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S03.E03: Bad News: Dude's Dead

Tara Ariano

By Tara Ariano
in You're The Worst [V]

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Deanie87

Deanie87

Yeah, it does seem to have gotten quite a bit broader and my (hopefully unfounded) fear is that the writers are making the common mistake of taking what makes a character funny and/or endearing and then magnifying it to 1000.  I know that these people are awful, but there was always a glimpse of humanity in there among all of the narcissism and sociopathy.  Quite a few characters have been lacking that so far this season, at least for me.  I may have to go back and watch the first season again, because maybe I am just misremembering the characters.  For example, I thought that a pregnant Becca having 1-2 glasses of wine to be totally in character and funny, but chugging bottles of it not so much.  Gretchen panicking about Jimmy's dad's death was completely in character. But to throw a party and wait for him to find out in a public way by other people seems low even for her.   Also, Lindsey stabbing Paul was funny in all of its shocking glory but her lack of real empathy toward him since then gets less and less funny.   

Jimmy is my favorite, and I nearly always find his self-involvement and pretension to be very funny and that hasn't changed.  I look forward to seeing his semi-dramatic arc this season, so if nothing else, I am looking forward to that.

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tennisgurl

tennisgurl

I admit I laughed out loud quite a few times, especially when Vernon starting playing Taps at Edgar. That was pretty classic YTW right there. And the return of Jimmys pre-written heckles is always a win. I was right there cheering with Vernon at the prospect of hearing Jimmy reading outdated heckles. 

That all being said, I was not thrilled with Gretchen this episode. I get that she hates the idea of having to be emotional support to a person, or seeing Jimmy in a vulnerable situation, but she seemed to be a little too The Worst this episode. Her constant intense self absorption and lack of real care for Jimmy's feelings (even after he bought her tickets to the animal meme cruise!) was honestly kind of hard to watch, but I guess that is the line this show always walks. Keeping the characters likable assholes, and making sure you keep the "likable" and the "asshole" parts in equal balance. Hopefully they course correct a bit next week. I still have a lot of faith in these writers/show runners, so I am still excited to see this play out. And, I did actually kind of like Gretchen giving Jimmy a BJ seconds after she tells Jimmy that his dad is dead. It works almost more metaphorically than it does as an actual character beat, how Gretchen immediately falls into her "sex and drugs and booze so we dont have to deal with Real Stuff" tendencies.  

Jimmy is my favorite character, so I am excited to see him get some focus after Gretchen got the big emotional arc last season. I hope Gretchen actually remembers some of this, and shows that she can offer Jimmy some real support. Maybe that wont involved blow jobs.  

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FurryFury

FurryFury

It was a good episode, hard to watch at times, but genuinely good.

I have to say I have a lot of love for Edgar, while Lindsey continues on her path to being The Worst from the title. Sorry hun, you don't fool me.

Loved some of the jokes, like both sisters getting drunk while pregnant (really true to the show), Gretchen blowing Jimmy after telling him the news (also true to the show), and Gretchen being so excited about Instagram Pets cruise.

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arc

arc

2 hours ago, wendyg said:

Was glad to see Vernon and Becca and Killian back. Not familiar with the term "motorboating"; when did that come into use?

At least 12 years ago, according to Urban Dictionary's date stamp for "motorboat".

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whiporee

whiporee

No one's pointed this out, but Gretchen's description of the cruise included the phrase "when the adults are at the casino or something, they've got places to be with other kids" or something to that effect. I thought the regression there was priceless. 

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scrb

scrb

On 9/15/2016 at 8:41 AM, Deanie87 said:

Yeah, it does seem to have gotten quite a bit broader and my (hopefully unfounded) fear is that the writers are making the common mistake of taking what makes a character funny and/or endearing and then magnifying it to 1000.  I know that these people are awful, but there was always a glimpse of humanity in there among all of the narcissism and sociopathy.  Quite a few characters have been lacking that so far this season, at least for me.  I may have to go back and watch the first season again, because maybe I am just misremembering the characters.  For example, I thought that a pregnant Becca having 1-2 glasses of wine to be totally in character and funny, but chugging bottles of it not so much.  Gretchen panicking about Jimmy's dad's death was completely in character. But to throw a party and wait for him to find out in a public way by other people seems low even for her.   Also, Lindsey stabbing Paul was funny in all of its shocking glory but her lack of real empathy toward him since then gets less and less funny.   

Jimmy is my favorite, and I nearly always find his self-involvement and pretension to be very funny and that hasn't changed.  I look forward to seeing his semi-dramatic arc this season, so if nothing else, I am looking forward to that.

I can't tell if the slow motion montage of the party is meant to show how awful, even grotesque these people are or they're trying to be shocking, pushing the TV envelope, particularly with the women characters -- binge-drinking while obviously pregnant, the too overt things they did with the popsicles, etc.

Are any of them self-aware or are they blithely and obliviously awful people?

Was Gretchen deliberately being inappropriate, the way she aggressively accosted the therapist and ate her food and drank her coffee or does she not know better?  She did pay for the food and coffee, suggesting that she knows what she did was wrong.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

I generally don't like watching shows about completely unlikable people (so no Mad Men or Sopranos for me), but for some reason, You're The Worst has yet to cross that line. Lindsey, though, is really pushing it. As for Gretchen, well, she gets a pass so far because of her mental health problems (and also for being so damn funny). I don't think she's human garbage - she just actively tries to avoid caring, but isn't that successful at that, as we can see. (ditto for Jimmy)

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wendyg

wendyg

I thought the money Gretchen left was for the therapy, not the food and drink.

I actually like the way she's treating the therapist very much like she treated Jimmy at the beginning - the link being that both are people she knows she needs and whose help she wants but who scare her. She's pushing the boundaries to see how far the therapist will let her go - and the therapist, IMO, knows this is what's happening and has actually been pretty good about setting the limits she has to. I think she has Gretchen pretty well figured out.

Becca was binge-drinking while pregnant last year, too. "I can have one," she told anyone who was looking at the party that ended last season, over many, many drinks.

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Wryly

Wryly

I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. They're really crossing from funny shallowness into stomach-turning shallowness. Everyone exploiting Blissfully Ignorant Jimmy for their own selfish reasons, partying while knowing his dad's dead. Foisting the responsibility of telling Jimmy on POOR EDGAR, who is coping with so many horrendous things already (not that anyone cares). That poor kid says his dad abandoned him and he's living alone, but no one gives a crap.

Lindsey is just a horrible person. She's not even "adorable horrible" (adhorrible?) anymore. Stabbing Paul -- wtf -- and then the HORROR of her amateur first aid on him, stuffing everything from gauze to her fingers INSIDE his wound, unphased by his cries of pain. Why did she even get back together with him? That was stupid. He'd found the perfect woman for him, he was happy, and Lindsey never loved him anyway. They could have raised the kid joint custody style. If Lindsey was lucky, anyway. In actuality I can't imagine her being a fit mother. And goddamn -- she motorboated a minor. That scene made me so uncomfortable. The kid looked miserable. Not acceptable, Linds.

Finally Gretchen woman'ed up and told Jimmy about his dad's death -- and good thing, too, cuz if she'd went ahead with making Edgar do it, I'd never have forgiven her. That "... I sold a book, Daddy!" phone call was heartbreaking. I'm assuming that last scene was supposed to indicate that Gretchen was going to give Jimmy oral sex? The idea being... what, that she's so emotionally inept that she doesn't know any other way to comfort someone who's grieving? I think I'd be furious if someone told me a loved one died and then attempted to follow this up with oral sex. Are you freaking kidding me. Eh. Maybe it's just me.

Why aren't Edgar and Paul fast friends? There's a bromance waiting to happen there. That could be a very mutually supportive relationship.

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kieyra

kieyra

(edited)

I'm new to the show and bingeing like crazy so I might have the wrong episode, but I loved the line where Jimmy calls out Edgar's resemblance to Lin Manuel Miranda (the joke about In The Heights). Every other show would have made it a Hamilton reference instead. 

Again, binge perspective but: the Lindsey character and her marriage have always struck me as the completely ridiculous couple that makes the primary couple look sane-ish by comparison. They provide contrast as the truly awful people who aren't connecting on any level at all, and thus we see the real (if shaky) connection between Jimmy and Gretchen.

They're just cartoon characters, basically, especially upon bingeing (I mean, Lindsey was wearing a "Naughty Nurse" Halloween costume, for Christ's sake), so I don't attempt to apply actual behavioral judgements to them as actual characters.

(Honestly, I fast-forward through a lot of the heavily Paul-centric stuff, he's so thinly developed. Lindsey is at least fun to watch and the actress is hilarious.) 

Edited by kieyra
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wendyg

wendyg

Kleyra: slowing down during the Paul-centric stuff might show you he's not as thinly developed as you think. I think that unlike most of the other characters he really does try to do the right thing, and the result is he's someone who gets trampled by the stronger characters around him and is despised as a result (which makes him more desperate to be liked). Plus, he really *does* look like a young Roger Ebert!

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