Warning: Spoilers ahead.
That went fast, didn’t it? Season three of Girls is over and so, possibly, is the New York chapter of the Hannah Horvath story.
The critics weighed in on whether or not “Two Plane Rides” was a satisfying end to the season. For some, the finale corrected the course of an otherwise shaky string of episodes — and for others, season three never quite found its way.
Tyler Kane, Paste Magazine: Bravo Girls. You’ve taken twists and turns that kill me inside all season and still have me glued in anticipation for the fourth installment. I can’t wait to see what Lena Dunham and company do next year. Here’s to hoping we don’t have to see a quarter of the storyline set in Iowa, but if that’s the case, I think Hannah’s made a wonderful career choice, too.
Cara Buckley, New York Times: After enduring an eye-roller of a season that often seemed lost to the quick sands of narcissism and solipsism, we were treated to some heartbreakingly open moments in tonight’s season finale of Girls.
Caroline Preece, TV Equals: These characters have grown, changed and regressed through these twelve episodes and, as meandering as it sometimes seems, it’s satisfying in the end.
Willa Paskin, Slate: Girls has taken its time finding a tone that’s not too sweet and not too sour but just right, and over the course of its just-finished third season it finally got there. The girls of Girls have not entirely matured, but the show they appear on has. It was there to see in Sunday’s season finale, which skewered and applauded Hannah Horvath not too much or too little, but just as much as deserved.
Aly Semigran, Television Without Pity: Who could have guessed we’d be here? Who could have guessed that Season 3, which got off to such an ugly and joyless and borderline unwatchable start (if anything ever trumps “Dead Inside” as the worst episode of Girls ever, I’ll be legitimately surprised and horrified), would end on such a touching and effective and funny note?
Todd VanDerWerff, A.V. Club: What’s nice about “Two Plane Rides” is that it’s the kind of season finale that makes so much else in the season snap into place, thus reminding us of how good this show can be … “Two Plane Rides” reveals so much more about what was really going on this season that it manages to tug some things together I didn’t dream the show would be able to.
Alan Sepinwall, HitFix: This finale, like the last one, pulled enough of the season together to make the whole journey feel satisfying. This remains a weird, at times maddening show that on occasion I feel the need to watch while I’m inside a sensory deprivation tank and the TV is outside it, and yet the writing and direction remain so sharp, and Hannah remains such a well-drawn character — even with her knack for being spectacularly irritating at times — that I’m in it for the long haul, even if that haul takes us to Iowa for a while.
Emily Yoshida, Grantland: The third season of Girls felt like it was frantically grasping around for something to “be about,” and that, combined with its occasional spurts of all-out sitcom antics, left it without a sense of identity at all. On paper that all sounds brilliantly thematically appropriate for a show about finding yourself in your twenties, but the experience of watching it was completely empty, offering the viewer nothing to hold on to and get comedically or dramatically invested in from week to week. It was like watching a troupe of amnesiacs do a weekly Brooklyn-lifestyle improvised LARP session.
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian: The comedy was fleeting in this finale episode, but in a way, so was the drama … The cracks that have been growing for 11 episodes finally became entrenched. That last shot of Hannah, smiling, alone in her selfishness and not entirely unhappy for it, acted as confirmation of this season’s maturity. It didn’t feel like a showy way to play out the run, but then, it didn’t need to be showy. Girls is becoming more and more comfortable with its subtleties, and I thought this was an impressively underplayed way to see the season out.
Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture: It’s too bad that “Two Plane Rides” was such a mess, and that its predecessor, “I Saw You,” was a mess as well. We had every right to expect another lively, intricately crafted season-ender, but Girls stumbled near the finish line, then stumbled again.
What did you think of “Two Plane Rides?” What’s going to happen next season?
