A List of Things Hannah Did for 5 Seconds and Gave Up On
There are a lot of things you can, and maybe have said about “Girls.”
Maybe you loved it, maybe you hated it, or maybe you felt like Lena Dunham hijacked your brain and stole your life, in which case, I’m truly sorry because you and your friends are all deeply unlikable people.
But don’t worry, this isn’t some thinkpiece on the show’s deep faults or virtues, and it’s not going to ruin last night’s episode for you in case you haven’t gotten a change to watch it yet, although spoiler alert, you’re not missing much.
It’s just about Hannah and her long history of giving up on stuff.
On guys, on her career, and pretty much anything else you could possibly think of.
We hope you only get pissed off a little bit on this walk down memory lane.
READ MORE: Being a Writer is Way Different Than It Looks on “Girls”
Tries to be a secretary at a law firm
After spending a hot second being funemployed in New York City, Hannah decides to grow up and get a shitty day job so she can afford to do things like eat and not live on the street.
Only things go downhill after she realizes her boss low key gets off on touching all his female employees on the butt.
She thinks about trying to build a strong enough case to slap a lawsuit on his ass and make some bank, but then when she tries to get her boss to sleep with her, he’s like, ‘um, no, I’m married, what’s wrong with you,” and Hannah’s like, “rude, I quit.”
Experiments with using eyebrow pencil
Thinks about moving back to Michigan
Since Hannah’s broke af she takes her parents up on their offer to fly back home to Michigan to hang out with them for their 30th wedding anniversary.
But instead of hanging out with them all weekend, Hannah decides to go on a date with a rando hometown hottie whose family owns a pharmacy and think about what her life would be like if she just stopped trying to make New York work and got married in the suburbs.
Then Adam called her and she was like, “Psyche. Deuces, Michigan.”
Jogging
When Hannah starts dating Adam after they run into each other at that Bushwick party where Shoshanna accidentally smokes crack, Hannah briefly toys with the idea of becoming the kind of woman who jogs with her boyfriend in the middle of the day.
But then while she’s out running she did that thing where she remembers that she hates running, which is probably good for her knees in the long run.
Going to weekly writing circles
Back when Hannah was still just a struggling writer whose work was published solely in the journal she kept on the foot of her bed, she ran into an old college professor at her sort-of-friend-sort-of-nemesis’ book launch who invited her to a weekly writing circle he ran.
It was a very nice gesture but at the last minute Hannah decides to just write something new on the subway and it’s bad and even though some random old people say some nice things about it, Hannah never goes back to the writing circle again.
Deciding to be Adam’s nurse maid
At the end of season one, Adam and Hannah get into an ill-advised fight in the middle of the road and Adam ends up getting hit and having to go to the hospital because he broke his leg.
For a few weeks Hannah spends like all her spare time hanging out at his place and taking care of him because she feels guilty but then things get awkward when he’s like, “don’t go, I’m obsessed with you,” and Hannah’s like, “um, I changed my mind about wanting to be with you so deuces.”
Dates a guy who has his shit together
In one of the most memorable episodes of “Girls” Hannah has a full-episode romance with a hot, rich, divorced doctor who lives in a beautiful brownstone.
It’s literally a dream come true and then she faints in his shower and starts crying about how sad her life is.
She ends up delivering a minutes-long monologue about how fucked up she is, including telling him how she once asked somebody to punch her in the chest and then come on her and a whole bunch of other things you don’t tell guys after only knowing them for five seconds.
He’s actually really nice about the whole thing and is just like, “uhhhh, I’m gonna go to bed now because I have to go to work and save lives in the morning,” and Hannah’s like, “how rude, you’re betraying me.”
Cleaning her ear with a Q-tip
It’s actually great that Hannah gives this habit up so quickly because it backfires horribly on her when she accidentally punctures her ear drum because her OCD made her a little overzealous.
Working at GQ
Most people would kill for a job at GQ, but not Hannah.
To be fair, she got a job writing sponcon and not actual stories, but the job would have solved all of her money problems and if she stayed ambitious and made a good impression, probably would have led to an editorial job eventually.
But instead after a few episodes working there Hannah decided she was too creative to write ad copy and quit.
Going to grad school
At the end of season 3, Hannah gets into this super prestigious grad school. And even though it means packing up her entire life to go move to Iowa, Hannah’s like, “bring it on.”
But grad school ends up being harder than Hannah thought.
She’s lonely, her classmates don’t like her or her writing, and within a matter of episodes Hannah changes her mind and decides to go back to New York to go back to her old life and figure it out.
Getting her frenulum pierced
So for about a year Hannah had a job teaching english at a high school, but as you might imagine, Hannah walked into the classic trap for young teachers: how to walk the line between being approachable and being inappropriately friendly with her students.
So one day Hannah was having a riveting discussion with one of her 14-year-old students about how her boyfriend got HPV from some girl he fucked at Auschwitz and then they decide to skip school for the rest of the day and get a piercing.
The whole thing is very inappropriate and then it gets worse because they decide to get the underside of their tongue, which in official tattoo parlor speak is a frenulum, pierced.
Only Hannah chickens out after watching her underage friend get one and chickens out.
Classic frickin Hannah.
Living in the wintertime
So this one isn’t really Hannah’s fault, but did you notice that except for a blink and you’ll miss it scene at the end of season four, “Girls” exists in a universe where it’s summer all the time?
But for five seconds, Hannah lives her best wintertime life and it is special.
Surfing
This season, Hannah gets a job writing about surf camp, but she only tries to surf for like an hour before she’s like, fuck this, not my scene.
But then again if she’d never quit surf camp she may never have fucked her surf camp instructor who ended up knocking her up, so….yeah.
Living in New York
At the end of the show, Hannah gets another job teaching and decides it’s time to GTFO of New York.
Probably for the best, all things considered.
Deuces, Hannah.
