‘You’re the Worst’: Could be Better

After one stellar, and two relatively good seasons (bordering on occasionally exceptional), “You’re the Worst” returned for a two-part fourth season premiere. The series is what I can only describe as a mold-breaking sitcom, as it uses the plot structure and the character structure of a sitcom (“You’re the Worst” follows four friends who occasionally sleep with each other), yet is ambitious enough to break out of the monotony that can come with shows that religiously follow standard sitcom practices.

Categorization, however, may obscure the most salient part of the show. Fundamentally, “You’re the Worst” is about how broken people interact while trying to pick up the shards of their shattered souls from the ground. It is blindingly funny as well.

The premiere picks up in the hazy aftermath of a beautifully shot Season Three finale in which Gretchen, played by the sometimes overzealous (but generally exceptional) Aya Cash, is abandoned by Jimmy (Chris Geere) immediately after his proposal. “It’s Been: Part 1” and “It’s Been: Part 2” (it’s a doubleheader season premiere) admirably do not attempt to find a neat solution to that minefield. Instead, Jimmy goes on a self-imposed exile to a trailer park retirement community and Gretchen stays indoors for three months as she crashes at the apartment of her friend (Lindsay, warmly portrayed by Kether Donohue). Gretchen also occasionally smokes crack.

The show works when it functions the way I’ve mythologized it: as a show about the brokenness of the human soul. The show doesn’t work when its characters are caricatures.

The latter is occasionally the case in “It’s Been: Part 1” and “It’s Been: Part 2.” All the actors seem to have taken the director's instructions a bit too seriously. Geere seems a bit too absurd as he destroys a neighbor’s property with an elderly friend, Burt (Raymond J. Berry), and Cash overplays the symptoms of her manic depression. Yet flickers of past greatness remain as Geere berates the same elderly friend in a bar with relaxed vigor and Cash looks subtly pained while reading a mid-coitus text message. Moreover, while the show has lost its comedic punch in the premiere, glimmers are still apparent in brief moments of priceless comedic timing from Lindsay’s boss, Priscilla (Kathleen Rose Perkins).

With that said, “You’re the Worst” maintains its elegant intelligence in some of its most cartoonish moments. Jimmy’s self-imposed exile and subsequent befriending of an older man who has a similar brand of ornery exile could easily be read as a hackneyed way of illustrating the inevitable future product of Jimmy’s isolationism. In a certain sense, it is. Yet when the parallel between Jimmy and Burt is so obvious, Jimmy’s inability to see the clarity of the connection is a revealing way of exploring the his internal blindness.

He’s not only blind to the way that he has savaged Gretchen’s life and mental stability. He is blind to what his own exile will do—and is doing—to himself. The character work is deeply compelling. Yet, that should not obscure the fact that the show has lost its comedic edge, some of its restraint in the representation of depravity, and some of its subtlety in characterization and thematics.

I do not wish to condemn the show, but I am concerned that without tighter writing, the series will fade into an obscure death. The team behind the show is—if the first season is any indication—too smart to allow that to happen. Moreover, I anticipate that as the show hits its midseason stride, and settles into the strides that “You’re the Worst” is so skilled at subverting, it will fulfill the potential it’s shown before.

It’s just not there right now. One can only hope that it will find its ornery voice once again.

—Staff writer Aziz B. Yakub can be reached at aziz.yakub@thecrimson.com.