Lena Dunham's boundary-pushing character comedy Girls is going out on a high note. The characteristically sharp and observant final season has been given an added layer of emotional urgency by the unexpected pregnancy of Dunham's hapless protagonist Hannah, and her even more unexpected decision to keep the baby. But there's something weird going on with the show's final run, an unanswered question so glaring that it distracted from this week's otherwise stellar Elijah-centric episode: Is Shoshanna Shapiro (Zosia Mamet) even on this show any more?

Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna in HBO

Mamet's bubbly motormouth Shosh has always moved in a slightly different orbit from the other three Girls: she's younger, more self-aware, less sexually liberated, and has always lived in Manhattan rather than the show's home borough of Brooklyn. But the new season has isolated her to a degree that feels bizarre.

Shosh's only significant storyline this season takes place during episode two, when she drags Elijah to her awful work mixer and subsequently comes to realize that everybody in her life is the worst. As we already learned from her wistful stint in Tokyo last season, Shosh is restless and searching in ways that the other Girls are not, and may be less content to keep falling back into old patterns than her under-achieving peers. Surely this climax of this episode, in which a disillusioned Shosh gives Jessa (Jemima Kirke) a deserved dressing-down before walking away in tears had to be leading up to something transformative.

Andrew Rannells as Elijah and Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna HBO

And then…nothing. Ever since that seemingly huge moment, Shoshanna's brief appearances have seen her act solely as a sounding board for Ray, whose doomed relationship with Marnie is reminding us all how great Ray and Shosh were together. And yes, they were great together, but if Shosh's only arc in the final season is getting back together with her ex, I will be pissed. Then again, given that she hasn't appeared at all in the last two episodes, maybe we should just take what we can get.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that Marnie's greasy creeper ex-husband Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is still inexplicably around, and getting twice as much screen time as Shosh despite being possibly the most one-note character in Girls history. In episode two, Desi flips out on Hannah and Marnie during their disastrous upstate vacation. In episode four, he whines to his therapist about how Marnie is unsupportive (she is, for the record, but I'd rather be watching her therapy session). In episode six, he has a meltdown at a would-be gig in Jersey. Why, in the show's final run, are we seeing so much of this whiny douchebag, while one of its core characters is nowhere to be seen?

A quick glance at Twitter confirmed that I am not alone in my Shosh pining.

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Seriously Shoshanna has ZERO storyline and we are half way through the season. WTF? #GirlsHBO pic.twitter.com/lMgyTquEqk — Jess (@dazzle715) March 20, 2017

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MISSING: Shoshanna Shapiro

Last seen 2 eps ago on the hit show, GIRLS.

Bubbly personality, great style/hair.

Plz message me if u see her. pic.twitter.com/8qwiaVDTwo — KoyANDYsqatsi (@Andyzach) March 28, 2017

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Remember when there was a character on Girls named Shoshanna? — Colin (@colxburke) March 27, 2017

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So did they phase Shoshanna out of Girls or....? — Joe (@JoePassmore) March 27, 2017

Sad!

There is light at the end of the tunnel—preview photos confirm that Shosh is back in the upcoming episode, and it looks like she'll be around for the rest of the season. But there are only three episodes left at this point, and the window for potential Shosh time is narrowing way too fast. She doesn't even know about Hannah's pregnancy yet, which pretty much sums it up.

HBO

Emma Dibdin Contributor Emma Dibdin writes about television, movies, and podcasts, with coverage including opinion essays, news posts, episodic reviews and in-depth interviews with creatives.

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