Note: Do not read on if you have not yet seen Episodes 1 and 2 of Girls Season 3, titled "Females Only" and "Truth or Dare."
It has been 10 months since we last saw the girls of Girls (Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna and Jessa) "almost getting it kind of together." And aside for Jessa, who flat-out disappeared, they were starting to get it together. Shoshanna had finally mustered up the courage to end a relationship she wasn't happy in, Marnie and Charlie decided they were each others soulmates and Adam came to Hannah's rescue when she was in a state of extreme mental unrest that included an unfortunate DIY haircut and a Q-tip making its way a little too far into her ear.
Forty-two weeks later, things do appear to have come together a bit. Hannah and Adam are finally in a happy, loving relationship. Shoshanna is gleefully living out her final days of college and Jessa is spending time in a rehab center. Marnie and Charlie have broken up again, but she finally has a job -- at Ray's new coffee shop, but it's a job! -- and her own place.
Yes, it's safe to say that the gang has finally picked up the pieces after the giant mess that was Season 2. But with this newfound togetherness has come a disturbing amount of self-involvement which, while comical to watch, is a little disturbing. With 10 being the most self-involved and 1 being the least, see how each of the girls scored in the first two episodes of Girls Season 3 titled "Females Only" and "Truth Or Dare."
Hannah:
I can't lie: It's great to see Hannah doing so well. She appears to have rescued her hair in some capacity (remember this?), and Adam is lovingly making sure she takes her medication every day. She's on great terms with her editor David -- he doesn't understand why she didn't just tell him about her period of mental unrest -- and he's planning to launch the first chapter of her e-book on nerve.com.
Of course, nothing is perfect. Adam's flame from last season, Natalia, confronts him early on when she runs into him at Ray's coffee shop with her feisty blonde friend, a.k.a. Amy Schumer.
Luckily, Hannah doesn't seem too fazed when Natalia tells her she has an "an off-the-wagon neanderthal sociopath" on her hands. She's much more focused on planning a dinner party to celebrate her "incredibly exciting professional endeavor."
Adam isn't exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of spending an evening with Marnie and Shoshanna because, he explains, he's not really interested in anything they have to say.
"I'm not interested in anything they have to say," Hannah exclaims. "That's not the point of friendship!" Yikes. Last time we checked, that was definitely the point of friendship.
Shortly after her dinner party, Hannah gets a surprising call: Jessa just got kicked out of rehab, and she needs Hannah to pick her up. Thinking this will be the adventure of a lifetime, Hannah, Adam and Shoshanna embark on a road trip in order to retrieve their long lost friend.
The problem is, Hannah finds the road trip unremarkable. She was sure the experience of picking her friend up from rehab would give her something to write about in her book, and a rocking chair Shoshanna purchased at a rest stop is so pointy that it isn't giving her room to express herself.
Annoyed, Adam pulls over and decides they should all go on a hike. Shoshanna's excited enough about it, but Hannah lies down in a pile of dead leaves, explaining that "it's really liberating to say no to shit you hate" and listens to "This American Life."
Yeah, it's safe to say Hannah's more into herself than ever. But hey, at least she successfully retrieved Jessa from rehab... even if her motives were literary ones.
Overall self-involvement: 8
Marnie:
Episode 1 opens with Marnie curled up under a Rainbow Brite blanket at her mother's house in New Jersey. She's starting to pull it together a little bit. She's working for Ray, she and Hannah seem to have repaired their friendship and by the end of Episode 2, she even has her own place... never mind that her mom calls it a shit box.
But Marnie's still picking up the Charlie pieces. After spending the entirety of Season 2 pining after him and finally getting him back, Charlie abruptly dumped her on an ordinary day when they had bought grilled pizza ingredients.
Marnie is fairly convinced that Charlie has a brain tumor that caused him to leave her, but Adam quickly shuts this theory down by telling her that he ran into Charlie on Bedford Avenue and he seemed totally normal. As to be expected, Marnie bursts into tears.
We can't really blame Marnie for being a little self-involved. All she's had for over a season is a lot of horrible luck. Would you being thinking about anyone else?
Overall self-involvement: 6
Shoshanna:
Shoshanna Shapiro has arrived.
Without her virginity or a relationship, Shoshanna is unstoppable. She has a great new pair of sunglasses that she wears everywhere, and she's now "alternating nights of freedom with nights of academic focus."
We find her intertwined with a handsome stranger on a bunk bed at the beginning of Episode 1, and she appears to have happily entered a sluttier phase of her life.
Although she's confident, experienced and drastically different from the Shoshanna we knew in Season 1, we still see glimmers of innocence when she speaks odd sentences in a high-pitched voice like "Did you have fun sex?" and "Bed is now?"
Less endearing is her ignorance. When Hannah suggests that maybe they're not in fact doing Jessa a favor by picking her up from rehab, Shoshanna insists that Jessa is so beautiful and "easy" that rehab is hardly the place for her. Plus, she earned a bunch of money from her messy divorce last year which is "totally fun."
By the way, Shosh can't wait to be done with college. When Hannah tells her that school is the best gig she'll ever have, which is why she applies to grad school every year, Shoshanna says, "Honestly the only people I ever hear say that are the ones who don't make any money." Ouch.
Overall self-involvement: 7
Jessa:
Jessa is back with a vengeance. She's also a pro at wreaking havoc in rehab.
In Episode 1, Jessa manages to antagonize everyone in group therapy and belittle their problems. She makes insensitive comments like "this guy's crying because a fro-yo opened on his block," and winds up with a Females Only tag around her neck.
Even worse, she publicly proclaims that her rehab-mate Laura (a.k.a. Taystee from Orange Is The New Black) is definitely a lesbian.
"I'm really sorry that your uncle f*cked you, but at the end of the day we've all been through a lot," she says. "I feel like Laura might be gay. Hear me out, Laura. You hated having sex with your boyfriend even though he played hockey... and your vest."
Later that night, as Laura is hanging up a kitty calendar in her room, Jessa stops by to apologize and explain that "the minute she accepts this she won't ever want to do drugs again... they were like a placeholder for pussy."
Laura admits that the reason she didn't want to be a lesbian was because she didn't want people to ask her to play sports. Jessa decides to do her a favor by giving Laura her first-ever lesbian experience.
And that is how Jessa got herself gracefully kicked out of rehab.
When Hannah finally arrives to pick her up, she alerts Jessa to just how self-involved she is. Not only did she completely abandon her at her father's house in upstate New York last season with no way to get home, but she reminds her that in college she would say things like "meet me at the Free Palestine party" only to find out that Jessa was actually at the Israel house.
Yeah, Jessa has a long way to go. But at least it seems like Hannah's words sunk in. Could she be turning over a new, less self-involved leaf?
Overall self-involvement (as of now): 9
"Girls" airs on Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on HBO.
