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Growing Into Girls: 22 Love-Hate Moments From the First Season

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Last night HBO aired the season finale of freshman comedy Girls: A show so buzzed about and written up it makes Community seem ignored by comparison. The love-it-or-hate-it blitz probably has a lot to do with writers and bloggers and media types really, really relating to the lives in the show. And/or, maybe they’re jealous—that a better-connected, wealthier person got to producing the story of their lives and their friends' lives first. Because Girls is essentially the series that you and your friends drunkenly refer to on a particularly ridiculous night when someone says: “Someone should really be following us around with a video camera.”

Complete with average looking characters, unremarkable clothes, and dirty bathrooms.

The show is written, directed by, and stars one Lena Dunham—the possibly neck-less, seemingly feckless, and certainly shameless auteur behind Tiny Furniture. A rather unlikeable movie, she and it helped revive a movement that no one asked for in the first place—Mumblecore. The movie set the tone for Girls: Non-stories about forgettable looking lazies with backgrounds ranging from relatively fortunate to extremely fortunate, as they putter around New York City post-college. People who really only have fun. Or, at least, they do only the things they want to do all the time; yet they rarely seem to really be enjoying anything at all. And, either way, they’re complaining about it.

Obviously, I wanted to hate Girls; and I increased my chances of hating it by just ignoring it. Then, when I just couldn’t ignore it anymore, and everyone I knew was loving it—I gave in. And I watched all of it in one sitting. And it was love.

If you have not yet watched the show for yourself, and are still sitting on the love-hate fence, we bring you 22 love-hate moments from the show that we hope will encourage you to download season one and watch it soon. Because you can expect plenty of intense, constant coverage here on Racked when season two starts up.

· Main character Hannah (Dunham) is pretty much one big walking love-hate moment in and of herself

· When Shoshana sort of accidentally smokes crack, Jessa says “crack can be really fun under the right circumstances.”

· The $20 her parents left her wasn’t enough—so Hannah steals the tips Mom and Dad left for the hotel staff.

· Hannah abandons a terrified Marnie—she just ate a pot brownie—to go dance with Elijah. To Scissor Sisters (in fairness, it was a flashback scene).

· That flashback/Scissor Sisters/pot brownie moment? Jessa ditched Marnie to find the pot brownies.

· Hannah flies home to Michigan to visit her parents wielding a garbage bag of dirty laundry. How do you check a garbage bag?

· Shoshana has a “nutrition teacher,” wants to “meet jocks,” and loves the name Bryce.

· Hannah gave up being a vegetarian because the only thing to eat in her boyfriend Adam’s apartment was meat.

· Because it was such a real possibility that Adam might not have buzzed her back up if she left his apartment to get some food.

· Adam: “I would rather do nothing for the rest if my life than have my name on something mediocre."

· Hannah is convinced she needs 11 hours sleep each night.

· “I've never seen [Adam] with a shirt on."

· Hannah again: “I don't really give a shit about being a good friend”

· A typical Jessa insult: “Your mother was poor.”

· Hannah lives in Greenpoint. “It’s different” than Williamsburg.

· When asked if she knows what it’s like to work hard, Jessa replies: “No. Tell us.”

· Shoshana: “This is, like, six months old, this outfit."

· Hannah manically psyching herself up in the mirror before going out in Michigan. To paraphrase: As a New Yorker, you are—by default—interesting. And everyone else is lame. So relax.

· Adam attacks Hannah with conditioner: “It’s for your split ends.”

· He also attacks her with urine and is utterly unapologetic when she totally freaks out.

· The rich douchebag guy that Marnie and Jessa go home with lives in a high-rise condo and uses the worst expressions. He talks about how much money his rug cost and wears suits and has very carefully maintained facial hair. And he creates mash-ups using two-laptops that aren’t even made by Apple.

· “I know enough to know that you, like, don't have to know anyone, you know?”

· Ray on what Hannah should be wearing to work at at the café: “Jeans. Slim leg. American Apparel top. Slim leg.”

In short: You gotta watch this show!
· Girls [HBO]
· How Realistic Is the Styling on HBO's Girls? [Racked NY]