Recaps

Many a struggling 20-something has made a humiliating trip home to beg money from parents who think everything is going just fine. But this is Girls we're talking about, so naturally when Hannah (Lena Dunham) tucks her tail between her legs, the results go far beyond the limits of normal human embarrassment.

Hannah is back in her hometown to celebrate her parents' 30th wedding anniversary ("I can't imagine anyone spending 30 years with me. Thirty minutes seems hard to believe.") It's a treat to see Hannah outside of her Brooklyn comfort zone and it serves as a reminder of what an awful person she can be. She's relentlessly b!tchy toward her well-meaning parents and when she retreats to the comfort of her childhood bedroom (a shrine of early 2000s nostalgia complete with a Goo Goo Dolls poster) it's only to brood over Hipster Mr. Big (Adam) - a guy who persistently treats her like crap.

When she wakes up the next morning (afternoon, whatever) Hannah reluctantly heads out to pick up a prescription for her mother, and catches up with some old high school friends along the way. The first is an airheaded hot blonde who informs her about a benefit for a missing classmate. The situation is sad, of course, but Dunham's writing riffs on the phenomenon of old acquaintances becoming everyone's saintly best friend after they're struck by tragedy. "She always liked how you did your own thing, like wearing two different colored socks," the blonde says of a girl that Hannah clearly had very little interaction with.

The second classmate is a handsome pharmacist who fills the prescription for Hannah's mother. He throws in some free "personal lubricant" in what apparently passes for flirtation in the pharmacy biz. He invites her to the benefit for the missing girl, which is apparently the social event of the year in this suburban Michigan town. After ditching her parents on their anniversary and giving herself a hilarious pep talk ("It is not up to you to fill all the pauses. You are not in danger of mortifying yourself.") Hannah accepts and joins the guy at a benefit for a dead girl that looks more like a high school dance.

Girls is not a show that's known for its dramatic cliffhangers, but last week's episode definitely left us in suspense. Charlie found out Marnie's true feelings about him by stumbling onto Hannah's diary, which he then read on stage during his concert. This week, Hannah (Lena Dunham) and Marnie (Allison Williams) have managed to mend their friendship and, astoundingly, Marnie is hell bent on winning Charlie back, perhaps because in the wake of the diary scandal, he acted like the owner of a pair of testicles for the first time in their relationship.

Its far more soap opera action than we're accustomed to from Girls. Fortunately it's not long before we return to Hannah's awkward attempts at holding onto love and employment. She continues to suck in both areas, but she's grown accustomed to her handsy boss and d-bag "boyfriend," Adam. In her own sad way, Hannah is doing well for herself, so naturally she finds a way to spectacularly eff it up.

For some baffling reason, she thinks its a good idea to come onto her boss and then attempt to blackmail the guy when he turns her down. The boss sees right through her empty threats of extortion ("There's no suing app on your iPhone.") and shockingly tries to convince her to not quit. It's a difficult scene to watch as even Hannah seems to have no idea what she'll do next of why. But of course, as always, she ends up self-sabotaging in humiliating and confounding fashion.

The existence of "sexting" might be old news for middle-schoolers around the country, but for prudish Hannah (Lena Dunham) receiving her first text message dick pic is a thoroughly traumatic experience. Most shows would only describe the offending image, but Girls goes the extra mile by actually showing us the "semi-erect penis wrapped in a squirrel skin" followed by an in-depth conversation about its meaning. But the ultimate cringe moment comes moments later when a follow-up text reveals the text was actually meant for another girl.

Undeterred, Hannah rips her shirt off and responds with an equally racy pic. All this happens before the opening credits and naturally, Hannah's degradation is just beginning. She's finally found a job, but her much older boss, Rich, gives her a highly inappropriate massage before she's even closed out her first week. Turns out this is nothing new to the other ladies in the office, who excuse Rich's creepy advances by explaining that he's such a nice guy that he's been known to give out iPods as birthday presents. If Sex and the City celebrated the birth of 21st-Century feminism, Girls mourns its premature death.

Shoshanna, meanwhile, looks as though she might finally be on the verge of losing her v-card, as she meets up with an old camp counselor who's not turned off by her incredibly awkward quirks. ("Didn't you try to kill yourself by sucking all the air out of a raft?" he asks). Speaking of awkward, Charlie continues his misguided attempts to save his relationship by building a coffee table out of found objects as a surprise for Marnie (Allison Williams). Unfortunately, he enlists the help of his friend Ray, who not only rummages through Marnie's underwear drawer but also spends the afternoon openly fantasizing about incest. Needless to say, most shows couldn't draw laughs from this, but Girls somehow makes it work.

With Monday's announcement that HBO has renewed its critically-acclaimed series Girls for a second season, we figured now would be a good time to start bringing you up to speed on one of TV's smartest new shows. Girls may feature more awkward sex than thousand prom nights, but the show is ultimately more concerned with what's happening in its characters' than heads than in their bedrooms, and this week's episode was a prime example of how adeptly the show uses its characters love lives as a means of exploring what really makes them tick.

The creator and star of Girls, Lena Dunham, is more fixated on the risks involved with casual sex than the pleasures (she's a total Charlotte, someone who often makes people want to punch them in the face might say), so it was only a matter of time before she afflicted her protagonist with an STD. Dunham's character, Hannah, finds out that she's contracted HPV while in the presence of her dim-witted friend with benefits. She accuses him of giving her the disease, and he insists that he was recently tested and came up clean. If you're like me and you shouted at the TV screen, "There's no way to know if a dude has HPV!" it's likely that: 1.) you know far too much about STDs and 2.) you should probably keep your voice down when talking to yourself about genital infections. Hannah, of course, has never read the HPV Wikipedia page, but more on that later.

 While Hannah copes with her diagnosis, her BFF Marnie is struggling to work up some attraction to her doormat boyfriend. Unfortunately, he's recently decided to shave his head as a show of solidarity for a co-worker who's fighting cancer. It's a nice gesture, but in her words, it makes him look "scary...like Mickey mouse without the ears" and it may be the nail in the coffin for their boring, sexless relationship. Marnie moves on quickly, throwing herself at an arrogant artist who initially rejects her advances, but then leaves her with some NSFW parting words that leave her running to a public restroom to, um...take care of herself. Needless to say things aren't looking good for Baldy McNiceGuy back home.

At this point, it seems everyone is moving on except for Hannah. Party girl Jessa has finally found a job (babysitting, but still); Jessa's ditzy roommate Shoshana is now opening up about her inability to lose her virginity; only Hannah remains stuck - griping to anyone who will listen about a disease she feels she doesn't deserve. Hannah and Shoshanna open up to one another about their respective secrets while bonding over an episode of the gloriously awful game show Baggage. Shoshanna brings Hannah up to speed on the show, as though it requires context, explaining that one contestant "spends $1,000 a month on her weave, which host Jerry Springer thinks is unbe-weave-able." It's a brief, simple scene that manages to reveal a great deal about both characters while packing in more riotously funny one-liners than most shows manage in an entire season.

I think I’ve found my new religion. My prayers to the gods of 100-proof
vodka, Evelyn Lozada’s temper, and Kenya Bell’s crazy have been answered
and I feel as if I am not alone in the world anymore. Spiritual awakening,
FTW.

This episode starts out as a continuation of the last one, with Suzie
walking Kesha out of the cabana, and then walking back onto the scene. Tami
and Evelyn both look sooo unamused at Kenya, who then admits that she
did say something about Evelyn being loose. Evelyn and Tami call
Kenya out on denying her words while Kesha was there, and Kenya (unsuccessfully) tries
to talk herself out of it. She’s making Meeka Claxton look somewhat logical
right now, and that’s saying something. Everyone’s just itching to topple
her. “Crazy people can only pretend to act normal for so long,” Suzie says.
And you better believe it.

Then, in the most random scene of the episode, Royce talks with people
about her hip hop fitness video. But soon enough we’re at Kesha’s house,
where Suzie and Kesha tell Jen about the incident in the cabana. As they
describe the events of that day, Jen insists that Kenya isn’t crazy when
she’s around her. Kesha lets it slip that Kenya sees Jen as her idol
[insert Psycho soundtrack here], and Jen is shocked that Kenya worships
her. But that’s just a sidenote because, more importantly, Kesha claims to
have a witness, her friend Sakara, who can attest to the fact that Kenya
called Evelyn “loose.” What is this, calling witnesses now? Shiz is serious.

The Basketball Wives are still in Miami and we are all still reeling in the aftermath of Evelyn’s physical jab at Jennifer on what was supposed to be the most boring nights of all nights, Shaunie’s birthday party. The sixth episode of this season begins with scenes from that night, though nothing more exciting happens. Tami just revels in the entertainment value of the night, while Shaunie knows that if she lets Evelyn go, she’ll hurt a b!tch.

Jen and Suzie debrief the night soon after, and Suzie thinks that Jen and Evelyn need to meet up and talk again because Jen still seems confused as to why Evelyn is mad at her. Jen continues her speech about being in a better place in her life and says that Evelyn obviously has a pattern of falling out with everybody. Then, Suzie meets up with Evelyn, but they don’t talk about that night. Instead, they talk about Kesha, who is apparently a fragile, emotional mess over what happened at dinner with Tami. If they need to talk about it, Evelyn says, she’s not going to set up the conversation.

Suzie and Royce go to Kesha’s place to make a homecooked meal together. New trio alert! They fill Royce in on the events of Shaunie’s birthday dinner. Royce is not surprised. What’s a little more surprising is that Kenya manages to f**k up a radio show in the Jennifer vein. Apparently, a host was ripping into the Wives and Kenya just laughed the whole time, which offended Tami.

Lately, the off-camera lives of the Jersey Shore cast have been far more dramatic than anything that happens on the show, but because it mainly exists to squeeze every cent possible out of played-out ideas (Beavis & Butthead? Punk'd? Really?) MTV still rounded up the guidos to discuss the televisual Ambien that was season five. Host Amy Paffrath was apparently unaware that most people tuning into the reunion special actually watch Shore on a regular basis so she referred to season five as "the craziest yet." Amy, the only crazy thing is that this show got picked up for a sixth season.

Paffrath kicked off the clip fest by reminding us that the Shore kids "picked up right where they left off" in Seaside, which was a huge part of the problem. "It felt good to fall down and pee in bushes," said Snooki, and then the guys talked about how much they missed their GTL sessions in Italy for the 5 millionth time. Then, (Finally!) things got interesting when The Situation and Snooki (or Cokey and Preggo, as I call them) were pulled aside to discuss their still-unresolved cheating scandal.

"If I was that horny, I would go in my room and masturbate," says Snooks about the prospect of sex with The Sitch. Mike and Nicole engaged in their usual he said/she said routine, and the whole thing remained unsettled, eventually leading Ronnie to echo the sentiments of the audience by screaming, "Who the f*ck cares?!" Snooki actually offered an interesting defense by claiming that Mike likes to stir up drama but doesn't want to be hated, so he chose to start sh!t with the roommate he thought was most likely to forgive. Good theory, but I still think she banged him.

Clips of Mike's drunken emotional outburst have an added poignancy now that he's admitted to a substance abuse problem, but a montage of The Sitch's douchiest season five moments made it really difficult to feel bad for the dude. "You're worried about being the good guy or being the bad guy...Just be yourself," Snooki said to him, unwittingly hitting on one of the major problems with Shore. At this point, everyone has settled into their respective roles (JWoww's the mom; Snooki's the drunk; Pauly and Deena are comic relief) and as a result, it's slowly become one of the most predictable shows on TV. And it looks like it's not just the audience that's fed up with it...

Maybe Snooki will be the world's most patient mom. After all, her reaction to coming home to find all of her furniture missing with a kiddie pool in its place is to scream, "How fun!" Of course, eventually, she realizes that she's actually the victim of the world's most labor-intensive prank and she's slightly less cool with the situation. But ya know who's really not cool with the situation? That's right: The Situation. Mike's response to Pauly D and Vinny's prank is to sulk and stamp his feet like a 'roid-raged 3 year-old. As Pauly put it, "He's being a little b!tch right now."

And who could blame him? Last night's episode of Jersey Shore could be the last one we'll ever see. No reason for Mike to try and change the way he's viewed by his roommates or the public at this point. Come to think of it, if (God forbid) this is the end of Shore as we know it, I can't think of a better send-off for Mike than standing in the rain watching all his sh!t get ruined because he decided a temper tantrum was a better use of time than moving his freakin' bed inside. But unfortunately, that's not the last we see of The Sitch...

Since his attempt to destroy Snooki's relationship failed miserably, Mike has moved to trying to figure out how take his knowledge about Deena's sister, Joanie (She's a squirter. Something you apparently can't say on TV.) and "use it for evil." Unfortunately, for The Sitch the whole thing blows up in his face (teehee) when word gets back to Deena that Mike is spreading the word about Joanie's super soaker. Deena confronts Mike, but she's hard to take seriously, even when she's mad...especially when she's mad about her sister's hoo-ha.

Speaking of lady parts, Vinny is intent on convincing two strict vadgitarians to include sausage in their diet. He's attempting to hook-up with a lesbian couple, is what I'm saying, but his own prank backfires when he comes home to find that Ronnie's bed is still in the smush room. But as Ronnie points out, maybe it's for the best. "Look at their faces," he tells Vin. "One of them looks like Matthew McConaughey." And with that one line, Ron makes up for an entire season of contributing less to the show than goddam Crocodilly.

I never thought I'd say this, but thank God Snooki is pregnant. If that midget liquor sponge hadn't gotten knocked up, there would be literally nothing interesting going on with the cast of Jersey Shore, and I say this with one episode left in the season - a time when the drama and shenanigans are usually at their peak. The only compelling storyline since the cast returned from Italy -  Mike's douche-tastic attempt to ruin Snooki's relationship - looked like it was gonna come to a head at the beginning of last night's episode, but even that fizzled out quickly.

The Situation confessed (a little too eagerly) to Jionni that he banged Nicole while she and Jionni were dating. Jionni responded by...shaking his hand and thanking him for his honesty?! What kind of guido is this dude?! Where's the hot-tempered jealousy?! Jionni then climbs into bed with Snooki and reveals that he doesn't believe Mike's story, which makes him even more of a pussy for smiling in the face of the guy who he thinks is slandering his girlfriend for no reason. Fortunately, Snooki still has some balls and she responds to Mike's rampant dickishness like only she could - by throwing pickles at the dude.

"I think Jionni took the news so well because he knows Snooki's hooking up. He's doing the same thing," Pauly D theorized, ignoring the fact that Jionni is an obvious closet case. Snooki, of course, has a different take on the situation. "Jionni and I are getting married, I feel, when he proposes," says Snooks. "I don't when that is, but he better do it, like, within the future." Sounds like a girl with a plan...and possibly a serious learning disorder.

Because the producers are well aware of how boring this season has been, Snooki then proposes a camping trip like she's reading from a cue card and then there's a food fight, for some reason. Fortunately, what starts with a little innocent hot dog flinging turns into a serious condiment war between Snooki and The Sitch...because that's how grown-ups settle disputes. Did I mention they were sober at the time? And don't forget these two are about to head off into the woods together. What could go wrong?

Wasted, half-naked, and hitting on one of her roommates  - that's the image that the future husband and child of the newly pregnant/engaged Snooki will have to shake if they're gonna try and make a go at this whole "family" thing. So they may never wanna watch the beginning of last night's Jersey Shore...or any episode of Jersey Shore, for that matter. Fortunately for Jionni and the fetal Jionni Jr., Snooks went too hard too early in her attempt to get it in with Vinny and ended up passing out instead of her joining her roommates at Jenks. But an even better trainwreck showed up on the scene: Angelina! Sadly, no one got wasted enough to bring her home.

The next morning, The Situation tips a delivery guy with protein powder (what a guy) while JWoww prepares for her and Roger's one-year anniversary by hitting the sex shop for various flavored creams and latex items. Things get even classier, when Sitch, Snooki and Ron dump a liter of Southern Comfort into a water bottle and head to work at the Shore Store. You can guess how that turned out...with Mike putting in his hardest day's work ever? Wtf is up with this season?!

Fortunately, some drama begins to take shape when The Sitch calls The Unit to arrange another attempt to destroy Snooki's relationship. Speaking of sabotage, Vinny and Pauly D take issue with Jenni's plan to "decorate the smush room with rose petals and bondage equipment" and decide to throw the smush room mattress on the porch (without hazmat gear). Amazingly, Jenni is actually a good sport about it and Paul and Vinny don't instantly break out in full-body herpes sores.

Roger comes into town, everyone makes fun of Vinny's ridiculous denim blouse and then the whole crew heads to Karma...but not before The Situation promises a night full of serious drama. "It's been a little too calm lately," Mike says, apparently reading the minds of everyone who's been watching this season. "Sit back, grab your popcorn and watch." The Unit arrives at Karma for operation Ruin Snooki's Life (as if she can't handle that on her own) and to make things worse, Jionni's parents are in the club for some reason. Maybe this entire boring season has been leading up to this earth-shattering blow-out (I mean a fight, not a haircut). Nothing against Snooki, but God I hope so...