WHERE HAVE THE ‘GIRLS’ BEEN? HBO MAX BRINGS THEM BACK FOR FIVE EPISODES
words by DEBORAH DRENOFCI
HBO Max has announced that the Emmy-winning series Girls is making a comeback with a five-episode miniseries, set to go into production in 2027. Lena Dunham herself confirmed the news through a fun mock Zoom call with Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells. We might not get to see all the old faces in this new series — such as Adam Driver, who played Hannah’s toxic boyfriend — still, we are excited and curious how the characters have handled the rest of adulthood. Did they manage to escape the chaotic mess? Are they living peacefully boring lives? Or did it go downhill for some of them?
In a statement, Dunham said: “We always said we would only return to Girls if there was a specific story we were burning to tell. I’ve missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn’t quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my 40th birthday, they started talking to me in the shower.” In a previous interview, she also speculated about where we might find the characters as they move from their late 30s into their early 40s. Marnie (Allison Williams) is most likely on her third marriage, probably making music in LA, while Jessa (Jemima Kirke) lives on a boat with her 80-year-old partner. Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) has divorced Ray, who is still on the city council and doing great, and is running a zero-waste athleisure startup. Adam might be in Berlin, acting in a cult theatre. Elijah (Andrew Rannells), on the other hand, is a sitcom actor, and Hannah (Lena Dunham), probably a lesbian, is enjoying motherhood.
Over the six seasons of Girls, which ran from 2012 to 2017, we followed a group of millennials, Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, Shoshanna and Elijah, through their messy 20s in New York. There are many reasons, besides the fact that it is funny, why Girls appealed not only to millennials but also to Gen Z audiences. It captures the transition to adulthood from its rawest, ugliest and most uncomfortable angles. Compared to the more polished, idealised images we saw in Sex and the City (SATC), these women are real, flawed and harder to digest, allowing for this the show to be authentic at the core and, consequently, more relatable.
SATC might seem like an obvious benchmark for Girls. However, we must not forget that Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte were in their 30s, and if this decade of a woman’s life is like ovulation, the 20s are definitely one long PMS window. Nobody really wanted to identify with Hannah, Marnie, Jessa or Shoshanna, and yet it was in them that many of us in our 20s easily found ourselves. With SATC, however, perhaps we were finding an aspirational self, one hopefully walking around in Manolo Blahniks with a touch of Samantha’s confidence. Girls pushes the line between the real deal and the ideal, and chooses to stay on the messy side of it.
The question that arises is whether Girls will stick to its own palette of realness and messiness, or follow in the footsteps of And Just Like That, the SATC revival. To be frank, the latter felt quite underwhelming. It undoubtedly captured how rapidly the world has changed between then and now; however, the way Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte moved through it all felt unnecessarily performative. So will these five episodes of Girls try to replicate the same forced awakening? After all, we are talking about the generation that turned oversharing into an art form. And so, we remain Lena Dunham that won’t give up on the unfiltered edge she showed us ten years ago. Yes, people grow, but growing up gracefully does not mean bending to a changing world in ways that make you grow out of yourself.
image via PINTEREST
