#daniel haglund

I know I’m late to the party, but here’s my short review on One Man’s Trash.

David Haglund and Daniel Engber (Slate) have pinned One Man’s Trash as the worst Girls episode ever, but even Dan—err, I mean Daniel—has admitted that he would rather watch a displaced episode like One Man’s Trash than “one where, say, each character’s romance is nudged just a little further down the road to wherever.” Well put, Daniel.

Regardless of how we feel about the episode (love, hate, worship), there is a shared factor: we are talking about it.

I’m not going to get too specific because we all have our opinions about naked ping pong and lonely Patrick Wilson. I just want to talk about the Hannah Breakdown.

In her tearful and cringing breakdown, Hannah confesses to Joshua that she wants to be happy.

But does she? Isn’t there something about Hannah and her need to be extraordinary that makes her an addict to self destruction and self hatred? Think about her relationship with Adam, how she SUGGESTED a guy should punch her and then cum on the same spot, and her extremely low self esteem – “No one could ever hate me as much as I hate myself, okay? So any mean thing someone is going to think of to say about me, I've already said to me, about me, probably in the last half hour.”

The episode plays with the American Dream, identifying the cookie cut Patrick Wilson as Hannah’s way of achieving (social) happiness. In the bourgeois apartment with Dr. McDreamy, Hannah takes a moment and stares at Joshua, taking in the concept of relative normalcy. This would be her life; would she be happy?