Beautiful mistakes
Before The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Superbad, people knew Judd Apatow for Freaks and Geeks. To this day, that remains one of the best and truly missed shows of the last two decades. It was set during the start of the ‘80s, aired during the end of the ‘90s, and became a cult-favorite past the new millennium. We watched it when we were in high school and connected to it as much as private school students living in a subdivision can. To be honest, we didn’t get all the jokes, but the show stuck, even when it was over. Freaks and Geeks was abruptly cancelled and since then executive producer Judd Apatow and most of the cast have moved on to bigger and better things.
Fast forward to today. Apatow returns to television with a set of fresh faces for Girls. Created, written, and directed by Lena Durnham, with Apatow as executive producer, Girls is said to be the anti-Sex and the City. We never watched Sex and the City but we weren’t going to watch Girls for that anyway. We were going to watch it for Apatow and to see if it can honestly become the next Freaks and Geeks. We came for Apatow but stayed for Durnham.
After watching the trailer, Jonty tweeted — as kids do nowadays every time we see something amazing — that Girls looks to be Liz Lemon: Year One. From the onset, Lena Durnham showed more Tina Fey than Sarah Jessica Parker. She had a tattoo instead of a chihuahua and looked like she actually ate those Magnolia cupcakes — okay we admit it, we saw a couple of episodes of Sex and the City.
Girls premiered and we watched it twice. Straight. It was that good. We were introduced to Hannah played by Lena Durnham. Hannah just lost her job and her friends aren’t doing any good either. Her roommate Marnie is in a loveless relationship and (spoiler alert) her other friend, Jessa, is pregnant. From the first episode alone, it’s not hard to see that they’ll be learning from each other’s f**k-ups.
With its second episode, Girls still hit the right notes. The humor went up a couple of notches and took on a bit of a darker shade. Not to spoil anything but the episode tackles abortion and AIDS — two things that women get the short stick of. Instead of standing on some moral high ground, Durnham and the rest of the cast brilliantly let the story simmer and were conscious enough not to add too much of anything to spoil it. We’re not experts on the topics but we thought Girls handled it all well without cheating the audience or themselves.
The thing that we loved about Freaks and Geeks most was its awkwardness. There were no laugh tracks or comedic music to accompany the jokes. It was always a bit too drab and the situations all too real. It’s the same for Girls. It’s awkward. It’s weird. It’s a mess. But that’s what the show is about. And again, it resonated with us as much as a show about 20-something broke girls living in New York can connect to 20-something-year-old boys in the Philippines. In a culture perpetuated by gossip girls and real housewives, Girls is a mistake. And it’s a beautiful one. It’s a mistake we’ll be watching even after it’s over.
