HBO’s series Girls came to an end this past week. Shutting its doors at six seasons, Lena Dunham, the creator of Girls, did an amazing job at closing every storyline in the show. Girls had a huge impact on my life. I was 20 years old when I began watching this show, and it was unlike anything I’ve ever watched. I was drawn to this show because of the chaotic lifestyle of the four girls. They each have different personalities, hopes, dreams and issues they face during each episode. Throughout the series, it was clear that the characters were distinctively different. The four women met in college and sustain a friendship and a life in Brooklyn, NY. Each taking different career and life paths, yet learning to live in the reality of today’s society. This show has made me self-aware to follow my dreams and be myself.
Lena Dunham as Hannah Horvath is a struggling writer living in Brooklyn. Her narcissistic tendencies sometimes interfered with some of her relationships. In the last season, we watch her grow in her career as a writer and a person as a whole.
Season 6 episode 4, titled “Painful Evacuation”, showed a turning point for every character in the show. Hannah was told during an interview with an influential writer that it’s important for women writers to never become mothers. Ironically enough, Hannah finds out that she is pregnant later in the episode. She made the tough decision to not only tell the father that she’s having and keeping the baby, but also that she doesn’t want or need him in her life. She was showing that women have the ability to choose how and with whom to raise their children with, if in that situation.
I feel that this season was the most important to the show. It showed extreme growth and maturity of the characters as a whole. Shoshana (Zosia Mamet) is finally able to stand up to the other girls, Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams), Jessa Johansson (Jemima Kirke) and Hannah Horvath in the second to last episode. She realizes the reality of their situation which is that they aren’t friends anymore. They have grown apart and have nothing in common anymore. “I think we should all just agree to call it,” Shoshana said in the second to last episode about their friendship.
Throughout the series, their friendships have been rocky. Although the series showed chaos and shenanigans, the core of the series was struggling to keep the ties strong between the four girls.
Adam Sackler (Adam Driver) was Hannah’s first love. Throughout the first few seasons, he was her kryptonite. Their relationship was lustful and animalistic. They learned to love each other in many ways. The last season, he and Jessa are together. Adam and Jessa create a movie about their relationship with Hannah. Once he finds out that Hannah is pregnant, he promises her that he wants to father her child. He promises her a life with him and she realizes that it could never work, that their ship has sailed. His storyline closes with him going back to Jessa and their chaotic relationship.
The last two episodes were extremely crucial to the ending of the series. Elijah Krantz (Andrew Rannells) gets his dream role in a Broadway play. Shoshana is engaged and is living her socialite lifestyle. Marnie is finally learning to not let men dictate her life and live with her own decisions. Jessa apologizes to Hannah and they get the closure they deserve. Hannah finally commits to moving to upstate New York to raise her child on her own and teach at a local college. The second to last episode of the series ends with the four of the girls dancing on their own, to their own beat. It represented that they each are taking their own paths in lives.
The last episode opened with Marnie and Hannah sleeping in bed together the same way the series opened. The episode was a flash forward to five months after Hannah gives birth to a boy. She is living comfortably in her upstate home and Marnie tells her she wants to help raise her son. This episode shows the strong bond between Hannah and Marnie and the struggles of their friendship. Hannah’s ever-growing maturity throughout the series came down to this one episode.
“Latching” was an amazing way to close the show and say goodbye to Girls for good. They went above and beyond for the last season to wrap-up the show and not leave any unopened questions.