Pitching itself as a sort of anti-Sex And The City for a post-feminist, mumblecore age, Lena Dunham’s Girls — which follows aspiring writer Hannah (Dunham) and her twenty-something gal pals as they navigate their twenties in the Big Apple — garnered a loyal following in its original run for its authentic depiction of young womanhood and Dunham’s raw, almost confessional, only occasionally controversial mode of writing. Now, almost a decade after ending its run and cementing its status among the all-time great TV shows, Girls is about to make a shock comeback, with THR reporting that a five-episode revival of the series is on its way.
Per THR, Skydance-owned HBO has picked up a limited-run revival of Dunham's widely talked about show, with Dunham set to return on both sides of the camera alongside her OG fellow girls Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, and Jemima Kirke — and OG boy Andrew Rannells, naturally. Conspicuous though expectedly so in their absence are Jenni Konner, who stopped working with former creative partner and co-showrunner Dunham back in 2018, and Adam Driver, whose on-again-off-again boyfriend to Dunham's Hannah would appear to be off again for good following claims made by Dunham about her co-star's anger on set in recent memoir, Famesick.
“We always said we would only return to Girls if there was a specific story we were burning to tell,” said Dunham in a statement accompanying the revival's announcement. “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.”
Having seen Hannah and co finding their feet as twenty-somethings in New York last time out, it'll be interesting to see what the gal pals are all up to a decade on and a decade older in the revival. And with shooting due to get underway in 2027, it hopefully won't be long until we get to hear Dunham's self-proclaimed "voice of a generation" and friends chewing the fat once again.