If there’s one thing, and there are many, that I love about Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls, it’s the unwillingness of its lead character Hannah Horvath (Dunham) in all her poorly-judged, often even more poorly executed glory to simply do her own thing.
Granted it’s meant that both she and her fellow Girls characters – Marnie (Allison Williams), Jessa (Jemima Kirke) and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) – who subscribe to roughly the same life philosophy, have often come across as frustratingly, even wilfully annoying, downright narcissistic, and hopelessly naive (because much of their rebelling is conformity by another name) but at least they’ve given individuality and its flawed expression a red-hot go and you can help but admire them for that.
And if this exceedingly brief teaser for season 5 is any guide, doing your own thing, in a sea of people all behaving the same way, it looks like the new-found maturity Hannah found at the end of season 4, in the light – SPOILER! – of her father’s coming out, her refusal to get back with Adam when his relationship with Mimi-Rose tanks and her new relationship with Fran (Jake Lacy), isn’t going away anytime soon.
She’s finally growing up, and actually getting somewhere worthwhile as an adult as are, in fits and starts, the rest of the Girls who are finally figuring out what it really means to be a grown up, both the good and the bad.
Quite how this new maturity plays out, and let’s face it, even the most mature among us still fall flat on our all-too-fallible faces from time to time, or yeah OK, every day, will be on full compelling display when Girls returns with its fifth season on February 21, 2016 at 10/9c on HBO.
UPDATE – Friday 4 December 2015
Girls has a full trailer and it’s brilliant!
Not quite as good as watching the all new episodes which I can’t wait to see but pretty close nonetheless.
And as hypable points in their piece, it’s largely and gloriously business-as-usual with just a little bit of change to remind us Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna are making some progress in lfie.
Girls returns with season 6 on February 21, 2016 at 10/9c on HBO