What I’m Watching: Girls

Girls: Season 5, Episode 6 “The Panic in Central Park” (B+)

After being ignored while the other three were featured last week, it’s both fitting and unexpected that we get an entire installment devoted to no one but Marnie. The rollercoaster that is Desi’s unpredictable personality didn’t leave Marnie in a positive place at the start of the episode, and I think his immediate devolving into incoherent crying only makes things much worse. I was ready for this episode to be a dream, since the notion of Marnie running into Charlie randomly on the street after storming out of her apartment seemed too crazy to be real. I was mostly caught off guard because I remembered that Christopher Abbott left the show because he didn’t get along with Lena Dunham, and for him to return after achieving decent success in independent film with “James White” was a surprise. What was even more jarring was the whirlwind nature of their reignited romance, with Charlie buying Marnie a fancy dress within a short time of their meeting and a passionate sleepover ensuing that same fateful evening. Their mugging was oddly casual and inconsequential, since Marnie giving up her engagement ring was an almost therapeutic rather than devastating step. My favorite moment of the episode was Marnie’s quick thinking and willingness to play the game when she was confused for a prostitute, immediately earning herself $600 with little more than a clever quip about a fear of heights. Seeing her crawl into bed with Hannah and Fran, the emblem of a stable couple compared to her intense and fleeting cycles of love, was a good ending, and now Marnie’s back to being one of the girls without a man to distract her and transport her to another universe.