Favorite Characters: Elijah Krantz (Girls)

This show was part of my Andrew Rannells filmography tour – strange to get into Girls for one of the guys, but while I found the show amusing enough, I loved Elijah.  Even acknowledging my admitted bias, my enjoyment of Girls was often directly proportional to how often Elijah was on my screen, and I greatly appreciated his increasing presence over the course of the series.

Initially introduced as an ex-boyfriend of Hannah’s, we first see Elijah in the context of an awkward conversation (very much par for the course for that show.)  Hannah has gotten back in touch with him to discuss STDs, but he, mistakenly assuming she’s already heard rumors about him, “confirms” that he’s now dating a man.  Hannah is of course blindsided, and the cordial get-together quickly devolves into arguments and sniping.  Their paths cross a bit more over the course of the first season, and somehow, by the end of season 1, it makes a weird sort of sense when in-need-of-a-roommate Hannah suggests he move in with her.  After the first look we get at them, it doesn’t seem like they’d make good friends, but their own particular brands of awful are surprisingly compatible together.

Because, truly, Elijah is awful.  I know that’s an odd thing to say in a Favorite Characters post, but it’s undeniable.  He’s vain and selfish, frequently unreliable, and mostly aimless (when he tries to get back into acting, his initial plan is just to “fuck [his] way up to the middle.”)  While he doesn’t shy away from telling his friends hard truths that they avoid about themselves, he definitely takes satisfaction in feeling superior to them, even when his own ducks aren’t in any sort of row.  That said, even though I’d likely want to avoid an Elijah in real life, on TV, he is a riot to watch.  He gets most of the best lines and delivers them with an infectious sort of relish that makes it hard to dislike him no matter how self-absorbed, petty, or bitchy he gets.

As the person who pretty much emerges as Hannah’s best friend, Elijah occasionally functions as her Magical Gay Advisor – again with the hard truths, pointing out the problems she refuses to deal with.  Just as often, however, he’s the devil on her shoulder, and together, they indulge in irresponsible impulses, affirm one another’s delusions, and encourage one another’s worst tendencies.  I like that Elijah is so often a complete mess who simply carries himself as if he has it all together (it’s not even that he’s trying to fake it; it’s that he can be so utterly self-assured despite being a mess.)  He’s a little hedonistic, has some definite arrested development going on, and is hugely self-impressed, and it’s just endlessly entertaining.

I also like that, while so much of Elijah’s character is just fun, he also has some depth to him.  He displays an unexpected level of vulnerability that bubbles to the surface at crucial scenes, mostly related to his romantic entanglements.  For a character who’s such a hilarious one-liner machine, I’m never prepared for those moments when he suddenly feels so young and so exposed.  There are a number of good ones (explaining his sugar-daddy situation with George to Marnie, trying to take things to the next level with Dill,) but the scene that gets to me the most is when, at Hannah’s urging, he addresses the way Pal frequently belittles him.  With his start-and-stop dialogue, it’s immediately evident how scared he is to do anything that might jeopardize his relationship with this guy he really likes, even if he’s bothered by how Pal treats him.  And then, the second Pal shrugs off his concerns with a dismissive remark about why Elijah would ever take advice from Hannah, you watch him silently crumble, only just managing to pull it together because he’s still so desperate to make it work.  For a character that usually walks around with such a high opinion of himself and sees most everybody else as utter disasters, it’s so important to get scenes like this with him.