‘Girls’ Recap: Let’s Talk About Elijah

This is a recap of the latest episode of Girls. Spoilers!

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There’s a reason that moment in the claustrophobic restaurant kitchen — when Elijah told Hannah that she wouldn’t be a good mother — hit so hard two weeks ago. With few exceptions, Elijah has been a consistently positive force in Hannah’s life since they reconnected over a comically tiny duck salad. Yes, he’s caustic, flippant and self-involved, but he’s genuinely been a good friend, and not just by the standards of Girls characters.

The aimlessness Dill so cruelly rejected Elijah over last season has been employed in the service of tagging along with Hannah just enough to be supportive and present and best mates with her mother, but he always had his own life and apparently boundless energy. He could pick up and take himself to Iowa to basically keep house with her, but within a week he had a dozen friends he was helping with creative projects. He’ll complain about it, but he’ll still haul himself out of his moping and Insta-stalking hole to spend a whole afternoon hunting around Brooklyn for Loreen.

Elijah’s bitchy charm hides a real love for Hannah, without the seams of resentment and frustration that characterises her friendships with women; there’s a sweetness in him that’s not just down to Andrew Rannells’ cartoonishly adorable features but is borne out in his behaviour. As we saw when he made his pitch to Dill, he’s more emotionally intelligent than he lets on, and he’s had Hannah’s back more than Marnie has.

Elijah and Hannah’s friendship is essentially uninhibited by any boundaries whatsoever, and that works for them. Last week, as they discussed “their” baby and soothed the wounds of their fight, they seemed to settle back into their companionable, uninhibited, loving dynamic. But now, #PickleJah might be back in the picture. Elijah and Dill settled into a sort of confidence equilibrium this week, with Elijah’s career boost and Dill’s baby-buying scandal (yes, more on that in a second, but come on, it’s not even in the top ten worst things anyone on this show has done). That might put a little distance between the two halves of the future parental unit.

If I understand his explanation correctly, Dill tried to buy a baby because he thought it would help him with his daddy issues. Let’s be generous and assume he, at some point, specified a white baby because he was trying to make a little mini-Dill (a cornichon?) on whom he could lavish whatever guidance he thinks he missed out on. It’s very likely a good thing he didn’t succeed — it’s not a great reason for becoming a parent — but as a gay man, he doesn’t have the same opportunity as Hannah does to simply stumble onto the opportunity to give his life some meaning by becoming a parent by accident.

As Hannah is working out, of course, stumbling happens, because life is weird and once you’ve been impregnated every subsequent choice is a path you need to commit to. Have the baby, or don’t — you can’t be a little bit pregnant. Tell the father-to-be, or don’t — there’s no halfway. When she’s making a decision in a vacuum, telling The Father is probably the morally right thing to do, because it allows him some choice in how he approaches it, and might spare him a blindsiding in 12 years or so. The reality of it shows that she might as well not have said anything; it’s one of those situations where “At least now you know” isn’t that comforting for either party.

Not even Hannah knows what she wants out of doing the right thing, or what she expects from someone she deemed a “very special person” for their brief time together; she probably didn’t count on having to describe her pubic hair to jog his memory, but after that it went as well as could be expected. What Paul-Louis says — that he’s not ready to be part of it — is neither the wrong thing nor the right thing, just the right thing for him. (Except “You could call it Grover”. Grover is definitely the wrong thing.) There are no false promises, and he’s clear about how much support he can and will be interested in offering, which basically extends as far as wishing her well and not hanging up until she says it’s okay.

Lena Dunham, as usual, turns in another absolutely stellar performance, hidden in small quirks of her face (notwithstanding the sobbing scene, which felt like it cut away a little too close to the point where Dunham and Corey Stoll dissolved into giggles). But this episode belongs to Rannells: his facial expressions, his audition song, the way he rapid-fire flails through lying about his age, his transition from keeping up admirably with the dancers to nailing the physical comedy of (and channeling Captain Jack Sparrow levels of gonzo bewilderment through) the basketball routine.

Most importantly, we saw the shades of determination and delight in his facade of abrasive overconfidence — from the blatant lie “That’s why I GHOSTED his ass!” to the speech to Dill at the end, which comes from a place of self-love and strength so genuine that the fact that they immediately have sex only undercuts it a teeny bit.

Good dick is a prison, per the goddess of wisdom, but… actually, I have nothing to add to that. I just wanted to finish on that modern proverb, because it is perfect and true and I would watch Elijah & Athena Take Broadway for nine seasons.

Okay, fine. PS: Marnie gets yet another talking to this week and sorts her shit out, but for how long? She gets at least one a season and it never seems to stick. Her heritage is entitlement and she doesn’t need to be descended from someone who might have caught pubic lice from Calamity Jane for that to be true.

I’m a little surprised she didn’t jump the pawn shop owner right there on the counter, like she usually does when an older man tells her what’s wrong with her. Maybe she’s making progress after all.

But if that’s the end of her arc, I’m so fine with that. SO FINE. WHERE IS OUR SHOSH TIME, SHOW?

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Girls is on Showcase at 8.30pm Wednesday nights and available to stream on Foxtel Play.

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Caitlin Welsh is a freelance writer who tweets from @caitlin_welsh. Read her Girls recaps here.