A-Season 6Hannah learns to give in Girls’ quietly effective series finaleJoshua Alston4/17/17 12:08amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkSeveral pop culture publications and trades printed stories this week about the fact that some combination of Zosia…
B+Season 6New York City’s worst best friends gather one last time in the penultimate GirlsJoshua Alston4/09/17 11:00pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkGirls saved its biggest twist for next-to-last. The news of Hannah’s pregnancy was surprising, as well as her decision…
A-Season 6Old habits die hard in a surprising GirlsJoshua Alston4/03/17 3:00amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalink“What Will We Do This Time About Adam?” is an awkward title for an episode that provides such an elegant solution for…
ASeason 6“The Bounce” makes breaking up with Girls much, much harder to doJoshua Alston3/27/17 12:05amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkOne of my fondest memories of the few years I spent in New York City was an interaction I saw on the subway during my…
C+Season 6Girls leans on its most irritating elements in one of its weakest episodes to dateJoshua Alston3/20/17 2:00amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalink“Full Disclosure” is one of the oddest, lumpiest half-hours Girls has ever turned out, an episode equally comprising…
B+Season 6Suddenly Hannah is the grown-up in the room on GirlsJoshua Alston3/13/17 2:00amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkOne of Lena Dunham’s strengths as a writer is her understanding of how weird and arbitrary people can be, and how…
BSeason 6Life—and death—comes at you fast in a momentous GirlsJoshua Alston3/06/17 5:00amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkSaying goodbye to Girls is difficult because it’s hard to imagine what the show’s finish line looks like. Hannah and…
A-Season 6With “American Bitch,” Girls perfects its take on the bottle episodeJoshua Alston2/24/17 10:30pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkFrom the moment Hannah walks into the well-appointed apartment of Chuck Palmer (Matthew Rhys), the fix is in. He’s one…
ASeason 6Hannah and Marnie have a much-needed breakthrough in a terrific GirlsJoshua Alston2/19/17 9:30pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkAs many recent essays and oral histories have argued, Girls has had an outsize influence on television that it doesn’t…
A-Season 6Hannah gets her groove back in the final Girls premiereJoshua Alston2/12/17 10:30pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalink“Maybe I don’t want to enjoy things all the time. Maybe that’s not my style.”
Season 5Girls ends its terrific fifth season with a double knockoutJoshua Alston4/18/16 3:00amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkFor a show that prides itself on upending the conventions of television storytelling, Girls always manages to stick the…
A-Season 5The Girls finally come together as their relationships fall apartJoshua Alston4/10/16 9:30pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkAt this late stage, it’s pointless to debate whether Girls should be classified as a comedy or a drama, but I have been…
B+Season 5Adam and Jessa go public in an awkward, restrained installment of GirlsJoshua Alston4/03/16 10:15pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalink“I’m sorry, I’ve been a little too busy Yelping divorce lawyers to worry about the sex lives of our second-tier…
ASeason 5Marnie gets a Girls episode all her own, and—surprise!—it’s greatJoshua Alston3/28/16 3:00amSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkGirls set itself apart from the rest of the premium cable dramedy pack early on with its willingness to try atypical…
BSeason 5Girls asks “Is it important to be nice?”Joshua Alston3/20/16 9:30pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkOne of the recurring themes of contemporary feminism is the notion that women are too nice, that societal pressure has…
B+Season 5Hannah and Jessa’s friendship hits the skids in a cathartic GirlsJoshua Alston3/13/16 9:30pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalink“I’ve wanted this for a really long time.” “Me too.”
B+Season 5Girls heads east in another strong episodeJoshua Alston3/06/16 9:45pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkIf you have the moxie and the wherewithal to do so, there’s no better way to spend your 20s than to try living in…
A-Season 5“Good Man” finds Girls threatening a full-blown comeback seasonJoshua Alston2/28/16 9:45pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalink“Good Man” is one of the most purely, consistently funny episodes of Girls in a long time, perhaps the whole run of the…
B+Season 5Our Girls are growing up in a charming, low-key fifth season premiereJoshua Alston2/21/16 10:15pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkEarly this year came rumblings about the impending end of Girls, with sources close to the production claiming Lena…
ASeason 4Girls: “Home Birth”Joshua Alston3/22/15 10:35pmSaveEditEmbiggenSend to EditorsPromoteGo to permalinkGirls has a peculiar rhythm that invariably makes its season finales feel like potential series finales. It’s common…
