Hannah has a nemesis. The girls are at a book party for Tallie Schiffer, one of Hannah’s classmates who she claims was always a terrible writer but had the good fortune of having her boyfriend up and kill himself, leaving her with a goldmine of memoir material.
Passive aggression flies. Tallie tells Hannah how easy it was for her to write the book, like she was “water birthing her truth,” and that she worries about how difficult writing always seemed to be for Hannah. Hannah tells Tallie she has a boyfriend … who is alive and well.
At the book party, Hannah also runs into her old professor, Christopher Moltisani. He encourages her to come to a reading he is hosting. In spite of this being a very “unHannah” thing to do, she eventually agrees to it.
After Adam beatboxes his way through the kitchen en route to occupy the bathroom “for at least 10 minutes,” Marnie tells Hannah that Professor Christopher Moltisani is exactly that kind of person she should be with, and that there was definitely “a thing” between them. Marnie’s motives are questionable here. Hannah shrugs it off, and tells Marnie that she plans to read her story about Phil the Hoarder. Marnie doesn’t love that story. Hannah accuses her of not being supportive. Marnie throws in her face that she does support Hannah. Literally. Marnie has been paying her rent.
Shoshanna tells Jessa that she joined a very expensive dating site, “because ugly people do match.com,” and that she’s been messaging a guy name Brice, “I mean, hello!, great name, right?” and that he’s in product development, “which is like perfect for me, because I love products!” and he’s Jewish!
Then, Jessa gets a surprise, very awkward visit from the woman who she used to babysit for, the one who is married to the guy she had been flirting with, and invited to the party in Bushwick. Basically, she tells Jessa that she suspects that Jessa gets into these dramas because she is distracting herself from becoming the person she wants to be. Jessa takes this very unJessa-like, she actually takes it very seriously.
Hannah goes to work a shift at Cafe Grumpy, where Ray is a manager. She gives him a synopsis of her Phil the Hoarder essay. He advises her to write about something real, perhaps cultural criticism, or about years of neglected abuse, plight of the giant panda bear, divorce, urban sprawl, racial profiling or death.
So, Hannah shows up to the reading and shares a story she wrote on the subway ride there about an Internet boyfriend named Igor who remained her boyfriend until his friend IMed her to tell her Igor had died. Christopher Moltisani tells her the story was crap and she should’ve stuck with the Phil the Hoarder story.
That night, Marnie is itching for a fight when she tells Hannah that she liked Tallie’s book and it made her cry and “not because she was on her period.” When Hannah tries to tell Marnie about her night, Marnie throws the rent thing in her face again. “I pay all of the bills in this apartment, does that not give me one night off from talking about your problems?” Low, Marnie. The fight then becomes about Hannah pushing everyone and eating all of the yogurt, and then they blame each other of being selfish. It gets really dirty. Hannah accuses Marnie of being jealous that she has a boyfriend, Marnie brings up an eighth grade masturbation secret of Hannah’s. Marnie throws the final punch when she accuses Hannah of being a bad friend, and Hannah agrees that she has been a bad friend because she has bigger things to worry about. Marnie says she wants to move out.