Hannah's new roommate is not the only new man (or old friend in a new role) in her life. She's also dating a new guy, Sandy, played by Donald Glover, who of course she met at Grumpy's and about whom she promises to "make logical, responsible decisions." She doesn't want to hear any love stuff (which he is willing to utter) but instead wants to do things differently, i.e. not like Adam.
Adam. Of course, the problems are cropping up already because Adam is still in the picture, homebound with his leg in a cast, and Hannah, the guilty party, whom he says he still loves, is taking care of him. It's complicated. Will Hannah tell Adam about Sandy? Will Sandy get sick of Hannah not telling Adam? Will Hannah just rotate from bed to bed, the arms of some man or another (platonic, lover, ex-lover, whatever) around her? Everyone's replaceable, including Elijah's boyfriend George, who gets too drunk at the party Hannah and Elijah throw and has to be escorted out, then ditched, by Hannah ... even if he does pay for everything, as Elijah tells Marnie later. (Subtext: Surely, another person who pays can be found. Surely, another person can always be found.) And Adam is becoming less and less appealing the more he loudly objects that Hannah can't leave him, that he loves her, while Sandy offers the promise of new love and a way to forget about the damages of the old; for how long, who cares. Hannah keeps telling Adam, throughout this episode, "We're not together anymore," and yet, she keeps going back. What's a guy to think? He says, "You’re here all the time, you’re my main hang," as well as the telling and rather brutal, "When you love someone, you don’t have to be nice all the time." Which is true, in some strange raw way, though maybe not in the way he means — and it certainly wasn't what Hannah intended him to respond to her statement that he's not even that nice to her, so why does he want her there at all? Feelings. They are complicated!
Meanwhile, Marnie has not filled her void, and the void appears to only be growing. Not only has she lost her roommate and, in so doing, made perceptible shifts in her closeness to her best friend, she's still single, having broken up with Charlie last season. In a lunch with her boss she finds out she's being fired — not fired, the boss explains, "downsized," which is way different, but of course, pretty much the same. Later she has another lunch, this one with her mother, played by the glorious Rita Wilson, who tells her she looks 30 years old (the ultimate insult for a twentysomething) and goes on to reveal TMI sex life tidbits about her romance with a cater-waiter, getting offended when judgmental Marnie doesn't want hear it, i.e., be "friends with her." Marnie says, "I talk to my friends like this." Ah, there's the rub.
We get only blips of Shoshanna and Jessa, but they're telling ones, or at least, as telling as they can be in the time allotted. With Shoshanna, the best character on the show, we get a bit more. She's weird, she's sage-ing her bedroom and wishing for Ray's demise — it seems in the interim, after she lost her virginity to him, he has in some way fallen short of the man she wanted. At the party, she arrives in a perky little hat and tells Hannah and Elijah, "I may be deflowered but i’m not devalued." Of course, Ray's eventually there, too, leading to a wonderfully awkward moment when she says, "Oh hello," quite formally to him, and then a vehement, "Goodbye!" turning her back on him and standing in exactly the same place. The two meet again in the bedroom, where Shosh is looking for something and Ray confronts her about her bad texting (just emojis, what's a panda/gun/wrapped gift supposed to mean?). He tells her, though, "When I'm around you, I remember your charm, sincerity, strength..." They kiss.