SPOILER ALERT: this blog is published after the US transmission; the UK broadcasts the episodes a week later.
• Read Rebecca Nicholson's episode six blogpost
Welcome back, Girls! I know it's only been a week, but I was starting to feel like this season was treading water (though I know from the comments that some of you liked last week's episode more than I did). The first two seasons had provocations and talk-about-this moments scattered throughout, and so far, it hasn't felt so vital. However an away-episode always seems to inject new life, and that after-dinner showdown was utterly brilliant, giving the characters chance to voice a lot of what us viewers have surely been thinking. (I'm team Shoshanna after all that, by the way.)
Shoshanna
It's as if they have been underplaying Shoshanna on purpose this season. Even for the bulk of this episode, she was virtually silent. Now we know it's because she was quietly, determinedly getting "cruel drunk" – and when she offloaded, it was magnificent. She told Hannah, who has behaved appallingly all season, that she was indeed "a fucking narcissist", she said Marnie's precious duck "tasted like a used condom", and she nailed the group dynamic: they're "a bunch of fucking whiney nothings" who treat her "like a cab driver". It's been a long time coming, but it made a decent point – they are no good for each other and they haven't had fun in years. Plus it was great to see Zosia Mamet diverting Shoshanna's ditsiness into simmering rage.
Marnie
Shoshanna was happy to dismantle Marnie, too – and again, she stepped up because someone had to. "You're tortured by fear and self-doubt and it's not pleasant to be around." Marnie organised the trip, borrowing the house from her mother's friend, but she lost control of it as soon as "the cast of Magic Mike" arrived to party and have non-organised fun. It was excruciating to watch her attempts to stick to her plans "and prove to everyone via Instagram that we can still have fun as a group". But she's too uptight to let go – and she's still talking about Charlie – so inevitably, it all fell apart.
Jessa
Jessa came on to one of Elijah's friends, remained on the wagon and backed up Shoshanna, despite being on the receiving end of some martini-honesty herself. I like how rehab has made her unbearably pretentious, too: "You look like someone Mapplethorpe would have photographed." Reader, I rolled my eyes.
Hannah
The insidious thing about Girls is that it never moves on from awkwardness and recrimination, because Hannah, the lead, is incapable of learning anything. Even when she's being taken apart by Shoshanna, all she can do is acknowledge that she's heard it before and it makes no difference: "People have been calling me a narcissist since I was three." Which made the final scene of the episode – a silent resolution in the form of a sad dance routine – quite bleak, actually. Shoshanna is right; they are terrible, toxic friends for each other. And yet as they danced, there's a strong sense that they're stuck together regardless.
Stereo watch
That dance routine was to Harry Nilsson's episode-appropriate You're Breakin' My Heart. The closing song was The Living Sisters' How Are You Doing?, which got itself a Michel Gondry-directed video in 2011.
New Girls
Elijah's friends were played by bona fide Broadway star T Oliver Reid, Chris Wood from The Carrie Diaries and the ever-versatile Danny Strong, best known for Buffy and Mad Men.
Notes and observations
• There was a sly pop at J Crew from Marnie. J Crew's creative director Jenna Lyons played Hannah's boss last week.
• It was nice to see how Hannah behaves without Adam for a change, but her increasing dependence on him can only end badly, surely?
• That subplot between Elijah and his patronising boyfriend Pal (was it Pal? Hal?) was surprisingly touching. Elijah seems to have had his obnoxious edges rounded off. Though he has always been scathing about Marnie, he's now in a similar position of trying to make a relationship fit when clearly it does not.
• Blame the washed-out filter, but it did not look warm enough for bikinis. I enjoyed Hannah's refusal to put anything else on all episode, though.
• I've quoted a lot of the dialogue this week – the writing really was top-notch.
