“Oedipus couldn’t have done anything differently, he was screwed from the moment he was born.”

So says Hannah anyway, substitute teaching in an English class at a New York school with, apparently, the laxest hiring policies in the history of ever. Hannah Horvath’s overly simplistic take on Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex could be a throwaway joke to start the episode—the scene ultimately ends with a class discussion of sleeping with one’s mom, and Hannah’s claim that “If we want to take Oedipus Rex and bring him into our current moment, this is basically where the whole concept of the Milf comes from”—but it can also stand in as Hannah’s delusional worldview. Thousands of years later, there’s still a legitimate question to be asked about whether Oedipus’s flaws or his fate seal his doom, but Hannah brushes over all of that with her blithe certainty that the universe is to blame. This is, after all, how she tends to view her own misfortunes as well: it’s everyone else’s fault, nevermind that she ports her significant personal flaws into every new context.

But still, Hannah seems happy in the classroom, so why argue? Maybe teaching is something that can make her happy. She’s bantering with students in the classroom, high-fiving random kids in the stairwell, and meeting cute teachers in the lounge. Hannah and Fran, played by Jake Lacy of Obvious Child, fall immediately into a friendly banter, and Fran follows up with an invitation to drinks. There’s a beat as we watch Hannah adjust her expectations and consider whether she’s ready to date post-Adam—then a smile spreads across her face and she accepts.

But the date is doomed—and the reason why it’s doomed brings back the whole Oedipus flaws vs. fate question. It’s clearly a mistake for Hannah to bring Fran to the art show of the girl who just stole Adam away from her. Hannah is definitely using him to make Adam jealous. Yet the reason Fran realizes this and storms off has less to do with Hannah than it does to the way that her friends react to her presence at the show. First Marnie asks her what she’s doing there, then Adam seeks her out and acts hostile toward Hannah and Fran both. I’m actually on Hannah’s side here. If Marnie and Adam had just acted polite toward Hannah, or better yet ignored her like a normal person would, Hannah and Fran would probably have finished their date. Hannah has a legitimate case that the fault is not in herself, but in her friends.

Either way, the date ends early, and Hannah decides to lean in to the awkwardness by going to the afterparty with Adam, Mimi-Rose Howard (hereinafter “MRH”), and her ex Ace, played hilariously by Zachary Quinto. Somehow, the guys and girls end up in two separate cabs. In the girls’ cab, conversation between Hannah and MRH initially centers around whether Hannah liked the show or not. We saw MRH’s show earlier, and it’s worth pausing here to go back and describe it, since the show’s title gives this particular episode of Girls its name: “Ask Me My Name.” MRH’s concept is essentially a performance art piece in which actors deliver monologues of personal pain experienced in the midst of historical atrocity. An interesting concept, perhaps, but many of the attendees seem to find the show laughable—the actors are stilted, the audience laughs at inappropriate times, and worst of all, performers and attendees alike are required to wear weird painter’s smocks with the words “Ask Me My Name” on the front and “That’s a Nice Name” on the back.

Hannah ultimately confesses that she didn’t like MRH’s show—Hannah thinks she’s pretentious and manipulative, her whimsical persona largely an act. MRH, for her part, fears that Hannah’s right, and fears that’s the way that everyone sees her. And she is manipulative, which becomes quickly clear when she offers Adam back to Hannah as if he has nothing to say in the matter. Ace, her ex, tells Adam that she’s “a bad, bad girl who knows what works,” and perhaps he’s right.

But manipulative or not, pretentious or not, the concept behind “Ask Me My Name” is good, and pure—inspired by a picture of a Japanese girl being escorted to an internment camp by American soldiers. MRH’s show, it turns out, is ultimately about empathy: about the importance of knowing each other’s names and stories, and how the power of that knowledge has the power to overcome both pretentiousness and manipulation. And even if it’s partially an act, this does seem to be the way that MRH wants to live her life. The episode contains no less than three instances where she asks the name of strangers to make an empathetic connection with them: their cab driver, the woman they hit in the cab, and the random woman in the laundromat.

Hannah, meanwhile, finds that knowing a bit of MRH’s story makes her more empathetic—painfully so. “Learning more about you physically pains me,” she confesses. It hurts to realize the person who stole her boyfriend away from her is more like her than Hannah wants to admit. MRH isn’t perfect. But she’s just trying to matter. This realization is the beginning of real empathy for Hannah, and for an important realization: “You try because you’re an artist, and I couldn’t do it so I quit. I wasn’t talented enough, and that’s why I left Iowa.”

Girls tends to dole out at least one epiphany each episode, and this is Hannah’s. It’s a small triumph. Once they get to the after-party, Hannah tells Adam that she honestly likes MRH—and though there may be a trace of manipulation left in Hannah’s voice, for the most part what she’s expressing is an unfeigned, honest wish for her ex-boyfriend to be happy.

Odds and Ends:

• Ace goes through most of the night with a toothbrush in his mouth. It’s a funny touch, and I couldn’t look at it without laughing, but really—are toothbrushes becoming fashion accessories now?

• Hannah may be moving on, but I don’t hold out high hopes for Adam’s relationship with MRH. Ace seems to think he’s getting her back, and MRH’s willingness to barter Adam back to Hannah doesn’t bode well.