<em>GIRLS</em> Recap: "Cubbies," Or Goodbye, Iowa

Iowa is death.

At last, our long Iowan nightmare is over. After proving too insufferable for an MFA fiction program, Hannah Horvath is back in Brooklyn, baby, and... things are not quite as she left them. But we'll get to that in a minute.

First, let's talk about the rest of the Gang of Four. After last week's cringe-inducing Ann Taylor Loft interview, Shosh gets rejected from another job, then, like any scorned lover, asks her interviewer to dress her down. Again, let's please remember that NOT ALL MILLENNIALS are needy, whiny unemployed persons in desperate need of feedback (though some are, and please stop it, you're giving the rest of us a bad name!).

This episode's most fun scene comes right up front, when Shosh, Marnie and Jessa gather together at a bar, offering the clever group banter we've been missing these last couple of episodes. Marnie forces everyone to listen to the terrible music she's made with the equally terrible Desi, and asks for feedback, enabling Shosh and Jessa to sum up the entire pop music industry: "It's like one of those billion dollar songs where the first time you hear it you hate it, but then they play it on the radio like 800 times and then you love it." Jessa adds fuel to the fire: "Because you're forced to. They shove it into your brain and you can't get it out of your head. And then you're forced to be like, 'Okay, fine, I love it.'" Katy Perry explained!

Sadly, we lose the group after the first few minutes. Shosh and Ray spend some quality clothes-shopping time together and remind us they're the couple to root for, while Desi breaks up with his girlfriend, then cries to Marnie. How much longer must we suffer through these monsters? Shosh & Ray 4ever, Marnie & Desi 4never.

The real meat of "Cubbies," meanwhile, is over in the Midwest, where we become deeply submerged in Hannah's Iowan misery. Hannah hasn't been happy in her new setting since she faced down Brooks Wheelan in the University of Iowa's bookshop. It's hard to watch her get consumed by her MFA-induced melancholy, and it's hitting her from every angle. She has no friends, save for blessed Elijah; the work she puts so much stock in has been thus far ill-received; she's having trouble writing; she's not fitting in. In a very typical Hannah "apology" letter she puts in her classmates' cubbies, she writes, "And now I find that I cannot think or write clearly due to the overwhelming negative emotions around me, so I choose to express myself here in order to shift everyone's energy towards me."

She later tells her instructor, "For a second I thought I was getting kicked out and I was so happy"—it's one of those moments of enlightenment on GIRLS where you know exactly how Hannah's gotten here. This is not where Hannah belongs, and the longer she denies this truth to herself, the more she falls into the darkness. We've all been there—a bad job, a failing romantic relationship, friends who thrive on your misfortune—and we'll all be there again.

So, suitcase in hand, Hannah leaves, and you can feel all that Iowa-sourced depression lift the second the New York skyline comes into view. Of course, the real kicker comes when she waltzes into her Greenpoint apartment and finds that her couch has been replaced by Gillian Jacobs, who is most definitely banging Adam. Aaaaand scene. Let's all hope Adam's not on the lease...

Some notes:

• I have watched every episode of Community, and I am still incapable of placing Gillian Jacobs onscreen.


• "[Chelsea Clinton] has always been one of my heroes because she's such a strong woman struggling so nobly with her very curly hair." Chelsea Clinton, like Taylor Swift, is a Curly Hair Traitor, and we must never forget this.


• I still don't understand why Shosh continues to speak to Marnie, though I suppose it's worth being baffled that any of these people are friends at all.


• Something is going on with Hannah's father—he had a "procedure" done last season (one Hannah glossed over in favor of bragging about her upcoming book), and this week he tells her she has to do what's best for her, "no matter what happens to anyone else," and makes a creepy joke about getting on a plane with her and flying away somewhere they've never been before. Let's keep tabs on this.


• Please, please, please, please, please let Ray run for City Council or, hell, president. Ray4President. Please, please, please, please.


• Back to Hannah's dad—he has a conference in Minneapolis, so he's swinging by Iowa to take her to dinner? I'm no expert on the Midwest, having been to Chicago a handful of times and Wisconsin exactly once, but upon Googling, I discovered that Iowa City is a four and a half hour drive from Minneapolis. Well then.


• "Sort of a run on sentence." "Sort of?" "Hannah just threw a piece of paper at me in a very aggressive manner." Grad school is most certainly the sixth circle of hell.


• "This article... about how fat kids make for slutty adults." Elijah still the best character on this show.

Next week we learn alllll about that hussy Mimi Rose.