Girls Season 6 Episode 10 Review: Latching

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Hannah Horvath is officially a mom. And yes, it did force her to finally grow up.

Sort of.

Girls Season 6 Episode 10 was a satisfying end to the long-running show, though it felt much more like an epilogue than the finale.

A New Chapter - Girls

Girls Season 6 Episode 9 felt much more like a traditional finale – something that Lena Dunham and Co. confirmed was a purposeful choice in various finale post-mortem interviews. That installment found all of the main cast saying a final goodbye and going their separate ways.

"Latching," on the contrary, only featured three major characters: Hannah, Marnie, and Loreen. And, of course, the addition of Hannah's baby boy, Grover.

Can I first just say how hilarious the casual reveal was that Hannah had actually taken Paul-Louis' sole input on parenting to heart, actually naming their child Grover (after a flippin' Muppet) after he suggested it? Too funny.

In pure Marnie fashion, Hannah's self-proclaimed BFF had spontaneously shown up at Hannah's (admittedly gorgeous) house upstate, basically demanding that she be allowed to help Hannah raise her baby.

At the time, Hannah was heavily pregnant but all alone in her big (seriously gorgeous) house, having not started her teaching position yet. What a life, am I right?

Marnie: Who's here? I'm here. I win. I'm your best friend. I'm the best at being your friend. I love you the most.
Hannah: Okay.

Marnie's insistence that she raise the baby with Hannah was perfectly in character.

Like she said, she has nothing going on in her own life. Being a second parent to Hannah's baby would be the surest way to give her life some semblance of meaning and distract from the fact that she honestly doesn't have anything else going on anyway.

It's good to see that Marnie did gain some amount of self-awareness by the end of the show. I also do legitimately think that she does love Hannah the most – she's certainly dedicated to her friend.

And despite the fact that Marnie was preachy, annoying, and slightly invasive when it came to Hannah's breastfeeding woes, she clearly had only the best intentions with helping her friend and loves baby Grover.

Marnie's help was just done Marnie-style – she needs to be the best at everything, so of course she would look up literally all of the information she could find on breastfeeding and lecture Hannah endlessly on its benefits.

Okay, I need this to stop. Because A) it's fucking revolving, and B) every time you say "nipple," a fairy dies.

Hannah [to Marnie]

It was a small moment, but Marnie swiftly schooling Hannah on swaddling by pulling off a picture-perfect swaddle was great, too. Such a Marnie thing to do.

Unfortunately, Hannah was making Marnie miserable. In perhaps the only time throughout the series that I've ever felt legitimately sorry for Marnie, Hannah was all at once both very cruel and dismissive to her while still taking her presence for granted.

In the span of minutes, Hannah went from snapping at Marnie about her "perverse" involvement in the latching struggle to being baffled that Marnie would possibly consider going to a wine bar on her own for a night, leaving Hannah with her own child.

The fact that Hannah unraveled in the aftermath of Grover's birth wasn't surprising. She's never been a particularly put-together person, and motherhood is pretty damn stressful (to say the least).

Hannah In The Diner - Girls Season 6 Episode 10

Grover's inability to latch was just the straw that broke the camel's back – it was more an emblem of Hannah's overall struggle to become an adult than any sort of larger commentary on breastfeeding.

The best part of the finale was the final half, when Loreen showed up after being called in by Marnie for back-up after Hannah was rude to Marnie once again.

Hannah: I don't understand why you're yelling at me when I'm in emotional pain!
Loreen: Yeah, well you know who else is in emotional pain?
Hannah: Who?
Loreen: Fucking everyone! For their whole lives!

I love Loreen's ability to tell it to her daughter like it is, and it was so great to see Becky Ann Baker in action as this character for the last time. It was also fitting that Hannah's own mother would be there to help her along in her own "induction" into motherhood.

Beyond the confrontation at Hannah's house, when Loreen drove home the fact that baby Grover isn't something that Hannah can just give up on, Loreen also had a great moment with Marnie near the finale's end.

Loreen: Are you happy here?
Marnie: I don't need to be happy.
Loreen: Why?
Marnie: It's just not my time. This is important. Hannah's my best friend.

All of the other friends fell away at the end of Girls Season 6 Episode 9, but Marnie stubbornly stuck around – though, as Loreen suggests, that might not have been the best thing for their friendship.

It was beautiful and heartbreaking at once to hear Loreen relate her own marriage to Tad – her best friend, but someone she should've parted ways with long ago – to Marnie's friendship with Hannah.

It was also very apt. Marnie couldn't – and shouldn't – put her life on hold to assist Hannah. In many ways, Hannah and Grover became Marnie's reason not to move on with her life and figure out what she should do next.

Her idea to go to law school was totally on point. I can totally see Marnie as a lawyer, or as Loreen suggested, a judge.

Finally, Hannah's breakthrough moment came as she encountered a stereotypically bratty teen.

Ironically, the girl (pantless and shoeless) wasn't running from an "emergency situation" as she first said. Much like Hannah, she'd stormed out of her house after an argument with her mother.

In Hannah's case, she hadn't liked the harsh truths her mother had to say about Hannah realizing motherhood was a permanent commitment. For the girl, she simply hadn't wanted to do her homework.

I'm not sure who the teen actress was who played the mystery girl, but that entire scene was hilarious. I loved Hannah's gradual realization that this girl was just a damn idiot, not in any actual danger.

Demanding her pants back after lecturing the girl about appreciating her mother was a nice touch. Because of course Hannah would give this strange girl the actual pants off of her body in an ill-advised attempt to be helpful.

Hannah's monologue about mothers was a bit heavy-handed. She basically shouted at the girl everything that Hannah herself needed to realize about motherhood.

But hey, it did the trick. When Hannah came home, Marnie and Loreen welcomed her back with open arms. But more importantly, Hannah's newfound confidence in motherhood finally allowed Grover to latch.

Hannah Final Scene Gif - Girls Season 6 Episode 10

This was a really stunning shot to end the series on, and yet another strong performance from Dunham, who really killed it in the acting department this final season. More than anything, this last shot represented the culmination of Hannah's long journey into adulthood.

"I've got it," she says to her mother and Marnie – and this time, she means it.  She's got her son and, however tentatively, she's got her life figured out. 

To some degree, at least. This is still Hannah Horvath we're talking about here.

Stray thoughts:

  • Marnie is suddenly smoking e-cigarettes now? That was never a thing before, was it? Also, the hilarity of Marnie smoking an e-cig in a pediatrician's waiting room...
  • The opening shot of Marnie and Hannah spooning was a great callback to the series premiere.
  • Is it weird how sad I am that Elijah was totally absent from the finale? I mean, I'm sure he's busy being a Broadway star, but it's still sad that (at least according to Marnie's rant) he hadn't been around much for Hannah.
  • Becky Ann Baker is a national treasure, and Loreen's appearance in the finale provided some of her best work on the show.
  • That cop following pantless Hannah home to make sure she got there safely was a small, silly moment, but very amusing.

What did you think of the series finale? Was it a satisfying conclusion to the long-running show? Share your thoughts by commenting below and remember that you can watch Girls online anytime to relive Hannah's journey from the beginning!

Latching Review

Editor Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
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Rating: 4.8 / 5.0 (42 Votes)

Caralynn Lippo is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.

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Girls Season 6 Episode 10 Quotes

Grover! Come on. It's good. There's a businessman who'd pay a lot of money to do this.

Hannah

Marnie: Who's here? I'm here. I win. I'm your best friend. I'm the best at being your friend. I love you the most.
Hannah: Okay.