What I’m Watching: Girls (Season Finale)

Girls: Season 4, Episode 10 “Home Birth” (B+)

This was a perfectly good episode, but I don’t know how I feel about it as a season finale. After a shaky start with the season premiere, I was actually quite impressed with this season and the direction it took, and while I do wish Hannah was still in Iowa insulting Desiree Akhavan and her other classmates, her return to New York was pretty worthwhile too. The birth of Caroline and Laird’s baby is a very tangential event in many ways, but seeing Adam and Hannah standing near the child and talking honestly about where their relationship meant was very relevant and a byproduct of that situation. Naming their baby JessaHannah is an equally nice and peculiar thing, and it was interesting to see that Jessa made it more about herself than Hannah did, a rare feat. Kudos to Hannah for finally standing up to Adam and rejecting his attempt to go back to the status quo. I’m happy to see that she’s with Fran in the near future, and hopefully he’ll be a big part of season five. Shoshanna’s interviews really are quite wild, and it looks like she’s headed to Japan, which probably won’t be a complete disaster, though it will surely ruin her budding relationship with Scott. Ray’s unprovoked takedown of Desi was pretty fantastic, but unfortunately it appears to have sent him running, which isn’t a problem since it helped Marnie get her solo start, and hopefully she won’t be a complete wreck without him. This season reasserted my confidence in this show, and I’m now eager to see where it’s headed.

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: Lena Dunham