Given that she cast herself in the lead role for a show in which she does most of the writing, it's understandable that Lena Dunham has become conflated in many people's minds with Hannah, the monumentally effed-up protagonist of Girls. It's a problem that's sure to get worse now that Hannah seems to be enjoying the kind of fairy tale success that Dunham experienced at a young age.
It was easy to differentiate between character and creator when one was a huge success and the other a perpetually confused loser. Now that Hannah has "found a voice" and begun to experience success as a writer (at an age when most young people are still struggling to figure out how the hell they want to spend their adult years), it's fair to assume that Dunham's experiences as an acclaimed showrunner and author of a book of essays has begun to influence the course of Hannah's life. Like, for example, when Hannah gets commissioned to write a book of essays.
Okay, she's still light-years from Lena Dunham levels of success, but this is the same Hannah who couldn't hold down an unpaid internship in season one, so it's understandable when she pukes up her cosmos after receiving the news. Naturally, Hannah will find some way to screw up her recent string of good luck, but for now, she's managed to almost turn the table on Marnie and Shoshanna who are still struggling with their inexplicable relationships to a lunatic and loser, respectively.
Speaking of lunatics, Adam makes his sociopathic return this week as the warden of stolen dogs and annotated copies of Little Women. If you haven't seen the episode, that would all require some explaining that we don't have time for here. Suffice it to say, homeboy's crazier than ever, but he's moved on to sleeveless t-shirts, so at least he's reached a point in his life where he sees fit to cover his nipples in the presence of others. By this time next season he might be rockin' long sleeves and buttons.
Fortunately, Adam's dog-stealing proclivities lead to an equally deranged dog-returning mission with Ray tagging along as "extra muscle, incase sh!t gets real." These two have never really shared screentime together, but they tend to deliver the bulk of the show's laugh lines and sociopathic behavior, so sh!t does indeed get real…in Staten Island, no less. "We're not so different, you and I," Ray muses at one point. "Maybe it's because we're both kinda weird looking," says Ray, reading the minds of the audience.
The partnership yields more revelations about Ray who's quickly gone from a one-note snark fountain to one of the show's most fully-realized characters. His desperation has become so palpable during his time on screen this season, that when he screams to Adam, "I thought we were in this together," we know instantly he's not just talking about returning the stolen dog.
This week's episode brings us up to speed on Jessa (depressingly shacked-up in Hannah's spare room) and Marnie (back to kissing @ss in the arts community), "Boys" doesn't disappoint in terms of developing the show's often underused male characters. It also features some colossally douchey behavior from Booth Jonathan which reminds us that, despite their many quirks, Ray and Adam aren't such bad guys after all.
