Girls Episode 7, Season 2: Explaining Jessa
Categories: TV
 |
Tonight, we get a glimpse into why Jessa is Jessa. Of course, it's all down to her goddamn family (isn't it always?). And even ever-self-entitled Hannah can see that the way Jessa is treated by her largely absent dad is terrible. "This is like my worst nightmare from being a kid," she notes, while waiting for Jessa's dad to pick the two of them up from a train station in the middle of nowhere. "Being the last one to be picked up from school or some social event and then all these adults know about your sad home life."
Our hearts should bleed for Jessa, frankly, given the situation here. The reasons she and Hannah are trying to visit Jessa's dad are paper thin. "The other night I got a text from him -- which are few and far between -- and it was a bunch of letters," Jessa explains. "And I didn't understand it, but it felt like something. He was trying to tell me something, so I thought it was a sign." If we've been wondering why Jessa is so un-anchored to anything, this is it -- her parents might as well not exist, for all the good they do her.
 |
 |
Interestingly, Jessa is more inclined to open up to her deadbeat dad than anyone else we've seen thus far. "It was like he didn't even remember that we took vows" she says of her recent breakup with husband Thomas John. But Jessa's dad's response basically tells her she was asking for it. No wonder she runs away so much.
Left with nothing better to do with their evening, Hannah sleeps with 19-year-old Frank -- who we assume is Jessa's step brother -- who "has camel toe" and looks like a really lame, curtain-haired EMF fan from 1991. But as Jessa notes earlier, while looking at an issue of Penthouse from 1979: "In a way it's the most noble thing you can do -- help a boy find his sexuality. Help a boy become a man." Hannah knows, however, that her role here isn't nearly as righteous as all that. When she talks to Frank about their tryst after the fact, it becomes apparent that (a) Frank was probably a virgin before the incident and (b) he's probably far more romantically interested in his male best friend, Tyler.
 |
The whole incident finally prompts the usually ungrateful and entitled Hannah to call and thank her long-suffering parents for actually, you know, being parents, even when they're being annoying (as all good parents are). At the last moment, we see Hannah waiting for a train all alone, in the middle of nowhere, after receiving a note from Jessa bidding her farewell. We can only hope the absence won't last too long. We now understand why Jessa feels the need to run... But it just makes us want to run even harder in her direction.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
