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Going Public

On Girls, Hannah shares her big news with her friends—and finds that everyone has an opinion

by
Miranda Cooper
March 20, 2017
(Craig Blankenhorn)Girls
Lena Dunham and Peter Scolari on Season 6, Episode 6 of 'Girls.' (Craig Blankenhorn)(Craig Blankenhorn)Girls
(Craig Blankenhorn)Girls
Lena Dunham and Peter Scolari on Season 6, Episode 6 of 'Girls.' (Craig Blankenhorn)(Craig Blankenhorn)Girls

Complete with friendship drama, a painful musical performance by Marnie, and a rare scene of Hannah and Adam interacting, this week’s episode of Girls, “Full Disclosure,” felt a lot like something out of an earlier season—plus Hannah’s pregnancy, of course. Sadly, no Shoshanna or Ray in this episode, though.

In the episode’s opening, Hannah tells Marnie her big news. Marnie thinks Hannah having a child is a great idea, which is concerning to Hannah. “I can’t believe how supportive you’re being!” she says. “It kind of makes me want to do it less, but…” What Marnie doesn’t approve of is Hannah’s decision not to tell the baby’s father, Paul-Louis, and she rescinds her previous statement that Hannah has her shit relatively together.

Marnie and Desi are performing together, and, surprise, surprise, it’s not going well. Desi is tired of Marnie “exploiting” him by signing him up to perform with her at birthday parties and family gigs. He storms off during rehearsal, casually threatening to kill himself. Marnie is unfazed, and the next time we see him, as they’re about to perform for the birthday party in question—Marnie’s mother’s new “party rock” BFF—he’s high out of his mind. Marnie somehow still doesn’t pick up on that fact, which even her mother calls her out on. In response, she turns around and blames her mother for her mistakes: in love, in her career, in life. I thought I had reached my limit of disliking Marnie, but she manages to get more clueless, more annoying, and more self-centered with every episode. Eventually, Marnie’s mother ends up stepping in for Desi, and the ‘Michaels Sisters’ perform together. Their debut is short-lived: Marnie’s mother, played to perfection by Rita Wilson, starts riffing and scat singing midway through their first song, mortifying her daughter and the audience.

Hannah and Adam have their first conversation of the season, and only second on-screen interaction. Adam, waiting outside her apartment, begs her to watch his and Jessa’s film, and she refuses. She has no interest. He wants to be assured that his take on their relationship is accurate, that it reflects what she felt, that they felt the same things. “I guarantee you we did not,” she tells him. But Hannah cares just a little too much about not watching the film, and as she’s rushing towards the subway she tells Adam she’s pregnant, saying it as if to spite him. (Like Marnie, Adam doesn’t approve of her not telling the father.) Even if she managed to turn the story of her heartbreak into an eloquent, witty essay for The New York Times, it’s clear that there remain unresolved issues between them.

Indeed, more past wrongs are revisited when Jessa arrives at Hannah’s apartment unannounced to express her hurt at having to hear the pregnancy news from Adam. She cares about Hannah, she says, even if they don’t talk. They argue about the status of their friendship, or lack thereof. They call each other sociopaths and psychopaths. It’s an emotional scene for Jessa, but at this point, it just seems unimportant—which is basically Hannah’s position in the argument. She’s over it. Yawn.

Or maybe not. The Adam-Hannah-Jessa situation, no matter what she wants Adam and Jessa to think, hasn’t entirely lost its emotional resonance for Hannah. At the end of the episode, after trying halfheartedly to get in touch with Paul-Louis, Hannah, despite herself, watches Adam’s film. And, again despite herself, she seems to be moved by the scene that she watches, which features (sex and) a tender exchange between Adam and ‘Mira’ that clearly rings true for Hannah. As the real-life Girls credits roll, we see a bonus scene from the film: In a dramatization of how they met, Mira eats an almond straight from the bin at the store Adam works at, he chides her, and then writes his number on her hand. It hurts, she complains. “Good, so you’ll remember,” he says. Seems very Hannah and Adam.

Something tells me that Hannah and Adam’s story isn’t over yet.

Oh, and another bonus: we get a snapshot of Tad’s life with his partner, Keith (Ethan Phillips), which is endearing and charming. The two of them, like everyone in this episode, weigh in on Hannah’s decision not to tell Paul-Louis; Keith offers an anecdote about being a sperm donor for a lesbian couple he was friends with, and how he wished he had been able to be part of the child’s life. Although this scene serves mostly to add to the din of voices telling Hannah what to do, it’s nice to see that Tad has found a measure of domestic bliss. He seems to be the only one in the Girls universe who is so lucky.

Miranda Cooper is an editorial intern at Tablet. Follow her on Twitter here.