelings for Adam. And Desi once again has a mild meltdown that requires coddling.
1. Even when your significant other seems perfect for you, you’ll still fight.
Is it just me or are things a wee bit tense between Hannah and Fran? Last episode, it was over the pictures on his phone, now their teaching methods. Fighting is, of course, a totally natural part of any relationship, but when you’re fighting too much, especially when you’ve started living together, it can be a bad omen, a warning of things to come.
2. When someone pushes you away, it’s pretty obvious they’re hiding something.
Always be suspicious when a good friend is pushing you away. In this case, Jessa avoids everyone. First, Adam. And then Hannah. Both because she’s still confused about her feelings for Adam and a little fearful of how Hannah will react once she knows the two of them have feelings for each other. When both of them confront her, separately, she changes the subject and gets defensive.
It is justified, though. It’s scary. It’s easier to be mean to the people you love and push them away, then it is to hurt them with the honest truth. She so clearly doesn’t want to be that person who knowingly hurts a good friend, but the reward—being with someone you truly care about when maybe you’ve never really done that before—really seems worth it.
3. Teaching styles are like assholes—everyone’s got one.
Whether you’re an actual classroom teacher or just the unfortunate someone tasked with training one of the new hires at work, everyone has their own way of teaching. But for those in the teaching profession, one’s teaching style is incredibly personal and important. Ironically, for people who are supposed to be very nurturing and caring, teachers are kind of judgmental when it comes to how others command the classroom, convinced that the pedagogy they follow is the best. Fran likes to focus on rigor and proper grammar, while Hannah prefers them to express their creative sides. Frankly, I’m on Team Hannah here. It’s insulting that Fran thinks he knows better.
4. Never surprise your significant other with any sort of home-related surprise.
This never ends well. Don’t even buy new curtains without consulting the other person. When Marnie returns home from visiting her mother, Desi surprises her with a small but extremely inconvenient apartment renovation—building a wall to create a one-bedroom apartment from their tiny studio. Marnie overreacts, storms out, and returns later to apologize, thinking that she’s setting too high of expectations and then holding it against Desi when he doesn’t meet them. While it’s great that Marnie is learning to be less stubborn, it’s also a bit strange that she’s constantly put in a position of compromising what makes her happy in an effort to keep Desi from feeling bad.
5. You never know when new hair is going to sprout from your body.
Preach, Elijah! Preach! And we all thought this horror ended after puberty.
6. Love, is truly, really fucking confusing.
While it’s beginning to feel like they’ve begun beating a dead horse with the whole will they won’t they story arc of Adam and Jessa, it does speak to the inherently confusing nature of love. You never know where you stand or why. And it also reflects Jessa’s attempt to mature. Sure, not telling your best friend that you have feelings for her ex-boyfriend and then taking those feelings out on her because you have no other way of appropriately dealing with them is not mature, but trying to figure out what exactly those feelings are before breaking your friend’s heart kind of is.
7. Sex can be really, really awkward.
Elijah and Both experiences are a wonderful mix of funny, awkward, and bad. But that’s what a lot first time sex with someone new is like, right? Figuring out what works, fumbling, trying to gauge if they’ll think what you’re doing is weird or not.
After a lot of build up, Adam and Jessa finally sleep together. And it’s so weird to see them both attempt to make love rather than deranged, animalistic sex like the both normally engage in.
What’s been so great about this season so far, is that we really see the girls growing it. They’re not just evolving. And what’s even stranger is that there are so many fewer scenes now with them together. We see them alone or with boyfriends or with co-workers, but there’s less girl-time thus far on Girls. But that’s reflective of life at that age. It’s an age of growing up and moving on.
