‘Girls’ Recap, Season Four, Episode Eight: “Tad & Loreen & Avi & Shanaz”

In continuing with this season’s tradition of giving the supporting characters more of a spotlight than most of the titular girls, “Tad & Loreen & Avi & Shanaz” opens with Hannah’s emerging from what looked like a productive session of couples’ therapy, only to have Hannah’s dad unceremoniously announce that he’s gay, only to have her mom accuse him of dropping that bombshell to steal her thunder over finally getting tenure. It’s on Loreen’s reaction that we get some insight into why Hannah is the way she is. It’s not like I’d necessarily blame Loreen for being histrionic over the fact that her decades-long partner came out of the closet; however, it does seem inherently loathsome that she can’t fathom the fact Tad’s admission is anything more a spiteful ploy to get back at her for eclipsing his career. When Tad tries to explain to Loreen that his coming out has nothing to do with her, we hear a refrain that feels all too familiar.

“It’s not not about me, Tad. It’s not not.”

Hannah Horvath truly is her mother’s daughter.

Loreen tries to keep it together as Tad gives her a heartfelt toast during a dinner party celebrating her tenure appointment, but she can’t help but burst into tears and trash the speech where Tad calls her “his best friend” in front of two professor pals Avi (Fred Melamed) and Shanaz (Jackie Hoffman).

After Loreen holes up in the bathroom after her meltdown, Avi rushes in to pounce on her. They apparently had a brief affair back in the day, which Loreen is quick to dismiss, The title of the episode is a play on the old late ‘60s swingers treatise Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, however, given the fact that this scene involves white, upper-middle class, narcissistic professors, I can’t help but think of the Gena Rowlands/Gene Hackman storyline of the oft-forgotten Woody Allen film Another Woman. In fact, the scene in the bathroom seems to mirror the scene where Rowlands rebuffs Hackman’s advances almost exactly. That being said, episode writers Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner do a way better job of making us care about the feelings of narcissistic upper middle class white professors than Woody Allen ever did.

Although Tad’s admission is a surprise, it didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Elijah explicitly, if not spitefully, told Hannah that her dad is gay when the two reunited back in Season One. Plus, with this admission fresh in our minds, it puts that dinner Tad had with Hannah in the “Cubbies” episode where he urges her to do what makes her happy in a whole new light. In hindsight, that Tad did seem like there was something he wanted to tell her that he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. It’s also worth noting that this episode was directed by Jamie Babbit, who helmed the coming-of-age coming-out film But I’m a Cheerleader.

Things are decidedly less tumultuous back in Brooklyn. For the entire season I’ve been dying for a glimpse into the Jessa/Shoshanna living situation, and we finally got one that lasted longer than a nanosecond. The scene isn’t quite the powder keg you’d expect from two such divergent personalities sharing the kind of coffin-like limited space that New York City real estate typically affords. Instead, we’re treated to Shosh tweezing her bikini line while Jessa offers up her typically deranged advice on dating and boasting about how she’s driven four men to attempt to take their own lives over her. That settles it, for as bratty and self-absorbed that Hannah can be, Jessa will always be the most repugnant of the four. Jessa’s character has always been reckless and erratic, but aside from her plea for Adam’s friendship, this season it seems like she’s lost her humanity entirely. While explaining to Shosh her passive aggressive plan to get otherwise aloof Ace to come crawling to her door, Jessa gives her the advice to show Scott (Josh Ritter) “an act of love when he least expects it.” Of course, Shosh takes this advice in her own special way and delivers some unexpected dirty talk while the two are having a pleasant dinner and Scott is giving her an encouraging, if not a bit paternal, pep talk regarding her disastrous job search. Seriously, Scott, you’re a real sweetheart and all, but you do remember interviewing Shosh, right? Shosh returns the kindness with some horrifyingly abrupt and robotic dirty talk revolving wanting her hand on his “cock” and putting into her “slimy vagina.” If there’s ever a scene that needs to go into Zosia Mamet’s Emmy reel, this is the one.

Josh somehow rebounds from hearing the phrase “slimy vagina” and diffuses the situation by telling her that she likes him and that she’ll have her hand on his cock in due time. In the meantime, she should definitely focus on the fact that The Good Wife’s Josh Charles is probably at the bar off screen. The two get so caught up in scoping the bar for The Good Wife cast members that the date completely recovers from Shosh’s miscalculated, vulgar Red Shoe Diaries line read. Anyway, Scott is a genuinely good guy who seems to like Shosh. Despite all the growing up that she’s done this season, I can’t help but be a little scared that she’s gonna fuck this up somehow. The way she freaks out on Ray for being hung up on his fling with Marnie might provide some foreshadowing.

When it comes to Marnie’s situation, however, here’s hoping one of them fucks it up and soon, cause as it stands these two idiots are headed for the alter. First, doofus Desi blows their entire $2,000 advance on pedals that he thinks will make their Xanax-infused granola duo sound like My Bloody Valentine. GTFO. All the pedals in the world aren’t going to make this sentient neckbeard sound like Kevin Shields.

This unilateral spending prompts an argument over money which causes Desi to storm out of the apartment calling her a bitch like the manbaby he is only to return with an engagement ring. Good. Great. Wonderful. Best of luck to both of you in this exciting new life together.

Also, I know the music industry is in piss-poor shape these days, but a $2,000 advance? Ouch.

For as much as I can’t wait for when this relationship inevitably implodes, there’s something to be said for the possibility of these two being shackled to each other in a marital prison of their own design. It’s not like they deserve better.

As for Hannah, the reason that she’s been thriving at her substitute teaching assignment is because she’s basically on her students’ level maturity wise. She ditches school with student Cleo (Maude Apatow!) and the two dance in the street to Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” before deciding to get matching frenulum piercing under their tongues. However, Hannah totally throws Cleo under the bus by watching her endure the horror of a botched piercing and then refusing to keep her end of the piercing pact. There’s no way that Hannah is keeping this job for much longer, and it’s probably for the best — assuming she doesn’t get sued by Cleo’s parents before getting tossed out.

Back at school, Hannah bumps into the adorable Fran and tries to rectify things after she blatantly used him to get back at Adam during their ill-fated date from last episode. She starts off with a mature apology but then messes up by thinking that she can pick things up with Fran from right before she decided to move their otherwise fun date to Mimi-Rose’s art show. Thinking that she can return to a relationship at the juncture of her choosing is a bit of a pattern with Hannah, kind of like how she expected Adam’s life to go into suspended animation until she got back from Iowa.

Anyway, Fran accepts her apology, and then quotes Mary J. Blige in his insistence that Hannah is clearly more trouble than she is worth.

“I’m just trying not to be so attracted to drama on the whole,” Fran says, rather diplomatically.

Hannah somehow sees this as encouragement rather than rejection,

“You think I’m a wild horse, and you want to tame me,” Hannah says. “It’s the new frontier of misogyny: take a woman who is in control of her life and then silence her. And I’m up for it.”

Somehow Hannah gets all this out with her head shoved firmly up her ass. Fran, being sensible and level headed, rebuffs Hannah’s advances. However, given the fact that he’s so sensible and level headed, it makes me think that Jake Lacy isn’t long for this show. Back at her apartment, Hannah calls her parents for confirmation as to whether she’s really as dramatic as Fran says she is. Unfortunately, Loreen is still in prime axe-grinding mode, so she insists on spilling the beans that Hannah’s dad came out despite Tad’s insistence that he do it in person.

So that’s that. It should be exciting to see how all this plays out during the rest of the season.

Maggie Serota is a Staff Editor at Death and Taxes and a freelance writer who loves TV more than life itself.

 

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Photos: HBO