The Book of Rannells: Girls: Season 6, Episode 5 – “Gummies” (2017)

This is a pretty strong episode.  Good plots all around, and more importantly (for me,) it’s a great episode for Elijah.  Probably one of my favorites for the season.

Hannah has something major to discuss with her mom when Loreen comes to visit.  It doesn’t go as well as she planned – Hannah’s news doesn’t go over well, and the situation worsens when Loreen, high on edibles, runs off.  Marnie struggles to be there for Ray during a difficult time.  Adam starts shooting his movie, which brings up uncomfortable feelings for Jessa.

It’s kind of wild to see Adam’s movie, which is based on his relationships with both Hannah and Jessa.  This episode shows him shooting Hannah scenes, and it’s bizarre to see his view of what their relationship was like, especially how he seems to soften the way he depicts himself.  I like seeing the skew of his perspective, and it’s interesting to watch Jessa struggling to deal with it, urging him to highlight the dysfunction over the sweetness.

Not as much to say about the Ray/Marnie plot, which goes pretty much as expected.  Once again, we see how Shoshanna is on a better wavelength with Ray than Marnie is.

Some good stuff with Hannah and her mom.  Hannah’s going through a lot right now, but she is trying to be thoughtful and mature about it.  When she talks it over with her mom, it’s complicated by Loreen’s feelings about what’s been going on in her own life, and the aforementioned edibles don’t help matters.  Becky Ann Baker does a great job in all her scenes, both the dramatic and the comic ones.

This is where Elijah mainly comes in, into Hannah’s plot.  When a high Loreen disappears on Hannah, she enlists Elijah’s help to search for her.  As usual, these two are hilarious together.  As Hannah frets about the likelihood of her mom being “sex-trafficked,” Elijah drawls, “What is this – The Muppets Take Manhattan?”, and their adventure through the mean streets of New York is filled with terrific banter.  But as with Loreen, there’s some strong dramatic material, too, with a great Hannah-Elijah reckoning scene toward the end of the episode.

We also get a little more of the ongoing understated thread of Elijah’s reaction to the events of last season.  There’s a great scene early on of a very wired Elijah unspooling over an old acquaintance he was Facebook-“researching” while on Adderol (“his nieces are hideous!”), along with an amusing shot of him lying in bed sulking while he listens to a cappella music (it makes sense in context.)

Rannells just kills it with both the drama and the comedy, switching effortlessly back and forth between the two – sometimes within the same shot.  He makes it look so easy.