RECAP: Cocaine and Mesh Tank Tops, the GIRLS Do It All

Some musings after tonight's episode of GIRLS:

Should one go to a nightclub while on coke and dressed as a pre-teen girl? Probably not. You'll end up in a yellow mesh tank top that's not yours.

Should one then snort more coke off of the lid of a public toilet? Also, no. Unless you're Hannah Horvath. Then it's a resounding 'duh.'

Can one walk around New York City topless without another human being objecting? Yes. But we all knew this already.

It's hard to call the third episode of GIRLS' second season, 'Bad Friend,' a great one. It's certainly funny. I mean, who doesn't want to watch Andrew Rannells lick cocaine off of a credit card? It's got its moments. But on the whole, it encapsulates the issues most viewers and critics have had with the series of late: a disconnect from the hyper-personal issues of 20-somethings, the lack of authenticity, instead, replaced with a degree of certainty that we're watching actors portraying Brooklynites, rather than Dunham and co. naturally drawing it out, ala season one.

This weird, weird outing solidifies the fact that Dunham's alter-ego is the shameless millennial we've all expected her to be. Things feel like they're more shakey than sturdy, the momentum to beat the sophomore slump isn't necessarily there. At least not in 'Bad Friend.'

This night of modern, misanthropic awfulness begins when Hannah takes a freelancing job for the online publication JazzHate, and receives her first assignment: write a story that involves doing a dozen bumps of cocaine and/or having a threesome.

Luckily, Hannah knows a guy: Laird.

He's that guy always hanging around the outside of your building, who may or may not live there. We all know that guy. He's that one individual that always carries a backpack and smells like fresh septic. Laird.

Well, Laird is a junkie. Scratch that: a reformed junkie. But he also knows a guy, and bam, Hannah's got a baggie of coke. Or, a gram of coke. Whatever increment cocaine is measured in.

Elijah and Hannah - lovers turned platonic roommates - go to some club where the people are too close, the music is too loud, and you suddenly feel as if you're closer to being on Social Security than in the right age demo for this s. It's just awful. Andddd, Hannah switches shirts with some guy and from then on, it's just Lena Dunham with her breasts out.

In their stupor, crouched over two lines on the lid of a toilet, Elijah confesses to Hannah that he and Marnie had sex. We all knew it had to happen eventually. Hannah needs a reason to throw him out so Rannells can head over to The New Normal (yikes, what a mess) full-time.

Speaking of Marnie, her new job sucks. As do most things in her life post-Charlie. While fetching Jack Daniels and Heinekens, or whatever kind of alcohol real estate gurus and investment bankers drink, the antecedent of her ex shows up: the tiny Booth Jonathan. Remember him? The pint-sized artist/idiot that Marnie first encountered at the gallery opening in season one. Remember? The charmer that drove Marnie to take that instinctual trip to the bathroom. There you go.

Marnie, who has unquestionably undergone the most change throughout the series, follows little Booth back to his warehouse apartment, where things get weird. But I guess for Brooklyn, they're actually fairly normal. He locks her in this giant video-art installation of screaming babies and barking dogs and Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing." Oh my god, it's like 1996 and AOL and a 12-year old's version of the internet all around you and ughhhhhhh!

Disarmed by his 'genius' Marnie agrees to have awkward sex with him in front of a Victorian doll. "Look at the doll," he says. "Describe her." Yeesh.

Hannah, high, breasts out, and enraged, leads Laird and Elijah to Booth's to confront Marnie. Because for real, not enough bad things happen to her. Because "It's a Wednesday night and I'm alive!" Hannah proceeds to be Hannah. She accuses Marnie of not being 'the good friend,' she's a liar. Marnie's 'the bad friend': the bad friend who slept with her best friend's gay boyfriend. Marnie then vomits in Booth's toilet.

Elijah, at episode's end, is thrown out by Hannah - who then makes out with Laird in the lobby of their building. Bravo. Really.

Oh, also: Sho and Jessa have a stoop sale, and Sho is mad at Ray for watching too many reruns of Ally McBeal. And that's about all that's new with them because they appeared in approximately 44 seconds of the episode.

So what did you guys think? Too much naked Lena Dunham? Not enough? Wanna see Andrew Rannels lick a toilet again?

Photos Courtesy of HBO

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