Girls Season 3 (2014)

………………………………………………………

Girls Season 3 Review

The third season of Girls is the weakest one yet as it is not plot heavy and it again treats some characters rather poorly.

………………………………………………………

“This is exactly what I thought would happen.

This is exactly why I didn’t wanna see you“

………………………………………………………

This is the longest season as instead of the usual ten episodes, we’ve got twelve this time around. And unfortunately, that only led to an even slower pacing and less plot. I liked this season and it again features some really terrific episodes and very good dialogue, but the season as a whole isn’t essential and the two previous seasons were much more impactful.

Jessa again continues to be the weakest link in this cast. I just never got her character and I still don’t get her. Her addiction problem came out of nowhere and although it led to a pretty fun road trip episode with Adam, Shoshanna and Hannah, it still didn’t yield great results and was abrupt. Jasper is the new man in her life and he was pretty forgettable and underutilized. And as for the new storyline introduced at the end with her and that old lady, well, that is interesting, but I will have to see the next season to see how it turns out.

………………………………………………………

Shoshanna is another character who got treated rather poorly this time around. The big fight that the girls had in that beach house was one of the standout sequences of this season and she was great there as she was the catalyst for it and that I expected to happen and it was a great, natural choice. She wanted to date Ray again at the end of the season, but he cut her off completely in a heartbreaking scene. Again we will have to see the next season to see some major development for her and that choice for her and Jessa to basically sit this season out was a very problematic one indeed.

As for Marnie, she continues to have the most ordinary and expected journey of the foursome, but thankfully it’s well executed. Why Charlie left her I don’t know and I found their choice to not tell us rather troublesome. Her sudden singing talent was a weird choice, yet it does lead to her problematic relationship with the musician Desi and that was well realized, albeit it’s clichéd. Her sexual relationship with Ray was odd, but again fun and well realized. They definitely took some odd liberties with her character, but at least she did something during this season unlike the previous two.

And then there is Hannah who once again is the highlight. It is interesting how she is the happiest person of the bunch at the start of the season and yet ends up in a miserable state once again near the end. Adam was really interesting and he is one of the most developed characters on the show. The Broadway development is again clichéd, but definitely well crafted and the rift that’s caused between them is most certainly understandable. We will see what happens between these two later, but for now they broke up and that was really well handled.

………………………………………………………

The death episode was very interesting and I really liked how they dealt with this complicated issue. Caroline is a good addition to the series, but I don’t know what Girls is going to do with her in the next seasons. The episode where her grandmother dies is another standout as it perfectly explores her crazy family and how parents can really affect their children in a bad way without ever noticing it. Again very clever writing. What isn’t clever is the character of Elijah who is a gay stereotype and all of the gay characters on this show are very typical and in my opinion totally unnecessary.

In the end, Girls Season 3 isn’t well edited, it isn’t impactful and the characters of Shoshanna and Jessa took an unfortunate backseat here, but Hannah’s storyline continues to be great, the dialogue is once again amazing, some issues are really interesting and so well explored and the writing continues to be strong. It isn’t as good as the previous two seasons, but it serves its purpose as a calmer season and a catalyst for the next one.

………………………………………………………

Worst Episodes: Incidentals and I Saw You.

Best Episodes: Dead Inside and Flo.