Why you gaggin’, Hector??? You just HAVE to understand how INSANE Lena Dunham is as a director and sociologist! In last weeks episode of Girls, Dunham brought back Christopher Abbott’s character Charlie- the REALLY sweet boyfriend to Marnie, played by Allison Williams. Abbott quit the show at the end of the second season abruptly, without his character’s relationship with Marnie being completely sussed out. Last Sunday, he pops back up, looking like a transracial Latino Fan Club “top”, hanging out on a street corner with a gang, and he apparently has some kind of non-specific accent, a nefarious beard, tattoos, and is later presumed to be a drug addict. It’s kinda like how Madonna co-opted an English accent during her London years with Guy Ritchie. Or how former NAACP president Rachel Dolezal identifies as black, even though both her parents are white. All of this is the complete antithesis of delicate, super caucasian “bottom” Charlie (pic below) we once knew… an apparent tortured, more passive sounding board for the butch antics of Marnie…talk about a re-working of the binary. Charlie basically became a catcalling macho muck about, and the only remnants of his former self are those puppy dog eyes.

This brand new Charlie is super alpha-hot, a gay man’s backdoor fantasy. However, Dunham’s narrative is clever in showing that the fantasy that may seem exciting, dangerous, and freeing, can also be just posturing…ultimately speaking more about ones own self-loathing issues and insecurities… a hopeful checkpoint on the road to self-actualization. Did I forget to mention that none of this really matters ’cause he’s SUPER HOT?!?!

Lena Dunham:

This episode is called the Panic In Central Park. I wrote the episode in kind of a fever dream…something that occasionally happens. I go home and it all flows out of me. When I wrote it, I had recently watched the film The Panic in Needle Park and was very inspired by the entire vision of that movie, which is Al Pacino and Kitty Winn playing a pair of young, heroin addicts in love, navigating their way through New York City. I wanted to tell a contained romantic story that utilized our characters, while stepping outside of the typical realm of the show… It’s one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had!

Girls, Season 5 airs Every Sunday on HBO.