Lena Dunham Can’t Help Herself

There’s an apocryphal story concerning the original pitch for Girls: Supposedly, Lena Dunham wrote it on the back of a cocktail napkin. It was all vibes but no plot or fleshed-out characters, and situated the show concept somewhere between Gossip Girl and Sex and the City . It was about the sort of girls Dunham—then 23 years old and making a web series in SoHo—knew and was friends with. The cockta