A Wishlist for Season Three of 'Girls'
Goodnight, bittersweet season two of HBO's Girls. You gave us a lot to think about. And as we continue to ponder the occasionally/possibly dire legacy you left us, hope springs new again, because season three is pretty much a big, wide, empty slate, at least, in terms of what we know about it. What do we know about it?
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Well, it's been renewed, so there will be a season three, with production to begin shortly. Andrew Rannells will be back, so we'll get more Elijah. There will be new writers, and the loss of some of the old ones. But content-wise, what the show will bring is relatively unknown, at least to those of us on the other side of this computer. What plots do we want to see continued; what twists do we want to see made? What might be highly unlikely, but really fun anyway? What will we never forget that we really, really need a resolution to? What characters do we refuse to lose? Here, we discuss. Dunham & Co., please consider the following our humble request:
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Where in the World Is Jessa? Maybe no one else cares, but I really do want to know: Where Did Jessa Go? Was it simply somewhere to have her (i.e., Jemima Kirke's) baby? If so, not enough! I want more. I want Jessa to come back reunited with Thomas-John for some completely unreasonable reason, or, better, having spent time on an ashram, to be even more embittered and cynical than ever (a la Enlightened, but not). Maybe she went home to her mother, maybe she's backpacking through Europe, or maybe she's hiding in plain sight in Greenpoint. Perhaps she's working in a hospital, or she's become a wildlife smuggler, or she's doing shifts at Forever 21. All could be possible (well, not all, but some!). I want to know.
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Hannah's Roommate Search. Let's see a real-life twentysomething situation happen here. She's spent her advance; she needs a good, solid renter. So she puts an ad on Craigslist, interviews any number of horribly inappropriate possibilities, and in the end decides to let Laird move in with her so they can save money and buy bulk cases of Pom. Or maybe she picks the Craigslist roomie ... that person should have a cat. Girls needs more pets.
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The Hannah Success Story. There was so much debasing of Hannah in season two, seeing her vulnerable and weak and really at her worst, emotionally and sometimes physically (i.e., splinter in the butt, ouch). Wouldn't it be nice, even, say, innovative, to see her do something great that she's proud of? To have her really be able to finish the book she wants to write, about friendship, and while that's not the e-book her editor wants, to see her find a publisher who does see the beauty in her honest, heartfelt, twentysomething book about girls? I'd like to see her get a job, and get the OCD under control, if only so that we don't have to go through another eardrum rupture, and I would like this not to be because suddenly she's with Adam again (if she truly is) but instead because of her. Because she may not have figured out everything, but she figured out a little something, and because things really do get better. But maybe that's the lesson for season eight. In the interim, at the very least, then, more scenes with therapist Bob Balaban?
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Ray. Please, keep Ray, whether he and Shosh find their way back together or not. I would not, in fact, be opposed to a spin-off in which he runs the Brooklyn Heights Grumpy's while living in his car, and then, maybe, becomes Hannah's roommate, giving her fashion tips all the while. Because that might actually sort of work. Alternatively, the Adam-Ray-dog-buddy spin-off has more than four legs. And whatever happened to poor old Mikey, man's possible best friend?
Shosh. Remember when Ross adopted that monkey on Friends? Like I said, there aren't enough pets on this show.
A Return of Fun.
As an example of what I'm talking about here, remember the high note (no pun intended) of the Bushwick party where Shosh accidentally smokes crack and runs down the street without any pants, Ray chasing after her because she's been put in his charge, from season one? I would like a bit more of that loopy, wacky, totally what we did in our twenties (sort of/not exactly) stuff, or at the very least, a little bit of fun-aspiration that older, more stodgy types can look back and sort of wistfully hope for at the same time that they're so glad they're all settled down. The twenties were not so bad as Girls makes them seem, really. The dark and despairing is all very interesting, and, yes, parts of it do resemble the diary I kept in my early 20s, and it all makes my gut churn a bit when I watch it and have to really think about all of it. I would love some of that freedom and joie de vivre of season one back, when I could laugh without worrying about why. I would love a bit of lightness in the watching, instead of so much pain. Even a bunch of narcissists need to have a good time now and again. Why shouldn't that be while we're watching HBO's Girls?
Marnie's Big Dreams. Is she really going to stop singing—her dream, this was her dream!—and just be Charlie's girlfriend? Shouldn't a girl have something else to fall back on? What if Elijah and Marnie form a band? (Shosh on kazoo, Elijah on the keyboards, Hannah doing occasional spoken-word poetry, Adam breaking stuff in the background.)
A Return of Friendship. As we left season two, a bunch of guys showed up and seemingly made things "right" again for their ladies. When, pray tell, does that ever happen in real life? Should we really believe the rom-com fantasy ending? I think not. I foresee the start of season three in which the girls are all (all four of them, even!) back together again, and they're maybe not Sex and the City-ing it up sharing French fries at the diner, but at the very least they're talking again. Because at the heart of this show, and the points where it really sings in terms of resonating human emotion, are where these girls are allowing their relationships with each other to sing, too. Hannah's one-sentence book is, as we left it, about female friendship. So let's get a little more of that in season three, whether she finishes the book or not. Maybe they're not all BFFS in the tub together (because that's not even very hygienic) but Hannah should not be hiding from Marnie.
No More Rompers/Shorteralls. I would like the season to be Winter. Winter's a good time!
