From the beginning, You’re The Worst was about a relationship between two toxic people who need each other to discover their best selves, but it was also about the ungainly process of stumbling into adulthood. The series follows people who live for their own comfort (or, in the case of Edgar, live at the behest of…
The better choice is almost always the uncomfortable choice. Awareness might be half the battle, but actual self-improvement requires actively embracing difficulty, discomfort, and the possibility of failure. It’s easy to fall back on what’s comfortable because it’s what you know; it can’t quite let you down because…
You’re The Worst has had a generally rocky season this year for a few reasons—the separation of the core ensemble, a seemingly aimless macro structure, the amplification of the characters’ sour behavior—but sometimes good comedy can be just the antidote a show needs. Now, of course comedy is subjective and not…
One of You’re The Worst’s best qualities is its ability to juggle and maneuver between extreme tones. From the very first season, the series could be both snarky and sincere, empathetic and callous, generous and mean-spirited, oftentimes in the same episode and sometimes within the same scene. It could pull this off…
“A Bunch Of Hornballs” might be a noisier episode of You’re The Worst than usual—a $6,000 lavish divorce party and a gaudy erotica convention doesn’t add up to “quiet”—but make no mistake, it tracks the muted moment following a major realization when you have nothing else left to do but take the next logical step.…
Near the beginning of “Not A Great Bet,” Gretchen pulls into the driveway of her family home, walks inside to the atrium, and anxiously pulls her hoodie over her head. It’s a small gesture but it wonderfully captures the uneasy feeling of returning to a familiar place that has moved on without you. It’s compounded…
You’re The Worst has frequently excelled at introducing broad premises and deepening them so slowly and effectively that oftentimes you don’t notice when shit becomes real. That’s arguably the basis of the original series—two commitment-phobic, toxic narcissists enter into a relationship—but that one’s a bit obvious;…
Last week, I expressed some doubts about the decision to keep Jimmy and Gretchen apart during this season of You’re The Worst. I wondered about the sustainability of that approach over the course of an entire season, using “This Is Just Marketing” as a model for what the series’ future might look like. Though I don’t…
After four episodes, it’s become clearer what Stephen Falk and company want to accomplish with this new season of You’re The Worst. Instead of artificially reuniting Jimmy and Gretchen, or even keeping them in the same orbit, the move is to keep them apart as much as humanly possible. This risky approach could only be…
“It’s pathetic to live in anything but the truth,” Jimmy tells Bert (Raymond J. Berry), his crusty retiree friend, near the halfway point of the You’re The Worst hour-long fourth season premiere. That line scans as a clichéd quip you would read in a mediocre self-help book under the best circumstances, but coming from…
With more scripted television programs in production than ever before, it follows that there are now a wider range of opportunities for television actors. Looking back at the performances that caught The A.V. Club’s eyes in 2016 confirms that hypothesis: While some of our favorite character actors found new facets of…
When You’re The Worst first began, “worst” was a fairly superficial term used to separate Jimmy and Gretchen from the hordes of “regular folk” who subscribe to the rules of polite society. As initially envisioned, the two of them are obnoxious, selfish boozehounds that don’t give a good goddamn about anybody or…
Sometimes it only takes a single thing to illustrate the deep-seated instability lingering in your life that you’ve otherwise ignored. Maybe it’s jokey banter taken too far. Maybe it’s a professional break at the unintentional expense of a loved one. Maybe it’s things unsaid coming back to bite you in the ass. Maybe…
For the most part, “Talking to Me, Talking to Me” resembles a standard “get back to normal” episode after last week’s digressive turn. It pleasantly, lightheartedly ambles across four different storylines—Jimmy builds a treehouse, Gretchen practices mindfulness, Edgar scores a writing gig, and Lindsay has an…
Are we miserable because we expect too much from those we love or are we miserable because we don’t expect enough? How much personal humiliation can one person stand for the good of the next generation? Does domestication inherently beget or breed emotional castration or are “crisis of masculinity” fears simply a…
Jokes come and go, but structure is forever, at least when it comes to sitcoms. There’s a certain thrill that comes from watching a sitcom episode that’s clearly structured with intent as opposed to just watching scenes strung together by jokes and setpieces. Think of the best episodes of Cheers, or Seinfeld, or 30…
“The one’s who love us least / Are the one’s we’ll die to please / If it’s any consolation / I don’t begin to understand them.”—-The Replacements, “Bastards of Young”
“The Last Sunday Funday” does many things very well, but what it captures best is the bittersweet realization that one is too old for some traditions. After a certain age, the regular events we hold dear no longer carry the same power and joy that it once had, and continuing to perpetuate it only serves to hold one…
This post discusses plot points for the fifth episode of the third season of You’re The Worst.
Pain, in all of its ugly manifestations, is a personal, private burden. Sure, some people will truly understand it, and others will do their best to help alleviate it, and plenty others will inadvertently exacerbate it, but at the end of the day, it’s you, the person in pain, that will be tasked with managing and…