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

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The Book of Rannells: Girls: Season 4, Episode 9 – “Daddy Issues” (2015)


Here’s another instance where big things happened in an episode that I didn’t review.  While I could probably talk decently well about the episode at large without getting into the specifics of what that revelation is, it’s firmly entwined with all of Elijah’s screentime this episode.  So, I will be getting into spoilers, just so I don’t have to talk around what his scenes are about.

Hannah is reeling from news she received at the end of the last episode – that her dad is gay – and is alternately freaking out about it and insisting that she’s not freaking out about it.  Her own internal issues with this lead to her crossing boundaries at work, and she takes pains to say she’s perfectly fine/only thinking about how it effects her parents while at the same time arguing that she has every right to be weirded out by it.  In other news, Ray is preparing for a big personal change, and Adam and Jessa get tangled up in Mimi-Rose and Ace’s ex-lover psychodrama.

Side plots first.  Ray’s stuff is mostly nice, and I like Shoshanna sublimating her own career frustrations into supporting his endeavors in a very extra way.  It’s fun to see Zachary Quinto’s Ace again.  I think when you put his oddness and Mimi-Rose’s oddness in a scene together, they balance each other out in a way that makes both characters work better; his weird intensity vibes well with her eerie detachment.  Earlier in the season, we saw Adam swept up in Jessa’s drama, and now both of them are caught up in an even bigger tide.

Before seeing this episode, I probably couldn’t have described what Hannah’s specific reaction to her dad coming out would be, but after seeing it, I’d say they got it exactly right.  I understand the point she brings up about being uncomfortable with thinking of her dad in any sort of sexual situation.  Of course, this ties back to the notion that queer people tend to be perceived primarily in terms of sex – the kind of thing that makes a conservative viewer cringe at a gay couple on, say, House Hunters because, “I don’t want to picture them having sex!!” when nothing about a straight couple being on the show would make that viewer think of sex.  That said, I get she’s particularly sensitive to the idea of either of her parents in a sexual situation, a feeling many people share.

I mostly believe Hannah’s insistence that she’s not homophobic, but I think it’s her very insistence on being “totally fine” when she’s not that makes her come off badly here.  It makes her attempted/conflicted support of her dad seem insincere, like she’s only doing it because she’s afraid she’d be perceived as close-minded if she didn’t.  It’d probably be healthier for her to pair her genuine support and encouragement (along with her concern for her mom) with a more honest admission of the aspects that are making her uncomfortable.  As it is, she comes off as both defensive and disingenuous – which, let’s face it, is a lot more realistic for Hannah.  As such, I can’t argue with it from a narrative standpoint, because it’s so in character for her.

Naturally, Elijah is the person Hannah goes to for support on this, and he is helpful/not helpful largely at his whim.  Rannells is fun in these scenes, giving her an “I told you so,” defending his gaydar (Barak Obama, he insists, “reads as bi,”) and later seemingly-trolling her with the exact mental images she’s trying to avoid.  He also tries to imagine what “the gays in Michigan” are like and teaches Hannah’s dad a few of the finer points of fashion and Facebook-stalking old crushes.

One bit I really like is a crashcourse Elijah gives Hannah on the art of coming out in stages.  He speaks frankly about how scary it is to come out, how a person might go from “I’ve never done anything before” to “there was this one college roommate” and beyond.  I like that it’s at least an attempt to get Hannah to reframe her thinking away from herself and onto what her dad might be thinking, and it draws on Elijah’s personal experience.  It’s a strong scene, and it makes me wonder how much input Rannells gave into it.

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