Girls: Possibly the Most Self-Absorbed Show on Television

When the HBO hit Girls previewed in 2012, I like everyone else was smitten. I loved how in each episode one or more of the characters would experience something that happened to myself or a friend, how each of the characters encapsulated one or more of my friends and how it was simply just so unexpected, funny and sincere. The entire first season was so entertaining that I recommended it to almost all of my girlfriends and would watch each and every episode with them repeatedly. That being said, when Season 2 hit the airwaves I was less than impressed. I found the whole of the show uninspired and extremely uninteresting. In what seemed like overnight, the characters had morphed into the most selfish creatures I had ever seen. The once witty dialogue was now the ghastly self-centered, egotistic ramblings of an uninteresting girl. I stopped following Lena Dunham on Instagram and Twitter, because someone who had once seemed oddly charming was now just extremely ignorant and bizarre. I couldn’t understand what people saw in her, her show, or what had become of any of the characters. When I heard the news that actor Christopher Abbott walked off the show after an altercation with a much to full of herself Miss Dunham while filming the beginnings or Season 3, I wasn’t at all surprised. It all felt like a betrayal, because something I had loved so much had become this thing I now despised. I was completely baffled as to why the show and Dunham were still being praised and treated like Hollywood’s latest golden girl, like the ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ alternative to the mainstream female character, when from what I could see all she did was get naked and ramble all the time! Did that keep me from watching Season 2 in its entirety; of course not. To this day my husband asks me why I still watch the show and my response to him is always the same; maybe it will get better.

When Season 3 started up this year I was astounded to see that much of the allure that had been missing from Season 2 was back. Though still the most selfish grouping of characters I think I have ever seen on a television show, the narrative was back on a more relatable and interesting track. The addition of the wonderful Gaby Hoffmann as Caroline, Adam’s deranged and damaged sister, felt like it was going to bring some sincerity back to the show. So far things haven’t been too bad, but the last couple of episodes have left me with a giant face-palm mark on my forehead.

Who knows where this show will go and for how much longer I will keep watching it. I am beginning to think of it as a car-wreck; something I am too traumatized to look away from.