Season five of HBO’s femme-cult-hit Girls returns tomorrow night at 10pm on its host channel. This season had been long-awaited, as unlike the previous four seasons of the show that have all aired in the second week of January, the penultimate one was delayed to late February, possibly due to one of its actors, Adam Driver, pressing business in a galaxy far far away.
Lena Dunham, the show’s creator, head writer, executive producer, and lead, award-winning actress, announced that this fifth set of episodes will be the second to last run over a month ago, and that the sixth season will wrap it all up for these tumultuous New York girls with stormy lives.
That being said, the tagline for season five is “finally piecing it all together,” and for every fan who loves and cares for this dysfunctional quartet, those words may thankfully ring true. As was shown in a trailer, Girls will open in the gauzy white midst of a wedding–the second marital event of the show, but this time, it’ll finally be Marnie’s (Allison Williams). Hopefully this one will develop more happily than the last wedding at the end of the first season, though Jessa (Jemima Kirke) did get $30,000 in alimony out of the whole deal.
Marnie will be wedding her formerly secret fiancee and folk-singing partner Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), which may come as a surprise for anyone who watched the last episode of the previous season. That same fiancee and singing partner had abandoned Marnie at one of their gigs, leaving her to take the stage alone and frankly shine. Of course, while that may have appeared like a break-up to some, it may have just been an example of how their relationship will repeatedly be hitting the rocks. After all, these two met, hooked up, and began dating while Desi was still dating his steady girlfriend Clementine, and that baggage–and the baggage of Marnie’s ex-long-time-boyfriend dumping her without explanation–may come to surface more in this season.
And because this is Girls, a show where these young women find happiness only to see it splinter after being hit by lightning, Hannah’s seemingly sweet relationship with newcomer Fran (Jake Lacy), which was displayed in a romantic montage at the end of season four, may also catch fire rather quickly. As shown in a trailer, Hannah finds images of pin-up girls saved in her boyfriend’s phone. One aspect that critics have celebrated Dunham and her show for is its maverick representation of non-slender individuals, attacking the cemented idea that all women on television have to be stick-thin. This unfortunate flare-up for Hannah may just be another example of that societal analysis.
Love isn’t letting the two other girls of the show, Jessa and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), wriggle out of it all issue-free either. Jessa, who has made attempts in the latter seasons to become closer to Hannah and end her train of destructive behavior, is seen in the trailers fighting her feelings for Hannah’s long-time-ex, Adam (Adam Driver), though the two had become close in the last season through their sessions at AA. Shoshanna, returning from her escape to Tokyo, is now dating a Japanese businessman as well, and though not much has been revealed there yet, something has to go wrong, in Girls fashion.
Whatever happens to these women, fragile good or horribly bad, it will all begin tomorrow night at 10/9c on HBO.
You can watch the trailer for season five here.