RECAP: The GIRLS Are Naive, Also Complex

Isolationism be damned, the rest of the Girls are back.

Following last week's highly-controversial episode - which may or may not have been a dream of Hannah's depending on who you ask - Girls has picked up the storylines previously introduced, even taking the viewers and a rabid dog to Staten Island. Good times in the city.

In the opening scene of "Boys," John Cameron Mitchell (of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH fame), plays a down-and-out magazine editor who offers Hannah an ebook deal. Upward mobility! "They're very complex, they're very naïve," he says of her essays her, hinting that she may be The Voice of her 'lost' generation.

Anndddd, the pressure to actually do it makes Hannah vomit on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Whatever, brunch sucks.

Marnie wakes up naked with Booth Jonathan, the avant-garde pygmy, who she assists in firing his latest assistant for being "psychotic" enough to take a bite out of his ice cream. He's also hosting a pre-party for his friends art gallery that night. He asks is she wants to host. Uh, duh. She's his "girlfriend," after all. Or so she thinks.

Ray apparently loaned his inscribed copy of LITTLE WOMEN to Hannah, who, of course, left it at Adam's. And who also apparently still works at Grumpie's. (Continuity? Hmm. Evidence that maybe last week was a dream? Eh?) Sidenote: is Ray a Marmee or an Amy?

"You're the dad who dies of influenza in the war," Hannah says. Ah, a Father March.

At Adam's, Ray learns the book is in the bathroom (where else do you keep classic literature?) where the potentially rabid dog Adam has stolen is locked away after it bit him. Because that's like "stealing a baby," Ray agrees to be the extra muscle, and help Adam trek all the way to Staten Island to return the offspring of Beelzebub to its rightful owner (the address is on the collar.)

The two rightfully bond over their love of young and old women on the ferry- the "inbetween" women want so much, and just haven't realized it's not going to happen. "It's hard to tell someone so young that things don't always turn out the way you thought they would be," Ray says of Shoshanna and her inability to laugh at his jokes and agree to mope around like a sad Muppet.

Hannah, Adam says, is no better. She's "a giant Tweety doll I would have been stuck carrying around the carnival all night," he says. But when Ray hints that maybe he's right for not wanting her, Adam, well, freaks. He accuses Ray of sleeping with Hannah, or wanting to sleep with Hannah - and takes the ferry right back to Manhattan. Leaving Ray to return the dog to its owner.

Meanwhile, back in New York City, Marnie and Booth's party is in full-swing. Hannah shows up in what looks to be a preschooler's raincoat, which Marnie promptly hides under someone's blazer, because this is her new life, and Hannah's not going to ruin it. Hannah is, however, going to ruin herself. She storms back to her apartment when some Ginsberg-ian says his friend is also writing "just an E-Book."

Marnie, as it turns out, isn't so much as hosting the party as she is literally HOSTING the party. Booth has apparently hired her without her even realizing it. In fact, she isn't his girlfriend - not any more than his last assistant was. So she leaves. Hannah, in a funk, calls Marnie as she's taking the subway home; they lie to each other about how together they are, how everything is perfect. Marnie is not watching the fireflies in Booth's garden, and Hannah isn't writing away. They are, however, isolated and fooling themselves.

Ray tries to return the dog home, is met by a State Island teenager who has perfectly mastered The Combined vernacular of an underground rap track and Urban Dictionary, and convinces him that he's nothing. In the closing scene, Ray starts to see through his delusions, coming to the conclusion that maybe he and Shoshanna aren't really so good together, that she's just biding time until something better, something real, comes along.

Girls airs every Sunday at 9PM on Showtime.

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