Girls rises to magnificence in final season
The Show: Girls, Season 6, Episode 8 The Moment: The diner Hannah (Lena Dunham), pregnant, and Adam (Adam Driver) sit in a diner booth. It’s been a remarkable day: out of the blue, he told her he wants them to reunite. He’ll raise her baby with her. She admits how frightened she’s been of doing it alone. They discuss moving in together. “I’m on the list for artist housing,” he says. “They tend to favour married couples, though, so it might help if we did that.”
Almost imperceptibly, Hannah blanches. But she natters on about joining a food co-op, “though I find the whole shift thing demeaning.”
“I can do the shifts, if you handle the bills,” Adam says.
She nods. But somehow she’s crying. He smiles at her. His smile fades. Hannah doesn’t speak. But the pain on her face says everything: as scary as it is to be alone, she can’t be with him. She can’t go backward. In the silence of her falling tears, we can hear their hearts crack.
Some series rise to magnificence in their final season: The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Breaking Bad. They somehow both steam forward and reach the apotheosis of all their themes. Add Girls to that list.
This diner scene is everything. It encompasses an entire relationship, past, present and future, wordlessly. Did the script once have more dialogue? Did they pare it away as they realized Dunham’s eyes could convey all they needed? Or was it always this shimmeringly silent?
That “voice of a generation” crack Dunham made in the pilot episode? Damn if it hasn’t come true. The series finale of Girls airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on HBO Canada. Past episodes are available on demand. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.