And finally - the coup de grace - you’re a bad friend! No you’re a bad friend. It’s got all the girl-trouble highlights: You’re fat. Not only that, but the entire foundation of the girls’ friendship, and the arc it has traveled, is revealed in this one scene. Her use of therapy speak: “Now I need closure,” the back and forth of “You’re a wound!' 'No, you’re the wound!” was like Woody Allen on estrogen, the show rising to the level of social satire. Where Dunham throws gasoline on the psychic kindling that has been smoldering since the first episode.ĭunham’s handling of the fight scene between Hannah and Marnie is masterful. But I wasn’t a real fan of 'Girls' until Episode 9, the episode of the fight. So it should come as no surprise that when Marnie and Hannah do have a fight - a big BFF steel-cage death-match - it would get real.Ĭonfession: From the beginning I gave Dunham props for her clever writing, the verisimilitude of her sex scenes, and her willingness to be naked, literally and emotionally. Not so in 'Girls.' Then again, Rhoda never set up a doctor’s appointment for Mary to have an AIDS test, and Samantha never financially supported Carrie. Honestly, can you imagine Carrie and Samantha spooning in bed? Mary eating a cupcake in the tub while Rhoda sits on the edge in a towel shaving her legs? Yes, those girlfriends argued, but with five minutes left in the show they were weeping and apologizing over a gallon of Rocky Road or a round of Cosmos. I shouldn’t have been surprised: While Dunham gives shout-outs to 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and 'Sex and the City' in the first episode, it’s clear that 'Girls' is a different beast altogether. Not because I was so emotionally invested in this friendship, but because it was so true. Which is why when I watched 'Girls,' and witnessed the blowout between Hannah and Marnie toward the end of the season (Episode 9), I was seized by a mild terror. I’d rather they run me down with their car than tell me I’m insensitive. I’m prone to fits of hysterical deaf, dumb and blindness at the first whiff of a dust-up. We bond by sharing our most intimate secrets with each other, which is what endows us with the ninja-like skill and power to psychically disembowel each other. From the time we’re little we’re told nothing is more precious than our female friends.

Jealous Fighter by Lena Little