Welcome Back Pretty Little Liars!

Next week, the Pretty Little Liars are back! And a few of us at GLG are pretty excited for their mystery-filled summer return. But before they’re on our screens again, we thought a little pre-season catch-up might be in order. Read on for our thoughts on last season, our favorite and least favorite beaus, and some predictions for the PLL’s summer homecoming.

In your opinion, what are some of the most important things that happened last season?

Phoebe: Jenna can see! Remember when she hit that fly in the mirror and it was AMAZING. Also, Mona is A or part of A and also pretty crazy, it turns out. Poor Hannah … But, oh man was Mona’s final monologue in the season finale amazing (and Norman Bates-esque). And, Mona was visited by somebody (maybe Vivian Darkbloom?) while in the mental hospital. Also, definitely worth noting, A is definitely a group of people, not a single person. The therapist is back but I’m a little bit worried that she has returned to do A’s bidding, rather than help the PLLs. Importantly, the season ended with the PLLs finding out that Maya is most likely dead and most likely killed by A, whomever that may be.

Melissa: Phoebe really hit the highlights. Can you say VIVIAN DARKBLOOM? Also, love-problems: Aria’s dad tried to send Mr. Fitz to Georgia; Toby thinks Spencer was dating Wren (or does he?!?!?!) and seems to be back in service of Jenna; the probably-dead Maya seemed to have some secret goings-on that she kept from Emily, and I’m not talking about under-water light-mobiles; and Caleb is going behind Hanna’s back to elude her overly-protective, blender-wielding, thumb-drive-demolishing ways. Also, the moms thought about mobilizing again to protect their daughters, though that hasn’t yet come to fruition.

Sarah: Since you two have covered the most important plot points, I’ll focus on the most important style points. Aria wore neon platform clogs and ladder pants and some kind of dead Muppet vampire vest. Wren perfected the rumpled, spritely English gentleman vibe. Paige dressed in a tuxedo at the final dance and she looked hot. Mona was a vision at all times and I started wearing a side ponytail so I could be more like her, although now it appears I should also invest in an oversized black hoodie and a straitjacket.

GLG Weekly Round-Up

Here are some fun reads from around the web this week. Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Check out A Day in Our Shoes on Homeless LGBT youth in New York City, from In The Life Media.

In honor of Parks & Rec and TV politics we can believe in, by Aymar Jean Christian.

Read on for some thoughts on classic trashy novels, at The Awl.

From the New Yorker, Jennifer Egan’s short story serialized on Twitter. We live in the future!

Beth Ditto talks with New York Magazine about how her riot grrrrl and punk sensibilities have helped her handle fame.

Racialicious considers Troy and Abed, geekdom, and race on Community.

And just for fun, a great and free summer mixtape from Music for Ants. Turn it up at your BBQ and ring the good times in.

Boomerangs and Babysitting: Leigh Stein’s The Fallback Plan

Sarah T.

I don’t watch Girls because I can’t afford HBO, so instead I sometimes eavesdrop on the youngs while I’m on the train.

Over the weekend I took Metronorth from Grand Central to the Berkshires. Two dark-haired girls sat across from me. One had her hair in a ponytail. The other wore shorts and a pair of moccasins, no socks.

The one with the ponytail did most of the talking. She said most of the boys at her college in New York were either gay or in relationships. Due to the extreme straight single guy shortage, the ones that existed had women falling all over them. “But I’m not going to go up to somebody and be like, ‘Hey, I like you, I want you to be my boyfriend,’” she said, embarrassed.

She sort of liked one guy who was a jerk but knew he was a jerk (That is the worst kind, I wanted to break in). He was funny (no he wasn’t), and sometimes she’d go over to his place with friends. But he didn’t want a girlfriend. He was still hot, though, and she would have hooked up with him if he didn’t have so little respect for women (high five for holding out).

She talked about how open she was with people, which certainly seemed true. Making friends was sometimes hard for her, because she let everyone know what she was thinking about and most of the people she met were suppressing things.

The girl in moccasins mostly listened. She did such a perfect job of it—laughing at all the right times, nodding, asking questions—that I wondered if she was secretly an expert therapist disguising herself as a nineteen-year-old. The only time she said anything revealing about herself was when her friend told a story about a girl who’d behaved rudely to a guy at a party.

“I mean, if that was you,” the first girl said, “you wouldn’t have blown him off, right?”

“I don’t talk to boys,” said the girl in moccasins, tilting her head.

“Right, but you at least would have said hello?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I was so intrigued. How interesting that this cool, empathetic girl didn’t talk to boys! From the way she said it, and her friend’s casual response, it was clear that this was common knowledge, based on firm but mysterious (to me) principles.

Then they talked about how scared they were about turning twenty, which was hilarious. But I remember what it was like to worry that twenty was old. I had a friend in college who freaked out because she thought she was getting crowsfeet.

Replay: Kimbra’s “Good Intent”

Kimbra ripped into the American consciousness belting out a blistering rebuttal to Gotye’s woe-is-me soliloquies in “Someone That I Used to Know.” But there’s much, much more to this New Zealand songstress than one smashing guest appearance. Her U.S. debut album Vows, now streaming at NPR, reveals an artist that’s part edgy Betty Boop, part pop star, part soul singer, and 100% addictive.

This week, Girls Like Giants follows Kimbra back in time to a retro era of fedoras, smooth dancing moves, and triple-vision. Behold the glory of “Good Intent.”

Sarah T:

The first time I watched this video, I was like, “Why do I feel a particularly strong affection for red-dress Kimbra? Is it just that the dress goes well with her coloring? Is she a winter?” I knew that technically the same person was dressed in black, white, and red, but somehow I loved her the best in scarlet. Watching it again, I realized that Kimbra is playing slightly different characters depending on the color of her dress. Kimbra in black is cold and sexy and elegant, like Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Kimbra in white is a swooning ingenue. And Kimbra in red is a bold, insouciant siren: no WONDER I was mysteriously convinced that she was the coolest.

Fall TV Upfronts: The Cliff’s Notes

Upfront season has come and gone, like a mysterious stranger who really wants to talk to you about dystopias and dating in the big city. Below, Phoebe and Sarah chat about a few notable shows heading to a television/Hulu near you this fall. What’s your take?

The Mindy Project, Fox

Sarah T: I am torn here. Mindy Kaling is really funny — I liked Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) — and I dig the idea of her as a single, fun-loving OB/GYN in the big city. But the trailer makes the show look as if it’s going to embrace a pretty mainstream rom-com idea about What Women Want, you know what I mean? Like there’s going to be a lot of jokes about buying shoes and the impossibility of having it all. And that is fine, I guess, but I have higher hopes for Kaling. (Although her comedic persona is kind of about doing a twist on those tropes, so maybe this is actually what I should have expected.) Anyway, I’ll definitely give at least the pilot a shot, if only to see how many sparkly dresses she can wear in one episode.

Phoebe: I am intrigued by Kaling’s show and actually thought the trailer was quite funny. I do see the potential pitfalls of embracing the mainstream romantic comedy situation, but at least the preview felt like it was super self-conscious about its genre and will play with it, which could be quite fun and intriguing. And dating when you work a lot, in a city and in general, is hilarious and weird and hard and I think this show might be a fun take on it. Plus, Kaling is running her own show!

Dan Harmon’s Last Stand: On Community

Sarah T.

“Introduction to Finality” wasn’t the last episode of Community, but as of yesterday it became showrunner Dan Harmon’s final outing. Vulture reports that Sony Pictures Television is replacing Harmon with Happy Endings writers David Guarascio and Moses Port.

Happy Endings is a funny show, and I’m sure Guarascio and Port are quite talented. But, at least at first, the choice to grant the low-rated but much-beloved Community another season yet oust Harmon seems to be a real head-scratcher. After all, pretty much everybody agrees that Harmon is the soul of the show. As Harmon himself writes in responding to the news: “I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying ‘it has to be like this or I quit’ roughly 8 times a day.”

Without Harmon, there are no adorable 8-bit videogame character and claymation specials. There’s no episode-long parody of Heart of Darkness, no epic paintball games, no magical trampolines, no multiple timelines. Basically, without him the show gets a lot less weird, which is both why Community fans are up in arms over his dismissal and (probably) why network executives fired him in the first place. As long as Community was unpredictable, self-referential, and sometimes inscrutable, it was never going to gain a very large audience. Speaking as a fan of unpredictable self-referential inscrutable shows, it’s kind of amazing that Community and Harmon have even lasted as long as they did.

As disappointed as I am over Harmon’s forced departure, I’m now especially grateful for “Introduction to Finality,” which concluded the show’s third season. The episode would have worked just as well as a series finale, and in light of Harmon’s exit I’ll go ahead and think of it that way.

GLG Weekly Round-up

Here are just a smattering of good reads from around the web this week. Enjoy! And if you have any links you think we should include in our weekly round-ups, e-mail us at girlslikegiants@gmail.com.

Jay Smooth on Hip Hop, Conspiracy Theories, and the Prison Industrial Complex, from Ill Doctrine.

The new F/X comedy, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, show featuring W. Kamau Bell, discussed on Racialicious, sounds amazing!

John Scalzi uses video games to explain how privilege works; the crowd goes wild (the post goes viral).

Alyssa Rosenberg at ThinkProgress on the race and gender demographics of the new fall TV lineup.

A Few Awesome Things About Being Disabled by Sarah Eyre.

On the coverage of the tragic death of Lorena Xtravaganza, by Autumn Whitefield-Madrano.

Hanna Brooks Olson explains why women’s razors (and other products ) cost more than men’s, and what to do about it (via The Beheld).

At The New York Review of Books, Elaine Blair explores how Girls “raises questions in its opening episodes about how young women are to understand and make use of their sexual freedom.”

And Sarah S. passes along a slideshow of photographs by artist Jen Davis (and an accompanying interview) that deal with body image, weight, and perception.

Hello Again, The Bachelorette

The Bachelorette is back but sadly not better than ever. Last week, we were told that this season is making Bachelorette history by featuring its first single mom, Emily Maynard. And the production moved ALL the way to North Carolina for Emily and her daughter Ricki. Also, in a new twist, the men all knew the Bachelorette would be Emily. History in the making! Okay, maybe not. But Girls Likes Giants still wants to chime on the new Bachelorette season, Emily, and the season premiere.

Sarah T:

The Bachelorette is back! On a scale of negative 3 million to 1, how invested are you in this season? The woman looking for love is a beautiful robot with the mannerisms of a game show hostess, and the show expects us to believe that the words “luxury brand consultant,” strung together, can reasonably be understood as a “job.” That is not a job, show! That is a made-up thing that people put on their business cards so they can pretend like they’re doing something with their lives besides paying too much money for hair products and belts and macaroons. WHERE I COME FROM PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THE LUXURY OF BELTS. (Technically false, but true in spirit. I own four belts. 2/4 are inherited from my mom, one I bought in high school, and one I got at H&M three years ago.)

Replay: Jack White, “Love Interruption”

Sarah S.

Head vs. Heart. Brain vs. Body. These are the battles that consume Jack White’s newest single “Love Interruption” off his first fully solo album, Blunderbuss.

White and his co-vocalist, Ruby Amanfu, toy with the lyrics of romance as they repeatedly purr, “I want love to…,” leading listeners  down the path of passion. But they’re not the kinds whose passion fits nicely into socially-acceptable boxes as they “want love to /roll me over slowly / stick a knife inside me, / and twist it all around” or “split my mouth right open and / cover up my ears / and never let me hear a sound.” They want a love that consumes everything, violently. People often compare love and passion to fire but users of that metaphor conveniently forget that fire, while beautiful, burns and destroys.

Date, Marry, Dump: The Avengers Edition

Sarah T.

In all the hubbub about The Avengers, I haven’t yet seen an article addressing one very important, age-old question. Who would you date, who would you marry, and who would you toss in the garbage can? Let us consider together.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, is a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. And he does stand out from the superhero crowd. He’s an alcoholic with shrapnel constantly trying to work its way into his heart, the perfect metaphor for just how close to the edge he lives. There’s good anti-hero potential there, but Stark’s always irked me with his self-congratulatory torturedness.

The problem for me isn’t that he’s flawed, it’s that he seems so proud of himself for being a callous, self-destructive narcissist who enjoys belittling the people around him. He uses his torment as a selling point, a tactic that reeks of manipulation and a deep-set need for ego-stroking. Basically, his entire persona is “Pay attention to me, I have issues!”

Who makes their facial hair go like that, even?

But Pepper Potts of the world, there’s hope! This rich, tragic rebel might just change for the right girl, if she happens to be perfect enough. Yikes: Don’t fall for this one, prospective Potts. Messed-up people change if and when they want to. Put down the motorcycle jacket and get out while you can.

Perhaps unfairly, as an actor Downey sets off the same warning signals as Stark on my personal jerk-o-meter. And through no fault of his own, that meter really gets into the red zone when I read critics fawning all over him and ignoring  Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. (More on her in a bit.)

Well. As you may have guessed by now, I’m dumping Stark! I’m going to tesseract him into some other dimension far, far away from me. And worst of all, in that dimension, there are no mirrors for him to preen in. WHAT NOW, IRON MAN?