Girls, uninterrupted

It’s been a year since we last saw the girls of Girls, so the news that its third series would return with a double bill was definitely welcome. The ever-divisive show picks up a short while after we left off at the end of the second season, in which time there’s been more than a few developments. Although Hannah and Adam are very much in an ‘on’ phase of their on-off relationship after he ran through the streets of New York in answer to her desperate cry for help, Marnie and Charlie are most definitely off, with the former turning to her mother in consolation. Also firmly broken-up are Ray and Shoshanna, while wild child Jessa has resurfaced after months of disappearance – in rehab.

If the finale of series two seemed uncharacteristically optimistic and rom-com-esque, with Adam heroically dashing to Hannah’s rescue and Marnie and Charlie’s reconciliation, the first episode of season three soon bwrings us back to Girls’ familiar territory of poor life decisions and public confrontations. When Adam and Hannah find themselves face to face with Natalia, his ex-girlfriend from last series, she and her friend waste no time in letting Adam know exactly how badly he treated her. Although Adam seems genuinely sincere in his apologies, things get worse when Hannah is dragged into the mix. By the time Natalia has finished describing Adam as an ‘off the wagon, Neanderthal, sex-addict sociopath’ and telling the couple to ‘enjoy your urine-soaked life,’ any lingering rom-com illusions have been fully dispelled.

Meanwhile, Jessa’s trip to rehab is, it emerges, courtesy of her grandmother, who’s dictated that she spend sixty days attempting to recover from her many, many problems. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t prove to be effective, as Jessa endeavours to disrupt every meeting and make every other patient hate her. Even a pep talk from guest star Richard E. Grant doesn’t seem to make a difference, and when Jessa accuses another patient of using rehab to avoid coming to terms with her sexuality, anyone with more than a cursory familiarity with the usual events of the show can predict what follows.

The second episode of the double bill takes a different approach, with the majority taking place on Hannah, Adam and Shoshanna’s road trip to pick up Jessa from rehab. (On a side note, Hannah’s willingness to drive for hours to pick up the friend who abandoned her months ago is one of those subtly perfect _Girls _moments.) The trip provides ample opportunities for interaction between polar opposites Adam and Shoshanna, and a painfully frank conversation on whether college days really are the best days of your life with Hannah, which particularly resonated with me as a final year soon-to-be graduate.

It’s impressive that, even in its third series, _Girls _still feels as fresh as ever. It is unique in its place as a no holds barred depiction of uncomfortably relatable young women, imperfections included. It’ll be interesting to see where Lena Dunham, growing visibly more confident in her skill as writer and director, takes the rest of the series. Having already proven time after time that she’s unafraid to take risks, one thing is for sure: it’ll be anything but boring.