Twitter

Where to Stream:

Girls

HBO’s Girls returns for a fifth season on Sunday night, so rest easy. Our months-long drought for exasperating Millennial foolishness is nearly at an end. Last year, a frustrating season that saw Hannah spinning her wheels in Iowa for half a season before returning to Brooklyn only to have to confront two out-of-nowhere external developments (Adam ditched her for new-girl Mimi Rose; her dad came out as gay), came to an end with what was actually a really good episode, one which sent all four principal characters into interesting directions for the off-season. [You can watch Girls s4e10 “Home Birth” on HBOGo.]

In anticipation of the season 5 premiere, here’s a quick catch-up for where all the characters shook out last year, complete with streaming links to relevant episodes.

Hannah

After four episodes spent pissing off her fellow students at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Hanna retreated to New York City, where she promptly found out Adam had dumped her and started dating Mimi Rose (Gillian Jacobs). This, plus the revelation that her dad is now gay, sent her into a tailspin of substitute teaching and (further) selfish behavior. Or perhaps you forgot the episode where she and Judd Apatow’s daughter went to get their frenulums pierced. [You’re forgiven if you never want to see that again, but it was in episode 8 if you care to revisit.] This breakdown lasted until the season finale, when Caroline and Laird’s ill-fated birthing plan sent everybody into action. The baby was born and named after Hannah (and Jessa), and Hannah managed to pull it together long enough to stand up for herself and deflect Adam’s attempts at reconciliation and getting back together. At the very end of the season, we got a flash forward (a rare glimpse of Girls in the wintertime) of Hannah and new boyfriend Fran (Jake Lacy), who at first was turned off my Hannah’s incessant drama, but apparently he stuck around.

Adam

The Mimi Rose thing was a mistake; even Adam ended up admitting that to Hannah in the hospital after Caroline gave birth. It’s not that Mimi Rose was especially awful (relative to anybody else on the show, at least), but that he didn’t really know who she was when he went for her. The actual most interesting relationship Adam had in season 4 was with Jessa. While Hannah was away, the two bonded over their shared sobriety — though the episode “Female Author” sees Jessa trying to pull Adam into her continuing chaos — and later over their involvement in a weird love quadrangle with Mimi Rose and her ex, Ace (Zachary Quinto).

Jessa

The season finale saw Jessa at her very best, taking charge during Caroline’s chaotic birthing crisis, trying her hair up in a bun, and sticking her head underwater to take a look at what was happening in Caroline’s birthing … area. After shepherding that whole situation to a positive conclusion — and being genuinely moved that Caroline and Laird named the baby after her — Jessa came to the realization that she wants to be a therapist. Sounds good! As for the Adam thing, it’s unclear whether the show intends to move those two in a romantic direction; they currently work together SO well as friends, I’d hate for anything to ruin that.

Marnie

Marnie got engaged to awful Desi, her singer/songwriter beau who left his previous girlfriend for her. After Desi no-showed their gig in the season finale, Marnie took the stage solo and for once performed in a way that was not meant to be embarrassing, you got the sense that she might finally start to know her true worth, independent of men like Desi. And yet … the season 5 premiere is set on her wedding day. So.

Ray

Desi no-showed that performance because earlier in the episode, Ray gave him a hellacious dressing-down, which on the surface was meant to be pretty righteous, though Girls is always a little too enamored of Ray as a truth-telling everyman. He’s still massively in love with Marnie, and getting less and less interested in hiding it. Oh, and he also successfully ran for a city-council position last season, so maybe look for some local politics to bleed its way into the show.

Shoshanna

Shosh’s season-long quest for gainful employment in the face of the difficulties brought on by her terrible personality were finally overcome in the season finale, as she got offered a job. The only catch was that she’d have to move to Japan. Which was quite a snag for her brand-new relationship with Scott (Jason Ritter). Scott begged her to stay, but Colin Quinn gave her the sage advice to follow Sheryl Sandberg’s lead and “lean in” for this professional opportunity. Which isn’t a sentence you have much call to write all that often. Quinn told Shosh that if Scott is the one for her, he’ll be waiting when she returns. We’ll see how that goes.