On Hannah and Fiona

Even though they're on competing networks, it's fitting Girls follows Shameless on Sunday nights: both feature flawed lead characters who happen to be female. Although it would be a stretch to call either a true antihero, it's been far more interesting to watch these two characters self-destruct than a stronger one triumph, but this is where the comparisons stop.

Without giving too much away, I have to hand it to the writers of Shameless this year for being willing to drop a house on its lead character. All of the Gallaghers this season have been in free fall (with patriarch Frank practically dying -- but of course he won't because... television), but Fiona has historically been the one keeping the family together. Her narrative has become increasingly dark, and not in the tragic-comic way Shameless trades in, but truly uncomfortable to watch, especially in comparison to its vaguely manic pace.

It's risky for a show to completely abandon its moral center. It also makes for some difficult watching, especially for those accustomed to having their T.V. tied up in nice little bows in 23 minutes. If there's no payoff in the end, there's a good chance of losing a chunk of the audience, but I applaud Shameless for going there.

Girls, on the other hand, prefers little tragedies to big ones. I've been championing this show since its first season, when I failed to "hate watch" it. Yes, it's problematic as shit, but not completely without merit. Dunham's immaturity as a writer still shows (her best episodes were written with a co-writer), and the lack of diversity has yet to be dealt with. And because it's so obvious that we're watching Dunham grow up in public as we're watching Hannah navigate her way through her twenties, the line between the two gets thinner each season. Hannah isn't a terrible person. She never gave coke to a baby or drove a stolen Taurus through a stop-and-shop, but she's immature and irredeemably narcissistic. Mostly though, she's just plain unlikeable. And she's the kind of unlikable who's never really had to struggle . She's worse than unlikeable, she's ungrateful. It's the genesis of this resentment, and why it's so transferable to Dunham herself. We're allowed to pity Fiona because nothing has even come easy to her, and she's been such a rock in the past. We're supposed to forgive her even when she does henious things. (For this, I find Girls somewhat of a relief after an hour of Fiona Gallagher's self-destruction.)

At the same time, it's almost too easy to draw parallels. It's unfair -- to both the actors and the creators -- to insist that one female character must be like another because they're are still few good female leads to make those comparisons.