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<em>GIRLS</em>: "Ask Me My Name" Recap

Rebecca Fishbein

Published Mar 2, 2015

Modified Mar 2, 2015

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Rebecca Fishbein

Published Mar 2, 2015

Modified Mar 2, 2015

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(HBO)

There are times in which the GIRLS team manages to defy all the criticism and craft an episode that offers some sliver of truth about the human experience. And then, there are episodes that are so fist-clenchingly ridiculous that a story your first grade self wrote about a magical talking elephant would have made for a better 22 minutes of television. Sadly, "Ask Me My Name" is the latter.

In this one, Hannah—having discovered last week that her dream is to make a difference in THE world and not just HER world—has taken a substitute teaching job at St. Justine’s, which seems modeled after St. Ann's, Lena Dunham's alma mater. Here, our freshly single fair heroine meets Fran, played by the handsome unwitting hero from Obvious Child (GIRLS is doing good work with the male eye candy this season—but I digress.) She also meets Cleo, her favorite student (played by Maude Apatow).

Fran asks Hannah out on the spot, because the GIRLS world is populated with many straight, single, attractive men who don't rely on their smartphones for sex. The two go on what appears to be a very nice date, if not one rife with sexual fire, and blonde anti-Adam Fran seems like a super rebound television boyfriend.

Oh, but! Hannah invites Fran to come to an art show with her, and it just so happens this show's artist is one Mimi-Rose Howard. Naturally, no one's all that excited Hannah's taken a promising first date to her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend's art show, save for horrific Desi, who heralds Hannah for "not contributing to the pervasive, toxic culture of women in the arts just cutting each other down," and Mimi-Rose herself. Adam chews Hannah out, whereupon Blonde, Sad Fran realizes he's actually a pawn and decides to flee. The inane self-destruction is all very cringe-inducing, and indeed, GIRLS specializes in purposefully eliciting that kind of reaction.

The fun doesn't stop there. Mimi-Rose, now back to being a wide-eyed idiot after very nearly winning us over last week, invites Hannah to the show's after party. She then insists she and Hannah take one taxi while Adam rides with her ex-boyfriend Ace, played by Beautiful Human Male Zachary Quinto (seriously, good job GIRLS casting crew!)—Ace, to no one's surprise, is still in love with Mimi-Rose. He is also a sociopath who wears jorts.

Through a series of WACKY MISADVENTURES, i.e., Mimi-Rose and Hannah's cabbie hits an old woman and Hannah gets into an argument over bathroom policies at a deli, they bond at a laundromat where the ostensibly perfect Mimi-Rose reveals she is wracked with insecurity (or so she says), just like Everyone Else. Now having presumably broken Mimi-Rose's spell and reduced her to a shell the woman we saw last week, Hannah is able to make peace with Adam, at least in some small way.

So much of this episode feels like it's trying too hard—even Hannah picking up boxes and boxes of food at the bodega is way overplayed—but it's this particular plot point that rankles most. Mimi-Rose seems to have made a backward leap from the momentary refreshing bit of character we got last week. Or maybe Mimi-Rose contains multitudes—we just haven't learned enough about her, but this "revelation" feels like something the writers threw in last minute because they didn't know what to do with her. Congratulations, GIRLS, for transforming her into another insufferable cliche.

Some closing notes:

If The Slap fails, will Zachary Quinto permit me to hire him to read me bedtime stories?
WHERE IS RAY? BRING BACK RAY. RAY RAY RAY RAY.
Hannah telling the cab driver to make a turn really doesn't make it her fault that he hit a pedestrian.
Though this season has slogged, the costume department deserves snaps for Hannah's wardrobe. That caramel dress in the opening scene is A+++.
So... what was... Mimi-Rose's show...?
Elijah and I both drink wine from the bottle, because we are soulmates.
God-willing, a future episode will feature Desi accidentally strangling himself with a beaded necklace in his sleep.
Though I did not care for this episode, there was a good moment when Hannah tells Mimi-Rose why she's not a writer anymore. "I couldn't do it, so I quit," Hannah says. "Now I'm going to have a boring life like my mother's...I just wasn't talented enough, and that's why I left Iowa." One of my favorite short stories is Mary Robison's "Yours," in which a sculptor wants to tell his dying wife " that to own only a little talent, like his, was an awful, plaguing thing; that being only a little special meant you expected too much, most of the time, and liked yourself too little." The fact of the matter is, talent cannot be taught, though it can be honed, and every hopeful writer/artist/musician wrangles with this time and time again. It's refreshing to see Hannah, who previously considered herself a True Artist, start to come to terms with the truth about her own talent. Not everyone's going to be the success they started out wanting to be, but one of the simultaneous joys and terrors of growing up is discovering that happiness isn't necessarily tied to penning The Great American Novel.

And, well, that's that. Next week, there will be Ray.

Tagged

girls

girls recap

girls recaps

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Rebecca Fishbein

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