In the season one finale titled “She Did,” in which all the characters flock to a secret party hosted by Jessa only to find out that it’s secretly a wedding, Ray waxes some existential grown-up advice to Hannah: “Don’t just think. That’s an extremely unattractive quality about your generation.” Little did Ray know, he stated the entire thesis of the show; none of these characters do, they just think. And, unfortunately, that’s part of the generation the show Girls depicts, therefore Girls is the closest series describing the millennial generation.

Which is such a shame, to be honest. In its first season, Girls had an unstoppable quality to what it’d attempt to cover. From sexting to HPV and gay ex-boyfriends, to the dynamics of a sour relationship and the selfishness of twentysomethings, Girls had unlimited power over any other show simply because there was no other show like it. Then, in its second and still best season, Girls took over the lexicon with episodes like “One Man’s Trash” and “It’s A Shame About Ray,” demonstrating it was a show that was willing to take some risks and places its characters in corners that they don’t deserve to be in. Hannah Horvath became relateable with her overthinking broken heart, creating a new stereotype in storytelling not unlike Alvie Singer from Annie Hall. Her consistent dialogue that’s really monologue, her views upon the world and where she does and does not stand, and her lack of occupation and drive brought Hannah and the rest of the show into an understanding that this is what being twentywhatever is; it’s a lot of wandering. And that’s what Girls did for the rest of its run to various results. Seasons three and four were, for the most part, absolutely forgettable.

Thinking became Girls’s drive for each character it had and the show followed suit too closely. Consider Jessa. Bohemian-like, former drug addict, whimsical mess willing to place herself on any couch to dole out advice on her experiences and what they all mean, yet she can’t commit to any single path. Throughout the entirety of Girls, Jessa doesn’t have a job she’s happy with. In fact, nobody does. But Jessa finds her feet in some occupations that never turn out to be a source of happiness — she’s consistently bored and looking for the next thing. In season three, she ends up the manager of a non-mundane store that sells baby clothes. It’s a job she acquires after trying to prove a point to Shoshanna that she can keep a job. Of course, once she’s there, she starts to deteriorate and falls back into her addiction yet again and even assists in a mercy suicide that doesn’t actually happen or pan out in any consequence. None of this is very good storytelling — it’s just wandering ideas and plots for Jessa to barely participate in, survived only by actress Jemima Kirke’s charm and wit.

Then there’s Marnie, the best example of Just Thinking and being insufferable to watch. Marnie Marie Michaels starts the series with a job in an art gallery, comfortable in her stasis after college. Once she loses that job, though, she deems herself in a transition and becomes a hostess — a job she considers the worst of the worst (and a job that Ray memorably describes looks like “a magician’s assistant”). For the rest of Girls, Marnie flops from being an actual assistant/fuck-buddy with artist Booth Jonathon and then another art gallery manager. It isn’t until she starts a relationship with the terrible Desi that she finds herself down her most committed path — a singer/songwriter, to dwindling opinion.

Isn’t this interesting? Girls had more story for Marnie in four seasons than Jessa and Shoshanna combined, and they’re all part of the main cast. It’s as if the show’s own writing and plotting were wandering in a stasis, not just its characters. Granted, Jemima Kirke left in season two due to her pregnancy, but even when she returned she came back to a blank palette. Simply, it appears that the weakest seasons of Girls fell too deep into its own theme and thesis, not knowing where to guide two of its main characters and letting them fall to the wayside until they’re needed. Adam and Ray found more things to do in their meantime, and they’re not featured on promotional posters.

If there’s one thing the middle seasons of Girls did correctly was use its relationship dynamics to lead its overall story. The use of relationships in Girls plays into the stasis of Just Thinking. Each relationship is a transitioning point, one that isn’t taken seriously whatsoever by one or both parties. In the first season, Hannah unmistakably uses Adam to this degree, defining their relationship as a mystery until its solved and she’s disinterested. Marnie participates in this method as well with Charlie, and to a lesser degree, Ray. When Desi appears, she recognizes a path in music that she can’t get without him and, for once in whole show, she considers herself happy or at least content with what she’s doing. She’s finally doing rather than thinking. Indeed, Marnie keeps her toxic career with Desi even after they break up and get a divorce. The motherfucker makes an appearance in the season six trailer, too.

Perhaps Shoshanna, the show’s most naive while brilliant character, is the antithesis to the show’s way of treating someone. Shosh is a college student for most of Girls’s run, finding herself frustrated when all her friends complain about their lives because she doesn’t have much outside of studying. Once she graduates, in Girls’s most frustrating season, the fourth, she has a meltdown because it didn’t work out the way she wanted. She didn’t walk at her ceremony. Her parents don’t care too much, offering her help during her outburst, but she cares. This was all Shoshanna was thinking about while she was doing something — studying. So, now what?

Shosh’s story comes to an interesting avenue when she’s out of her comfort zone in the return-to-form season five. In Japan, she has new friends and a crush on a man named Yoshi. She lives life. She attends concerts, she hangs out at cat cafes, she experiences the doing of life, no longer the thinking. Another Shoshanna meltdown occurs when her boss announces that they’re downgrading and therefore firing her. In New York City, Shoshanna only thinks. Thankfully, by season’s end, she finds herself in a new position of utilizing her degree and knowledge in Grumpy’s coffee spot. It’s no secret why she’s smiling before the credits roll — she’s finally doing something again. As is the show.

It took two seasons of wandering for Girls to find a place to wander into. Season five received a ton of praise when it debuted, reclaiming a lot of strength with the excellent Marnie-centric episode “Panic In Central Park,” which is not unlike “One Man’s Trash.” The millennial generation it depicts is fiercely outdated and one-sided in its approach, however there is no other series that routinely attempts to conquer such an age-group — perhaps Broad City is the closest, but that’s a sitcom rather than a “dramedy.” When the characters on Girls find an actual thing to do, it’s a better show, but it has trouble keeping that commitment around, similar to the generation it represents.