Reprinted with permission from www.survivingcollege.com

Hannah is meeting with a writer about her essays. He tries to explain the business to her in terms of high and low—there’s the famous author who dips down into the muck of writing commentary about things that happen in the world, and then there are essayists who rise up out of the filth to the world of e-books.  Hannah is the latter of the two, and she is writing an e-book. He tells her to “call me when you need to, don’t call me when you don’t,” and before the air kisses have alighted to the ground, Hannah pukes on the sidewalk.

Marnie’s in bed with a nicely naked Booth and his assistant walks in, just casually, like it’s absolutely normal to wander into your boss’s bedroom while he’s pillow-talking a woman. With Marnie’s encouragement, Booth fires her for eating his ice cream. This leaves Booth without a hostess for a big industry party his is throwing, so he asks Marnie to be his hostess for the evening. For some reason she is honored by this and does not see the train wreck that’s about to happen, so she tries on pretty dresses and tells Shoshanna that “Booth and I are having a couple of friends over….”

Meanwhile, Shoshanna is hanging around Café Grumpy, nipping at poor Ray to attend a Donald Trump lecture at The Learning Annex. Hannah shows up to work and Ray gets into it with her about a copy of Little Women that he loaned her ages ago. She left it at Adams and, for obvious reasons, cannot go back there to retrieve it, so it is decided that Ray, who is a Marmee, should get the book back from Adam directly.

When Ray arrives, Adam still has not gotten over that whole jail thing and is pissed that he “had to spend a night in a cell with a fucking yoga teacher.” He appears to be very busy destroying the entire apartment and rescuing a dog that he stole from outside of a coffee shop on Staten Island. Ray insists that Adam return the dog to its owner, and Adam ropes Ray into a field trip.

Adam and Ray seem to be having a bit of a bromance. Adam explains that Hannah is a carnival game—you try and try to get the ring on the bottle but the game is rigged, and eventually you realize that you don’t even want the crappy prize anyway. Ray confesses that he has never understood Adam’s infatuation with Hannah, and that sparks Adam’s crazy and it sends him into a jealous rage, storming off and leaving Ray with the stolen dog.

As Hannah attempts to write a book in a month with the assistance of Red Bull and the Internet, I become increasingly suspicious of how she can afford her apartment on a Café Grumpy mopping up salary. It’s weird, because the series began with Hannah being cut loose from her parents’ purse strings, yet it does not seem to have impacted her quality of life even the tiniest of tiny bits. The rent just magically gets paid and everyone has an unlimited texting plan on their iPhones and clothes are neatly cleaned and pressed (albeit ugly) and none of the characters give any of this a second thought.

Because procrastination is a full-time job, Hannah attends Marnie’s party. But once she sees Marnie in her new dress and her new life with her new friends, she flees the scene. Afterwards, Booth tries to pay Marnie for her services and Marnie realizes that she’s the hostess, not the host’s ess, or something to that effect. When Marnie tries to play the poor helpless doe-eyed victim, Booth turns the tables and asks if she likes hanging out with him, or his artwork. Miraculously, Booth gets it. These people aren’t his friends, they just want a piece of his fame and fortune, and Marnie is no different.

Well, that’s one day down and Hannah hasn’t written more than a text message. She calls Marnie who lies to her about her relationship with Booth while Hannah lies to Marnie about her writing. I keep expecting Hannah to take her top off, but it appears that we have been given a reprieve this week.

Ray finds the dog’s owner’s daughter who is a Staten Island stereotype with short tight clothing, a Webster Hall baseball hat, and a not-quite-Staten Island accent (it’s more Tai from Clueless than Vinny from Jersey Shore). She doesn’t want the dog back, and Ray finds himself sitting on the edge of the worst borough, watching the Manhattan skyline light up with his new best friend.