Girls returns for season two: do these people even like each other?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/jan/07/girls-review-season-two

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If season one of Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls was a celebration of young adulthood, then season two is the hangover.

In season two, when we see the girls (and boys, for that matter), we're looking at a group of frustrated people, beaten down by the struggles of their last year. Sure, the characters were aimless and emotional in season one – but their struggles (like Hannah's quest to craft the perfect essay or Marnie's indecision about Charlie) were characterized by the energy and excitement that surrounded them. In season one, Hannah and Marnie deal with their post-college angst by rocking out to Robyn's anthemic Dancing on My Own. In season two, a drunk, lonely Marnie wails away to Sarah McLachlan's Building a Mystery in front of a karaoke machine at the end of a party. If season one's theme was "all adventurous women do", season two's is "all adventurous women just need a fucking drink".

Overall, there's a bleak, harsh feeling about the world the girls now live in. Work is even harder to come by – Marnie resorts to getting herself a "pretty-person job" after she's rejected from another art gallery. There's a noticeable absence of Hannah eating cake. There are many fewer scenes of the girls just being girls. No loft parties, no hanging out in bed together chatting, no (or very little) fun. The social interactions that do exist – like Hannah and Elijah's housewarming party, or the coked-out adventure to a club night – serve to underscore pre-existing awkward dynamics (Marnie/Charlie, Hannah/Elijah) or move an already heavy plot line forward. Just like a hangover, the girls of season two appear stuck in a fog, unable to look forward and constantly looking back – to old relationships, to their former selves, trying to figure out what went wrong and where to go from here.

There's so much bickering and hurt feelings in the first four episodes of season two that I couldn't help but ask myself: do these people even like each other?

And maybe that's the point Dunham's trying to make – that as we get older, we have to go it alone. We have to become self-sufficient, and this quest for independence means our relationship with our peers becomes less integral to who we are. After all, the show is called Girls – not Girlfriends.

Tim Goodman at the Hollywood Reporter has an interesting take on the darker world the Girls live in: "It certainly makes sense that the characters would suffer more than they did in season one because even aging just a little bit opens the door to all kinds of bad decisions you weren't prepared for," he writes. "It's how we learn. It's the life lessons that we need when we're not emotionally prepared to believe growth through life experience is important."

Goodman may well be right – but as a twentysomething woman myself, I have to wonder if the lives of the other twentysomethings I'm watching would be far less difficult if they were kinder to each other, if they supported each other as they did in season one. I know Dunham wants to portray an honest experience in her show, inspired by her own life and if that's the case then I feel for her. It must have been hard to grow up without loving, generous girlfriends.

The final moment of the last episode I saw (episode four) provided me with some relief, when a teary Jessa gets in the tub with Hannah, who cheers her up. Finally, some kindness! Finally, some love! Finally, a scene about friendship, which is – in my view – a large part of what made the show unique in the first place. I haven't seen the whole season, but I just hope the rest of it will have more moments that. The struggle for self-sufficiency in a big city isn't supposed to be easy, but it's a lot more fun when you've got someone who'll make you laugh.