Girls Review

The show's real subject is self deception, and it is unusually rigorous about it. Hannah Horvath believes she is a writer, believes she is generous, believes her friendships are mutual, and the series patiently demonstrates otherwise without ever pausing to condemn her. That refusal to editorialise is what made it so divisive; a great many viewers assumed the show endorsed what it was depicting. The standalone episodes are the best of it, particularly the weekend in a Brooklyn brownstone with a stranger, which plays as a two hander about loneliness and ends with nothing resolved.

Adam Driver is a genuine discovery and Andrew Rannells is very funny. The criticism that landed hardest, that a show about young New York contained almost nobody who was not white, was accurate and was handled defensively at the time. The other flaw is that four leads who dislike each other by the third season give the writers very little to do, and the middle years circle. The final episode is quietly excellent.