“There’s too much history here.”
‘What Will We Do This Time About Adam?’ is a necessary, devastating half hour of Girls. Hannah and Adam have been circling one another for years, and for Adam, making his film was essential in getting closure on that relationship. Adam has been inching back to Hannah all season and re-examining their past, so it doesn’t come as a complete surprise that he would want to rekindle their relationship and help raise Hannah’s baby. Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow smartly do away with any suspense in the first five minutes of the episode and as a result, give viewers a mundane, yet beautiful denouement to one of the most important relationships of the series.
‘What Will We Do This Time About Adam?’ is the first script of the season to be co-written by Apatow, and his fingerprints are all over it. The episode exists in a singular day, compiled of scenes that scarcely feature more than two actors. The pace is slower and the scenes more relaxed, bearing a strong resemblance to another Apatow gem, Love. Adam’s speech to Hannah in the convenient store is genuinely sweet and sincere ““ a true credit to Adam Driver, who can take even the most innocuous profession of love and turn it into something profound and honest. Adam also reappears in Hannah’s life right after the humbling rejection she received from Paul-Louis, coming around to fix things right when Hannah is vulnerable enough to believe he can. For both Hannah and the audience, it’s all too tempting to get swept up by nostalgia, even if Adam and Jessa’s relationship is still so fresh.
Speaking of Jessa, Jemima Kirke doesn’t get nearly enough praise for her work on Girls. Dunham and Apatow establish fantastic parallels between the Jessa of season one versus now, replicating a scene from ‘Vagina Panic’ almost shot-for-shot. It’s a brilliant commentary on Jessa’s evolution throughout the series ““ she isn’t the same young woman who could compartmentalise her feelings by getting drunk, high or having sex with nameless strangers. Jessa is truly devastated by Adam’s choice to be with Hannah and it is unbelievably cathartic to watch Jessa express that pain to the fullest.
While Hannah and Adam’s day together hinges on reconciliation and plotting out a potential shared future, Ray spends his day getting to know Shosh’s former boss, Abigail. Abigail’s easy cheerfulness is the perfect antithesis to Ray’s cynicism and their interactions play out like the beginning of a romantic comedy, culminating in the most adorable carousal scene imaginable. Ray deserves a healthy, balanced relationship as much as anyone on this show and it points toward a hopeful end for at least one character.
Ray and Abigail’s bourgeoning relationship is nicely juxtaposed with Hannah and Adam’s, which never seems to fit, even though they are both saying all the right things and trying to move forward together in a healthy way. “There’s too much history here,” Adam tells Hannah when he is making the case for their relationship, but ultimately, this only proves why they don’t belong together. As much as they still seem to care about each other, their relationship reached its conclusion a long time ago and their final scene together, for possibly the entire series, is the heartbreaking realisation of that truth, made even more harrowing by the fact that they never even needed to say the words. The relationship ended abruptly for viewers, but ‘What Will We Do This Time About Adam?’ finally closes that chapter of Girls with an episode that is as satisfying as it is bittersweet, paving the way for an even more uncertain end for the series.
THE REEL SCORE: 9/10
