Girls recap: 'Gummies'

Having a baby probably isn’t the best idea Hannah’s ever had. So, of course, she’s probably going to do it.

Sure, she starts off the episode making a list titled “REASONS IT’S INSANE TO HAVE A BABY” that includes points both important — “I WILL MAKE LESS THAN $24K THIS YEAR” — and trivial (“I AM BAD AT SPORTS” is a highlight), hinting that she’s still deciding. But by the time her mom arrives, she seems like she’s made up her mind.

“Do you think it’s so insane if I keep it?” she asks Loreen before explaining that she’s thought long and hard about what that would mean for her. “I just get this feeling…” Hannah begins. “That this is your baby?” her mom suggests. “That this is my baby,” she confirms. Oh dear.

Her mom also had two weed gummy worms on the cab ride over to Hannah’s apartment that have probably fully set in by this point, which would explain her extreme chillness about finding out that her daughter is expecting. The two then go to to the laundromat, where Loreen eats even more weed gummy worms, claiming they’re faulty. No one ever told Loreen it takes edibles some time to kick in, apparently, so she keeps eating and eating… until she gets into an argument of sorts with Hannah that involves her admitting that she’s both alone and lonely. Hannah puts on her optimistic daughter face, encouraging her mom that she could still meet someone. Loreen doesn’t want to hear it and storms off with half her daughter’s clean laundry back to the apartment. Except she doesn’t go back to the apartment. She runs away.

Once Hannah realizes her mom isn’t just taking a stoned bath in her walk-up, she enlists Elijah — also high, but on Adderall — to track her down. Together, the yell “Loreen!” in the streets and eventually stop in a dumpling joint, where they inaccurately and hilariously describe their moving target as being a “rocker chick.” Their rocker chick sadly isn’t there (though Hannah does request a single dumpling for the road, so at least something good comes out of it). They soon find her eating alone in a different restaurant, and she’s, predictably, super, super blazed.

Loreen probably would have done what she does next even without the gummies, though: She toasts to Hannah and her new baby right in front of Elijah, who has no idea his roommate is with child. After the initial shock wears off, he storms into the restaurant’s kitchen — a great place to pout. Hannah joins him, and soon, he’s telling her it’s a terrible idea. He feels betrayed that she would bring a baby into their “specific, special bond,” and she is all like, “But I want you to help me raise it!” Then he tells her she’s going to be a terrible mother in a last-ditch attempt to change her mind. Meanwhile, the cooks are just going about their business without paying any mind to the two. Give this restaurant all the five-star Yelp reviews.

Although Loreen isn’t flat-out telling Hannah it’s a bad idea, she also has some reservations she reveals after Elijah leaves. “Every time I look at your baby I will see my own death,” she proclaims. Then she pukes on herself.

This is all actually a great trial run for Hannah, who is literally having to mother her own mother and see what it’s like to take care of someone else for a day. And you know what? She does a pretty fine job of it — she just doesn’t seem to like it so much: She gets home and, because she’s avoiding going upstairs and confronting Elijah, confesses to a woman sitting on the stoop that she had a bad day. Oh, and this woman? It’s the actress playing Past Hannah in Adam and Jessa’s movie. And here she is, revealing that she herself has three children and that “kids are super easy.” “It’s being an adult that’s hard,” she says. Fake Hannah, so wise.

NEXT: Ray and Marnie might (finally!) be over

Outside of Hannahland, Ray’s dealing with the death of Hermie. Turns out he died from a disease that Ray said the name of but that I’m not going to Google to double-check because I do not have time for going down a WebMD black hole tonight. I do know Ray calls it an “obscure terminal illness” that Hermie showed zero external symptoms for, so that’s fun.

He’s telling this to Shosh, who came by the office to give her condolences. She’s sweet and gentle and tries to lighten the mood by deadpanning that she’s never going to die. “Good,” Ray replies, smiling. “Because I don’t think I could handle that.” Raaaaaay.

This cute exchange makes his next scene with Marnie all the more painful. They’re at Hermie’s house and he’s feeling wistful as he sorts through his fallen friend’s belongings. Marnie couldn’t care less. She makes up an excuse that she has to run to some fancy exercise class Karlie Kloss probably goes to, then backtracks on it, then backtracks on that. Finally, Ray suggests they break up, a proposition Marnie weirdly rejects. He kind of repeats what he said last week about wanting to spend more time with her — real time spent talking and looking at each other — and she says some condescending bulls— about how he’s cliche for updating his outlook on life just because someone died. If that doesn’t change your outlook, what should? Physique 57?

So here we have Hannah and Ray, both being forced to grow up, and both feeling resistance from those presumably closest to them. It’s not necessarily because these people — Marnie and Loreen and Elijah — don’t want the best for them. It’s because they themselves are still trying to figure out how to move forward in life and see other people’s emotional breakthroughs almost as a threat to their own well-being. Elijah looks at Hannah being pregnant and thinks she’s going to abandon him, while Loreen thinks it’s going to remind her too much of her age and her own unhappiness associated with that. Marnie looks at Ray and sees something real happening in his mind that he didn’t get from a pilates instructor or an online therapist, but from actual experience, and she doesn’t know what to do with that. Maybe she’s jealous; maybe she just doesn’t understand that the kind of change he’s going through is possible.

The question now is, who is going to let these changes happen? At this point, it’s not so much a matter of if these characters can mature, but if they are going to let themselves mature. Hannah’s trying and Ray is trying and Shosh is probably trying (even though we’ve seen way too little of her so far this season). Even Marnie is trying — it’s just not really working. But even with her, I have some hope that something will click. Barre class doesn’t work overnight, right?

New go-to way to describe someone smoking: “That was an ashtray person!” —Elijah after mistakenly grabbing someone he thought was Loreen

Most mom thing Hannah says: “This is Brooklyn. This is one of the most dangerous places in America. You don’t know the terrain. You’re not Lil’ Kim.”

Most incriminating thing Elijah says about Hannah: “This is yet another reckless, impulsive, typical Hannah decision, like cutting your own hair or cyberbullying that girl you met at Barnes and Noble.”