What I’m Watching: Girls

Girls: Season 3, Episode 3 “She Said OK” (B)

This episode managed to do one thing more than anything else, and it was quite a feat. For once, Hannah seemed like the normal one. The casting of Gaby Hoffman, star of last year’s Sundance entry “Crystal Fairy,” as Adam’s sister Caroline, is completely brilliant. Leave it to him to also seem relatively normal and sociable when his wacked-out sister arrives in town. For the most part, she was odd and eccentric, but things took a very serious turn towards the end of the episode when she cut her wrist, which really upset Hannah. The birthday bash actually went pretty well, up until the point that Ray got himself punched in the face for being excessively belligerent about his song being cut off by the DJ. Ray going up to Shoshanna and blabbering on about his life before telling her that he didn’t want to be her friend came off very poorly, and for once it left her speechless. Jessa may be out of rehab but didn’t contribute in any way to this episode, though I’m sure she’ll have plenty to say in the future when her old habits start to resurface. Marnie’s video was very intriguing, and I’m always so torn about her, since she actually does have musical talent, but has such an awkwardly overconfident manner in which she performs and talks about her abilities. Her duet with Hannah would have been a lot better if it hadn’t been interrupted by a fight, but she did manage to throw a good party overall, thanks in part to the underwriting of the costs by Hannah’s parents.