• Put your foot down, Hannah. Gross.

Well, so this was basically the best episode of the series so far. Where last week wound up being a practically unwatchable half-hour because of all the ways it rang false—for example, cocaine does not equal Ecstasy—this episode was consistently awesome because of how it moved the characters forward by being all too honest about their strengths and flaws. Mostly their flaws. These are flawed young women. But then aren't we all? I mean, not everyone pees in the bath, but I think you can understand what I'm saying. Nobody actually does that, right? Pees in the bath? I really hope nobody actually does that. Anyway! Girls.

First off, we have to say goodbye to Elijah. We all knew this time would come. And while Elijah has been, at times, a great character and Andrew Rannells gives the platonic ideal of bitchface to Hannah at always just the right moments, this is the best thing for the show. Because as much fun as Elijah has been to have around, Girls is much more successful when it focuses on the four main characters and works on making them less like caricatures, and more like real young women. But! Before Elijah leaves us forever (or at least for the rest of the season) we get to hear about how he is livid—"LIV-id"—at Hannah for not only kicking him out of their apartment, but also for calling Elijah's ex-boyfriend, George, and asking to keep all the furniture that George had once bought for Elijah. Which, wow. That is Hannah at her most manipulative and obliviously self-centered. But I kind of love how unafraid Lena Dunham is to make Hannah absolutely terrible. Because she is pretty terrible throughout much of this episode. Basically, now? When Hannah sits, underwear-less, rubbing her whole "crotchal" area against a chair that Elijah thought belonged to him? This is actually when Hannah is pretty much at her best. Hannah holds her ground against Elijah as he insists on not paying her the rent that he owes because, when they were dating junior year of college, he used to buy her burritos that were "way more expensive than a normal girl's burritos because you were constantly doing add-ons. Spinach, guac, pecans." Oh, Elijah. Don't go the "Hannah is fat" route. It's beneath you. You came up with "slutty Von Trapp child!" You can do better than fat jokes. Hannah, though, is never fazed by this kind of thing, secure as she is in her body image, and just responds, "It's not my fault that you didn't want to liven up your meal." Which, yes, that's a good point! Because pecans on a burrito sound fucking lively to me. I'd eat that.

But so anyway, Elijah is out and this opening scene sets the tone for an episode that is all about living together and not living together and domestic bliss and domestic hell. I mean, isn't all domesticity hell, of a sort? No, no, I guess not. Although it's hard to say that with any real conviction because Hannah is about to throw a dinner party and it is definitely going to be a hell, if not the hell. Hannah is using the tens and tens of dollars that she earned writing for jazzhate.com and making a grown-up dinner for her friends. Which, nice! And she bought all sorts of expensive, organic materials for her pad Thai because if there is one thing underpaid writers in New York know how to do, it's blow all their money in one shot on something totally ephemeral, like food or alcohol or drugs. Seriously, that's almost all we know how to do, other than write, which we only sort of know how to do.

But what Hannah doesn't know how to do, unfortunately, is care about her friends in any sort of way that is real. Well, Hannah cares about them, but only in so far as she cares about whether or not they care about her. Which I think makes Hannah a terrible friend, but also it makes her a somewhat sympathetic character. Because Hannah really, really needs to be liked. And maybe her insecurities don't manifest themselves in body image issues but they obviously manifest in other ways and the vulnerability is palpable. I mean, I can't imagine wanting to remain friends with her, but I can imagine that she exists. Which is saying something after last week's episode where I couldn't really believe anything that happened. So here's what Hannah did. She invited Shoshanna and Ray and Marnie to her dinner party. But also, she invited Charlie and his girlfriend, Audrey. When Charlie and Audrey—the headband-wearing, condiment queen—get upset that Hannah invited Marnie, Hannah tells them, "I just invited her as a gesture. It's frankly psychotic of her to come." Oh, Hannah. No, it's not psychotic of her to come. It was psychotic of you to invite her in some lame attempt to prove that you are the good friend and she is the bad friend. You are both bad friends. You are both basically bad people, but maybe you will change. Because you are still young and clearly have just about nothing figured out.

Marnie, specifically, has nothing really figured out and after being pointedly insulted by both Audrey and Hannah at dinner—Audrey: ""What was [Charlie] supposed to do, turn away a crying mess? He probably thought you'd slit your wrists." Hannah: ""Marnie's too self-involved to commit suicide." Me: "Yikes."—Marnie flees to the rooftop. Charlie heads up to console her. And Marnie, who is very unexpectedly growing on me, tells Charlie about how lost she feels right now. She says, "I'm a hostess, I don't know what the next year of my life is going to be like at all. Sometimes I just wish someone would tell me ... this is how the rest of your life should look." Don't we all, Marnie, don't we all. Charlie misreads this moment of honesty as a sign that Marnie is interested in him again and, after calling her "smart and beautiful and incredibly clean," he kisses her. Marnie breaks it to him that she is dating Booth Jonathan and just like that I start hating Marnie again. Charlie is stunned, saying, "That little Ewok in fucking capri pants?" And while Marnie's reply, "He's a brilliant artist and of average height," is wrong because Booth Jonathan is a little Ewok in fucking Capri pants, she is also totally right not to hook up with Charlie when his girlfriend is right the fuck downstairs. Marnie was pretty great this episode. And Hannah is pretty awesome in her ultimate defense of Marnie to Charlie. When Charlie calls Marne a "cunt" to Hannah, she immediately steps up and calls Charlie a jerk for being insensitive to what Marnie is going through. Finally, Hannah actually is the good friend for once, even though she acknowledges that she thinks Marnie is a jerk too.

Also at the dinner party are Shoshanna and Ray, who arrive late because they were having sex. We know that this is why they were late because, even though Shoshanna comes up with some stupid cab-related cover story, Ray insists on telling everyone that they were late due to the having of sex. Is it just me or is it really creepy that Ray—who is 33—insists that Shoshanna—who is 21—tell their friends that the reason they are moderately late to dinner is because they had sex before coming over? I know that I'm supposed to find this couple sweet and there are plenty of things about them that are appealing, but sometimes the glaring age difference and sort of energy/enthusiasm difference seems really difficult for me to reconcile. I used to wonder why exactly Ray liked Shoshanna and now I kind of wonder the opposite, but they do seem to have real feelings for each other, so good for them, I guess. Feelings are terrific, until you kill them.

Anyway, though, Shoshanna is kind of a light in the darkness of this dinner party, admiring Hannah's apartment and telling her, "Seriously, though? I like really think the best years of your life are totally going to happen here." To which Hannah replies, "Happening." Ha.

During the actual eating of dinner though, there is a big reveal, which is that Ray is virtually homeless and has been living with Shoshanna on the nights that he is not sleeping in his car. Shoshanna, who while sweet might be a bit slow, realizes this and says, "Oh my god, do you live with me?" She's clearly pissed about more than just the fact that her boyfriend who is 50% older than her is homeless. She feels used. And unprepared. And you suddenly remember that this is the girl that totally freaked out for accidentally wearing white to a wedding last season. She tells Ray, "I would have liked to be informed so that I could have bought some new sheets or called my aunt to ask for advice on living with a man for the first time." All of which is actually totally reasonable. So, later, Ray and Shoshanna are waiting for the L and they're talking. And here's where it gets a little heartbreaking and you can't help but want these two crazy kids, or this one crazy kid and one homeless man, work it out. After Ray confides to Shosh that he feels like a "loser" whose "one valuable possession in this world is a signed photograph of Andy Kauffman," she tells him that she's falling in love with him. The trains go by and they sit there and Ray tells her that she shouldn't say that so soon. Shoshanna looks like she knows she rushed things, like she knows she screwed up. But instead Ray tells her, "I love you so fucking much." And we all just get super happy. Because maybe one couple will find their own weirdly mismatched bliss after all, you know?

But so, now here we are with Jessa and Thomas John, the couple who will definitely not find domestic bliss together. I did this recap all out of chronological order so that I could save the best for last, because Jessa is the best and if you don't think that then you don't know anything. Jessa and Thomas John—or ThoJ as his parents call him—are over. But before they are over, they are still together, and that's where we find them, getting ready to meet ThoJ's parents at some horrible restaurant in Williamsburg that you take your parents to. First, though, Jessa wants to fuck around, so while ThoJ is advising his dad to use the fucking GPS for once (why DON'T parents do that? I don't understand) she pulls down one side of her dress, telling Thomas John, "It's the good one." Breasts are rarely created equal. This scene rang true. Especially when Thomas John replied, "Can I just have a look at the bad one?"

And that was the end of seeing ThoJ and Jessa happy together. Jessa is not the kind of person who does well around parents. Probably—I mean, definitely—Jessa does not even do well around her own parents either. But being asked to perform and hide who she really is in front of Thomas John's bitch mother and passive father was never going to work. A lesser person than Jessa might have shriveled under the scrutiny, but Jessa is used to being watched, she is used to being judged, and she has no problem turning everything right back around on anyone who tries to pin her down. But she doesn't like doing it. It isn't a pleasant game to have to play.

It's clear from the beginning that Thomas John's mother won't like Jessa. For one thing, Jessa doesn't work, like ThoJ's last girlfriend "Fern" did. Apparently, Fern "runs the entire Oprah Network" and I wish that meant that Thomas John had dated Oprah, but that doesn't seem to be what it means. So the bitch mother tries to make Jessa feel bad by questioning every aspect of her existence, like why Jessa traveled so much ("I don't know. Why does anyone travel?") and about Jessa's life experiences, saying, "You certainly have lived a lot. It's very impressive. Especially since I haven't heard a lot about work." The bitch mother tries to get at Jessa another way by asking if she ever attended college and you can tell that Jessa has given up any attempt at civility when she enunciates the words, "O-ber-lin College."

"Oh, but that's a very good school!" the bitch mother is momentarily impressed.

Jessa smiles as she lowers the boom, "You know, I only went there for seven months. Then I left for rehab." And the marriage, you can tell, is over, as Jessa tells Thomas John's parents that she went to rehab for heroin, not for alcohol (she's been drinking since she was a child) or painkillers or whatever would be more appropriate to uptight WASPs. ThoJ's mother is appalled and his father is charmed and the contempt that Jessa has for both of them is never more evident than when she tells the father, "I love you. I love your way."

He replies, "Well, I would just like to thank the Lord that you weren't hurt. Especially on your face. And especially on your body."

Jessa speaks directly to the mother and proclaims, "Well, I wish there was a Lord, but I know there isn't."

Which is everything right there. Jessa knows there is no god. Jessa knows there are no parents. Jessa knows there is no right or wrong way to live, or at least no right or wrong way for hre to live. There is just living and there are just people and there is just her. There isn't anyone else but her. And the same type of problems keep happening to her, she finds herself over and over again in the same situations. It's lonely and terrible and it's all she's ever known and so sometimes she pretends that she is happy with other people, with people like Thomas John, because she knows the problem is hers, so she tries things and tries out new situations and relationships that she knows won't work because at least she will find out for sure. And she will keep living. Even if she's alone.

When she and Thomas John get back to their apartment, they just tear into each other, both of them knowing they have made a huge mistake. The difference is though that Thomas John doesn't know what the fuck happened. He has no vision. He thinks he's a "unicorn, a needle in a haystack." He thinks Jessa is "just a whore with no work ethic."

He is, as Jessa says, "a ridiculous fucking person." She can see things for what they are. She sees things almost too clearly. Part of her problem is holding back the truth from people, which is a wildly different thing than lying. But when she's angry, like now, she just lets loose. She tells him, "I know what you are. You're just some scared guy who didn't get laid till you were 16. I'm embarassed when we walk down the street because you're so fucking average." And she knows who she is too, for better or for worse. She says, "I have been living this life for 25 fucking years. I am going to look 50 when I'm 30. I am going to be so fucking fat because I am going to be full of experiences. But you, you've only lived with me, that's all you've got."

And, it seems that finally Thomas John gets it, because he says the one thing to her that truly can hurt. He tells her, "You know what the best part of this is? You have another fucked up story to add to your collection and someday some fucking asshole is going to make a movie of your life and it's going to be called 'Hi, I'm Jessa and I Destroy People's Lives Because I'm Fucking Bored.'"

And it's that last part that has Jessa crying in the bathtub later with Hannah. Hannah who is sitting in the bath singing Oasis, because maybe Hannah is not as terrible as I make her out to be, but also maybe much more terrible. It's confusing. Anyway. Jessa climbs in and cries and although she doesn't say why, it is because she is scared that Thomas John is right. That her life will be one experience after another of touching down in people's lives, setting them spinning, while never feeling anything herself. So she blows her nose into the tub and Hannah tells her, "That's so gross. Not even I would do that. I pee in every bathtub that I get into and I wouldn't do that." They laugh. And they hold hands. And maybe Hannah is not the worst friend for Jessa because Hannah will always be too self-obsessed to ever really be affected by Jessa, so maybe Jessa is safe here, in Hannah's pee-filled bath. And Hannah tells Jessa exactly what needs to be said, "I really love you. I'm really sorry that you're sad. I just need to get rid of your snot."

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