Monday, February 25, 2013
TV Girls Recap: I'm the Child. I'm the Child.
Posted by Kristin Iversen on Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 9:30 AM
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The next day Jessa talks to her father. They sit on the swingset. Jessa has a braid in her hair. She asks her father and her voice breaks, "Do you know how much shit I've taken because you never taught me to do anything else?" Jessa brings up her mother and how hard her mother was on her. There are no details, but we already saw how Petula acted toward Jessa. And Jessa has talked before of feeling unloved by her mother. Women like Jessa don't always have the easiest time of it with their mothers. She asks her father, "Why didn't you stand up for me?"
And why didn't he? He didn't because he's a little man. He's a man who drives around in an old station wagon full of computers the size of dog houses because he thinks people might care about his thoughts. He's a man who doesn't keep his house clean or throw anything out because he knows he's not going to have anything worth saving ever again. He's a man who never defended his daughter against his wife because to him they were on the same level. He's a man who excused treating a child like a woman because she was smart and beautiful and so he could tell her she was special as a way to tell her why he wouldn't treat her the way you should treat all children, which is that you should treat them like children. He fucked her up because he took away the safety net that all kids should have. He let her see from an early age that she couldn't trust anyone. He is a little man.
And so he asks her, "You think I can rely on you?"
Jessa cries. "You shouldn't have to. I'm the child. I'm the child."
She is the child. She is his child. But she knows it doesn't really matter. She still had to say it though. So that she could leave.
Jessa and Hannah go to the store. Jessa's father drops them off. She knows he won't come back. Hannah is starving and declares that she is "getting yogurt, almonds, and baby food" because Jessa might be a child, but Hannah is a baby. They walk back to the house. Jessa looks resigned.
Hannah is in the bathroom, squealing like a baby on the toilet. Her UTI is back. And, truly, I feel for Hannah. UTIs are the fucking worst. She calls out to Jessa, but there's no answer. She picks up her bag and finds the note. It says, see you around my love x.
To Hannah's credit, she understands. She gets herself to the train station and calls her parents who are themselves preparing for a trip to New York (more Peter Scolari full frontal nudity??? fingers crossed!) and tries to thank them. She says all the right things to them and it is really quite lovely because it does seem like Hannah is honestly appreciative of what she has. But because she still has her UTI and needs to squat and piss and make those mewling baby noises of pain, her mom thinks Hannah is screwing around. So her mom gets mad and Hannah is left on the side of the train tracks with her shorts around her ankles, fire coming out of her perhaps garlic-filled pussy.
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