TV Recap: ‘Girls’ Season 2, Episode 5

Photo: HBO

This is the time in HBO’s Girls that things get a little boring. Around this time first season Hannah went home to visit her parents in some small town in Michigan for two episodes; these weren’t my favorite episodes.

In episode 5 of season 2; Hannah, the lead character of the series, was the only girl we saw and was the main focus on this episode. As the show came on we find Hannah and Ray at work discussing what Hannah believes is a term she invented, “sexit.” Hannah refers to this term as making a sexy exit from an emotional heighten situation. Ray plays devil’s advocate and asks Hannah how can she be sure nobody else invented the word. To solve the debate Ray looks up the term on Urban Dictionary and reads aloud a definition of “sexit” meaning to make a quick exit after sex.

While inside, a customer (Patrick Wilson), later identified at Joshua, comes in the coffee shop and asks to speak to a manager, which is Ray. He begins to address his anger to Ray about one of his employees leaving garbage in his trash cans at his home as Hannah coyly watches, clearly guilty. The boys really get into as Ray questions how does this customer know it’s one of his employees and the customer responds by saying the garbage bags were filled with coffee grounds. He storms out while Hannah and Ray have a conversation about how mean he was. Hannah then storms out and Ray threatens to turn off the WiFi to all the remaining customers who have become witnesses to the public debacle.

Hannah follows the customer back to his gorge brownstone intending to fess up about leaving the garbage in his cans. He invites her in and offers her some lemonade. Hannah eventually confesses that she lost her dumpster key for work and didn’t want to anger Ray for another key so she found a trash can that was close enough to work but far enough that nobody would put two and two together. Giving in to the awkward situation, Hannah makes a move and kisses the handsome stranger, sorry I didn’t mention he was handsome until now. He embraces her back in a kiss and the two end up sleeping together.

It’s revealed the guy’s name is Joshua, NOT Josh, a shortened name Hannah keeps calling him.  Joshua is a separated doctor but doesn’t talk much about his personal life. He cooks steak for Hannah and reveals why his wife left him. After a tour of the house, Hannah thinks it’s about that time she leaves but Joshua “begs” Hannah to stay after she asks him to. They have sex again and in the morning enjoy more quality time playing table tennis and then having sex on it. Later, Hannah takes a shower, faints and is found my Joshua.

In the next scene Hannah’s being comforted by him and she begins to cry. She reveals intimate details about herself but becomes angry at the fact Joshua doesn’t say anything about himself and kind of brushes her off. This is the point I kind of liked the episode. I could feel for Hannah, she has this guy who has everything together, mature, loving and it scared her about how bad she just wants a normal relationship and to be happy. It angered her that she revealed her heart and soul basically to be rejected; something I’m sure many women can relate to.

The episode ends with Hannah enjoying breakfast in Joshua’s empty brownstone, having some time to reflect by giving herself another tour of his home, taking out his trash and walking down the street.

New episodes of Girls can be seen on HBO Sunday nights at 9pm with episodes available on HBO GO as soon after the new episodes air.