Chris: This season seems to have gone out of it's way to undo all the progress the main characters have made. Jimmy is still trying to fix everything that he probably should leave alone, even when he's the one that created the problem in the first place and, as we saw in the end, Gretchen is sneaking around at night to take Edgar's medication which harkens back to season 2 when she would sneak out at night to cry in her car. By the end, even though the matter is seemingly resolved and they go back to what they consider to be normal, there's still a feeling of uneasiness that's lingering as if nothing got resolved at all and the melancholy of the flash forwards over the last few episodes seem to solidify that feeling.
Alexa: We’re officially halfway through the final episodes now and something about this season’s overall tone strikes me as disjointed. The character arcs are all over the place, if they’re existent at all. Jimmy and Gretchen keep ricocheting back and forth in terms of their growth and responsibility, and Lindsay and Edgar have little to nothing to do. Edgar doesn’t appear in this episode at all, and Lindsay only shows up in a flash forward at Gretchen’s hotel sporting a sizable engagement ring. (I’m assuming the mysterious “him” they’re referring to is Jimmy? I’m intrigued to see how the show ultimately resolves all the clues in these time jumps.) But back in the present, Gretchen seems to be slipping away from the growth we saw in the previous episode. This installment reminds me a lot of “LCD Soundsystem” back in season 2, when Gretchen developed an obsession with the married couple down the street. That episode revealed the cracks in her new friends’ relationship and devastated Gretchen. But this time, her encounter with her new couple friends sheds some light on Gretchen’s own internal struggles. She’s had some wonderful opportunities personally and professionally but she always finds a way to talk herself into thinking she doesn’t deserve them, so she sabotages them. In this episode we learn Gretchen definitely wants to be a mom, but she doesn’t think she should be because of her depression. She longs for a meaningful connection with a female friend other than Lindsay, and when she finally bonds with Rachel, she quickly ends the friendship. Between her self destructive behavior and her poaching Edgar’s pills at the end of the episode, it’s clear Gretchen is on the verge of snapping. I’m not sure what that means for her impending marriage, but each new flash forward makes me think Gretchen and Jimmy are not heading toward a happy future together.
Joel: I’ve talked quite a bit about how “LCD Soundsystem” is one of my favorite episodes of the series, where Gretchen becomes obsessed with a couple, projecting a possible happy ending for her and Jimmy onto their life. This episode, seems to serve as a sort of sequel to that one, with a new couple once again being introduced into Jimmy and Gretchen’s lives serving as a possible “future” for them. Rachel and Quinn are a married couple who seem to have a similar outlook on life and relationships that Jimmy and Gretchen do. While their behavior isn’t exactly outlandish compared to the standards that have been set by other character on You’re the Worst, it’s easy to see how Rachel and Quinn could be the “worst” characters on a tamer television show. In that way they’re like a more mature version of Jimmy and Gretchen. They’re most wild and reckless adventures might be behind them, but they’re still the same people at heart, and they haven’t let growing up, or settling down change that.
While the couple from ‘LCD Soundsystem” represented a fantasy life for Gretchen that would ultimately fall apart when you looked closer, this couple does feel like it’s a pathway toward a genuinely happy ending for Gretchen and Jimmy. Both Rachel and Quinn know their partner’s flaws and accept them without question or even celebrate them. The couple also takes Jimmy and Gretchen under their wing as well, accepting them unconditionally almost immediately. When Gretchen gets caught stealing from Rachel’s bedroom, Rachel reacts with a remarkable amount of understanding. On Jimmy’s side, Quinn goes above and beyond trying to help Jimmy in every turn of his story this week. He lets Jimmy complain without judgement, and he does everything he can think up to help Jimmy out. Both as individuals, and as a couple, Rachel and Quinn seem like they could be the guide on which people like Gretchen and Jimmy can build a long, loving, successful life together. Then in a manner of seconds, Gretchen throws all that away.
We’ve talked about Gretchen’s tendency to self sabotage before. It’s a trait that you can see existing in pretty much every character on the show, and it’s clearly an area that the writers want to explore. But this feels like an ending that was tacked on the episode to make sure everything was back to normal by the time the credits rolled. As much as this season seems to want to be about lasting growth that these characters have experienced, this is another in an ever growing list of examples of character growth being rolled back, or in some cases outright ignored for the sake of an easy plot point. The show ends with an objectively terrifying moment. In the span of about a minute, Gretchen destroys a potential lifelong friendship for herself and Jimmy. We see that she’s freaked out, but without any real thought, she impulsively ends things. Jimmy rightly looks horrified at the ease in which Gretchen throws this relationship away, and how nonchalaunt she seems after the fact. This feels like it should be foreshadowing of future problems, but it doesn’t feel that way. Instead it feels like, with just a few episodes left to go, we’re back to square one in terms of character development whenever it’s convenient.
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