Seriously? He's her dad and probably has influence with *her*. Maybe I misread but I didn't think it went so far as anyone claiming he had any "real" say.

Yea, I really think this show does a top notch job of blending genuine human interactions with absurdity and satire. Louie is one of the only shows that comes to mind as a rival.

+1

Others have already responded better then I probably can but hipsters love hating on hipsters. Like most broad generalizations most hipster criticism isn't all that accurate and mostly attacks the extremes. ie, Completely dismissing something because it's popular is idiotic but what's wrong with being happy about finding something on your own before you can't swing a stick without hitting someone else that loves it, too? One way to interpret some hiptster saying, "I liked that back before they got popular" is that they are bragging or claiming you only like something because it is popular. Or they could just be relating a fact they find interesting. Every "hipster" is different and like most/all groups of people, most of them probably suck a bit!

I can pretty much +1 every post of yours in ootv, I think.

The show is great and I love it but it's nothing "new". Every decade has this show in one form or another (tv, movie, book) and the same discussions keep happening again. Hell, even Kareem saw that.

so Ray is 33? i thought they were trying to play him off as a lot younger. good.

This was easily the best episode of either season so far

Great episode. Best of the season so far for me. Some scenes were amazing, off the top of my head i really loved the "i love you" scene in the subway. Many shows fail that kind of scenes and either make it too cheesy or too dramatic, this one was perfect.

I'm starting to wonder if the girls i know are weird and it's not normal that they don't walk around naked in front of each other 99% of the time, taking baths & showers together every night. What is this lol.

yeah it was the best, altho the adam beating off scene from s1 is still goat

LOL, I get the feeling that some people in this thread are just to cerebral at all times to just sit back, turn the brain off and just enjoy a silly show. Its like some of you just took a break from writing a college paper to make a post itt.


Too much intellectuallizing kills the fuuuuuuuuuunnnnn.

Can't say if its best of either season for sure but must be close
That episode flew by and every scene was top notch

you should check entourage, you are gonna love it

-__-

Surprised to see people prefer last night's episode to last week. I enjoyed it but it was pretty grim, whereas last week's had quite a few laugh out loud moments.

That's really all I got. Will leave the deep thinking to the rest of youse.

i liked last weeks episode more than this weeks, but this week was prett solid .

There are important books, and important films. The importance can certainty be disputed, but the idea is that these things are canonical - anyone serious about these media should have experienced them. Any lover of great literature should have read Hamlet and Moby Dick. Anyone serious about film should see Citizen Kane. Etc. Lately we're starting to see important television shows, and by the amount of critics' ink, as well as cultural commentator ink, spilled about the show in the first season, one would think that this is (or will be in the future) an important show. But no - what's important about it is everything unrelated to the show itself. The articles are about Lena Dunham, white privilege, Lena Dunham again, maybe about how the show is somewhat experimental. It's an entertaining show, and sometimes thought-provoking, but it's not the cultural juggernaut suggested by the flood of thinkpieces about it. Thing is, it's about a young writer, which writers of thinkpieces (besides Kareem Abdul Jabbar) either are or were - why shouldn't they be fascinated by such a thing? And yeah, the show at least namechecks all sorts of zeitgeist-y notions, but with so many characters to service, it rarely manages to give them enough time to breathe.

I suppose I'm being hoist by my own petard with this long piece explaining why Girls isn't worth writing about. I liked the joke about Booth Jonathan being of average height.

I was about ready to give up on it after last weeks episode. Last night the show redeemed itself. I was getting so tired of it being just about Hannah and not really about Shosh or jessa

Another really good episode.

I've come full circle to really liking the show again.

Triumph, as I say, that sounds like an onerous standard to set. Especially a show at the beginning of its run. I'm sure no one had Moby Dick in the cannon 1/5th of their first read through.

It sounds like for you and others the amount being written about the show has created a weight of expectation, or maybe a desire to really 'get it' so you can join the conversation. But what's wrong with just watching a good show, and not letting the question of whether it's 'important' bother you?

Re the last episode, I'm on board with everyone else, amazing stuff. Another really touching final scene, and one that shows how silly it is to read Girls as a scornful and contemptuous satire.

That's how I roll anyway. Pretty bizarre and kind of hilarious to see people all over the internet killing themselves trying to measure the importance of and apply all sorts of labels to the show.

The TV Canon is much smaller and newer - I was providing examples of canonical works in other fields. Since affordable DVDs of TV shows have only really come out in the last 10 years, it's only at this point that anything on TV can reasonably considered accessible to those who weren't watching it as it happened.

Nothing at all, really. I'd question whether it's a good show sometimes, but I agree this was one of the strongest episodes.

good episode, although definitely not as good as last week's - also, hannah was hysterical throughout

The amount that has been written hasn't created a weight of expectation for me, but I think it has for others, which is what I find puzzling. After watching the show I don't think Girls is satire or has an explicit thesis about our generation, I think most of what works in Girls is on the surface level and doesn't require the kind of extreme analysis it has been receiving, especially because most of the strongest criticisms of Girls are reactions to extra-textual pieces about the show, which themselves tend to be navel-gazing about their own youth/current day Brooklyn/etc.

I really disagree quite strongly. It's hard for me to crystalise my thoughts, but I feel like there's a richness to the storytelling in Girls you're dismissing for pretty silly reasons.

I agree in general that shows that are all surface are boring. 'Chewing gum for the eyes' is what I was always told about tv, so I know where you're coming from. But Girls is just so obviously not chewing gum! It's entertaining, but also has multifaceted characters, beautiful observations, a satirical edge, and real heart to go with it.

I think the desire for explicit subtext is a really backwards approach. Its fun deconstructing shows like Mad Men or The Sopranos, searching for the symbolism etc, but there are other ways to tell a story. Girls mightn't have the thematic tie-ins Louis does with the stand up bits, but I get no less of a sense that there is a true and individual vision that underpins it all. I think it is concerned with manifestations of entitlement and privilege (this may well be the Rorschach element you mentioned before, but I find it hard not to view the show through the prism of it's opening scene), there's clearly a lot in the show about gender, and it's presentation of sex and nudity seems to have a political edge. To a large extent I'm guessing though.

Basically, I get the feeling that you may be frustrated by an inability to pin Girls down. But if you enjoy the show there's plenty of time to let that happen over the course of the series. Trying to squeeze it through a 'deep meaning' filter this early on seems fraught with danger.

I think this is right. I still like the show a lot and I look forward to watching it every week, eventhough I think the authorial voice is mainly superficial. You are convincing me that I am looking for a thesis that is too focused and not giving the writing enough credit.

I imagine the show is more enjoyable if you don't read a bunch of recaps the next day, or read articles about it being important. You know, just watch it. Try that.

I think that's true of all shows. Reading stupid amounts of criticism about The Wire when it was on is what made me realise that, actually, it's more fun to think and talk about a good show than have one person spoon feed you their interpretation.

It's a whole industry now though, and it's self-fulfilling because if you don't read Sepinwall and the AV Club or whatever then the guy who does gets to make you look stupid.

Also, I'm a total hypocrite, because the criticisms Pudge is making about Girls are identical to my reasons for thinking Breaking Bad is hugely overrated.

I watched the first two episodes two days ago and then the rest of them yesterday, while reading through this thread. The jump from season 1 to season 2 was very apparent in this thread, seemed like a lot of hate coming out of nowhere (mostly about Dunham nudity).

I'm liking the show. It's funny at times and touching at times and slightly annoying at times and omg Marnie looks so good. I apparently don't watch or analyze it as deeply as some other people apparently are. I don't know if that's because I'm an idiot or they are idiots or both; either way I'm just enjoying a pretty fun show. Looking forward to next episode.