The Book of Rannells: Girls: Season 2, Episode 2 – “I Get Ideas” (2013)

Assorted moving parts in this episode.  Not nearly as much Elijah as in the season premiere, so obviously a bummer in that sense, and with the exception of one particular scene, the show again largely wastes guest star Donald Glover.

The events of the last episode land Elijah in hot water, and he’s bound and determined that Hannah not find out about it.  Luckily for him, Hannah is distracted by relationship problems on two fronts.  First, she starts to worry when she shares a piece of her writing with Sandy and he doesn’t seem all that interested in getting around to reading it.  Second, and more distressingly, after laying down firmer boundaries with Adam, she’s now being “treated” to the creepy, angry songs he’s recorded about her, as well as unwanted texts and other stalkerish behavior.  Meanwhile, Marnie has a career crisis on top of her recent relationship crisis, and the last thing she wants is advice from the relentlessly-happy Shoshanna and Ray.

Like I said, another mostly-missed opportunity with Donald Glover, although I really like his speech laying out his experience with white girls’ ideas about dating Black guys (Lena Dunham has said that this was all improvved on Glover’s part.)  I’m a little annoyed that the season opened with a particular issue in their relationship, while this one hinges on several entirely-different issues that weren’t hinted at in the premiere – it makes Sandy’s characterization, and the relationship as a whole, feel hasty and undercooked.

But I do like some non-Elijah stuff in this episode.  I think the Hannah/Adam stuff is pretty strong, not doing away with the comedic elements but also clearly demonstrating the ways in which Adam’s behavior is scaring Hannah, and no amount of sad faces from Adam can wholly erase that.  Also, there’s a delightful shot of Hannah placing a puppy in her shorteralls, simply because she can.

Thinking about it, we do actually get a decent amount of Elijah here, just not as much as the last episode – additionally, it probably feels like less than it is because his screentime is a little scattered.  He’s utterly and predictably tone-deaf in his fight with George – most of the young characters on this show have perfected the art of insisting that nothing is their fault, and Elijah has that in spades.  He talks so nonchalantly and dismissively about what he did to cause the argument, then acts shocked that George is upset about it.  Way to go, guy. 

He also appears in various scenes supporting Hannah’s plots, disapproving of Sandy (because Sandy’s a Republican) and gaping in can’t-look-away trainwreck horror at Adam’s songs.  This latter scene is probably my favorite of his in the episode.  I enjoy Elijah and Hannah trading remarks that range from revulsed to perplexed to freaked out to mocking.  Oh, plus, he gets to toss off the comment, “You look like a slutty von Trapp,” to another character, which is so much fun.