Top 10 Things we Hated and Loved about the Girls Ending

Jessa is a tough character that always stands up for herself, but sometimes she can take things a little bit too far. Her feud with Hannah was caused by her lack of empathy and her tendency to put herself before others. We wish Jessa had had some redemption rather than coming full circle and hooking up with a stranger in a bar bathroom in a scene reminiscent of season one. We don’t necessarily get to see whether Jessa and Adam get a happy ending though it’s implied by the fact that she lets him into the apartment. This relationship is deeply flawed, so it would have been nice to see Jessa step out on her own instead.

Ray Ploshanksy,, cafe owner and resident grump, has been the voice of reason on Girls since day one, but it hasn't always been easy for him. Although we thought he would rekindle his past romance with Shoshanna after giving toxic Marnie the boot – Go, Ray, by the way - we were pleasantly surprised to see him meet and fall for his polar opposite, Abigail! While hanging out with Shosh, Ray meets her former boss Abigail, an incredibly cheerful and insightful person. The two instantly connect and the last time we see Ray is while he’s riding a lit up merry-go-round, sharing a shy kiss with Abigail. Can we just say that we couldn't be happier for him?

Elijah’s character arc is a broad one - first being introduced as Hannah’s college ex who announces to her that he’s gay, shattering her self-confidence. They eventually become friends, then roommates, and by the end of the series Elijah was just as much a main character as any of the girls. We were so happy that he finally found his calling and realized that his flair for the dramatic could actually be turned into a career. He may not be able to play basketball, but his singing and acting chops made him a shoo-in for the stage.

While most TV series finales end on a happy note or at least a note of finality, “Girls” decided to take a path less travelled. It has never been a show where formulas have been adhered to, so it seems fitting that the final episode didn’t feature the girls all getting together for brunch and laughing their problems away. This ending is much more realistic than many others that came before it because in real life, there’s never a point where everything is nicely tied up and there are no remaining loose ends. The creators of “Girls” stuck to their ideals by deciding not to give fans a typical final episode.

While “Girls” initially appeared to follow the “four friends in New York” formula created by “Sex and the City,” as time went on it was clear that the beauty of female friendship wasn’t exactly the theme of the show. In the second to last episode, “Goodbye Tour,” viewers saw the four girls together for the last time and it wasn’t the resolution that many fans wanted. Hannah had been out of touch with both Shoshanna and Jessa for a long time, but decided to crash a party at Shosh’s place that ended up being her engagement party. Shosh confronts the other girls and lets them know that she has no interest in keeping up relationships with them.

While there wasn’t exactly closure for every relationship on the show, at least one got a somewhat happy ending. Fans of “Girls” probably weren’t expecting for things to ever be completely patched up between Jessa and Hannah after Jessa and Adam started dating. The two spend the last two seasons fighting over this, causing their friendship to completely deteriorate. In the second to last episode however, Jessa and Hannah talk, showing the audience that while they may not be braiding each other’s hair anytime soon, they have made peace with one another.

The series finale begins with Marnie trying to convince Hannah that she should come to live upstate with her to help look after baby Grover. To an outsider, this may seem like a loving and selfless act but anyone who knows Marnie knows that she probably has ulterior motives. Marnie loves to be recognized for what a great friend she is, and it seems convenient that she’s making this offer when she currently has no place to live. Hannah calls her out in the episode, claiming that Marnie imagined an idealized version of their lives that is totally unrealistic.

In series finales, it’s typical for “will they or won’t they couples” to end up together even if their relationship has been a contentious one. Ross and Rachel did it, Carrie and Big did it, but there was no way the creators of Girls would write something so expected. Instead, they gave us something even better. Rather than create a fabricated happy ending for a couple who just wasn’t meant to be, they gave us an entire episode of what it would have looked like if Adam and Hannah were together, but then let the characters and the audience realize that it just wasn’t right.

We never expected “Girls” to give us a typical happy ending because that just isn’t their style. We still wish however that there had been a little more hopefulness in the final episodes. The final three episodes feature Adam and Hannah realizing they’ll never be able to make it work, the girls deciding to abandon their friendships and Hannah leaving New York. In the finale itself, we see Hannah struggling with motherhood and viewers are left wondering how she will possibly make it work. Some people thought that this was fitting for a show that attempted to show a more realistic view of life that is often glossed over on TV, but we still would have liked a slightly more positive outcome for the characters we had come to love.

“Girls” is centered around the premise that its characters are selfish and often immature. While Hannah has come a long way since her cringe-worthy season one proclamations, she still struggles with issues just like anyone else does. Instead of showing Hannah completely changed by having a child, the show went a different route. Having a baby may not be as easy as Hannah expected it to be, but in the end she steps up to be a mother in all her neurotic glory. Hannah is no longer the lost girl we first met, and she is shown taking a maternal role with a teen she meets in her neighborhood. Also, after having a hard time nailing down a career, it seems that Hannah is finally getting the recognition she deserves.