In Season 3 of You're The Worst, each week's figurative feelings gut-punch has somehow managed to hit as hard as the last.
And they hit differently: The show recognizes an uncomfortable truth in life, that struggles aren't universal. People experience love, life and pain in different ways and at different speeds, and in the last two episodes of Season 3, You're The Worstexplores that deeply.
SEE ALSO:Every relationship suffers at a 'You're The Worst' weddingThe first and most important through-line between episodes 12 and 13 consists of mini-montages of Edgar's cooking, which deserves its own webseries (that idea is free, FX).
Credit: byron cohen/fxThe seeds of conflict planted at Shitstain's wedding grow into ripe, combustive fruit. Gretchen and Jimmy feud over their unpredictable future; Edgar and Dorothy butt heads over disparate career success; Paul and Lindsay face the end of their marriage once and for all.
"Maybe you only like me when I’m struggling," Edgar tells Dorothy.
"You should seriously shut up sometimes Jimmy," says Gretchen. "Just shut all the way up."
"You stabbed me," Paul says to Lindsay.
And then the floodgates open, and the three couples at the center of You’re The Worstare at each other’s throats. Paul is too nice, Lindsay too flighty, Gretchen too lofty and Jimmy too judgey; Edgar wants support and Dorothy can’t cope with his success, and it all tumbles forth like lava, because relationships are volcanos.
“You knew it was a snake when you picked it up,” Lindsay tells Paul. “You knew who I was. You don’t get to act surprised now.”
There's a lot of amazing writing in the episode, not necessarily in driving the narrative forward but in really using language and letting the words stretch their legs. At one point, Gretchen calls Jimmy “an uptight dildo whose personality unmakes itself every time something bad happens.”
That's part of an unbecoming trend the characters all go through here, one which my college professor described as the "oppression Olympics." Everyone thinks they have it worst and wants desperately to prove it, not seeing that there's nothing to be won. Jimmy may be grieving, but Gretchen got there first, and she finally tells him "there just isn't room for you to be broken right now too."
Stung by the injustice of it all, Jimmy makes a valid point: No one can prepare for two broken parts of a relationship. It’s supposed to be one person in the hospital bed, he says, while the other stands guard and slips away from the immediate pain. This isn’t fair, and it isn’t easy -- even “hard” seems like a light descriptor.
Credit: ron p. jaffe/fx"Maybe we’re a success regardless of the outcome because we tried," he tells her. "Maybe there’s beauty in the struggle against near-certain failure."
And so, they embark on their temporary solutions: Gretchen and Jimmy choose distraction in the form of Jimmy's novel; Edgar and Dorothy choose deflection when he keeps his new job offer from her. Paul and Lindsay seem to come to an actual, adult accord, before he whispers threateningly in her ear: "Better lawyer up, bitch.” He lights a cigarette and walks out the door, more badass and intimidating than any character on this show has ever been.
Gretchen and Jimmy haven't unraveled, even if they are hanging on by a thread. They finish Jimmy's novel and then Gretchen is gripped by the morbid desire to check out the scene of a recent grisly murder (for the second time this season she impersonates a puppy, and it’s still disgusting to watch a grown woman paw at her boyfriend, so this can stop being a thing aaaany time now).
Edgar gets advice about Dorothy from the unlikeliest source: Lindsay. She tells him not to be a martyr (“I almost martyred my husband”) and be honest about what he wants.
Paul and Lindsay begin and quickly wrap up their spousal settlement, because Lindsay’s only knowledge of legal proceedings comes from television and she thinks $2,000 is a huge amount. Paul’s face lights up with something we’ve never seen on him: schadenfreude. He grins maniacally at his soon-to-be ex-wife.
“I’m finally getting what I want,” Paul says. “And what I want is to watch you burn.”
Vindictive Paul is downright terrifying -- Paul, the man who literally poops himself when he’s too stressed.
Credit: byron cohen/fxEdgar tells Doug Benson that he can’t write for the show because it upsets Dorothy (who Benson refers to as “sloppy blowjob Dorothy” apropos of nothing), but then changes his mind. There's a bizarre if not unforeseen side-plot with the receptionist that doesn't meet the You're The Worststandard.
It bears noting that in an excellent season of You’re The Worstin which every other character got a major arc and opportunities to grow, Gretchen has been stunted bordering on insufferable throughout Season 3. Without a foreground arc -- though we're repeatedly reminded that she's in therapy and fighting her depression -- she just acts out as usual. All the characters are supposed to be flawed and stunted, but Gretchen has been so on a cartoonish level, probably since the first time we heard her say “abobo” in Season 2 (I will never forgive this).
Lindsay pleads with Paul for somemoney, so he writes her a check -- which she photographs and them promptly rips apart. Paul knows what we all do, because you’ve already cringed watching Lindsay tear up that check: She didn’t deposit it, and she wouldn’t know how if she wanted to.
Watching Lindsay’s sheer ineptitude as a person would garner more sympathy if we hadn’t watched this storyline in Season 2, and it seems to be leading along the same circular path: She loves Paul, she needs him, and she’s of hapless without him.
Even then, as soon as Paul turns and shouts at her for being stupid, we’re on Lindsay’s side. No one else gets to call our girl dumb -- even Becca, who comes by with her new baby, can't bring herself to say that particular mean thing to Lindsay.
Paul tells Vernon he's finally ready for their Mexican adventure -- but the new dad is done with those dreams. He loves his baby too much.
“Plus, I can’t leave her with Becca,” he adds. “She would Jonbenet her for sure.”
The sub-par Gretchen/Jimmy storyline continues as they check in on Gretchen's therapist just to harass her. Justina sees something in Gretchen and congratulates her patient on self-improvement, even telling her she’s proud. In that moment there’s a hint of the Gretchen I’ve wanted all season -- sincere and mature, if only a little.
Credit: byron cohen/fxEdgar comes clean to Dorothy, which forces her to speak her own truth: She doesn’t think she’ll make it and she’s moving back home. As hard as it was to watch Edgar succeed where she wanted to, the toughest bit was using those feelings to reassess her own career.
“Not everybody gets their dream,” she tells him sadly. And then she's gone.
Lindsay asks to move back in with Becca and Vernon temporarily, but Becca won't allow it because A) Lindsay would have to be a nanny, and B) she's jealous of Lindsay's newfound freedom. So Lindsay ends up taking over Dorothy’s lease, and the solidarity between her and Edgar is the best part of the episode -- the best hope she has of growing up.
Finally at the murder site, Gretchen allows herself a gory geek out in front of a bloody rock on a mountaintop. She's completely nutty, but Jimmy loves it.
“I hate everyone,” Jimmy says. “Except you.”
He commends her for going to therapy for the good of their relationship, and insists that she deserves as grand a gesture in return.
AND THEN HE GETS DOWN ON ONE KNEE.
According to my notes, "I don’t know what he says to propose. I blacked out. I’ve been blacked out for several hours." He made it all up -- the murder, the fake news -- as an elaborately fucked up proposal worthy of his elaborately fucked up ... fiancee.
I take it back. Maybe they can move forward. Except ... remember that comment about how Jimmy's personality unmakes itself? This is one such occasion. He's self-admittedly free of family and the bitterness borne of Ronnie's death, but in its place remains another layer of the hardened shell of Mr. Shive-Overly's heart. He goes to the car (for a hoodie to serve as a sex blanket) and then gets in and drives away.
To consult my notes again: "Mabye--NO NO NO NONAFJ;LKNOJO"
Gretchen catches sight of the car as it leaves, and she looks as if the air has been sucked from around her. Whatever happens for these two going forward, this moment cannot be undone. You have to wonder how she could ever trust Jimmy again, when his wavering smile stands in as a metaphor for emotional fortitude. Maybe he's been unmade enough times that he can't be re-made, not even by her.
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