Lena Dunham Is Reviving Girls. But What About the Boys?

You may have heard that Lena Dunham’s Girls is returning with a five-episode reboot, set to begin production next summer. Receiving this information made me realize it was the first time in recent memory that I had read good news on my phone.

All the girls, plus Andrew Rannells, are set to return. But there's no sign, however, of the boys, so I’ve taken it upon myself to speculate on their whereabouts. In the ten years since we last saw Adam, Charlie, Ray, and Desi, what kind of mischief did they get themselves into?

The Boys of Girls were more than just romantic counterparts; they were entities of their own. Lena Dunham, as capable of writing men as she is expressing an entire generation’s malaise, gave us a strange charcuterie board of masculinity. The show itself launched Adam Driver and Christopher Abbott’s careers into the stratosphere, announcing them as major commercial actors. But their characters, too, had lasting impact; throughout the show, we got to see major touchpoints of 2010s culture—tech start-ups and one-act plays, indie-sleaze and coffee shops for gentrifiers—through the vicissitudes of their lives. So many souvenirs of “a” generation, collected in real-time, adorning these boys.

The world has changed a lot since then. Surely, so have they. One can only hope that the boys of Girls have traded their familiar sorrows—the aches and anguishes of dating Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, and Shosh—for something else. Who might they have become?

Adam Sackler

Adam and Jessa broke up shortly after we last saw them. Once the Girls left town, the famously volatile pairing fell into a routine together and one day realized they had become the worst possible thing: boring. So off he went to Prague (big Kundera guy) to study with a renowned teacher of Clown methods. Then to London, where Major Barbara had a strong stage run.

Upon returning to Brooklyn, Adam got the ick: his old neighborhood, he discovered, had been thoroughly yuppified. So he took an apartment in the Lower East Side instead, ingratiating himself with a number of experimental theatre troupes in the neighborhood.

By 2020, he was a Dimes Square micro-celebrity. This, of course, disoriented him even more, so he moved out to Brighton Beach. There, he polar-plunges every morning and is affectionately bullied by elderly Ukrainian women at Tashkent (as well as his 11-year-old niece Sample, custody of whom he informally shares with Laird).

Ray Ploshansky

Also known as Uncle Ray to Hannah's son, Grover Horvath, he often visits Tivoli to ensure that the little guy and his “batty mother” are getting proper structure and the benefits of an “old-timey male presence.” He brings him books about history and sports and dance, because that’s what Grover’s into.

Ray and Aidy Bryant’s quirked-up Abigail, with whom he shared a surprising and promising chemistry, stayed together a few more months until she broke up with him after realizing he's a “major bummer.” But his Brooklyn archive project ended up taking off. The Safdie Brothers asked to purchase the rights for a project they’re developing. Ray was skeptical until Shoshanna, his informal business consultant, convinced him to do it. “Ray, they’re like, the most successful set of Jewish brothers in city,” she insisted.

On sabbatical from his city council seat, he found a new cause celebré: the city-wide abolition of ApplePay and return of the MetroCard, which was retired in early 2026. Ray thinks often of that stretch of time when the Girls were in Greenpoint. To honor them, he goes with Laird to the 5Rhythms dance class above the Ukrainian National Home once a week. He likes that there's no talking allowed.

Desi Harperin

Having recovered from both his prescription pill addiction and his tortured relationship with Marnie, Desi hopped on his moped, guitar strapped to his back, and rode out to Asheville, North Carolina, where hipsters still nestle beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains. There, he plays one show a week (all Lumineers covers) and posts front-facing TikToks of his original music. In the hopes of getting an sponsorship deal, he tags Blundstones at the end of every video.

Charlie Dattolo

For Charlie, that impossibly long day he spent with Marnie in season five was rock bottom. Shortly thereafter he got clean, and he's stayed out of the city ever since. After all, New York depressed him, and it’s filled with too many memories. He moved upstate to the Catskills with Audrey, who has softened and no longer wears elaborate headpieces. They have an old farmhouse and a RAV4.

Thanks to the skills he learned as a construction worker and his own aptitude for design (remember his iconic Mondrian-meets-Eames-meets-East-Williamsburg apartment?), he is now a woodworker. He’s especially known for building utilitarian pieces that maximize smaller spaces. He has many passionate clients, Marnie’s own mother chief among them.

His only indulgence is a nightly dollop of CBD cream. He’s a Girl Dad, after all.