You're the Worst 4.10: "Dad-Not-Dad"

Chris: While this isn’t technically a Sunday Funday episode, this is pretty close and while most Sunday Fundays are spent with Jimmy acting like he’s too sophisticated and above all of that foolery, Dad-Not-Dad is spent showing that outside of his usual group, Jimmy isn’t the sophisticated superior being. Jimmy is the guy that is brought along that doesn’t fit into the existing group dynamic and overcompensates. The hunt to find the person responsible for messing them up has led to Becca and Lindsay actually getting along and it’s a welcomed change of pace. Ultimately, both sisters are going to have to recognize for themselves what everyone else seems to be pointing out, they are responsible for their own happiness/misery. Becca’s fallback is always that she and her daughter are both screwed because of her being with Vernon, when it was her decision to marry him and not Jimmy (not that’s a better option, but she did have options) and divorce is always an option even with a kid. And Lindsay is slowly getting it and finding a life purpose beyond doing whatever first thought pops in her head. And Gretchen needs to learn how to pace herself drinking or else she’ll be taking more people to Boomtown. And Anne Dudek is really good at expressing extreme emotions as an actor and that’s why she always stood out both from her guest roles in YTW and How I Met Your Mother. Just don’t get her character drunk and don’t dump her on her birthday.

Alexa: I have to take a minute to echo Chris’s appreciation of Anne Dudek. I was first introduced to her as the doctor nicknamed “Cutthroat Bitch” on “House” and I’ve seen her in a few other TV roles since then. She just makes everything that she’s in better. She has such an engaging screen presence and goes all in with any material she’s given, even something as over-the-top as bonding with Gretchen all the way to Boomtown. She’s worked steadily for years but I can’t for the life of me figure out how she hasn’t gotten her own show or something by now. What are Stephen Falk’s post-”You’re the Worst” plans? Perhaps a collaboration is in order? I really hope we get one last Sunday Funday in the final season because Jimmy’s pseudo Sunday Funday with Katherine and her friends was just sad. He desperately needs to get back in the good graces of his former tribe. And while it’s true that Becca’s and Lindsay’s problems are largely their own doing, it’s easy to see why they turned out the way they did after getting a brief glimpse at their childhood. Their mother is truly a piece of work.

Joel: Because this show is set in LA, and because both Gretchen and Jimmy work in different aspects of the entertainment business, from time to time we have gotten cameos from celebrities playing themselves. Of course everyone has played an exaggerated or cartoonish version of themself from Ben Folds to Doug Benson, but this episode may be peak bizarre celebrity cameo. Lou Diamond Phillips as a lemon farmer who has to fiercely protect his lemons from passersby is probably my favorite “Look we got a celebrity to do a weird thing” that the show has ever pulled off. Some of the stuff with Phillips having gotten back together with the sister’s mother at the end felt kind of forced, but it was all worth it to watch Lou Diamond Phillips try to explain that he needed his lemons, and he was ready to defend them with the force of an old, grizzled Clint Eastwood character.  
Turning to the Jimmy storyline,  I’m guessing that this is going to count as this season’s “Sunday Funday” episode, seeing how close we are to the end of season four. It’s a little bit of a bummer, because the “Sunday Funday” episodes are usually the highlights of the season with this one feeling a lot more along the lines of having someone mention “Sunday Funday” just because it’s always been a thing before. I guess that’s not a bad thing when you look at the series as a whole. They’ve gone back to the same well four times now and three out of the four times have been some of the show’s best work. I guess I can’t exactly blame them for just trying to get through this one. It helps to highlight the point that they’re trying to get across, with Jimmy being woefully out of touch with the cultural elite that he aspires to be a part of. Still, it shows how much season four has struggled by keeping the main four apart, and on their own separate adventures throughout the bulk of the season.