You're the Worst 2.4: "All About that Paper"

Chris: I do love the irony of Jimmy making fun of Gretchen for the whole checking in situation and then they continuously check in with each other the entire episode and judging by the casual responses to each check-in, this is a daily thing. They don’t want to admit it, but they’re totally check-in people.

For a variety of reasons, I can’t stand improv comedy and I let out a hardy groan once I realized what was happening. However, when they talked about the positive effects it can have for vets with PTSD, I remembered the rest of the show’s run and how discovering improv really is a turning point for Edgar for a variety reasons. This is the beginning of Edgar finding out who he is and what something is that he truly loves doing which is something you can see on his face by the time you see his improv bit land.

Alexa: There have been a few instances in “You’re the Worst” thus far when the goofy comedy quickly shifts gears into more serious territory. It’s jarring in an effective and realistic way. And after a relatively standard episode, the show has done it again, randomly ending with an upset Gretchen sneaking out of the house. What does it all mean? I’ve heard enough about the show second-hand that I have an inkling where this storyline is going, but the writers clearly want to keep us guessing by introducing it so abruptly. It’s particularly unsettling after Jimmy and Gretchen spend the bulk of the episode being so obliviously happy. They’re once again convinced they’re not like other people despite checking so many boxes of a content and committed couple. I’d like to know what their definition of “checking in” is, if they don’t realize that’s exactly what they were doing all day long. And I know I’ve mentioned this countless times, but how great is Sam? He’s such a scene stealer every time he’s on screen, including his “feud” with his pals. Their fake argument in the restaurant is perhaps my favorite Sam moment yet.

Joel: For so much of this episode it felt like the show was finally starting to settle into a standard sitcom structure. You could see the events of any person’s day from this episode fitting perfectly into pretty much any major sitcom of the past fifty years. For Gretchen there’s a crisis at work and coworkers are fighting about something silly. By the end of the day they’ve gotten themselves in a situation where having a fake, over the top fight is the best solution to everyone’s problems. For Jimmy, the storyline is getting to meet a well respected major player in his line of work, something of an idol for Jimmy, only to discover that he’s an over the top eccentric. Jimmy’s then forced to go on increasingly silly adventures with the man, and keeps finding himself in wacky situations. You can even look at the “sidekick” characters and see how formulaic some of this episode feels. “Edgar discovers improv comedy!” feels like an incredibly standard setup for a sitcom episode.

This isn’t meant to be a criticism of this episode. We’ve gotten to the point where I enjoy simply spending time with these characters and it’s easy to be along for the ride with pretty much anything that they do. We even get the added layer where Gretchen and Jimmy vow to not spend the day checking in with each other only to pretty much do exactly that throughout the entire episode. As an audience we get to feel good because we can see how well these two fit together as a couple, even if they can’t. And then in the final moments of the episode it all comes crashing down.

I don’t want to speculate on where Gretchen is going at the end of the episode, because my guess is that we will learn what’s going on soon enough, but this final moment feels so abrupt after we have what has essentially been an episode long “sweet moment” for the couple. It doesn’t really matter where Gretching is going or why she’s sneaking out. The real takeaway from the final scene here is that whatever she’s doing she’s hiding it from Jimmy. There is a sense of secrecy in this scene that tears at the “sweet” feelings we’ve had up to this point. And what makes it so frustrating is that as abrupt of a tone shift as we get in the final scene, at no point does it feel out of character. This feels like exactly something that these characters would do. Gretchen has proven to have strong self destructive tendencies already, and the episode is able to  make something come completely out of left field while still letting it feel true to the character.