This week, Hannah starts a new job and Shosh finds a new boy...1. We love that Ray is surprisingly fluent in media-speak
Ray totally calls it that Hannah's hired by GQ to write advertorials rather than articles -- who knew he was so conversant in media nitty gritty? Maybe if the hospitality industry doesn't pan out for him, he could join PAPER Publishing.
2. Hannah's style is looking more and more like a late-fiftysomething aging hippie mom living in Northampton
The past few episodes have seen Hannah ditch her ill-fitting rompers and mesh tank tops in favor of more conservative, high-waisted chinos and sleeveless tops straight out of a Land's End catalog.
3. Thank god GQ's office looks like every other shitty media office we've been in
Disclaimer: we've never been inside GQ's offices before so we have no idea how accurate their depiction was but it felt like a relief that even a fictional representation showed the office as drab and boring as most other corporate media offices are. But that snack pile looked pretty great -- was that Mast brothers chocolate Hannah dumped onto the conference table??
4. Marnie behaves like a bitch to Ray because she thinks she's too good for him...at first
Our theory about why Marnie was being so awful towards Ray is twofold -- she's embarrassed that they hooked up, obviously, and she's also not quite able to drop her guard and let someone into her life that doesn't fit her conception of what he should be like or look like. (Or maybe we're being cynical and she's actually trying to observe the 'friend code' and not get involved with her friend's ex...nah.) Ray's not as hunky as Charlie or Booth Jonathan and probably doesn't fit into Marnie's notion of what her boyfriend -- or casual lay or whatever -- should look like so all she wants to do is shut. it. down. Until, of course, Ray persists and all her pent up irritation just bursts open into lust. The whole situation still seems very weird and mismatched and despite all this talk about lust, we don't really see the chemistry there. We're curious to see where this goes and hope Shosh gets dragged into the fray at some point. As we said last week, it's been too long since the girls had conflict among one another.
5. We have a crush on Hannah's new colleague Joe
"Advertorial guy Joe" (played by Michael Zegen) is awesome and weird and a little socially unaware (remind you of anyone?). At first we totally thought he had a thing for Hannah but later on it became clear he has a longstanding crush on their colleague, Karen. Zegen told us back in December that it's totally inaccurate to peg Joe as "the new Charlie" and Hannah and Adam still seem pretty solid so...will he not get to bone any of the four Girls girls? Karen seems way cool, though, and we could get behind a little GQ office romance.
6. Jessa may have found her true calling
Her bullying, nihilist salesgirl schtick is surprisingly effective when it comes to slinging over-priced kid's clothes.
7. Jenna Lyons was perfect as the scary, impassive boss
Though she's not an actress, we think Jenna Lyons nailed the right tone as the dispassionate boss whom you can never totally read. That whole scene in the conference room was perfect, actually. We can 100% picture reading a Neiman Marcus-sponsored advertorial in GQ about the "Millennial Man's Man," "Mr. Midnight," or the "Gowanus Yachtsman." And we know a million guys who could pass for a "Kaballer" -- but they all live in L.A.
8. It was really depressing when it finally dawned on Hannah how easy it is to get used to corporate perks
The story of a naive, idealistic youth living in the big city to pursue her creative passions, only to trade them all in for the financial temptations of the corporate grind is real cliché but we still had a little pang for Hannah when she realized that she's not all that special -- that all of her colleagues started in the same exact place as she did and are now writing about "Gowanus Yachtsman." Just like Balzac's Lost Illusions -- the original version of Hannah's very predicament -- in which the central character becomes seduced by free dinners, theater tickets and parties, Hannah catches herself being bought for a pathetically small price: free snacks.
9. Shosh needs a break from her mind -- so she picks a guy that doesn't have one
As much as we've been shitting on Shosh lately and as much as she often behaves like a blathering tween, we think she's actually very thoughtful beneath all that upspeak and sock buns. Her hyper-analytical mind was well-matched with Ray's equally cerebral brain but now that she's starting to freak out over college graduation and her future, her anxieties are in overdrive and she needs to be with a calming presence. A chill presence. A dumb presence. Enter Parker.
10. Fingers crossed we get to find out what happened to Caroline
I hope this isn't the last we'll see of Caroline. Adam's reaction last week to the news that Hannah had kicked his sister out was too alarming to just let the character flit away. Completely unsolicited plot suggestion: let's see her pop up selling tarot cards and amulets at Bushwick's occult bookstore, Catland, after Jessa quits her job at the bougie kid's store and decides to apply for a job there, instead. There's something about Caroline and Jessa's energies that would be really interesting/really combustible together...
Best lines of the episode:
"You just said 'snack room' and everything blurred.'" -- Hannah
"Fedoras are worse than genocide." -- Joe
"I've seen Ken Burns' jazz documentary seventeen times. Does that count?" -- Ray
"I could sell these on Etsy for 20 bucks each. People are fuckin' stupid." -- Adam