Round Two: Girls

Girls: Season 1, Episode 2 “Vagina Panic” (B+)

It’s always refreshing when a second installment is just as good as, if not better than, the first. This episode opened with yet another disturbing but entrancing instance of Hannah’s gross sex with Adam, which can only be described as odd and exploratory, explaining just who Hannah is and how little control she has of her own life. Her ensuing obsession with the fact that she might have an STD even though she always uses condoms was entertaining, and it got weird but quite amusing when she started saying that AIDS would be a great excuse to be mad at a guy and not to have to get a job. She was doing so well on her interview and it seemed impossible that she wouldn’t get the job, but then she had to go ahead and make a joke about date rape, something which has to be considered a universal faux pas. Charlie’s efforts to be more of a jerk to interest Marnie were entertaining, and it seems like she’s completely bored of him, and her mind won’t easily be changed. Jessa’s bar encounter was rather intense, and her aggressiveness appears to have paid off, as her scheduled abortion proved unnecessary. Marnie’s frustration with Jessa not showing up for the abortion revealed a lot about her but also enabled a fantastic encounter with the excessively chatty Shoshanna, who got serious for a moment to reveal that she had never had sex, a fact that was not assuaged by Marnie’s assertion that it’s overrated.