'Girls' review: Gone a bit bad

Why such contempt for a core character? Because that's the line "Girls" has toed, and occasionally demolished, all season. Comedy here comes from characters who are clueless about their motivations, but so does the tragedy (Adam: "I don't know what came over me"). That leaves each of them -- up to and especially including Hannah -- actively searching for life's meaning, but not searching too hard because that would get in the way of the self-destruction.

At its best, the second season of "Girls" was very good: "It's Back" (Hannah's OCD returns), "Boys" (Adam and Ray go to Staten Island) and especially "Bad Friend" (Hannah goes clubbing to research an article) were superior to anything from the first.

At its worst (last Sunday as the perfect example) the series' self-loathing erupted into a lacerating wound. This makes for an unsettling fan/show relationship: At times you want to love "Girls," but how can you love something that doesn't much like itself?

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Marnie, Hannah, Shoshanna and Jessa keep stumbling but at some point they've got to start walking because -- "Seinfeld" being the lone exception -- great characters in great comedies do actually learn to grow and evolve. Of course, "Girls" hasn't quite decided whether it's a comedy or tragedy.