RECAP: Life is But a 'Video Game' for the GIRLS

Last night's episode of GIRLS, "Video Games," attempts to show why Jessa is a hipster-coagulation of boho brevity, approaching life lens-less and free. It's nice to actually see her, but it's weird, you know, because she's gotten about 9 minutes of screen time this season. It's also more than welcome considering even Ray got his own episode.

I mean, she's sort of the resident sad sack on the second season of Girls (aside Hannah, Marnie, Ray, and well, almost every other character...so, never mind.) Jessa, now single, heads upstate with Hannah in tow to visit her estranged father and his new girlfriend, Petula. They're fun.

Jessa and her father, are, in actuality, a whole lot alike. He's a scruffy drifter, who might have just "butt-dialed" their invitation, Hannah says. There's no sense, throughout the entire episode, that he even considers himself Jessa's father, or Lemon's (Jessa's five-year-old half-sister.) Not really, at least. It's incredibly easy to see how Jessa has ended up the way she is. It's admirable that she's turned out as well as she has, really, considering she's basically raised herself.

But still, Jessa is his "beautiful creation." She's someone he can practice Cockney accents with and eat the pet rabbit. Hannah, the stowaway, is Petula's "manifested cushion" who will make Jessa hate her less. Turns out she doesn't, but Petula is hardly the focal point of Jessa's issues. Also, she believes the whole world is a video game, and everyone's desire is to just "get to the next level." Hmm.

Hannah's issue, however, is her ever-persistent UTI, which between you and me, seems like something she needs to actually get cleared up. I mean, right? It's always there, but does she actually ever do anything about it? I guess that's sort of indicative of Hannah as a person.

Also indicative of who Hannah is: she's mildly attracted to Petula's son, Frank, who folds down his turtleneck. Also, he's incredibly creepy: all soft-spoken with John Travolta hair and 90s mom jorts.

Jessa, Hannah, Frank, go driving with some guy whose name really doesn't matter because he's just some pretentious locally published poet (who's still an idiot and probably gay, according to everyone.) Apparently that's all there is to do in upstate New York - besides eat your pet rabbit, which, mind you, is what they had for dinner. Anyway, the group huff aerosol from a Cool Whip spray can until Hannah and Frank go off into the woods. The two have really weird, panting forest-sex (it lasts eight seconds) and Frank leaves on his turtleneck. Oh, yeah, that was his first time. Except for that one time he had sex with someone named "Rihanna." Okay, Frank.

And, because this is television, everyone's problems come to a head. "You think I can rely on you?" Jessa's dad asks her as they fight on the rickety swingset.

"You shouldn't have to!" Jessa yells. "I'm the child. I'm the child."

Her father leaves Petula, Frank, and presumably Jessa, for good. Jessa, much like him, also leaves Hannah in upstate New York. Given GIRLS' track record, this may be the last time we see her for awhile.

Now Hannah, with her "dagger-like" UTI, becomes the sad sack. She's forced to take the train back into the city alone, but not before she calls her parents, who don't believe she's actually grateful for their support. They hang up on her, and she's left to (painfully) urinate on the train tracks in The Middle of Bumble-No-One-Knows-Where.

So if that can happen, does anything really happen for a reason? In the Girls universe, only sometimes. Maybe our world's just someone's personal video game. Maybe Petula has it right. Maybe we're just someone's Sim family, wandering around until the almighty cursor catches the kitchen stove on fire or decides it's over us and makes a new family.

Photos Courtesy of HBO

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