Truth bombs are dropped aplenty all over HBO’s Sunday night line-up as all three shows start the pivot into the meat of their seasons.

Girls

This week the show fairly splits time among the whole cast again and introduces some interesting new dynamics that I think is really positive for the show going forward. Over in Iowa Hannah is already finding herself in a bit of a life crisis as she isn’t feeling as motivated as she thought she would in her writing program. Her class meets once a week and the rest of the time she is supposed to write, but all she wants to do is watch bad TV. Eli is fitting in as a sort of grad school mother to seemingly everyone around town and while I’m worried that he might not ever make it back to NY he does seem like a new man in Iowa. Back to Hannah, who finally decides to let everyone in her grad group know who they really are in a fantastic take down scene that perfectly ends with Hannah’s appropriately awkward roll off the couch. Is this already signaling the end of Iowa for Hannah? It seems like this episode is at least a month or two after last weeks and she might have just burnt all of her bridges in one fell swoop. All I ask is that she brings Eli back with her if she leaves and hopefully they don’t have to take a horse buggy all the way back.

Back in New York Marnie is showing some new found strength and all of her old weaknesses at once as she tries to finally push Desi to commit to only her. They might be on the precipice of an actual record deal and while Desi might just be using the “passion from their affair is driving their creativity” excuse to sleep with multiple women, Marnie is still able to stonewall him in the end and stand up for her actual desires. Still, we get to see Marnie acting ridiculous as she further tries to negotiate herself out of being the mistress to Ray and then sleeps with him just because she is nice to him. At least this came before her “strong” moment with Desi, so maybe there is growth. She has certainly grown with Ray though, as the two seem to be good friends who can enjoy each other with no strings attached. Marnie’s line about Shos though, about how “she never felt the way I did” was cold blooded.

Speaking of Shos, she has one scene and it was one of the most awkward things I’ve ever seen on television. She kills an interview with Ann Taylor and then, because the interview is going so well that she can be honest, tells the woman hiring her that she has no desire to take this job and only viewed it as dry run/practice interview. Are there people out there that think like this, they would turn down a legitimately great first job because they are so disillusioned into thinking they can have the perfect job from the get go. I think Shos’ actions perfectly fit the character, but it got me thinking about if this is something that happens in the real world. Sadly, it probably does.

My favorite bit of the week was the new bond between Adam and Jessa as he might be the perfect match for her to finally get the act together. The day in the life we get to see between them starts with an AA meeting and it featured some of my favorite writing on the episode when Jessa talks about her relationship with the guy she let make out with her. The walk and talk stuff with them is great and it was really refreshing to see Adam outside of Hannah’s bubble and how he can interact with the rest of the world. Jessa’s attitude is an interesting complement to Adam’s world view. After they get arrested for Jessa pissing in the street, and get dressed down by their bail buddy Ray, I was happy to see not just Adam give Jessa a second chance, but that Jessa could be so vulnerable to him and admit how much she needs him. Like I said, a lot of relationships shown this week seemed to have a couple of months behind them since we last checked in, but Jessa and Adam seemed the most lived in of any on the show.

Looking

Patrick and Kevin are getting fresher and fresher (still secretly) around the office and that spills over into Patrick’s personal life as Kevin agrees to go out and hang with Patrick’s friends. I don’t know what Kevin’s end game in all of this is, the episode ends with him still acting all lovey dovey with his BF as he sneaks out of bed with Patrick, and I really just kind of want Patrick to pull a Marnie and tell Kevin to man up and pick him. Still, I don’t see that happening and they threw an interesting angle into the mix this week when Kevin let slide he needs to get married to keep his Visa after next year. Interesting wrinkle, and Patrick’s confused reaction to Kevin’s immediate “Let’s do it” as a proclamation to head out to Dom’s rugby match was so sad and classic Patrick. Props to Jonathan Groff though for selling all of the enema humor which was the perfectly awkward scenario to run Patrick through.

Agustin continues to get more and more likable as the season goes on, and his mea culpa to Richie was a big part of that. I love that they are keeping Richie in the fold here as I think he is a great character, but I can’t figure out where they are going with him. There is certainly a possible sexual undercurrent between Agustin and Richie, but would they go as far as to have them betray Patrick in that way? Even if Patrick might deserve it a little for all of his shit with Kevin behind his back? Patrick’s apartment could get awkward in a hurry if everyone ends up in the same house one night. We will see. Intrigued to see where this is going.

I am a lot less excited about the rift thrown up between Dom and Lynn this week and I hope this is only a little tiff and not the beginning of the end. I am on both guy’s side a bit I think here, yeah, Lynn should have just been straight with Dom about his intentions for this meeting, but Dom’s stubbornness to not take a better job that could lead to his chicken stand getting funded was more frustrating to watch. Lynn’s frustration of just trying to help was palpable, but I hope the two have smoothed things over by next week and aren’t on the outs. I like Lynn!

The supporting cast continues to grow and be excellent as well this week with Bashir Salahuddin being just the latest great addition as Doris’ boyfriend Malik. I’ve already exclaimed my excitement for a beefed up Doris role, but Malik and her are a great little combo with some amazing chemistry. I loved the scene where she crawled into bed with Dom and Lynn as well and the breakfast that followed really showed how great the chemistry is with this cast. I’m also excited to have Daniel Franzese back for more screen time as Eddie as his and Agustin’s relationship is another intriguing wrinkle going forward for the show. I love how the world is just getting built out with more and more faces and personalities, Looking is growing into a great ensemble to rival that of GIRLS.

Togetherness

The focus on Togetherness continues to be on building out the four main characters, but a couple of interesting wrinkles popped up as well that might bleed into the remainder of the season.

The episode revolved around the TV premiere party of Brett’s new show, but outside an awkward interaction with his director and a possible epiphany over a bird chirping in the city, not a lot going on with him. No, the thrust of the episode was centered around Tina and Alex, who continue to bond as he is her special little project, as they crash the party and try to get Alex to meet one of his producer idols. The two make a great little team, with Tina pushing him along and Alex awkwardly ruining everything, and I am happy to watch this twosome get into trouble from week to week. Not a lot of headway between the two, though, Alex certainly thinks he might have a shot with Tina by the end of the episode, but the pair have been a blast to watch these last couple weeks. I think we all should thank the Duplass’ brothers for giving Steve Zissis a chance to shine on those show, he is one of the funnier finds on TV in some time.

The most interesting plotline of the episode was Lynskey’s Michelle having a night out on the town all alone as she got all sexed up and went to look for some approval. There was a lot of great subtle humor in her adventures over the night (“so you want the humus?”), but her attraction to both the charter school and the man running it are going to run throughout most of the season. That quick google search might take Michelle on a dangerous path for her marriage, but I am not going to jump to conclusions about what she might do quite yet. Let’s call it a crush right now, but it is a dangerous idea to be potentially exploring for her family.

Ok, I’m off to air drum some Tom Sawyer.