It’s no accident that the teaser for season five of HBO’s Girls is set in a women’s dance class. Lena Dunham’s successful series teases its return via the internet, a safe space similar to a private dance studio, where one can expect an outpouring of support. Either that, or one can expect an outpouring of 480,000 identically cruel remarks that play off the “no one is watching” part of the tagline. Sick burn, internet.
While Dunham’s Hannah Horvath busts a series of moves likely to further ongoing academic debate, the teaser does offer a couple of subtle clues for actual fans of the show. First is the absence of Hannah’s friends, underscoring the multiple character crossroads that closed out the previous season. In the place of Shoshonna, Marnie, and Jessa are some middle-aged women, who presumably aren’t Hannah’s new batch of besties (although they’d probably help her finally get her shit together). Instead, it’s likely she dragged her mother to the class, or the other way around, as Loreen (Becky Ann Baker) appears at the end to hip-bump her embarrassed daughter.
Loreen’s early, significant appearance in promotions may be a suggestion that this season will shift focus onto the series’ other crossroads, Hannah’s father (Peter Scolari) coming out of the closet. Either that, or they just had too much fun shooting the scene and decided to use that when HBO came sniffing around for teaser footage.
Girls returns to HBO on February 21.