-We see four scenes from Lena Dunham's "Full Dis:closure" (the film-within-a-film in "Girls"). They're out of order. (And I love this. There's a faint suggestion that time is a myth; experience is circular; the past isn't dead, or past, yada yada.)
-Leos Carax said: Look for the ugly in the beautiful and the beautiful in the ugly. Who does this better than Dunham? Who more regularly rubs our face in life's ostensibly "ugly" moments? A sample of the dialogue from "Full Dis:closure": "Your p*ssy's too tight!" "Then fix it! Fix it with your d*ck!" "If I stay here longer, I'll get a UTI." "Sl*t! Whore! Filthy pig!" "I'm gonna f*ck all your holes!" "That hurts? Good. You'll remember it." These lines evoke memories of other gems from "Girls" history: "I'm gonna leave a c*m puddle on you bigger than Africa." "I knew it! I knew I wasn't hitting your actual p*ssy wall!" "It's the gentleman in 11-C. A disturbance in the cabin. He's having some problems with his d*ck." "Well, get an oxygen mask. But be sure he puts it on his d*ck before he helps anyone else." And it makes sense that Marnie--uptight, unimaginative Marnie--would really, notably struggle with dirty talk. Additionally: "Pretend you're the football captain and you're meant to pull out, and then pretend you can't and you have an accident inside of me." "My nipples feel like iguana skin. I mean: what if I want to f*ck one of my students?" "I look forward to the day when my vagina and my butthole feel like separate areas again." "All those c*nts in linen pants with their smugness and their breast-feeding." And, quoting Beyonce: "Oh, he so horny, yeah, he wanna f*ck. He popped all my buttons and he ripped my blouse. He Monica Lewinsky-ed all over my gown." When Hannah begins watching "Full Dis:closure," she has the reaction that any sane viewer might have upon discovering "Girls": "Oh, great. This is porn." It's important to remember a Dunham quote in the context of all this "filthiness." Dunham became a great friend of Nora Ephron's right before Ephron's death. Ephron had been a fan--along with all of the rest of the world--of Dunham's "Tiny Furniture." Dunham said, after Ephron's death, "Nora taught me to lay it on the line as a writer." And we hear this from the Ann Dowd character who hires Hannah: "Your writing is just so honest. You don't apologize. You just say, Here I am. I'm direct. Take me or leave me." We see Dunham laying it on the line again and again: Here's what an awkward, inexperienced couple might say in bed. Here's what S&M looks like. The material is inherently fascinating and beautiful--if only because we aren't used to seeing writers take such breath-taking risks. "Full Dis:closure" is a chance for "Girls" to comment on itself, and here's the comment: Take note of the ground we've broken here. Don't forget how fearless our writers have been--over and over again. (Nora Ephron of course made "the ugly" beautiful with her famous essay "I Feel Bad About My Neck," in which she relayed, in exquisite detail, the indignities of having an aging female neck in a youth-obsessed society. The beautiful arising from the ugly: "Heartburn," Ephron's famous novel, grew out of the torture she had suffered at the hands of Carl Bernstein.)
-"I'm glad my writing hurts your hand," says Adam. "If it's painful, you'll remember it." "Full Dis:closure"--and the entirety of "Girls"--asks if there's much of a difference between beauty and pain, between the ostensibly good and the bad. "Go ahead and ruin my life; at least then you will have been in my life." "I think you're perfect, and that may be a bad thing. You might be *too* perfect for me." "It wasn't a mistake to call me," says Paul-Louis, upon hearing of his impending fatherhood. "I actually don't believe in mistakes." These are bits of writing that make us wonder whether pain is such a bad thing, after all. Pain reminds us we are alive. You can sense "Mira"'s ecstasy as she is verbally and physically assailed--while bending over a butcher's table. There's something intoxicating in all the conflict; harsh, high-decibel rants are, at least, a phenomenon that is very far from indifference. "Full Dis:closure" explores the pain/beauty gray area in a memorable way. "I think you're perfect," says Adam, then, within moments: "This bed is getting cold." Fondness becomes neediness. The line about the bed is both sweet and just a bit unsettling. Kudos to "Girls" for making such an unnerving relationship its centerpiece for so many years. (Also, I think of Ray and Abigail in their final moments, on the carousel, attempting to eke out a decent kiss as their horses send them far away from each other, over and over again. It's a nice, neat metaphor for this show's interest in the difficulties inherent in any human relationship.)
-The very first encounter between Mira and Adam ricochets between the unsettling and the sweet and the unsettling and the sweet. (It's the first encounter, but it's the last we see of Mira and Adam; it's actually one of the few remaining times we'll see Adam and *Hannah* together. This is a fine use of dramatic irony, because of course we in the audience know how momentous this scene is. Mira/Hannah and Adam have no idea. Dunham wrote a version of the scene for Season Two, and it was roundly denounced. Dunham's colleagues left it on the cutting-room floor. But there are no mistakes! And, look: Here we are in Season Six!) Hannah provokes Adam into an attack; when she steals his almonds, he correctly observes that she has no self-control, and he threatens to call the cops. (This is a relationship about violated boundaries, and the "Girls" writers make a joke about that by assigning, to Adam, this first bit of dialogue: "I'm calling the cops!" We recall that Hannah actually does call the cops--on Adam--in Season Two.) Instead of acknowledging her error, Hannah crazily attempts some self-defense: "Well, it was just one almond!" ("Girls" is the best at showing how wrongdoers sometimes make themselves look faux-aggrieved. Remember when Marnie obnoxiously begins singing Tracy Chapman, without asking first, and Hannah rightfully asks her to stop? And then Marnie becomes self-righteous: "I don't want to talk about this. You attacked me for loving music." Loving music has nothing to do with what has just happened. You steal one almond, you steal a hundred: You're still wrong.) Adam becomes agitated about refined sugar ("As if it's any different from unrefined! It's all sugar! People are crazy!")--and maybe his weird, startling onrush of emotion is really about the troubling recognition that he has feelings for this stranger in his candy store. ("Girls" also just enjoys documenting minute facets of life in America in the twenty-first century. "Why don't you just do Animal Pilates like a normal person?" "A phone call? Who talks on the phone anymore?" "You're free to check my GoogleCal." "You have totally cracked the market on athletic denim.") Having been dropped back on Earth, Adam notes Hannah's book, deduces that she's a writer (Hannah, sweetly: "I'm, like, trying to be"), and makes his move. Boundaries: It's invasive for Adam to write, and write painfully, on Hannah's body--without permission. "If it hurts, you'll remember me." And the moment ends; Robyn sings, "I've got your honey, Baby"; and Adam, who quite literally has Hannah's honey (since he works in the candy store Hannah is visiting), simply walks away. Goosebumps. End of scene.
-Do you think I need to take a break from "Girls"? Never! I worry, though; having finished a show this good, I'm spoiled. What can fill the void? (And what did you think of "Full Dis:closure"? Why do you think the First Encounter scene comes last? Do you, too, see bits of your own twenties--the neediness, the boundary issues, the self-absorption, the self-castigation--in Hannah/Mira's behavior?)
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