Girls is an American comedy-drama television series created by Lena Dunham, who serves as executive producer along with Judd Apatow and Jenni Konner. The series premiered on HBO on April 15, 2012.[1]Girls stars Dunham as Hannah Horvath, an aspiring writer in her 20s trying to navigate her personal and professional life in New York City after her parents discontinue their financial support. Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver, and Alex Karpovsky co-star as Hannah's circle of friends, who are also trying to figure out their own lives and relationships. During the course of the series, 62 episodes of Girls aired over six seasons, between April 15, 2012, and April 16, 2017.
Hannah's parents cut her off financially and she loses her internship when she tries to convert it into a paying job. Meanwhile, Jessa returns to town and moves in with her naive cousin, Shoshanna. Also, Hannah's roommate, Marnie, expresses dissatisfaction with her relationship to her boyfriend Charlie. Hannah and Marnie throw Jessa a welcome-back dinner party in their apartment that ends with Hannah drinking opium tea and showing up at her parents' hotel room high. After Jessa misses her own party, Marnie confronts her over her careless ways, and Jessa reveals that she is pregnant.
Jessa schedules an abortion. Marnie and Shoshanna agree to attend as moral support, whilst Hannah decides to get tested for STDs after she discovers that her friend-with-benefits, Adam, is having unprotected sex with other girls. Jessa fails to show up, and realises her pregnancy was a false alarm when she gets her period while hooking up with a stranger at a bar. Shoshanna admits to Marnie that she is still a virgin.
Hannah learns she has contracted HPV, but Adam protests the idea that he gave it to her, claiming to have been tested recently. While watching a TV show about someone's "biggest baggage", Shoshanna reveals to Hannah that she is still a virgin. Hannah tells her not to worry and tells her about her HPV diagnosis. Shoshanna tells Hannah that Jessa also contracted HPV by knowingly sleeping with a man who has it, reasoning that "All adventurous women do." Later on, Hannah meets up with her ex-boyfriend Elijah (Andrew Rannells) for drinks and finds out that he has come out of the closet. They get into an argument over Elijah's sexuality and Hannah's accusation that he gave her HPV. Meanwhile, Jessa begins her new job as a babysitter and makes a connection with the children's father Jeff (James Le Gros). Also, Marnie starts to fall for Booth Jonathan, an artist (Jorma Taccone). Hannah ruminates on recent events on Twitter, but decides she can accept having HPV.
Several weeks after the events of the first season's finale, Hannah is taking care of a broken-legged Adam while having a casual relationship with another guy, a Black college lawyer named Sandy. Meanwhile, Marnie is "downsized", leaving her jobless, while her overbearing mother does not do much to cheer her up. New roommates, Hannah and Elijah, throw a party in which Shoshanna and Ray reignite their former fling, and Elijah argues with his boyfriend, George, and starts to have sex with Marnie. Also, Jessa returns from her honeymoon with her new husband Thomas-John.
Elijah and his boyfriend, George, argue over the indiscretions that took place at the party. After a bad job interview at another art gallery, Marnie rethinks her career options. Meanwhile, Jessa and Thomas-John are happily settled into married life, causing Hannah to question her own relationship. Elsewhere, Adam goes to worrying lengths to win Hannah back, and she goes to great lengths to keep him away by having him arrested.
Hannah is hired to do freelance work at an e-Internet company for $200 an article. For her first project, she procures cocaine from Laird, the ex-junkie who lives on the ground floor in her building, and takes it with Elijah which they go out on an irresponsible excursion. Meanwhile, Marnie goes to have sex with Booth Jonathan, the conceptual artist, that she meets at her new hostess job. While at a nightclub, the strung-out Elijah tells Hannah that he had sex with Marnie. She gets angry and, after finding Laird following them, goes to Booth's house. She confronts both Marnie and Elijah, and, after fighting with Marnie, tells Elijah that she is kicking him out. She then goes back to her apartment building, and has sex with Laird for her article.
Hannah hosts a dinner party at her apartment to celebrate the publishing of her online article. But the party does not go well when Audrey, Charlie's new girlfriend, lets Marnie know how she feels. Charlie makes a move on Marnie in private. Shoshanna finds out that Ray is living with her because he is currently homeless. Afterwards, Ray tells Shoshanna he loves her. Meanwhile, Jessa meets Thomas-John’s parents during a dinner outing, but her in-your-face attitude and truthful candor rubs the conservative couple the wrong way. Afterwards, Jessa and Thomas-John get into a big argument over it, which results in their breakup.
Hannah thinks she invents the word "sexit" only to be caught in the middle of an argument between Ray and a neighbor, named Joshua (guest star Patrick Wilson). Hannah has taken pleasure in dumping the shop's trash in Joshua's trash cans. She goes to Joshua's fancy brownstone row house to confess but ends up having sex with him for the entire weekend. In the end, Hannah realizes just how narcissistic and self-loathing she really is, and that she actually wants to be happy in life and wants to stop living out experiences for other people.
After getting a deal for an e-book, Hannah has difficulty coming up with any new material when she learns that there is a one-month deadline. Meanwhile, Ray accompanies Adam to Staten Island to help him return a dog he stole and the two get into an argument about Hannah and Shoshanna. Back in Brooklyn, Marnie helps Booth Jonathan with an event after his assistant quits, but realizes that he does not believe they are dating. Hannah attends the party in hopes of getting over her writer's block, but ends up feeling out of place amongst Marnie's new friends. They call each other at the end of the night, but act as if everything is fine for both of them. Ray makes a failed attempt to return the dog and cries.
Hannah accompanies Jessa to visit her estranged father, Salvatore (guest star Ben Mendelsohn), who lives in a small town in upstate New York along with his new hippy wife Petula (guest star Rosanna Arquette). During an evening excursion, Hannah has sex with Jessa's insecure 19-year-old step-brother, Frank. Jessa does not receive the warm welcome that she had hoped for from her father and subsequently abandons Hannah. Hannah is forced to return to New York alone and her UTI flares up again.
18
8
"It's Back"
Jesse Peretz
Lena Dunham & Steve Rubinshteyn & Deborah Schoeneman
Hannah hides her anxiety from her visiting parents, repeatedly doing things eight times as a symptom. Meanwhile, Marnie is given the news that her ex-boyfriend, Charlie, has succeeded with an app inspired by their breakup, this leads to her decision to follow her true passion for singing. Also, Shoshanna sleeps with another man, the doorman of an apartment building that she attempts to attend a party, which leads her to reconsider her relationship with Ray. Elsewhere, Adam begins seeing a girl named Natalia, who is the daughter of a woman in Adam's AA meetings. Hannah's parents force therapy on her as a result of her sudden Obsessive-compulsive disorder relapse, which is revealed to have started in high school.
Hannah's publisher, David, puts major pressure on her to speed up the deadline for her book, causing her relapsed OCD to spiral out of control. Hannah sticks a Q-tip too far down her ear and has to go to the hospital. Meanwhile, Natalia is upset when Adam becomes forceful and degrading in bed as he struggles to control his dark urges that he was so used to displaying in front of Hannah. Also, Marnie makes a small start for her passion to sing by attending an office party that Charlie throws to celebrate his latest app success. Marnie and Charlie have sex. Also, Shoshanna and Ray rekindle.
Shoshanna and Ray's relationship quickly deteriorates, while Marnie and Charlie reunite following a heated brunch. Hannah still in the midst of an emotional breakdown faces a lawsuit if she does not finish her book and leaves Jessa an angry message. She and Adam reconnect after Adam and Natalia break up.
A few months after the events of the last season, Hannah has been able to combat her OCD with zoloft and she attempts to ease Adam into her social circle as he moves into her apartment to look after her, while Ray moves into Adam's apartment. Marnie is living with her divorced mother as she recovers from a second breakup with Charlie. Shoshanna establishes her priorities for studying to graduate from college after her splitup with Ray. Meanwhile, Jessa's divorce from Thomas John has been finalized and she is secretly in rehab, but finds herself unpopular due to her careless attitude with the other patients.
Hannah, Adam and Shoshanna take a road trip to pick up Jessa from rehab while discussing their various conflicts in life to compare with Jessa who is spending time with a fellow alcoholic, named Jasper (Richard E. Grant) while waiting for her friends to pick her up. Back in New York, Marnie moves out of her mother's house and into her new apartment.
Adam's mentally unstable sister Caroline (Gaby Hoffmann) visits her brother and Hannah after losing her job. Dismissing advice from Adam about his sister's mental state, Hannah invites Caroline to her 25th birthday party that Hannah's parents throw for her. Meanwhile, Marnie deals with a humiliating music video that she and Charlie made before their breakup. Also, Ray cuts off ties to Shoshanna altogether, and he later gets into a brawl at the party with Hannah's flamboyant editor, David (John Cameron Mitchell), over the party's music and his drunk behavior.
When Hannah's editor, David, is found dead, Adam finds her to be insensitive when she appears to be more concerned about the fate of her eBook. On Shoshanna's advice, Jessa tries to visit the grave of her late friend, only to learn that her friend is still alive. After catching Ray and his boss, Hermie (Colin Quinn), streaming her music video during a shift at the new Grumpy's coffeehouse, Marnie has a mental breakdown and quits.
Hannah attends David's funeral and learns from his wife that her eBook deal is dead, and worse still, cannot access her ebook from David's company for three years. Meanwhile, Jessa goes looking for work, while Marnie goes to Ray looking for advice over Charlie, which results in a brief lovemaking session. Elsewhere, Caroline and Adam angrily air out their frustrations with each other. Later, due to the mounting tension, Hannah kicks Caroline out of the apartment after finally seeing just how deranged and irresponsible Caroline really is.
Hannah begins working at GQ, though she soon realizes the job is not quite what she had hoped for. After their previous encounter, Marnie and Ray begin to spend more time together. Meanwhile, Shoshanna decides that she wants to change her ways and commit to a serious relationship. Deciding to pursue an acting career, Adam attends auditions for a role on a Broadway show and gets a callback.
Marnie invites the girls to spend the weekend at her mother's friend's beach house on Long Island, but her perfectionism quickly becomes stifling when Hannah runs into Elijah and his gay friends and invites them over. Before the night is out, Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna argue over each other's shortcomings and personal faults (Hannah's narcissism and feelings of entitlement; Marnie's perfectionism and feelings of honesty; Jessa's brashness and drug addiction; and Shoshanna's lack of career moves and feelings of being left out), but they all silently reconcile the next morning prior to leaving.
Adam's Broadway callback for Major Barbara is successful, but Hannah worries that he will put his acting career before their relationship after she interviews a plainspoken Patti LuPone. Meanwhile, Marnie meets an old friend, named Soo Jin, who is planning to open her own art gallery and Marnie offers to help her. Later, Marnie suffers another emotional blow when Ray calls it quits, although hope materializes in the form of Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Adam's newest acquaintance and Broadway co-star, who expresses an interest in her singing. Bored with her job at the children's boutique, Jessa quits her job and relapses into alcohol after Jasper from rehab tracks her down.
Hannah learns that her maternal grandmother Flo (June Squibb) is dying of pneumonia back in Michigan. While comforting her mother and her two aunts, she witnesses them squabble over petty matters. Hannah also unsuccessfully tries to bond with her cousin, academically-focussed med school student Rebecca (Sarah Steele), and is forced to contemplate her future with Adam when her mother asks her to tell Flo that she is engaged to be married. At the end, although Flo recovers from the pneumonia, she dies of a heart attack as soon as Hannah returns to New York.
Fearing that Adam's work in the play is making him too distant, Hannah tries to reinvigorate their quirky sex life through an elaborate role-playing scenario in which she lures him to a bar and poses as a disgruntled hedge fund manager's wife. Her plan falls apart when Adam announces that he's temporarily moving in with Ray in order to focus on his rehearsals. Meanwhile, Shoshanna reunites Jasper with his estranged daughter, Dottie (Felicity Jones), who convinces him to leave Jessa so that she can take care of him.
After another enlightening interview with Patti LuPone, Hannah realizes that she is squandering her creative talents and decides to get herself fired from GQ. While Marnie assists her friend Soo Jin's gallery opening, Jessa stops by and quickly charms the artist being featured, Bedelia (guest star Louise Lasser), who, in turn, offers Jessa an archiving job. Later, Marnie and Desi perform a successful duet at an open mic concert, but when Marnie realizes that Desi is genuinely in love with his girlfriend Clementine (Natalie Morales), she returns to the bed of a relenting Ray... and Hannah catches them in the act.
In the Season Three finale, Hannah learns that Adam's estranged and deranged sister, Caroline, has been living with Laird in the ground-floor apartment this whole time and that they are expecting a baby together. Afterwards, she receives an acceptance letter from the University of Iowa for their prestigious writers' workshop and is encouraged by her parents to jump at the opportunity. Though she never fully confirms that she will go, the episode ends with her clutching the letter and smiling to herself. Meanwhile, Shoshanna's academic life and nerves crumble when she learns that she cannot graduate. After Marnie tells her that she slept with Ray, she begs Ray to take her back, but he rejects her. At the opening night of Major Barbara, Desi kisses Marnie after she gives him a James Taylor guitar pick, but the afterglow is diminished once Marnie realizes that she has caused a rift in his relationship with Clementine. Despite positive reviews, Adam feels he blew his performance and lashes out at Hannah for psyching him out with her news about Iowa. Finally, Bedelia asks Jessa to assist her in committing suicide. While a reluctant Jessa ultimately agrees, Bedelia balks and changes her mind after ingesting the drug.
Hannah dines with her parents and Adam one last time before packing for Iowa. Meanwhile, Shoshanna finally graduates from college after attending summer classes, but becomes annoyed by her overbearing parents' constant bickering. Also, Jessa argues with Beedie's angry daughter over her caretaking. Elsewhere, Marnie and Desi play a tough jazz-brunch gig while continuing their secret romantic tryst.
Hannah arrives in Iowa, initially enchanted by how much easier life outside of New York City seems to be. The charm of it all begins to wear off after one of Hannah's stories ends up provoking a strongly negative reaction from her classmates in the writer's workshop. Later, Elijah shows up for a visit and he and Hannah end up crashing an undergrad frat party.
While Elijah fits easily into Iowa's social scene, Hannah struggles with how to occupy her time with only one class per week. The two end up heading to a poet party where Hannah expresses her ambivalence about being a writer and ends up insulting each of her classmates out of frustration with them. Back in New York, Shoshanna has a successful job interview but ends up sabotaging it at the last minute. Ray warns Marnie about Desi's intentions before their meeting with a record label. Elsewhere, Jessa pulls Adam into her chaotic and self-destructive life which leads to the two of them getting arrested and Ray bailing them out.
Shoshanna has another job interview that goes rather poorly and she ends up spending the next day shopping with Ray. Tensions between Marnie and Desi reach a breaking point. After lashing out at her classmates at the poet party, Hannah puts a non-apology apology letter in all of their cubbies and is confronted by them. Later, Hannah has dinner with her father and confesses that she does not really want to stay in the program. He tells her that the choice is up to her and the next morning she heads back to New York. When she gets back to her apartment she is greeted by a woman named Mimi-Rose (Gillian Jacobs) and finds most of her furniture missing. She asks Adam if Mimi-Rose is his roommate, but she quickly realizes that she is actually his girlfriend.
Hannah confronts Adam about Mimi-Rose and, feeling lost, locks herself in his bedroom refusing to leave. Adam and Mimi-Rose stay at Laird's apartment during Hannah's sit-in where she is visited by her friends. Shoshanna now hates Adam, Marnie is consumed with her new relationship with Desi and is mostly unreachable, Ray is concerned with his own turmoil regarding a new traffic light outside of his apartment, and Laird and Caroline are obsessive new soon-to-be parents. Jessa tells Hannah, apathetically, that she introduced Adam and Mimi-Rose stating that Adam is much happier and more open in NA now. Hannah finally speaks to Adam prior to leaving during which Adam confesses that he was relieved when Hannah left for Iowa and he may be in love with Mimi-Rose. Hannah leaves to the storage space Adam has rented for her and spends the night on her couch there.
Shoshanna has another poor job interview at an instant soup manufacturer but accepts the invitation for a date with the interviewer, Scott (Jason Ritter). Meanwhile, Ray approaches the city council to bring an official complaint about the new traffic light on his street corner which is causing noise caused by constant traffic congestion at all hours of the day and night. Marnie's affections for Desi begin to fade after they get into an argument over a song she wrote and its place in their showcase. Elsewhere, Adam is now living with Mimi-Rose at her loft who tells him that she aborted a pregnancy a week ago that he did not know about. Adam is furious and packs up all of his belongings to move out, but ultimately stays. Also, Elijah is now living with Hannah who has decided she wants to begin a teaching career.
Hannah is a week into her new job as a substitute English-reading teacher and finds herself doing quite well. She goes out for a date with another teacher named Fran (Jake Lacy) and after an enjoyable dinner invites him to go to one of Mimi-Rose's art shows. Adam angrily asks her why she's there and she admits that she does not know. Fran leaves and Mimi-Rose introduces Hannah to her ex-partner Ace (Zachary Quinto). She invites Hannah to the after party and asks Hannah to share a cab with her. The cab driver ends up accidentally hitting an old woman and the two women decide to wait nearby while an ambulance comes. They end up in a laundromat and start to hash out their differences and insecurities. When they finally get to the after party, Hannah tells Adam that she likes Mimi-Rose and walks home alone.
Having befriended her student Cleo (Maude Apatow), Hannah spends time with her outside of school, even convincing her to get a painful-looking frenulum piercing. Later, Hannah approaches Fran to apologize for ruining their date but he rebuffs her, implying that she's too dramatic for him. Meanwhile, Shoshanna helps Ray amass local support for his upcoming campaign to run for a seat on the Brooklyn city council and is upset to learn that he is in love with Marnie. Deciding to follow Jessa's advice, Shoshanna tries to be sexually forward on her date with Scott. Marnie gets angry with Desi when she learns that he spent their entire $2,000 record label advance on guitar pedals. He later apologizes and proposes to her, and she accepts. Elsewhere in Michigan, Hannah's father Tad comes out to her mother Loreen, who reacts badly. At a dinner party in celebration of her new tenure, Loreen gets upset when Tad toasts her. She leaves the table and is seen rebuffing the advances of Avi (Fred Melamed). When Hannah calls her parents to rant about Fran, Loreen bluntly reveals to her that Tad is gay.
Tad visits Hannah in New York, befriending Elijah, and Hannah struggles with the idea of his homosexuality as he is her father. She is also baffled to hear that her parents plan to stay together. Meanwhile, Jessa and Ace have sex for the first time, and Ace leads Jessa to Mimi-Rose's apartment, hoping to make Mimi-Rose jealous and angering Adam. When Mimi-Rose decides that she "chooses herself" instead of either man, Jessa and Adam leave. Also, Shoshanna plans an elaborate campaign party for Ray in the bar at a local bowling alley, where Marnie decides to announce her and Desi's engagement. When Ray learns that he has won the election for a city council seat, he gives a victory speech to everyone about being dedicated to the community, and he also strongly implies his love for Marnie.
In the Fourth Season finale, the eight-months pregnant Caroline goes into labor and insists on having a home birth in her bathtub. Meanwhile, Shoshanna is finally offered a job which would require her to relocate to Tokyo. Scott begs her not to go saying he will "be in love with [her] soon". After being pestered for his approval, Ray snaps and tells Desi that he hates him, and that he will never be good enough for Marnie. Later as a possible result, Desi does not show up to his and Marnie's showcase debut and she performs solo to great applause. Shoshanna looks for Ray for advice, but with him unavailable, Hermie tells Shoshanna that she should not pass up a lucrative job opportunity such as this. Hannah, Adam, and Jessa are called by Laird to help out with Caroline whose labor pains begin to concern him. After Jessa discovers that the impending baby is actually breech, Caroline is forcibly taken to the hospital to give birth. After the baby is born, Adam and Hannah are alone in the incubation room where Adam confesses that he misses Hannah and says he wants her back, but Hannah refuses. Later, Jessa returns home where Shoshanna excitedly tells her she is moving to Japan. Six months later, Hannah is seen holding hands and kissing Fran walking down a New York street in winter.
Picking up several months after the flash forward ending of season four, Marnie is marrying Desi at an upstate mansion and all of her friends are in attendance. Marnie micromanages her wedding to Desi while trying to maintain the facade of the breezy bride in dealing with the forecast rain, as well as Hannah naturally trying to be the center of attention. Marnie tasks Shoshanna with kicking out Fran, Hannah's date, so the girls can get ready and have no distractions. Banished to the boys' den, Fran has an awkward moment with Adam. A dejected Ray steps in to help Desi with his wedding-day jitters. Adam has an encounter with Jessa while she stands outside smoking a cigarette. Eventually, it is Jessa who steps in and saves the wedding from being a complete disaster.
In New York, an erratic and deranged roommate leads Fran to move in with Hannah. Later, Hannah gets an urgent call from her father, Tad, who is trying to navigate a new type of dating with courting a gentleman, named Keith, that he met online. After another unpleasant visit with his unbalanced sister Caroline, Adam goes to an AA meeting where he runs into Jessa. They end up spending the day together. Meanwhile, Ray fears that the new cafe across the street is hurting his business. Also, Elijah is hit on by a famous TV news anchor named Dill Harcourt.
Thriving at her new job in Japan, Shoshanna flirts with the boss Yoshi, but she reminds her two female work friends that she has a "kind of" boyfriend back in America. Shosh also learns that her job in Japan may be ending soon. Back in New York, Hannah makes a shocking discovery on Fran's phone of naked pictures of Fran's ex-girlfriends and struggles with how to react. After viewing Adam's performance on a TV police procedural, Jessa shares her insights into his character.
Hannah and Fran disagree about their teaching methods to their respective students. Marnie fumes over Desi's decision to launch a major construction project in their studio apartment. Meanwhile, Jessa pushes Hannah away over an awkward rice-pudding meetup due to her insecurity over her secret growing attraction for Adam. Also, Elijah gets closer to Dill Harcourt when they go on their first official date and spend the night together. Jessa and Adam then have sex for the first time.
Hannah and her mom, Loreen, embark on a female-empowerment retreat, where Loreen hopes for clarity in her situation with Tad, and Hannah hopes to relish time away from Fran. After hearing stories from some of the other women in attendance about the failures of their own marriages, Loreen decides that her marriage to Tad is worth preserving. Meanwhile, Hannah quickly becomes bored, particularly as one of the supervisors keeps pestering her to put her phone away. Not used to people telling her what to do, Hannah tries to be alone and she soon bonds with a young woman who teaches yoga at the retreat, and shares her philosophies of life. While hanging out in the sauna, Hannah initiates sex with her, but subsequently cuts it short when the heat of the sauna proves too much. The lesbian encounter proves to be an eye-opening event for Hannah. In Tokyo, Shoshanna enjoys her new job as a kitty club waitress as well as her budding romance with Yoshi, and gets a surprise visitor from the U.S. when Abigail shows up for a visit. Elsewhere, Jessa meets up with her sister Minerva (Marianna Palka) and asks for a large amount of money so that she can go back to college. Adam offers to pay for her education instead, after Jessa's sister refuses to help her.
Needing space after a fight with Desi, Marnie goes for a walk and has an unexpected encounter with Charlie (Christopher Abbott), her former boyfriend whom she has not seen for two years. Charlie then takes Marnie on a day and night-long excursion through the city as she sees the strange and outgoing person that Charlie has become. Afterwards, the encounter motivates her to end her marriage with Desi.
Hannah is reprimanded by the school principal for her unorthodox and inappropriate teaching methods and her mouthing off to her co-workers. As she always does, Hannah reacts very badly to someone questioning and criticizing her ways by displaying her typical selfish and angry behavior which infuriates Fran who finally begins to think that Hannah is too dramatic and self-absorbed for him to handle. At Adam's play, a nervous Jessa worries about seeing Hannah after their fight, and Marnie shares news with Ray. Hannah has yet another emotional meltdown when she sees Jessa and Adam seductively looking at each other and correctly assumes that they are now sleeping together. Meanwhile, Elijah attends a swanky party at Dill's apartment where he gets the impression that he might be one of many.
Stranded after she cuts short her planned summer road trip with Fran by breaking up with him, Hannah is rescued by Ray, but their trip back to NYC gets derailed. Hannah then abandons Ray by hitchhiking a ride with a stranger, named Hector, who is moving to New York to escape his own troubled relationship. When he hasn't heard from Caroline, Adam stops by Laird's place and discovers that she has disappeared days earlier for places unknown. Adam stays to help with the baby and gets Jessa to help him out while Laird goes to look for Caroline. Back from Japan, Shoshanna gets a wake up call over a sushi lunch when she has an unpleasant run-in with Scott. While recording a new song, Marnie is given parameters for her relationship with Desi.
Hannah throws Fran out of her apartment and then informs her boss, Principal Toby (Douglas McGrath), that she will not be returning next semester; he praises her joie de vivre and wishes her well. On the street, Hannah runs into Tally (Jenny Slate), her old friend-slash-nemesis, which leads to the two of them bonding via bicycle riding and pot smoking until Tally tells Hannah about her own life and the stresses of her successful writing career. Meanwhile, Marnie has an unsettling dream and later tries to work things out with both Ray and Desi. Noticing that business is suffering at Ray's, Shoshanna offers to help Ray and Hermie with marketing as well as performing clandestine research on the competition across the street. She comes up with an idea to pander to the "anti-hipster" market. Elsewhere, Elijah makes his pitch to Dill for their relationship to be exclusive, but is ultimately rejected.
In the season finale, Hannah's parents, Tad and Loreen, come to visit and Hannah, insecure and immature as always, does everything she can to avoid seeing and talking to them. Eventually Loreen and Elijah help Hannah with her plan to participate in the Moth Story Slam so she can express her inner feelings towards her insecurities. Meanwhile, Marnie prepares to go on tour with Desi, while she decides to re-connect with Ray. Shoshanna's marketing strategy for Ray's coffee house is met with great success and Hermie hires her to work there as a reward. Tad and Keith finally reconnect with each other. After helping take care of the baby, Jessa and Adam have an epic physical fight and they destroy the interior of his apartment, wherein Jessa finally admits that she feels guilty at having hurt Hannah by taking her boyfriend, that she misses her friend enormously, and that she will never forgive Adam for that. Hannah later reveals that she overheard part of the argument while dropping off a fruit basket to wish them well.
Several months later, after her piece about Jessa and Adam's relationship is published in The New York Times, Hannah is sent on an assignment to a surf camp in the Hamptons by a magazine publisher. Although she initially dislikes it, she soon loosens up when she pursues a sexual tryst with her free-spirited instructor, Paul-Louis. Back in New York City, Marnie struggles to come to terms with her divorce from Desi, particularly after watching Ray and Shoshanna's friendly, affectionate interactions. At the same time, Ray decides to crash at Adam and Jessa's apartment despite both of them being deeply and sexually involved with each other.
Hannah reluctantly agrees to accompany Marnie and Desi on a weekend trip to Poughkeepsie, in order to provide Ray with a cover story. There, Marnie discovers that Desi has been addicted to Oxycontin for a year, resulting in a violent argument. After shutting Desi out of the house, Hannah gently explains to Marnie that she didn't notice Desi's drug addiction because she spends too much time thinking about herself; something that Hannah admits she understands all too well. She reaffirms their friendship, and eventually helps her take Desi home. Meanwhile, Elijah agrees to accompany Shoshanna to a networking event organised by two former college friends of Shosh's, who started their own clothing line. To her dismay, Jessa invites herself along. There, her former friends confront her over her having bailed on their Spring Break trip to Aruba with only six hours notice, and for subsequently abandoning them in order to pursue friendships with Jessa's circle. Outside, a seething Shoshanna snaps at her cousin, accusing her of ruining her life, and eventually orders her to get out of her face.
Hannah visits the upscale apartment of Chuck Palmer, a famed, prize-winning writer, who has summoned her after reading an article that she wrote accusing him of coercing college students into having sex with him, and desiring to give her his side of the story. The two engage in a long and tense debate about Chuck's shortcomings in his interactions towards women (as he appears unaware of the impact of the power imbalance between him and the college girls Hannah quoted) and Hannah's journalistic mistake (since most of her sources for the article were Tumblr blog posts, and therefore relied on hearsay). Eventually, they begin to bond over their shared literary preferences, and their perceived insecurities. However, after Hannah apologizes for writing the article, Chuck manipulates her into grabbing his penis, and Hannah finally understands who he really is. Hannah reluctantly avoids making a scene by agreeing to listen to a flute recital by Chuck's visiting daughter, and leaves, looking visibly ashamed, humiliated and enraged.
Emotionally rejected by Marnie (who remains privately embroiled in her drama with Desi and his recovery), Ray is beginning to feel disillusioned about their relationship, particularly when she rejects his effort to just hang out with her. Later, when one of his regular customers collapses and dies after Ray is brusque with him, Ray and Hermie get into an argument over the idea that Ray is wasting his potential. Later, when Shoshanna helps Ray to realize Hermie is only trying to help, Ray goes to his friend's apartment to apologize, only to find that he has also died. Elsewhere, after Adam angrily quits working on a film set, he and Jessa decide to make a movie together, based on their situation with Hannah. Meanwhile, Hannah is suffering from a yet another urinary tract infection due to her HPV, and eventually decides to go to the emergency room to get some antibiotics; there, she has a surprise encounter with Joshua, her doctor fling from "One Man's Trash". Joshua then drops another unexpected bombshell, that Hannah is pregnant. When he immediately assumes that she will want an abortion, she leaves the ER without getting any treatment for her infection. On her way home, Hannah is confronted in her stairwell by Jessa and Adam, who ask her for permission to make their movie; irritated and still in shock from her discovery, Hannah mutters her consent.
Loreen (Hannah's mother) has come to visit Hannah for a few days, and Hannah informs her of her pregnancy. Although Loreen appears happy with the news, it becomes clear that she has become addicted to cannabis and she is struggling to cope with being alone after her divorce, and the news of Hannah's baby only worsens her growing fatalism. After a fight with her daughter at a laundromat while high, Loreen disappears. After hours of looking, Elijah and Hannah find Loreen binging at a Chinese restaurant. There, Loreen breaks the news of Hannah's pregnancy to Elijah, who does not take it well, and bluntly tells Hannah she would be a terrible mother because she is selfish and self-obsessed. Meanwhile, a grieving Ray is going through Hermie's apartment with an obviously disinterested Marnie. Finally fed up with her self-absorbed behaviour, Ray tells her he wants to break up. Elsewhere, Adam and Jessa are making progress on their film. Jessa becomes worried by some of the lines of dialogue about Hannah and Adam's relationship, which Jessa realizes more accurately reflects their own, and she's also concerned that Adam is acting sympathetically towards "Hannah" during the filming.
Hannah finally informs Marnie of her pregnancy, and although she reacts positively, she quickly annoys her by insisting that she has to tell the father. This puts Hannah in a dilemma about whether to do so. Hannah then visits her father and his boyfriend offer her both sides of the argument. Meanwhile, Marnie struggles to convince Desi to perform at a club in New Jersey as a favor to her mother. Desi ultimately turns up high, and Marnie is forced to perform with her mother who soon does a terrible job. Adam starts asking Hannah to watch the first cut of his film, saying he wants her to confirm its accuracy; he bothers her with so many annoying queries about the film that she abruptly tells him she is pregnant, to his complete shock. Jessa then shows up, uninvited and unwelcomed, at Hannah's to complain that Hannah didn't tell her about the pregnancy. Hannah forcefully tells Jessa that they're not friends, they never were friends, and that she didn't tell Jessa because she does not give a damn about Jessa in any way. Jessa tearfully tries to guilt Hannah into feeling bad about what she said, but Hannah just tells Jessa "I don't care." Eventually, Hannah makes a half-hearted attempt to contact Paul-Louis, but does not succeed. In frustration, she decides to watch Adam's film – and is caught off guard by its surprisingly raw, emotional opening scene. Elsewhere, Elijah, working in retail at his second job, realizes his thespian talent when he agrees to read lines from a play that his co-worker is auditioning for.
Taking the advice of his department store colleague, Elijah decides to attend a workshop audition for a stage remake of the 1992 sports comedy White Men Can't Jump, while Hannah is waiting to hear back from Paul-Louis. On his way out, Elijah is surprised by the arrival of his former boyfriend, Dill Harcourt – who is trying to hide from some paparazzi due to a recent scandal involving him trying to adopt a baby on the black market. Hannah agrees to keep an eye on him at the apartment while Elijah leaves. At the audition, Elijah initially tries to bail, but then meets a young woman named Athena, who persuades him to stay, and the two bond. Elijah's audition initially goes well, although it soon emerges he has no control over the basketball he has been given. Meanwhile, upon learning of Hannah's dilemma with her baby, Dill firmly tells her that not having a father figure when he grew up was the reason he couldn't bring himself to love anybody. Later, Paul-Louis finally calls Hannah back where she finally tells him of her pregnancy. Although he is genuinely surprised, and offers some emotional support, he admits he is not ready to be a father. After the call, Hannah breaks into tears, and an also-crying Dill comforts her. Elijah returns from the audition to find the two bonding over television and pizza, and after initially standing up to Dill, Elijah invites him to his room for sex. The next morning, he receives a phone call from the producers, offering him a part in the play – on the condition he is kept well away from the basketball. Concurrently, Marnie is broke, and has just received an eviction notice. Unable to get support from her mother, other than a place to sleep, she goes to pawn some of her jewelry, only to discover that all of the seemingly precious jewelry that her parents gave her were cheap knockoffs. When this revelation causes Marnie to throw yet another narcissism-laced tantrum, the appraiser rolls his eyes at her, and tells her that she is merely trying to blame other people for her predicament; the only liar in her life is herself. Deeply affected by this encounter, and realizing that she needs to take responsibility for her life, Marnie leaves Desi a voice message telling him she's sorry for how she treated him and that he has nothing to feel regret about, as she packs up her stuff to move back in with her mom.
Having given in to his nostalgia, Adam asks Hannah if he can help her raise the baby. Despite her fear that Adam will leave her for good, Jessa offers no resistance and has sex with a stranger in a bar instead. Adam tracks Hannah down and makes his pitch; still riding her wave of loneliness after Paul-Louis's phone call, Hannah invites him home for sex. Appearing to have reconciled, Hannah starts making plans for raising the baby with Adam. However, by the day's end, both have come to the realization that their enthusiasm for their relationship has already gone, and end up returning home separately. Discovering he does not have his key, Adam phones a relieved Jessa to buzz him in to their apartment, while Hannah lies on her bed weeping... her fears of having to raise her baby alone now returned. Meanwhile, Ray and Shoshanna meet for lunch with Shosh's friend and former boss, Abigail. To Shosh's dismay, Ray and Abigail hit it off quickly, and decide to work together to continue Hermie's pet project of documenting the effects of gentrification. The two later share a kiss while riding a merry-go-round that evening.
Hannah interviews for a position at an unnamed college upstate. She meets with Phaedra, a dynamic creative writing professor who discovered Hannah's work online. Heading back to the city, Hannah receives a job offer. Elijah does not understand why Hannah wants to leave New York. He tries his best to convince her to stay, but she's focused on finding a better environment for her baby, and that this is her chance to finally leave the city. Hannah runs into a now somewhat-stable Caroline while trying to reach Marnie on her phone, and Caroline says Hannah should take the college job. Hannah sees Marnie receiving one of her phone calls at a distance and not answering it or listening to her voicemail message. In need of advice about her move, Hannah heads to Shoshanna's apartment only to find the other girls there celebrating Shosh's engagement, to a man Hannah didn't even know Shosh was dating; Hannah was intentionally left uninvited. Seeing the looming threat of a fight, Marnie calls a group meeting in the bathroom, hoping to resolve their friendship issues. The conversation isn't productive, as everything the four girls have to say to each other was already said two years previously in the "Beach House" episode, and it ends with Shoshanna declaring she has moved on and no longer wants to be friends with any of them by telling Hannah, Marnie and Jessa that they have held her back from her life and career long enough. Later, when Jessa (who was only invited because she'd called Shoshanna to get an ATM code) attempts to make her feel better, Hannah is willing to listen, and they finally make their peace. In one final hurrah, the girls end the night dancing in the apartment, albeit individually. The episode ends as Hannah finally leaves the city and moves into her new home upstate.
In the series finale, needing direction in life, Marnie surprises Hannah in bed and asks if she can move in with her and help raise her baby. Hannah agrees. In a jump forward to five months later, Hannah has given birth to a mixed race boy, and has named her baby "Grover" (which was Paul-Louis's preferred name). She is struggling with motherhood, getting stressed that Grover will not breastfeed, and her relationship with Marnie is fractious. Eventually, Marnie calls Loreen for help. This only enrages Hannah further and after a particularly angry fight, she storms off, leaving Grover in Loreen and Marnie's care. While she's gone, Loreen advises Marnie that she should not put her love for Hannah above her own happiness, as she herself had lost her own "best friend," (Tad) by making the same mistake. Hannah, meanwhile, encounters a visibly distressed teenage girl running from a house in a state of undress. Thinking she was running away from a rapist or abusive parents, Hannah offers her support and her trousers. Upon discovering the girl is actually just a bratty teen running away from home because her mother ordered her to do her homework, Hannah angrily berates her, in turn coming to her own understanding about motherhood. The girl runs off, leaving Hannah to walk home pantsless, although a concerned police officer insists on escorting her there. She arrives to find Loreen and Marnie sitting on the porch, Grover asleep upstairs. They make space for her, and give her a glass of wine, the three finally at peace for the night. Grover's crying emerges on the baby monitor, and Hannah goes to soothe him. When she tries breastfeeding him once more, he finally latches, to her relief.
Ratings
Girls : U.S. viewers per episode (thousands)
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