Entertainment

Hannah's Haircut In the 'Girls' Finale Means A Lot

Mark Schafer/HBO

Well, it happened. Girls graced the screen for the final time. But while you were busy mourning the end of an era, you may have missed a small but potent detail: Hannah's haircut in the Girls series finale parallels the Season 6 premiere, and it brings things full circle in a meaningful way.

When we first caught up with Hannah back in February, she'd managed to parlay her splashy New York Times piece into a freelance gig for a hipster magazine. They sent her to the Hamptons to cover an adult surf camp, and she spent the weekend shirking responsibility, slurping down neon-colored drinks, and having drunk, sloppy sex with Paul-Louis, a lax surfer dude whose biggest dream was to work at the Atlantis resort. They spent a day roaming around the beach and talking about life, and for a moment, Hannah considered leaving New York's filth and her friends' toxicity and staying in his word for a while. But then he revealed he had a girlfriend, and things came crashing back to reality. The episode closed out with a close-up of her face: She's cozied up around a bonfire, smiling, but the glimmer in her eye suggests she knows it's not where she belongs.

Mark Schafer/HBO

The series finale ends similarly. Now, she actually has left New York, but for a stable upstate job in academia. With the help of Marnie, she's raising the child she conceived with Paul-Louis that very weekend, and after days of trying tirelessly to get her baby to breastfeed, he finally latches. Again, the camera zooms in, but this time, she isn't faking anything: She looks relieved, happy, at home. Over a year later, Hannah still looks the same, but inside, she's grown so, so much. That girl on the beach is (mostly) gone, and in her place, there is a woman.