Everything Is Content - Lena Dunham, Girls Revisited & Too Much

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

This week on the pod we're LENA-ing into the drama by discussing the Girls & Too Much creator and trying to parse whether Lena Dunham's rise, fall and rise again have been fairly examined.First up the many scandals of Lena Dunham, her skewering online and what of her many controversies were actually controversial.Next up we revisit out fav eps of Girls and ask if the show has aged well or is a remnant of Millennial heydays gone by.Finally we're discussing new Netflix 10 parter Too Much which stars Meg Stalter as a heartbroken but determined producer trying to reinvent herself in London. We share our thoughts, criticisms and ask just how autobiographical is this show.We hope you enjoy, and always, thank you so much for listening. O,R,B xx-Beth's been loving Selfish People by Abigail Bergstrom.Oenone's been loving Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.Ruchira's been loving The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer and Search Engine Podcast.THE TELEGRAPH - Cancelled by both the Left and Right, Lena Dunham was one of the most hated women on the internet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Rachira. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, your guide to the biggest, the best, and sometimes the worst celebrity and pop culture stories of the week. Books, films, and your latest weird crush, we've got you covered. With a rubber duck of content floating in the steamy bubbly bathwater of pop culture discourse.

This week on the podcast we're talking all about Elena Dunham. Her meteoric rise, her various cancellations, the huge success of girls and her re-emergence onto the TV scene with brand new show Too Much. Follow us on Instagram at Everything Is Content Pod and make sure you hit follow on a podcast player so you never miss an episode. But first, I have to plea with you all, could you please please please gift us a five star review wherever you're listening to this podcast. It makes the world of difference for us and means that we can continue doing what we love which is this podcast and talking to you. After that bit of housekeeping, what have you girls been loving this week?

I am currently reading Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and the Sixth at Owl. And it's a slight departure from her previous books, I have to say, it is about a group of astronauts who go out onto the interspace on a shuttle. And it starts off with quite a shocking and dark beginning. And then it goes back in time. So we find out about the central character Joan and how she came to be an astronaut working for NASA.

And I'm doing it for my book club this month. So it's great. And it's, yeah, I don't know what I thought I expected, but it is slightly different. I guess actually her one just before this was about a tennis player, which also felt slightly different because I felt like Daisy Jones in The Six, Seven Husbands had really similar characteristics, but she's definitely got such like a broad spectrum ability of writing about really different worlds and lives. So I'm enjoying it. Have either of you read it? I've got, I've had it ordered, but I think I've just been away from home so much that I'm, I think it actually must be waiting for me back in Wales, which is exciting because I have seen this recommended on every lesbian book talk account that I follow has been hammering this book. And I

went, you don't have to tell me twice. It's also on my list as well. I just haven't got round to it. Although I do have a bit of a weird phobia of space. So I think that's probably been part of my subconscious aversion to actually picking it up. Yeah, it makes you feel scared. Like under the seat, I feel scared. But I will read it, I will read it.

Oh, I completely agree. Space expiration, it does make me feel a bit, it gives me a weird like sicky feeling in my tummy. I'm not the biggest fan. What have you been loving, Beth? Mine is also a book and it is Selfish Girls by Abigail Bergstrom, which came up last week, I believe. I had an advanced copy because she and I, well, by the time this comes out, we will have done an In Conversation event this week, which I'm excited for. And it is about three adult sisters who find themselves back together in their native Wales for the first time.

The oldest is Emma, who is like a wife and mom and kind of falling apart. Classic old eldest daughter taking responsibility for all of her siblings and also their mom, Gwen, middle child who's like free-spirited, kind of escaped expectations and is this like really successful jewelry designer. And then the youngest who is the quote unquote favorite or at least assumed to be the favorite of Gwen, who is an aspiring actress who is engaged to the middle child's best childhood friend. They move back to Wales following miscarriage. It's very fraught and it joins quite a large canon, I think, recently of literature about the complex relationships between sisters. We had like Coco Mella's book, Blue Sisters,

which we discussed here. I think there are quite a few at the moment dealing with, it's like the anti-little women of like, we're just girls and we love each other forever, the kind of Regency era Pride and Prejudice story. It's like actually, no, it's not all rosy. Sometimes sisterhood is like savage and messy and like deeply wounding. No one can hurt you like your sister. And I really, really enjoyed this. I think, I mean, it's stunning writing as well as being like a great story. I would, I would highly recommend this one. I love the sound of that. Yeah, that sounds so good. I'm loving all of the kind of literature and movies and TV shows focusing on sisters. So definitely sounds right up my street.

It's very like women's rights and women's wrongs. And she also, her first book, What a Shame, came out in 2022, her debut, which is also very good. If you kind of feel like, oh, I can get a couple of books, I'm in Safe Hands, I would recommend both of those because I'm back in my reading bag actually, after just before we talk about TV for an hour. I've been really enjoying that. I think it's The Train Journeys, but yeah, that is my recommendation. Ruchira, what about you? What have you been having? So this is not my recommendation, but I did want to update you both after, I think maybe Beth mentioned it, but then you also mentioned it and only the interesting by Meg Wallace that I picked it up and I'm three quarters of the way through.

I'm really enjoying that. So just to point out, not only are we giving recommendations for listeners, I'm getting recommendations from YouTube all the time. So that's one. And then, so I've been obsessed with this podcast called search engine and it's by one of the former hosts of Reply All, which used to be my favorite, favorite podcast. It was this internet culture podcast, one of the biggest podcasts of its time, I think about seven-ish years ago, and had the likes of, you know, Gia Tolentino

would come on the podcast and say that she, years ago, had Bitcoin, but she lost it in an era of, you know, deleting emails, losing emails, and then they were just set about a challenge of trying to find if she could relocate this Bitcoin, which would be worth probably like 300 K in today's age. And they would just go about it and it would be this like really fun kind of excavation investigation, really tech heavy, but also so fun to listen to. That kind of fell apart because of, I think, race reckoning. They had a bit of a scandal with the fact that I guess not many people of color were able to rise to the ranks of that podcast, if I believe.

And so there's been this huge gap of internet culture podcasts that don't really satisfy in the same way because that was so specific. And now PJ Vogt, I think is his name, who was one of the original hosts of that Reply It All podcast has this podcast and it is hugely famous. It has so many reviews, it's so popular and I've just discovered it and I adore it. He will do an episode such as, does anyone love their job in today's age?

And what seems like a really simple Google question, and that's the premise, these very simple bite-sized questions, which seem like something you would Google yourself. He does really thoughtful, considered, nuanced investigations by speaking to people. It's got that kind of this American life vibe about it, whilst also really making you feel like somebody's changed you after like an hour of listening to this podcast, because you're just listening to somebody who you wouldn't ever hear from giving their take on it and telling you their life story whilst also answering this question in a roundabout way. So I don't

know, it just feels like reading a New Yorker piece, but through your ears. I really recommend it if you haven't listened to it already. Oh, that sounds really like something that I need in my long list of podcasts. I forgot about this American life as well. That sounds so good. And what was the answer? Does anyone like their job? Yes. So for that episode, he spoke to somebody who basically started a band and the first band never worked out and he was working in a bank, I think at the same time. And then the second band, he started with the deliberate desire for it not to go anywhere.

And guess what? The band took off and now he's doing his dream job. But he speaks about working in a bank and having a creative pursuit on the side and how that still made him happy. And he was talking about the balance and this feeling of, can you ever be happy if you're in pursuit of something else? And they figure it out on this episode. And yeah, he gives you an answer by the end of it that made me feel so reassured and soothed. Oh, I really need that sounds like a tonic that I need to drink up.

Honestly. Let's start with Lena or Lena. We've actually just all had a bit of a panic because we weren't sure what's right. I said Lena, the girl said Lena, we'll say both. panic because we weren't sure what's right. I said, Lena, the girl said, Lena, we'll say both. So author, journalist and friend of the podcast, Olivia Petter wrote a fantastic piece to The Telegraph titled, cancelled by both the left and right, Lena Dunham was one of the most hated women on the internet. She writes that the politicization of the now 39 year old Dunham began with a caustic profile in the conservative magazine, The National Review interrogating passages from her bestselling memoir Not That Kind of Girl, published the month prior following a reported 3.7 million advance.

Girls which followed the chaotic lives of aspiring writer Hannah, based on Lena, and her three friends in New York City, across six seasons and was praised as the more relatable follow-up to Sex and the City had earned a slew of awards since its 2012 premiere and had made Dunham one of America's most famous and influential women by the age of 25. But as Livi writes in the piece, Lena was subject to much criticism and glory following the revelations she wrote herself in said memoir, using the horror of sexual assault as a political gotcha game after identifying her rapist was a Republican. Over the next few years with the rise

of cancel culture, Dunham's name bounced between the political left and right like a hot potato, Livvie writes. In 2017, when HBO Girls came to an end, she was both the voice of a generation and the mouthpiece of posh left-wing millennials. I thought this piece was absolutely great. You need to go and read it. It details so much of Lena's rise to fame and her subsequent fall, as well as girls and her latest show, Too Much, which we're going to be coming on to later. I'd actually forgotten so much of this because so much time has passed, which I think it does show that kind of dipping out of the public eye can have a real impact on how people perceive you.

But I'd love to know what you made of the piece and of Lena's cancellation at the time, what your relationship was with it and how it impacted your ability to consume her work, if at all. I remember thinking at the time that I really felt graded by every single news story that seemed to revolve around her saying something silly and just offensive. And it felt like at one point, much like I think Taylor Swift has experienced and been at the center of previously, it's just a news spin where every news week is dedicated in a way to something she said, the rigmarole of how that's made people feel because she said something silly

and stupid and it's upset people. And then just the discourse and then the think pieces and it would start again and again and again and again. And I definitely was a part of it because I remembered there was, she had her newsletter and there was a big kind of scandal because I think one writer, a woman of colour left that newsletter, very famous newsletter and said that she had experienced hipster racism in relation to Lena Dunham and Lena Dunham's circle and just the type of people that she had been around through that workplace.

She just detailed her experience of how that made her feel and just shared what that felt like in terms of alienation, racial microaggressions, this sense of people having no idea how to talk to you or to relate to you and then also kind of just treating you as if you are this like foreign object. I remember for vice.com I wrote a semi-viral piece titled Here are all the ways that I've also experienced hipster racism and I contributed to the news cycle of that moment. So I find it, I don't know, now six years on from that I feel like a completely different person where you know the media landscapes changed. I don't know, now six years on from that, I feel like a completely different person where, you know, the media landscapes changed. I wouldn't probably write a piece like that because I can't be asked and, you know, 150

to 200 pounds isn't enough to put yourself out there like that anymore. And then also just the idea that the news cycle is so flimsy that if somebody says something silly in an interview, there's so many think pieces based on it. It's not something that I'm interested in anymore. I do think she didn't really get a good time of it back then, but also a lot of what she said was really offensive. And then also, if you are 25, you shouldn't be on interviews saying what you think all the time because you haven't lived enough life. So I think it is this double edged sword of people platformed her because she would say provocative things. She would say provocative things that

offended people, which she didn't have to do. She was also 25 and she said in more recent interviews, such as the one on Girls Rewatch podcast, that she just hadn't lived enough life at that point. She hadn't extended her circles. Now she said that since coming to London, she has a whole host of experiences behind her and she just absolutely wouldn't think or say those things again. her circles. Now, she said that since coming to London, she has a whole host of experiences behind her and she just absolutely wouldn't think or say those things again. So I think there seems to be some interesting accountability at the minute, which I feel really warmed to and I feel warm to her these days, I think. What about you guys? She said some things which are, or said and did some things which go, okay, that is beyond

the pale. And then there would also be these complete foot in mouth moments or these things you're like, what on earth, you're so talented as a writer and a person. And maybe it was that she is so good at crafting a sentence. The sentence is crafted well, but it's like the content is like, wow, humdinger. I remember on the funny side of it, it was when she wrote, when I go, I want my casket to be driven through the NYC pride parade with a plaque that reads, she wasn't for everyone, but she was for us. Who can arrange? Which is silly. It's a silly wrong thing to say. It's like, girl, what is going on? But then there was the other instances of her tweeting things that were deemed to be Islamophobic.

And I say deemed to be because I forget the content of them. But again, she apologized and it was a long time ago but irrefutably, wrong thing to say, really offensive. And I remember the Odell Beckham Jr. quote, like she wrote what is a very funny sentence about someone you go, this is a really bad sentiment where she said she was sitting next to him at an event and she was like, it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, that's a marshmallow, that's a child, that's a dog. It wasn't mean, he just seemed confused. And like, it was kind of that he didn't sexualize her, which was the

problem. If you write that in fiction, excellent sentence about an unhinged woman sitting next to a just a human man. In reality, real man, bizarre offensive thing to say. And I just think there is this full list of everything ranging from bonkers, weird thing to say to like, fucking hell, that is a real clanger. Do you not have a group chat? And she was very good at just putting her foot in it for someone that seems to understand what drives people and what is provocative and does that so well in girls. Because I guess this is a show that is about women who put their foot in it. In reality, it just translated so poorly all the time. And I kept having to be like, God, it must be difficult for

your fans to defend this. Maybe you need to put down the iPhone 7 at this point. I couldn't believe how good she was at saying the entirely wrong thing on the internet. She could not temperature check. She could not, I think, pause. And I do wonder why that is. I also want to fit points to the fact that some creators and artists shouldn't then have to be a public figure in their own right. The work needs to speak for themselves and then they don't need to necessarily back it up. But it was a really big time for celebrities being extremely online, which is a thing we talk about a lot has died out. Like many celebrities aren't tweeting or posting or writing like in off the cuff ways, especially people like her,

because they do say the wrong thing. I have to say that after her memoir and when a lot of the criticism came out against her, my perception of her shifted having been such a big fan of girls. Now, years and years later, I don't feel as strongly about it. And I was so excited to see that she was writing something new. Like I couldn't have been more excited because I think having had that time away from girls, we realize even more in this moment, like just how special it was because nothing really has come close to it in the interim. And I do think that perhaps you need that much of a chaotic, messy mind in order to touch into what girls did,

which was such a raw, revelatory, honest, never seen before account of what it means to be a young woman in a city. And so I wonder if that level of cancellableness is needed in order to write such mastery. It's just unfortunate that the two things can't exist without the other. I think the fact that she took so much time away and she went really off grid publicly and it does feel like it's been at least five years since we've seen what is now a resurgence publicly PR wise of so many profiles and interviews that are very thoughtful, considered inoffensive. It feels like she's really mastered what she needed to do, which was just maybe go live some life or even if she didn't live some life, just give everyone a chance to cultural reset and feel the longing in the absence of her thoughts and her

kind of reflections on life because that's what she's always been good at. She's always been very funny, very sorry to use book review's favourite phrase but whip smart. She is whip smart and she's a really interesting interview when she doesn't say like slightly unhinged things. And sometimes I feel like she's temperature checked again now and she can say unhinged things, but they're very, very funny. And I think you're right. I think the amount of celebrity she was gifted,

granted, cursed with at that time was just way too much. I mean, it's way too much for anyone. She obviously didn't handle it in the best way, but also now having a few years behind me, I think about myself during that time. I feel like such a different person personally. So I think that's what makes me warm to her. And no, I didn't say half of the things she said. I do think some of those things were just so, so bad, so absurd. I remember the time she mentioned never having had an abortion during an interview and she said that she really wishes she had. She handled that situation and the way she expressed a desire to understand

the pain and the specific experience potentially that some women feel, not every woman feels that that's a painful experience. Some people think it's fine, which they should do. I think she articulated that so badly. And you just felt like you're right. She just constantly was saying it in a way that just landed so off the bark that it was like offending people left, right, center, below, up, all around. I don't know. I think also we gave her a really hard time at the same time. Both things can be true. I think the media constantly was looking for things, the way they mined her memoir for things that would be upsetting and offensive. I also have changed my perspective on now. I think a lot of those things were

fine. I think they were just very, very honest in a way that people aren't honest about things. And we either want people to be honest, but palatable or dishonest, but make us feel that they're being authentic. People don't really respond well to what a person actually thinks and feels. And I think unfortunately she has always been her most honest self and people didn't take that very well. And you're not going to take people's complete honest selves completely well either. If I said every single thing I thought on this podcast, I'd probably be canceled like 10 years ago.

The bit about the emotion is so interesting because we're gonna come and talk about girls in a minute, but right at the beginning, I think it's at episode three, when Jessa's meant to be having an abortion, all the girls have kind of, Marnie's like, there's a really funny joke where Hannah's like, you threw such a good abortion party and Marley's like, that's not what I was doing. And just before that, they're talking about

Hannah having an STI check and Shoshana's like, I just think that's really cool that you got to have an STI, like you've had sex and now you're having an STI check. And that whole abortion scene and that thing about Shoshana being like wishing she was included in something in art is been depicted in a way that people accept, but that interview with Lena is kind of the same thing. It's just like when it's coming from her, it lands so badly. But actually, had that been in an episode of Girls, people would have been able to receive it differently. I think she often does say the wrong thing, but it's almost like when she's not putting it through the mouthpiece of a character or not articulating it through fiction, when it's coming directly from her, it really

rubs people up the wrong way and she doesn't seem to say things wrong. But it's not unsaid. And I do also wonder if she's seen as like unpalatable within society. I think that's something else we'll come on to. But the way that she looked was completely torn apart at that time. And I think that really played a part as well in how willing people were to accept her slipping up. And I think that that was like a massive issue that maybe more lately, and I think she speaks about it as well today. I think that actually was a bigger thing than we may be acknowledged at the time. And also, I don't know the timeline of this, but she has recently has been really honest about the fact that she had endometriosis or has had a hysterectomy at 31, has dealt

with early menopause in her thirties. I'm not suggesting like, okay, these are definitely connected and this is what she meant, but like to say that, say something like, I wish I'd had a, I wish I understood this or I wish I had that, maybe it isn't as simple as like, let me into the party, let me be one of the gals, let me have this formative experience so I can mine it for writing. I don't know, but it just feels like, in the internet of things, of course, nuance is lost. Which is what I really liked about Livi's piece. It is very nuanced and it does chart that entire arc. She's been famous now, or at least the public eye for like a decade and a half at least. And I think what the piece does very well, it acknowledges that this is not just a case or a

simple case of like, okay, this woman has said shitty things. She's documented moments in her personal life that people have found abhorrent. It's also fatphobia, misogyny, like flattening elements of our identity to portray her as sinister, kind of like, this is a sinister white woman and it's like, but let's dig into that. And it's also like, she has said things that are quite or like totally detestable. I remember the, the instance of, um, her publicly defending a colleague and a friend who had been accused of rape by Aurora Paranou. I believe when she was 17 years old and they put out a public statement, Lena and I forget the other name, but someone they had worked with to say, this is a case, the very small percentage of this crime that is misreported.

She went and apologized to that in the years after, but for some people, that is the last line on it. It's like, that is an indefensible thing. Some people know about that and that's the source of their vitriol, but a lot of people might not have winded that at all and they hate her for the less palatable, but ultimately harmless elements of her public presence, her work, the word she said, and certainly the way she looks. So I do think the piece is very good. It balances that out. Some people really do just hate her and would hate her on sight or would hate

her because she wrote this show about sex and about bodies and dared to have her tits out in it when they weren't those perky Cs on a size eight body. And I think that's the interesting part. The hate does, it spans left and right. It also spans gender, it spans left and right. It also spans gender, it spans generations and it comes from various sources for various reasons. I think she's such a fascinating case in the age of like problematic celebs, accountability, cancel culture and also just the vanity that's so endemic in everything that we still do. Madness.

Well, that lands me perfectly on our next point. There is absolutely no way of talking about too much without understanding the huge TV titan that came before it and thrust Lena Dunham into the mainstream. Yes, I'm talking about girls. The first episode dropped in 2012 and it ended in 2017. The series starts with aspiring writer Hannah Horvath, played by Dunham, finding out she's financially cut off from her parents who've made the decision she just has to figure out her shit on her own. Hannah's drowning along with her group of friends Marnie played by Alison Williams, Shoshana, Zosia Mamet and Shoshana's cousin Jesset played by Jemima Kirk. The series follows their friendships, relationships, attempts to make a life for

themselves and work out who the fuck they are. Much like Sex and the City, I feel like each of the four girls feel so distinct and separate. So before we jump into the show and what we think about it and the legacy of it all, I wanted to start this segment, which is my dream segment, with two questions. Which girl's character do you think you are? And which is your favorite episode of the series? I think everyone is a Hannah. I think it's so rare to meet a Jessa. It's so rare to meet a Shoshanna, way more rare. It's actually quite rare to meet Amani. I'm sorry, ladies listening, you're probably a Hannah, just like me, a thousand percent. I really mulled this question and it sent me into such a warm and reminiscent place where

I was like, I will be. Girls rewatch will be seeing me soon. I think I'm going to join the chorus of people that will cite the episode, season six, episode eight, what will we do this time about Adam, which is Hannah and Adam walking around. I mean, I don't want to do spoilers, but surely I can. It's been long enough. It's been long enough. It's Hannah newly pregnant, Adam leaves Jessa for the day. They walk around in this elongated fantasy goodbye, they kind

of plan a life and then they sit in the diner and it all falls apart. The fantasy can no longer support itself, it can't hold its own weight and they face what's really happening, which is their 20s defining deep love on and off did not work. It is ending now and it's mounted to this sort of bittersweet, tender moment over some soup, I think. I think it's a great episode. It really deals with like the pathos of the character of Jessa who watching this, she has committed the ultimate sin of sleeping with

and falling in love with your friends, your best friend's significant ex. And so you think you spend the whole season wanting her to pay for this crime against girlhood, but it's gutting to see her sort of falling apart. And I think it challenges. And I think there's so many great episodes, like special mention, Marnie's wedding, hilarious.

Beach House, one of the most perfect episodes of TV. Panic in Central Park, too relatable for words, when Marnie and,'s-his-name, her boyfriend, sort of have this again, this perfect day. Charlie. Charlie, bloody Charlie. That was my app, sorry to say. And you can talk more in depth.

It's such a good one. But I think for me, it's going to be season six, episode eight, just perfect episode of TV. And only talk about, because I really want to talk about this episode too, talk about the Panic! in Central Park. Well, first of all, I don't want to be Hannah. I want to be Jess, even though she is also the worst. But I think I agree that we're all Hannah,

but I think we're all of them as well. There's so many bits in the episode, in each episode where you relate to, like I could have done any number of the things that any of them do in any of the episodes, which is why I just think they're such clever characters. But yeah, Panic! in Central Park, I think it's the opening of season five and we haven't seen Marnie for ages. She's married to her partner, Desi, and she's always been the one that's meant to be type A on top of things.

And she kind of escapes from her stuffy apartment while she's feeling quite trapped. And she bumps into Charlie, this boyfriend that we met right at the beginning, who ends up breaking her heart. Even actually the very first episode, I think is like one of, sorry, just to go back, the very first episode of Girls is cinema. It's so fucking good when she's talking about her relationship with Charlie and whether or not she loves him. It's just so funny and so relatable. The writing of the show is incredible. But anyway, so they just have this really unlikely day and it's one of those episodes where it's kind of a self-contained, it is in the series, but it's almost like its own show within this episode.

I need a re-watch because I haven't watched it for ages. So I need to go back and start from the beginning because I read through the Wikipedia of like every single episode trying to remember which ones I love the most. But it's just made me realize how damn good this is. But yeah, that episode I think was a really special one because they don't always work as well when they do that. There's other shows that have tried to take a couple of characters and put them into this special episode and it actually is just, it just falls really flat. But yeah, I thought this was amazing.

That episode, my God, my heart in my actual throat, even listening to you talk about it. It is so special. I listened to a podcast with Lena recently and she spoke about how essentially, oh no sorry, it was Alison Williams on Last Culture Easter spoke about how Lena wanted each character to have their own singular episode like a movie. So it's like a self-contained movie. And it is so breathtaking that scene that goes viral on Tumblr and is every kind of like Lana Del Rey Stan's favourite still from this because it's all about heartbroken longing of Charlie and Alton Williams Marnie on the subway. She's in this dress with no shoes on because she is so detached from life. She has just literally cut away all of her life for this self-contained experience of

just pretending she's somebody else with her ex-boyfriend. And they've just had this insane night in New York. Anything is on the cards, but also they're all living in fantasy land. She's just wanting the fantasy of pretending that she could do anything, be anyone other than who she is back home with her husband where things aren't working out. It's just, ah, it's so, so, so good. Who are you and what's your favorite aperture? So I think I am a Hannah and I have previously been a Jessa Rising. I only say that because Jessa is all of Hannah's projection, which is this person who is far more, I think Hannah thinks of Jessa as this far more beautiful,

far more charming, far more gregarious person. But the reality is Jessa isn't any of those things. She's this very hurt, wounded person. She just holds your arms length. So it's easy for you to project all of your insecurities onto Jessa. So I think previously, having been like a bit of a party girl, holding people at arms length when I'm going through a difficult time and just like playing up to the trope

of like having the best time ever, not really letting people into what I'm actually feeling. I think I've had risings of Jessa, but I'm actually a Hannah. I'm a Hannah Accord. That is so good. I was also Jessa rising between the ages of maybe like 23 to 26. What is the rising? That's how you present yourself. That's how you really are. Cause I know it's like sun in and moon in. Is the one you present.

Is the one other people see. Yeah. I think that's right. That's so wise. Yeah, yeah, that is right. I think I'm Scorpio Rising. Interesting. I am a Scorpio. Oh, that's- I'm Pisces. I'm Pisces everywhere then, Scorpio Rising. I'm a double Gemini. And then my favorite episode, this was so fucking difficult. I went for beach house.

I wanted to say panic in Central Park, but I went for beach house, which is this, this absolutely hilarious episode where none of the girls like each other. They don't like each other at this point, but Marnie has curated, crafted, planned this so meticulously organized trip to the beach. She's given everyone assigned rooms, she's planned a dinner, she's got slotted events for this weekend and all Hannah

and the girls want to do is just chill out and what happens is you see all of them contained in this beach house spiral with each other. And it's just this point of what might have worked years ago in a friendship just doesn't have to work years after people start to grow apart. And if you have to try and contain them, you have to try and organize fun around them. Maybe, maybe you just don't like each other. Maybe you don't want to be around each other. And you can see Marnie quietly losing her shit and all of them just like slowly drawing away from each other. And I think it's so funny but also so poignant about dynamics and their friendship in particular. And then also special mention of season two,

episode four, which is where Jess's marriage, her shotgun wedding marriage, which isn't shotgun because she's not pregnant, but happens within two weeks to Chris O'Dowd, falls apart and she comes into Hannah's bathroom. Hannah's having a bath, singing Wonderwall by Oasis, and she just gets in the bath in a dress and she starts crying and it like, I don't know why I've got a lump in my throat, but it makes me emotional all the time because it's like you never see her break down. And it's like this utter moment of true vulnerability where two people could get in a bath together and they can just be there for each other. And it's punctuated by this amazing moment where Jesser blows her nose in the bath and Hannah's like, Jesser, what did you just do? You can't

do that. That is disgusting. And Jesser in between tears is like, what? What do you mean? It's fine. This is fine. Hannah, shut up. And Hannah's like, no, Jessa, that's disgusting. And then Wonderwall plays and it ends. That is so good. It puts such a finer point on their characters of like Hannah, gorgeous friend to go to, but also like drop of hat. This is suddenly the Hannah show. And also that is disgusting. I think that gets me every time. I'm genuinely like, oh, I'd be out of that bath. You'd be alone in that bath with your snot and your thoughts. Disgusting.

So now we've come round, I need to ask you, what exactly about the show did you resonate with or what did you find solace about it in Girls? I think, so I always, I remember where I was when I started watching this, I was first year started watching this. I was first year university watching this and I kind of realized like I've not seen anything like this. I think girls' legs in its impact is it holds firm as like kind of cultural artifact rather than like

dated. It just remains like this was such an impactful time in the culture socially. And so I think it just it remains that because of how good the writing was because of how timeless these dynamics are. I think because their aspirations were if you look if you look at female characters proceeding that I think the the direction of like female characters and sitcoms even if it was like revolutionary for the time it was quite maternal and domestic. Whereas these women did, they wanted to be intellectual. They wanted to know more. They wanted to live. It was all adventurous women do. They wanted, it wasn't just like straightforward, ambitious or monetary or domestic. It was like,

they wanted a deep experience and to kind of like snatch that from their twenties and like take that out to like the mores of the passing of time almost. And like, of course, to be loved, to be chosen, to have great sex, to feel safe. But that was like part of the palette of the experience. And I think that for me was what lit something in me. I was like, this is what it feels like. It feels fucking awful all of the time, but also this is kind of how I want to live or how I know that I'm going to live for better or worse. And that, I think for me is why I still absolutely loved. They just wanted to live.

Yeah, I think because I was also at uni, which was such a transformative time in terms of, I think, being able to abandon some of the ideas that you had about yourself or the ideas that other people had about you. And then watching the show, which felt like an emancipation from the shame of what it means to be a woman, which I'd never seen before, whether that was like the way that your body looked or the way that you approach sex or the fact that they're all a bit gross or just, I think it was the true honesty, rawness and like vulgarity of these women at the same time as it just felt so true. I think I've never watched anything where like, and I did, I literally saw, I watched like the first three episodes last night.

So I was like, I'll do a rewatch before the show, if I've never watched anything where like, and I did, I literally saw, I watched like the first three episodes last night. So I was like, I'll do a rewatch before the show is if I was going to somehow fit like how many of the many seasons and episodes in, in the space of an hour. But, um, it just, it still holds up. I think that there's, there's a deafness to the writing. There's an honesty, which is so interesting to go back to that first segment about one of, you know, Lena Dunham's fatal flaws is her inability to not be so honest. But I think that that ability is what allowed her to create these characters where they have these conversations

which don't feel like they're written because they just feel so true. It feels like you could have lifted it from a conversation you'd have with a friend. The observations are so clever and so neat. And so I just think that it's really unusual to find a piece of TV, even today, which is why it's heralded as such a good show. And for all of the areas and foibles and flaws of, you know, the characters, people think they're very insufferable. They are extremely privileged. They're really unselfaware in lots of ways. But there's also just that honesty to it, that truth, which it feels really tried to keep coming back to. But I still think, like you said, Bap, I don't think it really is dated.

It's dated in some ways, but I think it's that the emotional truth was not something I'd ever seen portrayed in TV before. And I actually think I found it really, really comforting and really quite empowering at the same time. Yeah, I completely agree with you both. And all the points you said are exactly how I feel too. I first watched the show with my friend Molly and I'd moved to London and moved in with her.

And it was just us two living in this grotty, disgusting flat with Dampel over the place in Hackney. And we would just be like cuddled up in her room watching girls for the first time. And my mind, it was like annihilated by this show. And it felt like I was living out a version of the reality, maybe not as glamorous, even though they're not glamorous, but their life felt glamorous to us in that point. So that gives you an indication of where we were. It felt like

it was doing something. It was presenting a template, whilst also resonating deeply at the same time with all the kind of experiences, scenarios that we were both in. And the thing is, having rewatched it now, years on, some things still stick. They feel nostalgic because my life is different. But the things that really make me laugh is, I feel like it's the best skewering of privileged white women I have ever seen in my life. And that's the thing that rings true now because I don't think I've seen a show that really nails Amani, this type A woman who you know for sure she would be reading Mel Robbins, Let Them Theory front to back and talking about it at brunch with you and educating you on these

self-help trends every week, going to SoulCycle, making you feel like shit for all manner of things. Ashosh as well, I feel like I've met her. I feel like she was the girl bossification of girls characters. These people feel so real and they also feel like such screw rings of tropes and types that exist in life. I think there's that element of it. The humour was so on point. And then also I feel like the way I look at it now is there's so many kind of memory boxes in this show of times that we went through. So something like internships that would pay fuck all or getting a commission to go to a sex party for a hundred pounds for a blog that sounded ridiculous like Razor or something online and watching that now

it makes me laugh so much because times have shifted quite a lot like obviously you know advice feels very different now BuzzFeed doesn't really exist in the same way but all of these memories are littered in girls and they're there for the taking. And it's so funny watching it back and remembering how absurd millennial era was in that lens as well, which I love. Whenever I think of girls at the moment, I think of that really strange, like genuinely through the looking glass moment. I can't remember if this was when it was airing or like we're a few seasons in, where people genuinely pretended and said so confidently like this isn't a good show. It was almost embarrassing to say as a woman, this is one of my favorite

shows. People were lying, Big Star Line. I wonder whether this is a case of like we're all on different internet, but did you two remember that being like people were kind of like would use girls as that punchline as not being a very good show? Where I think it's quite obvious now, like punchline as not being a very good show, where I think it's quite obvious now, like, it's excellent. It is a really, really generationally significant show for the ages. But I always think like, what was going on? Like, what was in the water in that however long period where we were kind of, it was getting skewered so unfairly, weird. Yeah, I agree with you. It's almost like it's been reclaimed in the last three years and there's been lots written about the resurgence of girls.

And I think for all of the shit they get, I think Gen Z coming to it openly, not knowing any of the context of Leader Dunham or all of the kind of controversies has liberated us all because it's spoken about it with the reverence that it deserves. And it's almost emancipated all of us to be able to be like, yeah, I actually liked that show. I really liked it at the time, but I didn't feel like I could talk about it. And I think that's what's gone on and I'm so glad for that.

I can't remember, maybe it's just like that time has collapsed in my brain. I just remember everyone talking about Lena being a genius, the writing being so clever. I actually can't remember if people hate it. I'm sure they did. I have seen the resurgence of some subsets of newer watchers absolutely hating it, thinking it's a piece of shit because they're taking it really in earnest and not seeing the skewering angle, the self-awareness, which Lena has had to recount again and again and again was the point. She was writing these characters in order to highlight these things. But no, I actually can't remember, but maybe I wasn't as online at that time. I think there was a divide. I think it was, yeah, online, the conversation was, this is trash, Lena Dunham is trash. But critically,

critics were always raving about it because I did a bit of a Google deep dive just to see what was the tone at the time. And The Guardian loved it, the New York Times, everyone was talking about it in this way of taking it very seriously. But I think, I just remember internet discussions or being at a party or talking to somebody at the pub whilst I was watching it for the first time. There was this sense of, you just would never bring it up. You just knew that people had this perceived notion of her and that show that's a bit silly. It's a bit offensive. It's a bit, yeah, I don't know. You just, that's the sense I got. Also, the thing I remember as well, the main thing,

which is why I felt embarrassed to like it, which was very legitimate, is the accusation that the show was super white. And when she did bring in a person of color, it was done in this very problematic way. I'm thinking of Donald Glover being a Republican and the main punchline is he's a black Republican. And the thing, having had some time around it now, I think, yeah, those cameos are super uncomfortable. They're a bit bizarre. They're a bit funny as well, but they are just like not done very well. There's no nuance to these characters. They're brought in as punchlines. That is a fact. But the thing I will say is we were going through a time of reckoning with TV and pop culture where a lot of people of colour were writing the publications in this amazing way.

And because of that, we were able to tell our stories, but also critique and offer criticism on shows. And a lot of that criticism was where the fuck are we in these shows? And I think now with some time having passed and a few more people getting through the net and offering TV shows written by, you know, interesting, diverse voices, I think of I may destroy you, Michaela Cole being able to write her own story rather than featuring in it chewing gum as well, we've moved on from that, it's not about other people featuring us, it's about us telling our

own stories. So I think the way I feel about girls now is those points are still true, but I don't care about them in the same way. I'm wanting more, I'm asking for more. I'm not asking for Alina Dunham to include me in her satire of the world she grew up in. I want her to satirize that herself

because she skewered white women in a way that I could never do. And I don't want her to talk about the stories of Asian people, South Asian people, because I would rather do that or I'd rather somebody from my community do that. We've seen recently books try and offer a diverse perspective, but they come from writers who aren't diverse. And I think a lot of them fall flat for me in my experience. So I think, yeah, I just wanted to bring up that side of things because it's something I've sat with and thought about for a while.

So unless you've been living under a stick of rock or you didn't listen to the intro to this episode, you will know at least something about Too Much, the new Lena, Lena Dunham 10-part rom-com series on Netflix that has gotten a lot of people talking. Based loosely on Dunham's own life, the show follows 30-something producer Jessica played by Meg Stolter as she moves from New York to London following a horrible breakup and subsequent internet obsession with her ex's new girlfriend and knitting influencer

played by Emily Ratajkowski. In London, she meets new friends, tries, and often fails to reinvent herself there and starts to fall for a troubled indie musician played by Will Sharp. The show came out just over a week ago now and reviews have been mixed to favorable to mixed. Writing for The Guardian, Lucy Mangan gave it two out of five stars writing that quote, Dunham aims for her trademark realism, but without girls' inherent bleakness, it just makes things tonally jarring for the viewer. It abandons any thoughts of innovation and hits cliche after cliche. Margaret Lyons at the New York Times

criticized the pacing, adding, the story may be about the wild miracle of love, but its heart isn't strong enough to pump blood through an entire series. Better reviews are easy to find, with Variety calling it a worthy follow-up to Girls and the New Yorker saying that it quote revitalizes the rom-com genre. So the three of us have insisted on not discussing the show between us before this record, which has been difficult, but we did it. So you're all about to find out alongside us what we thought of the show. And I'm a little bit nervous to have to say, because I'm going to say I loved it.

I feel quite protective of it. I thought it was great. I identified probably to a problematic degree with a lot of the action, but I'm going to say I loved it. I feel quite protective of it. I thought it was great. I identified probably to a problematic degree with a lot of the action, but I'm willing to bet that one or both of you hated it or really didn't like it. So I think, should we take it away and maybe I'll ask you first for a rating out of 10 and then add context. And Noni, you seem like you're itching to say something. Can you tell us, rating out of 10 and your top lines, what you thought? Six out of 10. I thought that it was an enjoyable show and that I enjoyed watching it with the caveat that as knowing that it

was coming from Lena and the level of excitement that I had for it, I felt like it fell very flat. And I also found the depiction of Britishness and the way that like kind of this big divide between America and the UK, I found a lot of it quite slapstick. Highlight being when Will Sharpe's character says, have you got any bog roll? I mean, toilet roll is if we don't use the term toilet roll. And there were so many clangers like that, that I found it quite hard to see past. What about you, Regera?

That is true about the clangers. That is very true. I would give it a 7.5 slash maybe eight for some good episodes. I really, really enjoyed this. And my favorite parts were some of just the writing for Meg's character. There are so many lines and I'll get onto them, I've written some of them down, but just the way she describes love and wanting to describe love in a new way because she has met this person and all the previous ways she's declared herself in love with somebody don't feel adequate, she wants something new, just felt like so special and so like fuzzy. And I feel like Lena Dunham sometimes writes emotional scenes in a way that just blows my mind because she considers it in a way that my brain hasn't been able to even

open up that synapse yet. And she opens it up and it just feels like, wow, I will never think about this in the same way now because of having watched this and listened to this character express themselves in this way. So I think there's enough good stuff in it for me that it's a win. What do you think, Beth? Actually all very balanced. And I think in terms of rating, I'd probably go with you, Ruchira, like around an A, I think so much good stuff. But yeah, there were moments, you're right, that did feel a little bit like, who is this for? Like some moments, which were excellent on like British culture. And I'm thinking of the first episode where

they're in a board meeting at this kind of like ad agency sort of talking about an advert they're going to film for Christmas and the boss as played by Richard E. Grant is talking about how they're not going to do a sort of John Lewis woke fest and they've got like a kind of they're like we've got like a something about like how they've got a cultural institution they've got something really good planned and they're like and that's why we've cast Rita Ora as Santa. And it's just very much like, okay, you maybe do have to be British to understand how brilliant that joke is. But yeah, I think I do have some critique, but ultimately I really love the show and maybe it is because it is about the time in life that I'm in.

And I guess all of a sudden it's about being in your thirties. It's very specifically about what it feels like and what it can look like to be in your 30s and to fall in love again, which is difficult and not because you're an ancient over the hill hag and unlovable, but it's hard because as with the character of Jessa in this, you are likely to have some baggage that you are dragging behind you, ignoring, but it's there. You're likely to be very wounded and it's hard to open up. Like they're both like really anxiously, disorganizedly attached people who are just insisting on trying to fall in love with people.

And I think that's what I connected to in part because I'm like, okay, do you know what? I want to be loved again and I hope to be. And it's like this time in life is very specifically humiliating for people like that. It's a sense of like, I want, I'm not trying to arrange my life about it, but I want to have that like, here we go again. It's scary. And I think it just gets that very right because they do not act perfectly. In fact, they act very, very badly at times out of a fear of being hurt. And that I think in the era of the received wisdom of the day, being like, no, you're worth, don't settle green flags only.

It's sort of similar to what we talked about in this week's Wednesday episode about casual relationships and like how short people's tether is. This is a show of red flags between two people who are like crazy about one another, but are acting out. But ultimately they do deserve love. And it's just, I just think that's a really wonderful thing. And maybe because I like that so much, I could overlook quite a lot of clangers.

So I think I had the thing where, you know, when you're in a busy restaurant and everyone's talking really loudly, so you like can't hear your friends, you can't focus in on what your friends are saying. I was so distracted by the whole like estate estate estate thing, which again, I just thought was way too plowed and also felt a bit icky. I didn't know if it felt like it was a bit derogatory towards working class housing in the UK. There's kind of that. And then also my friend said to me that it's before I watched it, and you guys know I'm so easily impressionable. If someone tells me something before I watch it, it does really color it for me. But my friend said that it's kind of like Emily in Paris, but it's Jess in London. And if you watch it through that lens, I think, because I wanted, and I

wanted to go straight back to the top. I wonder if everything that Lina's been through, through the ringer with the press, with getting things wrong, saying things wrong, I felt like it felt careful and what they tried to create. Like they just didn't seem to be any jeopardy. The way that I love Meg Sultzer, I love Will Sharpe, I loved everyone in this. They thought the acting was great and I thought the casting was amazing. And every single time a new person popped up, I was like, oh my God, look at her, it's Andrew Scott. That's great. But I thought that the idea

of Will Sharpe and her falling in love almost immediately, him completely giving up on his fuckboy tendencies within like half of part one of the episode. I just felt like it almost went too neatly and I get that it's a romcom, but there's even the bit, and I know that everyone's spoken about this, but the fact that she is living in Hackney and then ends up in a pub in South London, then they walk from South London all the way back to the flat in Hackney. I just got so distracted. When you were talking, Beth, I was like, God, all of that is great. And you've really managed to zone in on what's really good about the show. I just think maybe I went in with way too high expectations and then got really distracted by some of the

less well executed areas. The London geography was of great pain to me. I completely agree that it was very hard not to get sucked in by that. And I had to be very mindful to not get annoyed every time I would see just a completely different part of London pop up within a two minute radius. I think the acting in it is so sublime. And I think you're right. One thing that seems to keep coming up every time I have conversations about too much with people is I think people wanted something like Girls and also the expectation of Girls is now, it's a prison for Lena Denham, I think, because everything is compared to that show for her. Everything will be and even something like this especially because there's something closer, It's closer than, I think, her previous shows, Catherine Reed's Birdie, something like

that, which was about a medieval time and a girl getting her period for the first time. This feels much more within grasp of girls. So I think it's harder to fall in a way because you think, oh, it could have been like that amazing show and it's just not. But I think because I knew that I could put so much expectation on this show, I deliberately went in knowing that it would be really different and trying to remind myself it would be different. And I think I could find a lot of enjoyment from it because I wasn't comparing it to the other show, the big show. Also, the other thing I wanted to say is no one can convince me otherwise that Zev is not Jack Antonoff and if we get a legal letter we'll obviously have to cut

this but you cannot you cannot convince me otherwise that that awful ex of hers is not Jack Antonoff. There's an episode where he puts on these thick glasses, he's wearing a beanie, the way he behaves, being pretentious about music, treating her not very well. I hope it's not, but we might as well call him Jack in my opinion. Well, that's the point, isn't it? It's like this is semi-autobiographical. What does that mean for him when of course the leap is if the main character is loosely based on Luna Dunham, who is her big ex of five years, who went on to date a string of conventionally beautiful, I mean, I think he dated an influencer right after

who has been, people are speculating on who she is, whether she's Emirati's character. I mean, I don't think it's a huge leap because like Lena Dunham says, and I think it was with Interview Magazine with Mel Ottenberg, like a lot of the stuff in this happened, but just not all, but some and not not quite how it happened. She herself set herself on fire. That's the thing that happened. She obviously also ran away to London. She also was going to these dive English pubs to reinvent herself. So I think, I mean, the assumption and the implication I think is there. The streets are saying it's Jack.

It is. It just is. I was saying to my partner when we were watching it, I was like, oh, you know, I really rate her for not putting glasses on Sev to make it that brazen because we all know it's Jack. And then there's an episode where he literally reinvents himself and puts glasses and a beanie on. And I'm like, oh, so we're calling him Jack now. Okay, fine. Okay. I'm happy with that. In that episode where she, I guess it's like like a a vignette of all the trauma she experienced in that relationship I found that so affecting to watch because it was so it was so upsetting so distressing her saying right at the end he's pulled away for so long

and then at that point just has shown no care for her. Whilst also very clearly connecting with Emily Radziakowski's character who's moved in crazily on the same road as them towards the end. And at this point, he's gone from loving all of these eccentricities about Jess to then just kind of hating them, you know, talking about the way she dresses as really not doing herself a service. She was like, he was like, you are beautiful. So why are you trying to convince people that you're not with how you dress, which is a horrible thing to say. And by the end she has this like real, real kind of like panic breakdown breakup with

him and he just doesn't care. He's just not in the room. He doesn't give a shit. And she says something like, your words are like paper cuts, but eventually my body hurts because it's cut all over. And that felt like an absolute dagger to my heart because it was so beautifully put and it was just said. And I thought that is fucking poetry. See that line also killed me because that's a phrase when it's a thousand paper cuts. I'm sure that's from like a song or a poem. That's really bad because I loved, I did like

that scene and I actually thought there was bits where she's talking about when men think they want one thing and then they get it and it's like actually they never wanted that in the end. I found that really relatable and I understood it. But I was actually quite shocked a bit like the Barbie monologue. In that monologue she did, I didn't find it as affecting or as profound as I think I was expecting to find it. And I wonder if this show is something that will benefit from a rewatch, because I think I was getting very distracted by the bits that I felt that were anachronistic or inconsistent. Again, is this show for an American audience? Is that Netflix's input on how they want to frame it to make it more commercialized? I wasn't sure, but I was actually slightly disappointed in, I guess, this hope and want for something that felt really new and really deep. And actually that paper cut line was one of the things

where I was like, I've heard that before. I'm not trying to shit on you. It's fine. No, not at all. It's interesting that we picked up on that so differently. Yeah, I've not heard it before. So that makes total sense. There's another line, and I'm going to get this so wrong. I think it's around the same time when she's sort of sobbing. She's like, I used to think I was so cool or something. She's like, I used to like me so much. And it is what she's lost is via the thousand

paper cuts. It is like, I have become, I don't know myself as this cool, like I have lost something to this and he is there like, great, I'm saying, like it's, I think there is enough there that either, yeah, will strike you in the solar plexus or won't, which I think is she's gone. She creates a story which is sort of universal, but also it's like a very bizarre. And I think it relies on you being that way inclined, E.G. like Meg Stilter's character, Jessica, who, I mean, there's so much to say about her. Like I, as has been pointed out really well by a lot of people, this is a story that does not, there's no focus on her body. She's a beautiful woman who has a sexy, hot relationship

with a beautiful man. Like that's it. And it's such a tonic after, of course, the years of Lena Dunham daring to be a human woman in girls. I really, of course, I don't think they would have done it any other way, but that has been wonderful. Like's just not central to the character in a way that I think a lot of commenters would like it to have been because they love to tear a woman down who doesn't have the one physique you're allowed to have. I think Meg Stosser is so electric. I really enjoyed seeing her as not like

comic relief, but very funny, but also just so earnest and sweet and I think she's such a star. I also have to then shout out Will Sharp because I feel like I've met this guy before who is so clearly privileged and rich and went to boarding school or something but the way he has now reinvented himself in the creative arts specifically music is that like he's just like I don't know presenting as something really like he's just like, I don't know, presenting as something really different. He's this very specific archetype in London, I feel, that also privately has a Soho House membership and that's where you meet him in a smoking area. And yeah, I feel like I've met him before.

Yeah, I went to school with him for sure. Also final line that I loved, Felix saying that Jess is too much, just the right amount and a little bit more, I thought was really fucking sweet. Well, I read that that was something that Lena Dunham's real husband who co-wrote this with her, and I think they started writing it about three months after they met, which is crazy, but beautiful. I think he was saying, oh, you are too much, and she didn't really understand this as an English idiom.

She was like, what, I'm too much? I'm overwhelming you? And he's like, no, you're too much. So I think that's a really sweet self-insert that I really love that line as well. Thank you so much for listening this week. Before we go, just checking that you've listened to our latest Everything in Conversation episode,

which came out on Wednesday, where we discussed casual relationships and why we're not entirely convinced they're real. If you enjoyed listening to us then please do leave us a rating and a review on your podcast flare up. Please also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at everything is content pod. See you next week bye! Bye!