Narcissistic couple shows that it takes two to tangle
The Show: Girls, Season 6, Episode 4 (HBO) The Moment: Desi’s rehab
Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a musician, is in rehab. With a facilitator present, he confronts his ex-wife, Marnie (Allison Williams). “I’ve been thinking,” Desi begins. He coughs. “Can I have some water?” Slowly, he pours water into a glass. More slowly, he drinks. With the glass half empty, he pauses. He drinks again.
Finally he speaks. He tells her she made everything worse, and then when he was struggling, she walked away.
“I shut down?” she protests. “I gave up? Do you have any idea how hard this has been for me? I have bruises all over my body from the two-hour massages that I need to deal with the stress of your addiction.”
I have loved this series from the beginning, but this final season is b.r.i.l.l.i.a.n.t. Creator Lena Dunham, her writers, cast and crew are killing it in every direction, pushing each moment to its limit.
The criticism that’s been levelled repeatedly at this show is that the characters are self-involved — as if Dunham’s unaware of that; as if she’s not deliberately parsing that behaviour. With this episode, she’s throwing down: You think they’re narcissists? I’ll show you narcissism.
Just watch what Williams does with her body as Desi pours that water. Marnie simultaneously writhes with impatience yet believes that she’s being supremely controlled and mature. She’s feigning open-mindedness but is clearly just waiting for noises to stop coming out of Desi’s mouth so it can be her turn to speak.
He’s every bit as magnificently monstrous. It’s narcissism as pure comedic gold. Girls airs Sundays on HBO. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.