Millennials, unite! HBO has announced the return of Girls, starring the original cast, including Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet. But what actually happened at the end of the final season? Here’s everything you need to know.
Calling millennial women everywhere! HBO has announced that Lena Dunham’s hit show Girls will make a limited return to screens, almost 10 years after its original finale. Announcing the news on Instagram alongside her original co-stars – Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells – Dunham said during a mock group call: “OK, so we used to spend like every summer together, you know, doing this thing that we do, making this show. And is it something that you would want to do again? Are you free next summer?”
After some typical back and forth, the original four women all agree that they’re in, while Andrew Rannells jumps in: “I’m in, but only because you trash cans need constant supervision.” Before signing off, Dunham adds: “Seriously, can we still call it Girls? Cause we’re like old as f…”
With so many iconic characters, scenes and lines – special shoutout to: “I don’t want to freak you out, but I think that I may be the voice of my generation” – across the original six seasons, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for the new five-episode revival. But in case you don’t have time for a rewatch or simply fancy a refresher about what actually happened at the end of season six, here’s everything you need to know about that final episode – and what we might expect to see in the new series.
The tenth and final episode of season six is aptly named Latching, which sees Hannah adjusting to her new life – both as a mother and as someone whose world has shifted considerably. After moving from Brooklyn to upstate New York, Hannah has turned down Adam and Laird’s offers to help raise the baby and instead seems determined to tackle motherhood alone. Until Marnie shows up, that is.
Skipping ahead five months and over the birth itself, we find Hannah has welcomed her son, Grover (a nod to her baby daddy Paul Louis’s preference for the name). Marnie, who is living in her mother’s home gym and has dwindling future prospects, decides to help Hannah raise Grover – proving that, once and for all, she’s the only friend who has shown up for Hannah.
But as with many new parents, motherhood isn’t quite what Hannah thought it would be. As she wrestles with breastfeeding Grover, who is having trouble latching, both she and Marnie seem to mourn the responsibility-free lives they used to lead.
In one particularly explosive moment after Marnie calls Hannah’s mum, Loreen, for back-up, Loreen lectures her self-pitying daughter, who despairs that no one understands her struggles as a single mother. “You made a choice to have a child, and guess what? It’s the first one you can’t take back,” Loreen says. “Your son is not a temp job. This is forever!”
When it all gets too much, what does Hannah do? Leave, of course. But on her walk of wallow, Hannah encounters a distressed teenage girl on the street. She’s half-dressed and frantic, so Hannah assumes something terrible has happened. But when she realises that the girl is simply fleeing her mum’s insistence that she finish her history homework, it’s the moment of realisation we’ve been waiting for. Suddenly seeing the situation from a mother’s perspective, Hannah appears to recognise the sacrifices her own mother has made – and the responsibilities that now come with raising her own son.
As Hannah arrives home, she finds Loreen and Marnie sitting outside. The latter has been encouraged by Loreen to start thinking about what she wants from her own life. In the final scene, Hannah enters Grover’s room as he cries, and as she quietly soothes him, he manages to latch – finally.
What happened to Shoshanna and Jessa?
Many fans consider the penultimate episode, titled Goodbye Tour, to be the real finale, as it sees Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) reach their own endings. Shosh has managed to disentangle herself from her self-absorbed friendship group and has found a new circle of friends, as well as a fiancé.
Meanwhile, Jessa’s fate is left more unresolved, although she appears to have reconciled with Adam. Despite her apology to Hannah, it’s obvious that their friendship may have run its course – at least for now.
What is the new series of Girls about?
While an official synopsis is yet to be announced by HBO, we do know that the new five-part series of Girls will be created by and star Lena Dunham, with Judd Apatow returning as executive producer.
Production is due to begin in 2027, and the returning cast will include Dunham as Hannah, Allison Williams as Marnie, Jemima Kirke as Jessa, Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna and Andrew Rannells as Elijah.
Speaking about the exciting announcement, Dunham said: “We always said we would only return to Girls if there was a specific story we were burning to tell. I’ve missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn’t quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my 40th birthday, they started talking to me in the shower. And, as you may remember, once this fivesome starts talking, it’s pretty hard to get them to stop…
“It’s rare that you get the chance to return to something that changed your life with the gift of hindsight and a whole new level of gratitude and understanding. I love these girls (and boy), our friends at HBO, and all the people who have continued to discover the show and remind us afresh why we do this, which is the joy of being together… and the chance to wear yellow mesh…”
Images: Getty