Warning: This article contains spoilers.
Hannah Horvath (played by Lena Dunham) may have been accepted into the University of Iowa’s prestigious MFA program on the “Girls” finale, but that doesn’t mean the show will film there.
On Friday, the University’s Vice President of Strategic Communication, Joe Brennan, announced his decision to deny HBO’s request to film the controversial series on campus.
“After reviewing the script, I felt the storyline placed the city and university in an unfavorable light, and considering the potential for disruption, I made the decision to deny the request,” Brennan told the Iowa City Press-Citizen. “I won’t share details as I don’t think it fair to reveal the plot in advance. I understand this is a popular show, but it’s my job to safeguard the reputation of the university.”
Dunham’s decision to include the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the season finale came as a surprise to the University.
On Tuesday, the program’s director, Samantha Chang, said, “It was a complete surprise to me that we would be part of the season cliffhanger.”
“Since we’re just now recruiting our new students for next fall, I am in the process of talking with a few of them about the issue of leaving New York (or San Francisco, or Seattle) and moving to the Midwest for two years,” she said. “When I heard that Hannah had been accepted to the program, I experienced a powerful imaginative flash into the head of this new prospective student with relocation issues.”