Who Run HBO? Girls.

Judging from only the pilot, "Veep" is shaping up to be one of my favorite new shows. It reminds me of vintage "Office" but without all the cringing. The dialogue is snappy and quite funny, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who I already love from "Seinfeld" and "New Adventures of Old Christine") kills as VP Selina Myers. Louis-Dreyfus is clearly an intelligent performer, and it is a delight to watch her play an intelligent and capable woman. I mean, granted, she makes a lot of goofy gaffes, and this is only episode 1, but Selina must be a pretty smart cookie to have gotten to be VP, right? Anna Chlumsky (welcome back!), Tony Hale (playing a spin-off of Buster Bluth?), and Matt Walsh round out this fabulous cast. It's a sharp and fast-paced political spoof -- how can you say no? I'll keep you posted on this show as it develops... ha that makes me sound like a news anchor, huh?

But, ahem, speaking of parodies, I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to say about the new show, "Girls." This show was clearly written for "me" -- it is supposed to be about "me," right? An over-educated twenty-something white New Yorker with writing aspirations... check, check, and check. (To think, if only I'd known people cared about my friends and their dumb problems, I could have sold this to HBO YEARS AGO.) Is this show for "us," as critic Emily Nussbaum? And if so, is "us" a bunch of entitled, obliquely-racist brats? What am I supposed to make of this show? Internet, tell me what to think and feel!

Having watched the second episode, I think my relationship with "Girls" is not as "complicated." In the pilot, I felt a bit as if I was hanging out with someone else's friends. I got the jokes, I just didn't like them enough to find the jokes even funnier than they actually are. Now, I have come to a conclusion that was partially aided by having watched "Veep." It's this:

I think "Girls" might be a parody.

Now, I'm a bit of an outsider in this Brooklyn hipster culture, I'll admit. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed either. I watch Nicholas Sparks movies without irony, and while sincerity is an underrated virtue, let's face it: I'm watching Nicholas Freakin' Sparks. Nobody should or would give me a medal for that. When I lived uptown, the biggest punishment I could be issued on a Saturday night would be getting dragged to Brooklyn for a "show." And not even a puppet show or a dog-and-pony show, mind you -- nothing as much fun as that! (Has anyone ever been to a dog and pony show? What is that? What is that like? Do the dog and pony fight? Do the dog and pony play in an emo band? What happens?)

Having conceded I'm not a Brooklyn hipster myself, this show felt like an exaggeration of what I see of these kids and also of my experiences. Protagonist Hannah (played by show creator Lena Dunham) is just a little too entitled, just a little too socially awkward in professional situations, to be really-real. Hannah's hook-up buddy, Adam, is an amalgam of every awful guy you and your friends have ever dated, lived down the hall from, or heard horror stories about. Hannah's best friend, who has it all together from the outside (which probably means she is a mess), makes ridiculous statements about sex and relationships that sound like exaggerations of real advice or self-disclosures.

Is this parodic strain going to persist? And how might the genre of the satire make us think differently about this program? Any differently at all, in fact?