Recap: Everyone Couples Off In One Of Girls’ Best Episodes To Date

This is a recap of the most recent episode of Girls. Spoiler alert.

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I’m not sure if it was a deliberate choice to make episode two so focused on pairings, but here we are. Girls fifth season is two for two so far, and this week’s instalment is no doubt the show’s best and funniest episode since Zachary Quinto’s toothbrush made an appearance; a fact very much helped by not having to check in on Marnie and Desi’s undoubtedly insufferable honeymoon.

The cold open featuring a midnight meltdown from Fran’s housemate is hysterical and feels like classic Girls, though it is disjointed and seems designed purely to get a dickish rant about hairy cooches into the show.

It also works well to get Fran into Hannah’s apartment, where Jake Lacy’s Office-honed what-the-shit stare will be further exercised by Hannah and Elijah’s ostentatiously “comfortable” relationship. He’s so patient with Hannah’s dramatics that it feels like he’s going to flip out Grimey-style at some point — as though every time he calls her “buddy” (which I imagine he also does to his students) is going to get a little more of an eye-twitch tacked on to it. Either that, or Hannah will get sick of everyone acting like she’s unbelievably lucky to have landed such a normal guy, and casually misplace him like some keys.

From that first scene, the focus of almost every interaction is either between two people, or a united pair and a single: HanFran vs Jacob, HanFran, Hannah and Elijah vs Fran, Adam vs the Mental Parental Unit of his sister and Laird, Adam and Jessa (taking suggestions for portmanteau names), Elijah and Ray, White Man Ray vs the Helvetica dicks, Hannah and Principal Toby, Hannah and Tad, Hannah and her dad’s hookup. It’s a stark contrast to the complex, shifting group dynamics of last week’s wedding episode.

With this, there’s actually more mirror-image and symmetrical framing in this episode than a Wes Anderson movie. From Adam and Jessa eating either end of the same roll and occupying either end of one couch, to the scene where Hannah absolutely steamrolls poor Principal Toby and Elijah’s horrified gaze into the restaurant where Tad and Hannah are crying. (Not to mention the wonderful Lois, dead centre on the bed in her little jacket.)

Symmetricality and mirroring is a motif the show has used a lot recently (think Hannah in the storage unit, or her and Adam breaking up for good over his niece’s humidicrib). It highlights connection and disconnection, similarity and solitude. So it makes sense the heaviest use of it this episode is with Adam and Jessa.

“Please stop copying me!” she protests, and he does it anyway, like the little boy teasing his crush that he is. But the thing is, they’ve been mirrored all day. They’re weird lanky addicts with unapologetic kinks and jagged edges, they don’t get along with other people easily, and they have a slightly mournful, otherworldly beauty sheened with (mostly affected) apathy. They’re even dressed in the same tones.

Adam and Jessa know they’re in trouble no matter what they do. They both know there’s something there and they both know that they are crossing a line. Because of this, they also know they can’t just have adorable days out at the fairground and come home and hang out on the couch together like normal people, so they skip past the part where they dance around it. They mention Hannah, and sobriety, and the completely plausible endpoint of a body bag and a pregnant escape to Mexico, and the more they talk about it, the more obvious it becomes that they’re on the same wavelength.

Adam and Jessa go together like sausage and peppers, like dark denim and forest-green cotton, like fairgrounds and adorable falling-in-love montages. But this is Adam and Jessa we’re talking about, so she’s at said fairground to yell at a sideshow barker who appears to owe her money, Adam kills a goldfish (those prize bags tend to do that anyway, even if you don’t toss them in the air repeatedly), and then when they decide that having sex is definitely a terrible idea, they shake hands chastely and go home safe in the knowledge that Hannah would be totally okay with everything that happened that day.

JOKES! They actually decide to go inside and wank simultaneously at opposite ends of Jessa’s couch without looking at one another, because that’s technically Not Sex so they’re still not breaking that rule. Adam, of course, changes the rules in the middle of it so they can stare at each other, and it’s obviously much hotter that way. Giving in to something you know you shouldn’t and lawyering yourself out of the guilt on a technicality that you just invented is an old trick, but this scene is something special — all the more for cutting past the bit where they decide Hannah would be totally fine with this and negotiate what’s actually going to happen. Consider me 100 percent on board this leaky, hot disaster of a ‘ship as it lurches towards the iceberg of revelation.

Also: Elijah, for all his support of Hannah, is still a bit of an island. He doesn’t really need anyone and we haven’t seen him in a relationship since Danny Strong’s douchey playwright. This episode changed that, and he was nothing short of flawless.

Andrew Rannells has always elevated every scene he’s in, but his energy here is note-perfect: from his beard, his Kenny Loggins headband, and his instructions for happy cohabitation (“Keep it sweet, keep it sexy, keep the fridge stocked with K-Mart brand seltzer”) to the way he plays the surprising earnestness and warmth of his flirtation with Corey Stoll’s sternly sexy news anchor (HELLOOOO, Peter Russo) and his studied indifference to Ray’s apoplexy (“That’s not how WORK WORKS!” is exactly what I yelled at Hannah as she bailed on her entire workday).

The chemistry between him and Corey Stoll is instant, intense and throws him for a loop, which is adorable to watch. If Stoll breaks his little heart, I hope it triggers a heel turn where Elijah goes the full Frank Underwood — but for now, seeing Rannells vulnerable, relaxed, genuine and downright twitterpated in the presence of a handsome adult man is exciting enough in its own right.

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Girls airs on Showcase at 7.30pm Tuesday nights.

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