The sixth and final season of Girls begins with Hannah’s very first piece getting published in the New York Times. Of course, it’s a Modern Love column, and it's titled "Losing My Best Friend to My Ex-Boyfriend," presumably about Jessa and Adam pairing up. We open with Hannah’s family and friends reading her New York Times piece.

Tricia: Kylo Ren looks very upset.
Jessica: I was hoping for this season to open with the classic Hannah-spooning-a-friend-in-bed scene. If there’s a temperature to be taken from this opening—a published story in the New York Times!—then maybe we’re in for a bright season. And of course Ray hates it.
Tricia: Oh, Ray. He found a typo. The next scene finds her with Chelsea Peretti of Brooklyn 99, who—fun fact!—was an intern at the Village Voice when I was a columnist there. Now, she’s more famous, more successful, more rich, and married and knocked up with Jordan Peele’s baby. I’m here, single, not rich, not famous, but yeah, we’re both doing really well. Anyway, Chelsea sends Hannah on a mission to basically do a New York Times Styles section story, which is to say, to write something that sets up a trend practiced by five people doing it, but no one is sure if the article is ironic or sincere.
Jessica: You know that’s kind of where I feel a lot of Girls’ critics are—unsure if this show is self-absorbed or super aware.
Tricia: Can it be both? I think it can. The writing is great—Hannah says she’s a “millennial Gidget” and talks about how Shailene Woodley gets her glow, by sunbathing with her vag exposed: "That’s sun in her pussy.” Meanwhile, back in New York, Marnie and Ray—why?
Jessica: If you remember from Season 5, Marnie had a “love dream” about Ray, decided to divorce Desi, and apparently, the former man has now moved in with her. You remember her tiny apartment—where the kitchen is in the bedroom? They’ve been living together in the 10 x 10 space for a few months. Today she decides to boot him out.
Tricia: So, Marnie is still selfish.
Jessica: Maybe it's not selfish to want to not see Ray all the time?
Tricia: Ray and Adam are the only two redeemable characters in Girls.
Jessica: I don’t know about that analysis. Adam’s choice of rebound is his ex-girlfriend’s best friend. So is Ray’s. That’s not selfish?
Tricia: Maybe it’s just that I find them more interesting than the rest of the characters. Ray and I would definitely be friends in real life. And, OMG I hate Marnie. So, Hannah makes it to Montauk, which I spent a few summers at in my youth, just yesterday. Back in my day (ahem), it wasn’t so precious, and actual fisherman hung out there. But then… it devolved into this.
Jessica: Montauk is the Gwyneth Paltrow-inspired dream that my friend Zinnia and I never achieved.
Tricia: This is an incredibly realistic depiction of the obnoxiousness of the Hamptons. Hannah arrives at the beach to take her surfing lesson for her story, but has no wet suit. Puts on a wetsuit… but it belongs to some other girl. She starts to take it off on the beach and doesn’t have a bathing suit on underneath.
Jessica: Realistic body moment #1. She proceeds to take an introductory swim lesson with other women, and she’s having as much fun as you'd expect her to have. That being none.
Tricia: Yes, but that instructor (Riz Ahmed) is REALLY HOT. Back in NYC, Ray is at Adam’s apartment, which is technically where they both actually live, but it’s awkward, because Jessa and Adam are just basically naked all the time. Jessa is sitting on the couch au naturel when Ray walks in.
Jessica: Realistic body moment #2 is the way Jessa’s naked body sags on the couch. #3 is the way Adam’s enters the room.
Tricia: Ray can’t find his stuff because Adam has moved it. “We needed a clearer space for sex reasons,” Adam explains. Jessica, I need to get to a point in my life where I, too, need “a clearer space for sex reasons.”
Jessica: Please note how messy this apartment is compared to how it was in the last season. Jessa and Adam trashed the place, I felt bad for the show's crew. Back in Montauk, Hannah is struggling to gain her balance. Actually, no, she’s not even trying. And she ends up sending herself to the nurse. Fast forward, she’s hooking up with her surf instructor.
Tricia: Hannah Horvath has way more fun than the rest of us. He is not only a sensitive surfer, but he is also a killer rapper. Horvath says, “I’m going to fuck him!” She loves him.
Jessica: I would love anyone who's memorized Twista's verse on "Slow Jamz." How many hours on Genius.com do you think it takes to memorize that?
Tricia: So many hours. Marnie and Ray are clearly not going to work out. When Ray ends up at Shosh’s house, it’s like they are an old married couple. They make fun of Paul Krugman in the New York Times (don’t we all?) and Marnie arrives with corporate coffee that no one drinks and feels left out. Later, she goes back to Desi to figure out how to divide their stuff out (he’s so pathetic, I hate him, he begs her to be like Fleetwood Mac and they start making out again). They deserve each other.
Jessica: In my preview of the show, I wished that Marnie’s fling with Desi would just end already. It looks, from this and the trailer, that Desi will be a prominent figure this season.
Tricia: I’m making a face not dissimilar to Grumpy Cat. You and I differ in that you don’t really like what are called “bottle episodes,” where the show focuses on two main characters. This one has Hannah and the surfer for 70 percent of the episode. I’d like to disappear into that world.
Jessica: And if you recall, there’s the episode where Hannah and a handsome, unknown doctor in a brownstone takes her in for a weekend. There’s Marnie’s one night reuniting with Charlie. And I think these are my least favorite moments in this show, whose seasons are so succinct, and whose strength is its portrayal of the grittiness/loneliness/awkwardness of womanhood.
Tricia: Oh, I love those episodes. I think we’ve all had those moments where you get a vacation from your daily life and get to explore another universe—like a portal. I’ve had those days.
Jessica: However, they're not exactly the purpose of the show, right? They feel almost like fairytales, and they’re not necessarily bad. In fact, maybe that they relieve the show’s tension is their value. But they’re just not the show’s selling point.
Tricia: They're almost surreal to me. But that’s also life. And part of growing up.
Jessica: I guess I'm still waiting on a handsome man in a brownstone to take me in.
Tricia: Aren’t we all? Hannah’s perfect weekend is spoiled by the fact that her Prince Surfer Charming is… ugh.. poly. Has a girlfriend he neglected to tell her about, and though she hangs out a little while longer with him, going to beach bonfires and being chill and cool and all that, you can see the disappointment in her face. She wants someone all to herself, and I get that. Next week, more Shoshanna. Which the world needs.