Girls recap: 'I Get Ideas'

In the latest episode of the HBO dramedy, Lena Dunham proves she can take criticism — and stages one of the most awkward breakups in TV history

Hanna and Jessa
(Image credit: Jessica Miglio)

It's tempting to paint Girls as just a show about spoiled, self-absorbed, immature twenty-somethings trying to figure out who they are — and at first glance, tonight's "I Get Ideas" offers ample proof for that argument. There are surely more mature ways to handle a breakup than Adam's decision to record an album's worth of songs about how Hannah "destroyed [my] heart." (His later arrest for unpaid parking tickets and public urination are similarly immature, and similarly unsurprising.) And Hannah isn't doing herself any favors by turning to a YouTube video that teaches you to cut your own bangs instead of, you know, spending the $20 it would take to get a trim from a professional, as most grownups would do.

Still, "I Get Ideas" also proves that Girls is a good deal more complicated than the "twenty-somethings are confused!" complaints would indicate. That's thanks to the time we got to spend with two of the show's peripheral characters: Jessa's new husband Thomas-John and Hannah's quasi-boyfriend Sandy.

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Scott Meslow

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.