HBO’s era-defining comedy is set for a new five-episode series. Its bleakness and warmth couldn’t be more welcome

It’s a pop culture emergency. A millennial-quake that shook my social feed to its core. Girls, the HBO show that stole the zeitgeist in the early Instagram era and made Lena Dunham a generational star, is returning for a five-episode revival series. The project was announced via a mock video call with some of the original cast: Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells. They’re all returning for the reboot, which will pick up the story 10 years after the 2017 finale.

Girls captured such a specific era when it premiered in 2012. Social media still felt new and exciting, Barack Obama was president and so-called “woke 1” felt like it was going to be the new normal. The show’s characters navigated that terrifying twentysomething period when you’re searching for an identity, where it feels like everyone has it figured out but you. Dunham’s realistic approach to sex scenes – sticky, awkward, unflinching – made the show one of the first to be “discoursed” on social media, spawning endless think-pieces and Twitter threads. She was declared the voice of her generation, but she also became a figure of controversy who didn’t always seem suited to such intense, era-defining fame.

Creator and star will return along with Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, Jemima Kirke and Andrew Rannells for five-episode revival

Girls, the seminal HBO series on millennial strivers that launched the careers of Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Adam Driver and more, will return for a limited run on HBO in 2027.

The five-episode addendum, set to begin production next year – a decade after the series finale aired – will reunite creator and star Dunham, as aspiring writer Hannah Horvath, alongside Williams as Marnie Michaels, Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna, Jemima Kirke as Jessa and Andrew Rannells as Elijah. Judd Apatow will also return as executive producer.

Jay-Z in 8, the rap mogul’s HBO docuseries, covers his life and career in effort to mend his image – with no pushback. Why is he so fixated on the court of public opinion?

During the finale of Jay-Z’s Jay-Z in 8, the recent eight-part HBO documentary series on his life and career, the billionaire rap mogul talked with record producer Rick Rubin about the song Family Feud from his 4:44 album. He clarified one of its lyrics, “Al Sharpton in the mirror takin’ selfies / How is him or Pill Cosby ‘posed to help me?”, in which he chided Sharpton, the civil rights leader, and Cosby, the disgraced actor-comedian, for constantly criticizing rap music. He called Sharpton an “extortionist” who goes “from place to place” demanding: “You want our support … give us the money.” Listening to him chastise Sharpton, I pondered how he doesn’t see himself as a similar figure.

Starting in 2019, Jay-Z partnered with the NFL in 2019 as entertainment director, deciding the Super Bowl half-time performers and working with the league on other community endeavors. Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback, has recently alleged that the deal came after NFL owners decided they needed a “Black face” to help them quell outrage from Black people after Kaepernick was blackballed by the league for kneeling during the national anthems as a form of protest against police brutality. Jay-Z was lambasted for undercutting Kaepernick’s cause for personal gain, marring his reputation with many fans who came to view him as the same counterinsurgent figure he criticized in the documentary.