"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Thursday, July 18, 2019

The Book of Rannells: Girls: Season 4, Episode 2 – “Triggering” (2015)


With Hannah halfway across the country from the rest of the characters, this is close to a bottle episode, with screentime for most of the other regulars who appear being limited to phone calls or Skype sessions.  As such, the story hangs on how invested you are in Hannah doing her thing in Iowa.  For me, I’d say it mostly works (premise spoilers for Hannah’s plot this season and a mild spoiler as to Elijah’s involvement in the plot.)

Hannah is officially a grad student, and she’s finding Iowa a mixed bag.  She’s floored by how cheaply she can rent there (“We should all move here and start the revolution!”), but she gets into a losing battle with some local fauna.  As for her writing program… well, let’s just say it’s a roomful of people honestly critiquing Hannah’s work while she sits and listens – how do you think it’s going?  She feels lonely and uncertain on her own, disconnected from everything going on with her friends, but at the same time, she’s reluctant to let on that she’s having a hard time.

A lot of what goes on here is peak Hannah, from her awkward conversation with the bookstore cashier to her ungainly bike-riding around campus.  Naturally, her first round of feedback with her fellow grad students is packed with cringe comedy as Hannah gets more and more defensive (it doesn’t help that D’August, the student who reads before her, is given such a universal tongue bath.)  There are points where it gets to be a little much for me, but for the most part, I think the show keeps it right on the edge.

One thing I like is seeing how Hannah pulls back from letting people in on her struggles.  There’s a great scene where she collect-calls her parents in desperation, but as soon as she gets them on the phone, she starts wallpapering over her stresses, making up friends she doesn’t have and sweeping her problems out of sight.  It’s still painfully obvious that she’s drowning, even as she tries to bring it up in a transparently-nonchalant way, but she simply can’t let herself get real about it.  That’s very relatable, and I feel for her in that scene.

While I think the episode is mostly effective in what it sets out to do, it kicks up several notches once Elijah arrives on the scene.  He materializes in Iowa in an incredibly Elijah way, and while he initially purports to be there solely out of concern for Hannah’s well-being, Elijah doesn’t do many things solely for the good of someone else.  He and Hannah have some fun “us against the world” banter – my favorite being, “I hate everyone but you!”  Me too!  I’ve been saying that for years!” – and then he immediately takes her to a party that he’s already found out about.

Including Elijah gives the episode a much-needed injection of fun and energy.  Going to a party doesn’t solve anything for either of them, but it’s a break from all the discomfort, and that balance helps bring the episode home.  The montage of Elijah and Hannah ludicrously dancing together is great, and the closing scene is both funny and sweet.  It might seem a little disingenuous to fly Elijah out to the Midwest to essentially hang out in service of Hannah’s storyline, but I think the show carries it off well enough.  In the previous episode, we see some of Elijah’s disillusionment with New York that fuels his decision to come out to Iowa, and sidestepping his problems is certainly an Elijah thing to do.  And honestly, it’s so much fun to see him there that I can’t complain too much.

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