‘Girls’ is coming back. And this podcast can take “a little credit” for it

Last week, HBO shared an announcement that hijacked the Instagram feeds of women and gay men, spanning elder millennials and younger Gen Zs alike: an announcement that next summer Girls would be shooting five new episodes.

Suddenly, we were all Drew Barrymore basking in the rain that was this announcement. It’s strange to think that even two or three years ago, an announcement like this would have been met far less kindly, let alone made.

Lena Dunham’s Girls is such a precise and potent time capsule of the 2010s—the collapse of millennial hope, and the post-Sex and the City world. It’s hilarious, if you know they’re joking. But at the time, the verisimilitude of the show felt too good to be true. Over the past few years, though, herds of people—even Gen Z—have revisited the series with fresh eyes. Among that herd, a pair of superfans stick out.

If you’ve seen a clip from Girls on your feed in the past three years, chances are that the Girls Rewatch Podcast is responsible for it (either directly or in a butterfly effect sort of way). The duo behind it, Amelia Ritthaler and Evan Lazarus, turned their love for the show into a dedicated weekly deep dive.

A lot of the criticism Girls got resembles the early criticism the podcast faced—too fixated on the vocal fry to hear what they’re saying. But that similarity in where the characters are in the show and where the pair were in their lives created an entry point into the show that resisted the urge to disidentify with it. Slowly, they attracted guests like comedians Mary Beth Barone and Jake Shane, writer Hunter Harris, and others, who joined them in the present-day discourse on a show that had been off the air for ages. 

Eventually, each of the Girls girls (plus Andrew Rannels) made contact. Jemima Kirke (Jessa) engaged with a post, Zosia Mamet (Shoshanna) hopped on a Zoom, Andrew Rannels (Elijah) came to their apartment, Alison Williams’s (Marnie) dad sent her clips, and Lena Dunham (Hannah) told them she was proud of them over two episodes of their podcast. Now the gang is coming back together, and as Kirke put it, “This is like 70% because of [Girls Rewatch Podcast].” Williams even agreed with her (and real fans know there are few things that Jessa and Marnie agree on).

Below, excerpts from a chat with the podcaster duo discussing the rules for rewatching, the anomaly of being young and talented, and podcasting HBO’s favourite enfant terrible back to life.

You’ve made a career of loving a show that’s been off the air since 2017. How did the podcast come together?

Evan: We first met at an open mic. We were making each other laugh and said, “Why don’t we keep these good vibes going?” So, just a few months into knowing each other, my roommate from hell moved out and Amelia moved in!

Amelia: We hosted a Girls-themed housewarming party, and that’s when the idea kind of clicked. We were both rewatching it, and, evidently, we weren’t the only ones. But we also connected to being in that same moment in our lives, in that same zip code, going through the same kinds of things. The show suddenly applied to us in a new way. So, we set up my iPad camera and invested $200 in a mic, and the rest is herstory.

When did you realise this could be successful?

Amelia: Obviously, we didn’t imagine this would grow as it has. By our sixth month we had 10,000 followers on TikTok, which to us was millions. I remember when Jemima Kirke reposted one of our posts to her story, that was so huge for us. At that point we were posting 20 clips a week from the show, before the market was as saturated with Girls clips as it is now. It was one of those situations where it aligned with where the culture was.

Evan: Fairly quickly it became evident that people were dying to talk about the show. Girls is, historically, a show that provoked so many think pieces and debates, and whether it was rehashing some of those same age-old riffs about Lena or fresh takes on how the show handled certain things, it seemed like people were ready to talk about it again.

Amelia: And even though there was a lot of discourse surrounding the show online, very little of it was publicly positive or as ready to claim it as we were.

Girls is now understood as being ahead of its time. Do you think the world will have caught up to them this time?

Evan: I don’t entirely blame the world for how it was received the first time around. If you’ve ever met a 23-year-old, you know they’re addicted to acting all precocious. The 23-year-old talent is such an anomaly; 23 can be so many things, but talent is rare. It was like a witch hunt, because Lena was essentially performing witchcraft.

What the name Lena Dunham evokes in a tweet has fundamentally changed in the time since you started the podcast.

Amelia: When Megan Stalter came on the podcast last summer, she said to us, “Y’all are the reason Girls came back, and that’s probably why we got to do Too Much,” and I felt completely uncomfortable taking any credit for that back then. But when it was announced that Girls is coming back, I thought, “I’m going to take a little credit for this one.”

What’s your biggest nightmare for the reboot?

Evan: I don’t have fear. I know it will be good.

Amelia: If I had to name one, it would only be that I’m fearful of it being too referential to the past rather than a true and honest depiction of what they’re up to now. Or that they spend 11 minutes on Sutton Foster tapdancing [like they did with the Gilmore Girls revival].

There’s one topic every beloved IP reboot—from The Devil Wears Prada 2 to The Social Reckoning to Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life—loves to touch on: “Print journalism is dead.” It’s almost a convention of the genre at this point. What do you think Hannah Horvath would have to say about that?

Amelia: I think what’s most likely to happen is that Hannah will blame her lack of career success on it. It will be her writerly equivalent of a football injury that stopped her from going pro.

If you had to pitch roles for yourselves in the reboot, what would they be?

Evan: Marnie’s love interest.

Amelia: Hannah’s super-critical, type-A assistant who’s kind of a mini Marnie.

When did you first watch Girls, and how many watches in are you now?

Evan: I first watched when I was 18. And how many times have I seen it now? It’s an unanswerable question. Six times top to bottom with no ulterior motives, but if you count all the times we had to watch it for the podcast or did standalone episodes or clipping for social, 700?

Amelia: I watched it for the first time the summer of my junior year of college, so I suppose I was 20. I actually haven’t sat down and watched it from start to finish since our rewatch, but I was optimising it for vertical throughout that time, so the most honest answer I can give you is: the limit does not exist.

Do you have any rules for rewatching?

Evan: To each their own, but I guess I like to listen to a rewatch podcast... But aside from that, I really like to space out and forget what happens so the jokes stay evergreen and I can let myself experience it all over again.

People think you have to watch the whole thing, but they’re wrong. You can pick and choose and watch around the parts you don’t like. You also don’t have to start at season one; you can start wherever you want, and when you’re sad it’s over you’ll have season one waiting for you.

Amelia: When people ask me if they should start watching Girls, I always tell them the perfect time to start is August. It’s the perfect show for when you’re tired of summer and want to sit in your room and watch something for hours and hours.

You’re responsible for a new wave of people watching Girls. Any guidance for those about to watch it for the first time, now that it’s being rebooted?

Evan: Go in with an open heart, know that it’s satirical, and love yourself for the parts it triggers.

Amelia: If you feel personally attacked while watching it, you’re in the right place.

Do we think Lena had her baby to prepare to return to the role of Hannah, Grover’s mother?

Evan: Well, Lena is famously method.

What do we think each of the girls are up to now?

Amelia: Shoshanna’s business is under fire. I think Jessa’s remained in touch with Hannah, and [is still] smoking cigarettes.

Evan: Marnie is converted to Judaism and has two children, one of whom is named Rock. Hannah is teaching at Vassar and finds herself in a Fruit Fly situation.

If you could bet money on one thing happening in the reboot, what would it be?

Amelia: Hannah will post something on social media.

Evan: Marnie and Elijah will fight.

Amelia: Elijah will be in a lot of it. To right past wrongs.

Evan: Some sort of wedding or funeral will bring everyone back together.