You’re the Worst, S04E03: “Odysseus”

Gretchen Goes on a Bender and Confronts an Oblivious Jimmy in a Decent, Fairly Tame Outing

 

You’re the Worst settles in for its third episode, which plays it safe for most of its running time until an explosive confrontation in the last five minutes. Even with the focus squarely on Jimmy and Gretchen, it’s a treat to have all four of these characters back together again.

Rating: 7/11

 

Jimmy fucked up.

In any relationship, it’s a necessity that both partners carry their fair share of the emotional load. You can’t always make each other happy all of the time, and it’s important to acknowledge that that’s a flaw in the structure of our capacities for happiness more than a fault in one another. When things are going well, that’s down to the work both people have put in; when things suck, there’s usually a lack of effort from both parties. People are tricky, and putting two of them together for a long time and expecting harmony is like stapling two guinea pigs back to back and expecting them to always walk in the same direction.

But still, I reiterate: Jimmy fucked up. There’s no shared blame on this issue, no matter how badly he wants there to be. When he proposed to Gretchen those many moons ago and then hightailed it the fuck outta there once she accepted, there was obviously some crippling fear behind the decision. For most of us (myself included), the assumption was that a latent fear of commitment had reared its ugly head at the least convenient moment and Jimmy chose to flee a shitstorm of his own brewing. But here, we get the full picture: after apologising for how terribly he’s treated Gretchen, he stupidly calls after her “But you did say ‘family’!”

That get’s her attention. She as dumbfounded as you might think that her use of the word “family” (after being proposed to) could be what caused him to run. Now, Jimmy has no motivation to lie at this point; his reasons, undoubtedly, are his reasons and, in that context, his feelings are valid. But that doesn’t mean they’re not incredibly stupid reasons spurring on childish as fuck feelings! Yes, his dad died last year and he obviously still has some issues to work through on that front. And, of course, that’s gonna contribute to not having a great outlook as far as family is concerned. Still, it’s incredibly short-sighted and self-involved to not think marrying someone constitutes being part of a family, and Jimmy deserves all the sarcastic ire he gets from Gretchen in this, the best moment of the season so far.

The reason I’ve jumped straight to talking about the last scene is, while this wasn’t a bad episode, there wasn’t a whole lot of note happening the rest of the time. True, YTW has laid so much foundation for these characters that just spending time with them in any context is a hoot, but there’s more than a little place-setting going on here that will, presumably, pay more dividends in later episodes. Like, Gretchen’s day-drinking adventures – bar-diving and hooking up with Boone, another of Ty’s former conquests – weren’t boring, but they also weren’t overly thrilling either. Yeah, there’s a nice comparative dynamic set-up here to emphasise how badly Jimmy messed Gretchen up: where as so many people have gotten hung-up on Ty, Gretch is now happy to fuck and forget the dude, to the extent that she’ll sleep with a good mate of his and then completely blow off his summary dismissal of her. Still, like I said, this guy’s gonna matter more later than he does now, which makes his first appearance here fine, if a little perfunctory.

Additionally, I’m all for the “Lindsay and Edgar as fuck buddies” storyline, especially because it gives each of them an outlet to bitch about their respective besties. The scene of them undressing while shouting about how selfish Jimmy is and how difficult it can be to have to keep Gretchen from slipping back into her depression is great, and I anticipate that soon the two of them will either develop inconvenient feelings for each other or the show will subvert that trope completely with its typical deftness. But something new really should happen soon, otherwise this whole plot risks becoming a one-joke antic of “Boy, these guys sure do fuck a lot, huh?”

The only other things that happen this week are Jimmy’s brief brunch with Sam and Shitstain – which is nice enough but really only serves to inform Jimmy that Gretchen might not actually be holding up that well – and Edgar calling Jimmy old for abandoning him. This is where some of the old-school You’re the Worst sincerity leaks through which, as per the characters, is often buried under mountains of snark and flashy substance intake. It’s a great moment for Desmin Borges, who unpacks three month’s worth of emotional distress in the space of 40 seconds. And, thank God, it’s enough to get through to Jimmy and provoke a genuine apology from the cranky bastard.

If nothing else, even when the plot feels like it might be meandering in the lead up to something else, this show always has it’s undercurrent of affection to fall back on. That’s equally true of how we feel about the characters and how they feel for one another and, as long as that remains the same, it’ll always be worth tuning in.

 

Quotes & Random Thoughts

 

• Look, TV’s my bag. Next on the list would be movies and music and then, in a pinch, I’ve got a decent knowledge of video games. Literature though? I’m deeply, embarrassingly ignorant of most of it, especially the classics that everyone should know. So yeah, I’ve heard of Homer’s Odyssey, to the extent that I know the hero is Odysseus, which is the title of this episode. That’s about it. So I looked it up. It’s about Odysseus returning to Ithaca after twenty some years and finding his wife Penelope – who presumed he had perished in the Trojan war – is now being sought after by over a hundred suitors, vying for her hand in marriage. In order to compete himself, he dresses as a beggar and, after completing some crazy hard stuff and killing all the suitors, Penelope recognises him and they are reunited. Needless to say, that makes this episode’s title a pretty dark joke, at the least.

 

• There is no show on television that isn’t allowed to show nudity that’s as sexually vibrant as You’re the Worst. Every sex scene with Edgar and Lindsay this episode was so brazenly full of performative fucking, from her continuing to jack Edgar off under the covers when Jimmy walked in on them to their straight-to-camera doggystyle.

 

• Ok, I’ll clarify: no full frontal nudity is allowed. Which means we and Gretchen both have to stare at Ty’s entire arse.

 

• “Gretchen’s staying at my apartment, which used to be rando’s apartment, which used to be an apartment where they hid Cambodian boat people. It’s a whole thing.”

 

• The way Boone screams “I’m the wine guard!” reminded me a lot of Billy Eichner.

 

• “Well, you should suck my dick!” There’s no one I’d rather have shout this at me than Gretchen.

 

• Sam and Shitstain trying to work out how old Honeynutz’s godson must be if he’s getting married is very them. As is their appreciation for some “good-arse mushroom polenta”.

 

• “Where are you two not having sex?!”

 

• Despite his recent decline in quality, I’m pretty big on Drake (your eyerolls are noted). So much so that I couldn’t help but think of his apathetic dressing down of one-side texting in “U With Me?” when Gretchen was waiting for a reply from Jimmy:
  “I wanna know how much time you spent on them paragraphs
  Where you’re getting me
  All that grey in our conversation history…
  3 dots, you thinkin’ of a reaction still”

 

• Gretchen gets two legendary mic drop opportunites (dopportunities?) this episode. The first comes when she storms into Jimmy’s house, towers a foot over him from a higher vantage, leans in and screams “HEY! DOT! DOT! DOT!!!” The second, of course, is letting the first print of the book Jimmy’s so damn proud of fall to the ground.

 

• I snorted loudly when Jimmy put Edgar’s hat on and said “This is fine” as a trashcan combusted in the background.