The Awkward Science Of HBO
HBO’s Sunday night lineup of Girls and Togetherness capitalizes on visceral human experiences, both uncomfortably and unapologetically honest; with raw renderings of human life, HBO strives to deliver the antithesis of syndicated network sitcoms. But after watching the two shows back to back last night, it seems to me that HBO is in danger of teetering into an overly condensed realm of awkward.
In “Female Author,” Lena Dunham gifts us with a scene that is the equivalent of a dog hearing one of those horrible whistles to make them stop barking. Willfully trapped at a party surrounded by her new Creative Writing MFA peers who recently ripped her a new one for her latest work, Hannah unleashes the bitterness she’s been holding in all week by hurling searingly accurate insults at each of her classmates.
(image source: mstarz.com)
As Dunham explains it on her vlog insights into last night’s episode, Hannah is reacting to a patriarchal prejudice attitude in the novel-writing community. As a graduate of both BFA and MFA programs in fiction writing, I have to agree with her 100 percent on that being a major issue in writing communities and you know, society in general.
But for a show that prides itself on being real, the scene feels like Dunham is unleashing her own brand of torture on the viewer. Could I see Hannah, or any of my former peers, unloading on her classmates after a bad review? Absolutely. Could I see Hannah or any of my peers unloading on her classmates one by one, and at a party, no less? Not so much.
The rest of the episode is full of little gems. Seeing Ray consoling Marnie in his typically endearing demeanor and actually having his words sink in was a treat; Marnie ends up about as honest as I have ever seen her, relationship-wise, when she tells Desi he isn’t treating her right. And when he protests, she doesn’t back down – another rarity for her when it comes to men. Adam and Jessa make for an interesting pair, and it’ll be intriguing to see where Dunham takes them. They’re both so volatile that the outcome is hard to predict – and I find unpredictable relationships in television terribly refreshing.
As for Mark and Jay Duplass’s Togetherness, for the most part I found last night’s episode subtle and true. Seeing Michelle sneaking away for the night instead of going to her husband’s industry party but having a pretty lame night alone on a barstool is totally relatable. When she runs into a group of teenagers and indulges in mystifying them by bumming a cigarette and playing the older vixen, it’s like a glimpse into the tiny, private moments in a woman’s life that she never mentions to anyone else.
What I did not enjoy was that bathroom scene when Alex, the depressed typecast actor, gets way too chummy and overbearing with a producer he wants to make an impression on when the guy is just trying to bum some toilet paper.
Normally, I can watch scenes like that with one eye open. Truly unbearably awkward scenes usually make me cover both eyes, but I can still listen to the dialogue. I tried both of those things, and for the first time in years I ended up muting the scene because I just couldn't take it.
To the Duplass’s credit, that scene might have been more real than Dunham’s torturous party scene, but it was still so painful it seemed to overstay its welcome.
If you’re one of those people who gets empathetically embarrassed, you might not want to watch these episodes back to back. Or drink a couple of glasses of wine in the process.