I think most critics who watch television for a living decided that Lena Dunham's second season of Girls is better simply because season one was subjected to such ferocious scrutiny. The fairness of the criticism was irrelevant, but the intensity of it must still linger. That's why when the screeners were sent to critics' homes or offices a few weeks ago inside yellow padded mailers, the contents, to many of them, were fragile. Let's revisit some of season one's real or imagined controversies and aspersions: Racism. Nepotism. Elitism. Sophism. Anti-Nazism.

Ever since HBO's Girls debuted this past spring, viewers have wracked their brains trying to identify precisely what about it they find slightly irritating and also which shades of nail polish best embody its characters.

Rich girl Lena Dunham sold a book of "frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling to work" to Random House for $3.7 million in October on the strength of an illustrated 66-page proposal. Here it is, weighing in at $56,000 or so per page.

Presumably to build up the anticipation for Girls' second season, which premieres next month, HBO has released a deleted scene from America's favorite television show.

Book publisher Random House has signed sitcom writer Lena Dunham to a $3.5 million contract for a collection of "frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling to work," to be called Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned. Lena Dunham became eligible to vote in 2004, so you should listen to her.

Lena Dunham is seeking $1M to write an advice book. Or you could just read through your old Facebook messages for free.

Who do you think Lena Dunham should date? Did you say PSY? We think so, too. Date PSY, Lena! Alas, she is actually dating this guy Jack Antonoff from that band Fun.. "Hipster hookup!" writes Us Weekly, because what are two young white people if not hipsters?

This Lena Dunham lady is going places. The Girls auteuress is not only the toast of the film/TV world—she's now broken the New Yorker barrier with a delightfully enraging memoir of her gay ex-boyfriend.

SPOTTED, 8 A.M.: Sweaty, post-workout Lena Dunham, on Montague St. in Brooklyn Heights. A defining generational moment.

Sure, there have been enough YouTube parodies of HBO's hyperlocal quarterlife crisis narrative Girls to fill an entire season, but few have been stamped with the personal imprimatur of the show's executive producer Judd Apatow.

It's a very darling sort of year for the Emmys with critical/Internet/real people favs like Girls, Breaking Bad, Homeland, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock popping up in multiple categories. Mad Men and American Horror Story lead with 17 nominations. Somewhat weirdly, American Horror Story qualifies for the miniseries categories because, as Vulture explained earlier this year, "the miniseries distinction is reserved for programming that has a story line that gets resolved in a single season." This logic led the first season of Downton Abbey to be considered by the Emmys as a miniseries last year, although that was bullshit then (clearly Mary and Matthew had more heart-dragging to do — no one could have possibly thought that the first season finale constituted resolution). It's a bit more understandable in the case of American Horror Story, which will focus on an entirely different story every season, but it's still a little weird since we know several characters from last time around will return. (Actually, word is that returning actors will not be reprising their Season 1 roles but take up all new ones. Jessica Lange, for example, is supposed to play a nun.) No matter - whatever it takes for a show so batshit crazy to be regarded as distinguished is fine with me.

Meet Taylor Cotter. I mean, just pretend she's here or something. Taylor is a 22-year-old graduate of Northeastern Journalism School. She has a job, a car, and an apartment. So what is Taylor's big problem? Her big problem is that she's too successful to be living "that 10-cents-a-word life that I always wanted." Crumbs! Can we help this poor young go-getter, somehow?

The New York Times guesses that it's only matter of time before the Girls tour is upon us, writing that the stage has been set "for a Sex and the City-style tour by compiling online maps of the actual bars, boutiques, street corners and apartments where the show takes place."

The Drummer from Bad Company is set to become a grandfather once again, as People reports his daughter, Drummer from Bad Company daughter and star of Girls Jemima Kirke, is pregnant.

A counterpoint to John Cook's final Girls recap.

The appropriate response to Girls, a television show about two African-American boys from Harlem who live with a white Park Avenue millionaire and his sassy but wise housekeeper, is to lock down parliament and unilaterally gut the presidency. But today is Lester Flatt's birthday, and Girls is over Girls is over Girls is over, so here's your last recap.

Writer, director, producer, and star of HBO's much-dissected comedy series Girls Lena Dunham recently issued a formal rebuttal to critics who pick on the show for featuring a main cast composed entirely of celebrity offspring.

The appropriate response to Girls, a television show about the beleaguered staff of an under-resourced Boston hospital that turns out in the end to have been the extended fantasy of an autistic boy staring at a snow globe, is to eat someone's face off. But today is the 33rd anniversary of the release of Get the Knack, and there's only two of these things left, so here's a recap.

The appropriate response to Girls, a television program about Korean War combat surgeons for whom laughter is the only way to keep from weeping in a world gone mad, is to saw off your boyfriend's foot and mail it to a Canadian politician. But that would be illegal, and today is the 39th anniversary of Murry Wilson's death, so here is a recap.

The Associated Press profile of future President of the Milky Way Galaxy Lori Anne Madison who, at 6 years old, is the youngest person ever to gain entrance into the Scripps National Spelling Bee, is charming in that it finds her bounding around a nature preserve in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. searching for snails, slugs, tadpoles, and the like.