Chris: Clearly, this episode was written immediately after the writers had watched episodes of Black Mirror. I’m not declaring that’s necessarily a bad thing but it does throw the audience for a loop when they’re expecting to see how the wedding planning is going (or isn’t going). This episode could be possible affirming that either Jimmy and Gretchen are insecure in their own love story or they’re purposely putting off wedding plans for whatever reason. I believe it might be the second option by the way they both had long already decided that these wedding planners weren’t for them but was elongating their story for the free champagne. The Intransigence of Love is proof that the You’re the Worst writing staff has an immense amount of talent that goes beyond their usual genre.
Alexa: I have to admit for the first half of this episode I was super confused and a little peeved. I thought it must be some sort of bottle episode and wasn’t sure why the season would begin this way after everything that happened in the season 4 finale. As charming as I found the incredibly 90s romance of Jake and Gemma, I wanted to know what our main foursome is up to now. But it ultimately won me over and once I saw where it was going, it felt like the perfect way to kick off the season. Jimmy and Gretchen are actually using the love story of “Jake and Gemma” as their own as they meet with potential wedding planners because they don’t exactly have the most conventional love story. But in the second half of the episode, the Jake and Gemma actors are replaced with Aya Cash and Chris Geere and what results is a hilarious send-up of the rom-com genre. “You’re the Worst” is, in many ways, a romantic comedy but it frequently turns the genre on its head. Jimmy’s final words to Gretchen in the episode are spot-on. Their relationship isn’t perfect, but it’s messy and real and that’s what makes it so beautiful in its own way. It was the perfect way to reaffirm why Jimmy and Gretchen belong together. That said, I really want to see Aya Cash and Chris Geere star in a traditional rom-com together now.
Joel: I’ve spent a lot of time going back and forth on whether or not I liked this episode. On one hand, my biggest complaint about the previous season was the amount of time that the four main characters spend separated, and now, here we are opening the season, not only having two of the characters completely absent, but the other two characters not actually playing themselves. On top of that, it felt like this was another attempt at recreating the magic of the side episode that worked so well in season two, that once again continued to fall short.
However, on the other hand, as time has gone on, I’ve really grown to enjoy this episode. Stephen Falk obviously has an affinity for pop culture the way that his characters constantly refer to movies, television and music from fifteen years ago, and this episode felt like an ultimate culmination of that trend that has existed throughout the show. The first act of this episode is a rather direct send up of 90s slacker movies, borrowing from Clerks, Empire Records, with maybe a bit of High Fidelity thrown in as well. For the most part, this portion of the episode is played completely straight. There’s a pretty silly tribute to how poorly hacking and the internet in general was portrayed in 90s film and television, but still, when the characters of Gemma and Jake kiss for the first time, it’s an emotional moment that surprisingly feels earned, because the show has spent the last ten minutes carefully creating a relationship that you can get invested in.
As it becomes clear that this is a story being made up on the fly by Jimmy and Gretchen, and these two take over for the main characters, the theme of the episode becomes clear. The aesthetic of the episode slowly morphs from a 90s teenage indy rom-com into the more bizarre, yet somehow familiar realm of Jimmy and Gretchen. It’s like the two of them can’t help themselves. You don’t even notice the episode transforming from a tribute to the genre to openly mocking it, until Princess Diana is suddenly alive, and there are time portals involved. By the end of the episode, we have the Jimmy and Gretchen back that we expect. These two once again feel right together. It’s like the whole episode was shifting us back into gear for the final season, and now we’re ready to move forward with this wedding idea at full speed.
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