Chris: This episode is yet another one that forces me to reevaluate my list of who is actually the worst in this show. Lindsay’s mom is making a strong case because she’s responsible for creating #1 and #3 on my list (Paul is #2 since he’s a men’s rights activist now). Speaking of the list, I think I’m moving Max up to #4 mostly because of that horrible moustache and saying stuff like “dropping some ropes” and whatever that reaction was to mac and cheese. For once, Jimmy isn’t living in delusion when believing he might have a chance again with Gretchen after the all night call. The delivery guy stuff with Edgar got pretty dark and at first it made me dislike Edgar for a split second. However, delivery guy kind of had it coming for the simple fact that Edgar worked pretty hard to ensure that being a “damaged vet” isn’t something that defines him or lets it hold him back. Here’s a guy that only knew Edgar for this one thing and once he saw Edgar is no longer that thing, he let his expectations ruin his interaction with Edgar. Also I might have a thing for Katherine.
Alexa: Sometimes I just want to shake Jimmy and Gretchen and tell them to communicate like adults rather than being their reactionary selves. They fell asleep on the phone together like a couple of high schoolers for crying out loud. They both want to work through their issues. But talking is hard, so instead of talking they continue to one-up each other. Jimmy could have confronted Gretchen after he learned she brought Boone to the divorce party, but instead he banged an old classmate, which Gretchen saw. There will obviously be some sort of fallout from this, but I don’t expect Gretchen to just be upfront with Jimmy about it. Elsewhere, Max is definitely a candidate for being the worst. He is not a good influence on Edgar. First he talked him into dropping $6,000 on Lindsay’s divorce party like it’s no big deal to spend that much. Now Edgar is embarrassed to talk about his military service in front of him and ends up humiliating a fellow veteran. Granted, the delivery guy did provoke him, but still, not cool Edgar. If he acknowledged he and the delivery guy knew each other in the first place things wouldn’t have escalated. As much as I will always love Edgar, I don’t like him very much around Max.
Joel: Do you remember a few episodes ago, where I was impressed that we got the whole “Gretchen vs. Jimmy” aspect of the season out in one episode and were going to move on before the idea got stale? While it still seems like a good idea that the “Fog of War” concept wasn’t drawn out too long, it has left us with episodes like this one that feel like they don’t really fit into what we’ve seen up to this point. Almost every story in this episode has something that’s supposed to feel like a payoff moment that just doesn’t work.
The most obvious of these moments is the Edgar storyline. Edgar has always been the best of the You’re the Worst crew. He’s the kindest, most caring, most empathetic of the main characters, and really of all the characters that have appeared in two or more episodes in the entire series. However, in this episode, he turns downright mean, bullying the veteran delivery guy, and humiliating him. Of course it’s easy to look at the situation and say that the guy deserved it. Edgar’s request for privacy was not an unreasonable one. But what was this moment supposed to be? A moment of triumph for Edgar, a character who never takes charge of his own life finally standing up for himself? It’s a weird moment that feels out of place for the character, and ultimate feels like it’s supposed to be a big moment that ultimately winds up meaning nothing.
We get similar moments in the other storylines of this episode. Jimmy thinks he’s going to meet a girl from home who’s living a sad miserable life, only to discover she’s more successful than he is in LA. We then get a huge extended moment of Katherine getting to laugh at Jimmy and call him names while he has to stand there and take it. Yes, Jimmy’s been pretty much the villain of the season and deserves to get laughed at, but not by this new character we’ve never heard of. It feels like this was structured to be a moment of comeuppance for Jimmy that falls flat because it’s missing all of the characters that I care about Jimmy having wronged in the past. Another example is the one of Lindsay and Becca who realize at the end of this episode that their mother is the reason that they’re both terrible people. Obviously there is, and should be room for self discovery in a show like this, but in a group of people who are all the worst, Becca is the standout worst among the worst, and being able to cite one thing that is supposedly the cause of all your terrible actions is nowhere close to being enough to get me on your side. (Especially, when in the same scene, we acknowledge that Lindsay has suffered the same hardship and while still among the worst, she’s nowhere close to where Becca is.)
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