TV
HBO
Girls, Lena Dunham’s 2010s TV staple is returning to HBO with a five-episode revival, meaning there’s no better time than now for a full rewatch. But, if six whole seasons feel too daunting, we’ve compiled five essential episodes worth revisiting, packed with excellent one-liners, very funny meltdowns and much soul searching on the complex nature of female friendships. You’re welcome.
“Bad Friend” (season 2, episode 3)
“Bad Friend” crams so many of the elements that make Girls great into a single, chaotic episode. Quotable lines (“It’s Wednesday night baby, and I’m alive!”), savage Elijah asides, stand-up rows (two in fact), comically awkward sex and painfully 2010s outfits. On assignment for a pre-death of digital media website, Hannah commits to taking cocaine for the first time and writing about it. Needless to say, high jinks ensue, as Hannah goes from dancing to early Charli xcx in a neon vest to telling her friends she loves them to telling her friends she hates them to kissing a reclusive recovering addict who lives downstairs. Don’t do drugs, kids. – Kerry McDermott
“On All Fours” (season 2, episode 9)
Having only started watching Girls in 2025, I’d heard rumours about an episode in season two, famous for a cringe-worthy musical performance – Marnie singing “Stronger” in front of her ex-boyfriend and a room full of his co-workers. But, what I found more entertaining was how this episode explored how broken and complicated these characters really are, from Hannah becoming obsessed with a cotton bud and damaging her ear so badly that she had to go to hospital, to Shoshanna struggling with the fact that she has cheated on her boyfriend, and Adam having a painful-to-watch sexual encounter with his then-girlfriend. It stands as a reminder of just how good Lena Dunham’s writing is. – Cam Barr
“Beach House” (season 3, episode 7)
We’ve all (or many of us have) experienced a holiday that has monumentally altered the fabric of a years-long friendship, and in season three, episode seven, “Beach House”, we see exactly that. I love this episode for so many reasons: the choreographed dance routine (I tried to force my friends into reenacting this one New Years’ Eve, though the less said about that the better), the zingers after zingers (“I thought this would just be a nice opportunity for us to have fun together and prove to everyone via Instagram that we could still have fun as a group”) and the ways in which – as is the case with all of the best Girls episodes – a mirror is held up to the complex realities of real friendship, and how it’s possible to love and hate each other at the same time, and still somehow get over it. – Daisy Jones
“The Panic in Central Park” (season 5, episode 6)
Pretty much any episode of Girls will capture unthinkable nuances of young womanhood (“I have work and then I have a dinner thing. And then I am busy trying to become who I am” resonated with me probably a bit too much), but few do it quite as deftly as “The Panic in Central Park”. Marnie, out for what, in 2026, we might call a “mental health walk”, is realising she needs to divorce Desi. The marriage is going horribly. She bumps into Charlie, her once-dorky, pushover ex who has pretty much transformed into a drug-pushing loiterer. He has lost all of new tech start-up money as quickly as he earned it; he is a far cry from the man Marnie remembers and she is confronted with a version of her past she can’t let go of nor return to – but for one night, she tries. The episode is so cinematic – with its party crashing and a gun-point robbery – it could stand alone as a film in its own right. No wonder Lena Dunham has said it’s her proudest writing on the show. – Riann Phillip
“The Bounce” (season 6, episode 7)
The final season of Girls was in need of some comedic relief, as, in the spirit of wrapping things up, it all got a bit serious – the girls were at odds and dealing with life-changing events. Thank god for Elijah, who, reeling from his break-up with news anchor Dill Harcourt, throws himself back into theatre by auditioning for a Broadway-bound production of The Bounce, a fictional musical version of White Men Can’t Jump. It’s ridiculous, entertaining and, ultimately, a moment for Elijah – who doesn’t always get the credit he deserves as one of Girls’ greatest supporting characters – to shine. This episode makes a pretty compelling case for him. Meanwhile, Hannah, inspired by Dill (a great side plot: he is seeking refuge in Hannah’s apartment because he is in the middle of a media firestorm – he tried to adopt a white baby, and preaches to Hannah about the importance of fatherhood), calls Paul-Louis to tell him of her pregnancy. – RP
