Jimmy and Gretchen never took the good times particularly well on FXX’s You’re the Worst. You can imagine how they’re coping with the bad times.
You’re the Worst, TV’s darkest romantic comedy and one of its best, returns Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET to kick off Season 4 with a double episode.
This season starts with something of a jarring reset, but then, that was also true of last season, when we learned that Gretchen (Aya Cash, top) had been formally diagnosed with clinical depression.
No surprise there, though it did temporarily put a damper on the wild, raucous, and irresponsible behavior in which she and her boyfriend Jimmy (Chris Geere, top) had been gleefully engaging since the beginning.
The show was still built, however, on the shared lie that Gretchen and Jimmy really don’t care about each other. That they’re each too selfish to care about anyone else. That they don’t need anyone else or want any of the traditional trappings of a committed relationship. That they only hang out because they’re both interested in meaningless sex and getting high and, you know, stuff like that.
That’s all rationalized, self-protective nonsense, and by the end of last season, they seemed to have punched a few holes in those barriers. F’rinstance: Jimmy proposed marriage.
Gretchen seemed more than amenable. Then Jimmy climbed into his car and drove away. Gone, like a cool breeze.
This season opens some three months later, and naturally, it updates us on what they have both been up to.
The answer won’t surprise fans of the show. Gretchen is a wreck, though her trauma takes a different form than some fans might expect. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say she’s not curled up in the fetal position refusing nutrition.
Jimmy, on the other hand, has found a place to keep a low profile. Won’t spoil that one, either, since the location is a pretty funny gag.
Furthermore, unlike Outlander, You’re the Worst probably isn’t going to keep Jimmy and Gretchen apart indefinitely.
For one thing, their separation doesn’t carve out a lot more screen time for alternative plotlines, including those that involve the show’s other two main characters, Edgar (Desmin Borges) and Lindsay (Kether Donohue).
That’s not a reflection on Edgar and Lindsay. Their new storylines are amusing and promising, as they’re each at least temporarily going in directions they never expected – and which, to be honest, we viewers won’t be at all sure they can maintain.
The point is that they don’t eclipse our concern about Jimmy and Gretchen, whose quiet and sometimes unquiet desperation forms the bed of nails on which You’re the Worst tosses and turns.
It’s equally true, however, that You’re the Worst isn’t a show that makes you want to turn off the TV and walk into the ocean. The fact these characters survive themselves and make it to the next day offers an ongoing ray of hope to everyone.
With luck, Season 4 won’t let that ray disappear.