S04.E12: Like People / S04.E13 It's Always Been This Way

[ElectricBoogaloo]

SEASON FINALE!

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Gretchen spends the day with Boone and his daughter in an attempt to distract herself from having slept with Jimmy the previous night, while Jimmy tries to prove to himself he's moved on. Lindsay attempts to save Olivia from getting too close to the unreliable Gretchen, and Edgar trails Max to figure out why they're no longer writing partners.

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Jimmy and Gretchen go for a long drive to force a conclusion on the confusing state of their relationship. Edgar finds closure with Max while Lindsay figures out a way to solve Becca, Vernon, and Paul's problems all at once.

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[AfterwardsTV]

You also should combine "It's Always Been This Way" into this thread.

[Irlandesa]

I thought Chris Geere was really good in both of these episodes. 

I'm glad Jimmy and Gretchen are back together.  Having them apart took too long this season.  I still am a little annoyed that none of the arguing about "fighting for Gretchen" involved Jimmy's actions in the season when she was depressed.  I'd  say that's the most real-world example of being fought for.  I did find it amusing that she somehow told Jimmy that she finger banged Boone's ex.

Becca carrying Paul's baby could have some good potential for comedy.  I'm glad he has left the MRA group. 

The only person for whom "I choose me" makes sense is Edgar so good for him.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

You know someone has a skewed sense of what is good and what is bad when he sees that his car is on fire and he smiles about it.

[arc]

4 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

You know someone has a skewed sense of what is good and what is bad when he sees that his car is on fire and he smiles about it.

It totally makes sense here. (You probably know but) It's a message about their shared history. The electrical fire from a vibrator hooked up via Christmas lights as an extension cord was what burned down Gretchen's old place and spurred them to move in together in the first place. Compared to an admittedly sweet hot rod that Jimmy probably has little real emotional connection to, I totally buy the smile.

Gretchen and Jimmy had a bunch of real moments here but I still feel underwhelmed by the season as a whole. In a way it feels like a season-long stall before the endgame season. They went through this whole season just so now Gretch and Jimmy are engaged again? That's where they were at the end of last season! (Or at least right before Jimmy ditched her.)

I also felt the Max storyline dragged out too much, esp considering he's really awful. (Side note, I just remembered Edgar's line from the first Sunday Funday: "Fun hipster shit is just poor Latino shit from ten years ago." I guess he would tamp some of that attitude down to fit in with Max, but at some point you'd think he'd see that Max is fundamentally a kind of incompatible friend even if he wasn't a selfish conditional friend.)

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I still am a little annoyed that none of the arguing about "fighting for Gretchen" involved Jimmy's actions in the season when she was depressed.  I'd  say that's the most real-world example of being fought for.

Agreed, this season has contradicted or ignored a bunch of important stuff from the previous seasons.

"I was supposed to go AWOL with my buddy Bowe" is an amazing joke esp how underplayed it was.

Edited November 16, 2017 by arc

[BeckyThatcher]

Lindsey’s “I’m a helper- like the glove for hamburger” was perfect.

Subverting the Kelly Taylor moment was good to experience, even if it’s decades later.

Edited November 16, 2017 by BeckyThatcher
Kelly Taylor

[Deanie87]

I'm really glad that they are finally back together, although I think that resuming the engagement might be a little premature.  The kitchen scene was well done, but I was screaming in my head "she's gonna pull a Kelly Taylor" and sure enough, she did.  To illustrate my main problem with that, I will show my age and quote/paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen.  "I know Kelly Taylor, and you ma'am are NO Kelly Taylor."  Kelly was super annoying, but Gretchen is just nearly unredeemable to me at this point.  So her rant about how she deserves better and shouldn't need other people to tell her that she is worthy just fell flat.  It's not that I think Jimmy or Boone are vastly morally superior to her, but they both seem to have at least a tiny bit of self-awareness that Gretchen doesn't have.  I don't know if I'm supposed to cheer her on, or sympathize with her or what, but I just don't.  It may be my age/generation (see my Bentsen/Quayle quote above) because I have browsed this show's forum on Reddit (which I believe skews much younger) and nearly everyone there hates Jimmy and completely relates to and sympathizes with Gretchen.  I will try not to think too much on that. Her self-destruction hurts other people constantly, now including a completely innocent little girl, though much of the blame goes to Boone there, and I did love that Olivia thew his hand off her in disgust.  We are all Olivia in that moment.

So believe it or not, I still do root for them as a couple and am hoping that with the two of them together next season, things will get better.  They don't exactly bring out the best in one another, but at least they are entertaining when they are together and have a certain warped sweetness about them.  They really do have great chemistry and they just seem right for one another somehow.  Aya Cash gets most of the accolades, and she deserves them, but Chris Geere as Jimmy is the one who really brings the emotional punch to their relationship for me (and I think that he is vastly funnier).  I appreciated that Jimmy truly understands how wrong he was, and also told Gretchen that his leaving wasn't about her but about him, but he also stuck up for himself when he needed to.  Their fight outside of the hotel was really well done and I understood where they were both coming from.  

I liked how everyone was together this episode and the show truly works much better when they all interact.  Yay for Lindsay finally becoming a semi-functioning human being (I love how she can't remember the actual names of things like hamburger glove, trash grouch, etc.)  Yikes to Vernon, though, and I shouldn't have laughed at how meh they all were on Tallulah ("is she though?") but I did.  I found myself zoning completely out whenever Edgar's storyline was on and I simply do not care even one bit about the comedy show or any guy on the show who wears vests and hats (and now that includes Edgar).  Anyway, I have enjoyed the last couple of episodes, but I am glad that the show is working toward its end.

[iMonrey]

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"I was supposed to go AWOL with my buddy Bowe" is an amazing joke esp how underplayed it was.

OH - I didn't catch that. I heard the line but missed who he was referring to.

This felt like a potential series finale. Does anyone know if they filmed this before finding out if they would get another season? I wouldn't feel like we'd been left hanging if they ended the show here - pretty much everyone got some closure. 

[possibilities]

Jimmy should have left a note at least, instead of having her wake up alone. I got why she was upset there, and I thought he should have understood as well, and not been so quick to get defensive and lose patience over it. Yes, he wants to move on, but he never really did sit still and listen to how much he hurt her. He wanted to skip to the reconciliation. It doesn't work that way. He says he's changed, but has he? We'll have to wait and see.

That said, I'm not making excuses for Gretchen either.

[Blakeston]

7 hours ago, Deanie87 said:

Her self-destruction hurts other people constantly, now including a completely innocent little girl, though much of the blame goes to Boone there, and I did love that Olivia thew his hand off her in disgust.  We are all Olivia in that moment.

What did Boone do that was so bad?

It was a bad move letting Olivia get so close to Gretchen. But to be fair to him, he didn't want to even introduce them. Gretchen went out of her way to begin a relationship with Olivia, despite Boone's wishes.

In the end, I thought this season seemed very half-assed. That was really the best they could do for an Edgar storyline, after giving him so much wonderful material last season?

I also don't really buy that Becca loves pregnancy. I can buy that she was happy when she was pregnant with Tallulah - it allowed her to play the role of "earth mother with a perfect marriage to her doctor husband." But that's a radically different situation from being a surrogate for someone you don't like.

[AfterwardsTV]

I wasn't impressed by Gretchen's "realization" either, because it felt very surface level common sense, and as a whole we were following Jimmy's perspective better throughout the hour. All we knew from Gretchen's POV is that she was trying to hog as much love to herself as possible while pretending it was the first time she's ever acted selfish. + the abandonment breakdown at start of hour. Meanwhile we got to see Jimmy enter an unusually quiet and sad state that made him be nice to people.

I think saving Gretchen's therapy until after this big falling out would've done wonders to make it feel less like she regressed. It's not illogical for a setback to happen, but to that degree....JFC. What annoys me is that Gretchen had this whole new "buying in" situation presented to her without her having to do a lick of personal growth to attain it. They needed Gretchen to have options for another one of Jimmy's "coming through" moments to land, just wish he hit the right guy because I despise Boone.

Despite my gripes (mostly with the comedy hurting the depth throughout the middle of the season), it was necessary to redeem Lindsay's character and get through the "I'm gonna leave you anyways" stage of Jimmy/Gretchen.

Hopefully the final season has Jimmy/Gretchen adopt Killian (perfect situation since for Killian that counts as an improvement) and Lindsay/Edgar can get together as their mature selves (and do more duets). 

[iMonrey]

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He says he's changed, but has he? 

I'm giving it a cautious "yes." Only because his outpouring of actual feelings and regret while Boone was trying to drag him out of the kitchen is something I can't ever picture him doing back in the Season 1. His realization and confession seemed pretty genuine and heartfelt. I can't even picture him having those emotions three years ago.

[butterbody]

I love that Jimmy and Edgar each assumed that Killian in the leprechaun costume was just another hallucination. Did he get mugged in the background?

[possibilities]

My thinking on Jimmy is that he might have changed, but he also might be the sort of person who acts noble when he thinks no one will take him up on it, but when it gets real, he freaks out and bails. We've seen him be very nice before-- as when he proposed with that elaborate murder scene scheme which was perfect for Gretchen-- but we don't know if he just likes the chase or if he is actually there once he gets what he was after.

[Irlandesa]

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

we don't know if he just likes the chase or if he is actually there once he gets what he was after.

I don't want to keep going back to Gretchen's bout with depression (or do I?) but things got very real then.  While it's true, she was telling him he could have sex with whoever he wanted, I still think it's the biggest show of adhering to the "for worse" stages of a long term relationship.  Because that sure as heck wasn't a fun chase. 

Jimmy did panic when he saw her put the ring back on but he seemed to get over that pretty quickly when they were yelling at the people behind them in the car. 

So has Jimmy changed?  I don't know. He is self-centered for both better and worse.  He is wanting to just get back to the pre-abandonment stage.  But I also think he self-diagnoses better. However he screws up in the future, I feel it'll be different than how he has screwed up in the past.

I think the final kitchen confrontation was interesting because I think both Jimmy and Gretchen were performing there.  Jimmy was giving Gretchen what she thought she needed in a dramatic romcom "I will fight for you" flourish.  In reality, he has kind of been fighting for her, in that he was waiting for her, all season long. . Gretchen's Kelly Taylor moment was modeling what she felt would be healthy behavior.  But I think that's all it was for her--a performance.  The minute Jimmy threw the punch, he had won her back.

[arc]

I love little continuity drop-ins. I was just now rewatching a bit of "Try Real Hard" (s03e01) to see the part where Gretchen spoke fluent Spanish. Y'know, to get the Mexican church congregation to attend her party next door. Anyways, that's where the preacher told her to hurry up her message because the church turns into Pharrell's sneaker pop-up after midnight, and Gretchen also said she remembered when that church was a crepe restaurant.

So, probably exactly the same sneaker pop-up Edgar invited Max to in s04e12.

[Deanie87]

18 hours ago, Blakeston said:

What did Boone do that was so bad?

I think that knowing who Gretchen is, it is irresponsible at best, for him to get ever more serious with her knowing that she is going to be an influence on Olivia.  Then again, considering Boone's behavior around the wife's new boyfriend/husband and the company he keeps with the rich producer, etc., Boone has issues of his own.  Maybe Gretchen would have taken the "step-mother" role seriously eventually, but that seems like too big of an unknown to invite her to live with him so early.

[iMonrey]

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I love that Jimmy and Edgar each assumed that Killian in the leprechaun costume was just another hallucination. Did he get mugged in the background?

Yes! I forgot about that but in the background you see some guy walk up to him, bash him in the head and take the money Jimmy just gave him!

[Ottis]

I don’t know what happened, but my DVR only hit the last few minutes of one episode and then the whole of the second episode. So all I saw was Gretchen awake in bed (of course), Jimmy leaving, the car on fire and Jimmy’s smile. I don’t know who Walter is. 

Even so, I have no desire to see what I missed because if it ended up with Gretchen being psycho again, no thanks. 

But that’s OK, she saves it for later when she tells Jimny she is moving in with Boone and she and Jimmy can’t be friends. And then she refuses his apology. And then falls back on her personal insecurity and yet is angry for Jimmy for it. 

Yay for Lindsay at least.

And Gretchen, hate to break it to you, but you have always chosen yourself.

[possibilities]

I agree that Jimmy stuck it out when Gretchen was depressed, but I think that in a way that was comfortable for him because he's less threatened by distance than by intimacy. I do think he's changed somewhat, I just don't know how much. Last season, I thought Gretchen had changed a little, after her therapy started to take a little bit (not that she wasn't still way off the ledge, but she had flashes of seeming insight now and then). But she regressed tremendously this season and it's like none of that ever happened. I think that if the two of them became not the worst, the show would end, so any progress might be negated by new forms of conflict and new outbreaks of crazy. We'll see.

[wendyg]

For those who don't speak Spanish, the sentence Gretchen was teaching Olivia to say, which she told her meant "Your mother works at night" and which Olivia dutifully repeated actually means "Your mother is a prostitute."

I liked that Vernon was drinking "trasharitas" on his beach. That man really loves his trash juice. No surprise he fell asleep in the OR - he's been warning for quite some episodes now that he was exhausted.

I guess season 5 ends with their wedding.

Edited November 21, 2017 by wendyg

[MaggieG]

I thought it was funny when Lindsay called and said Vernon showed up covered in blood, both Jimmy and Gretchen thought he killed Becca. They also had bets on when he would do it

[Bubbles]

On 2017-11-21 at 1:20 PM, MaggieG said:

I thought it was funny when Lindsay called and said Vernon showed up covered in blood, both Jimmy and Gretchen thought he killed Becca. They also had bets on when he would do it

And they seemed genuinely disappointed when they found out he hadn't. 

[April Bloodgate]

I'm glad the season ended with them back together, but I don't like how they got there. I didn't buy most of what happened between them this episode. Most of this season felt like a waste to me, especially the Edgar stuff. He's so great and they gave him such a boring nothing of a plot.

[wendyg]

Not just that, but the character they put Edgar with was so annoying and so obviously an obnoxious little snert. I think there was a genuinely reasonable idea there, that Edgar, having been so poor and traumatized for so long, would struggle to adapt to being more-than-solvent, but there might have been a much more interesting story in seeing Jimmy's world up-ended, first by Gretchen throwing him out of his bedroom and then by Edgar no longer being indebted to Jimmy by having his own money. Especially since Jimmy was long established as a character who loves to be in control. (I kept wondering where Jimmy was sleeping. I also wish the show had explained that.)

[kieyra]

Edgar's friend, whose name I don't know because I checked out of those scenes early on, felt like a stand in for a person (or type of person) the writers had some grudge against, much like the self-loathing, anorgasmic female romance writer. This ... doesn't feel like a good way to make characters or characters arcs, such as Paul's weird flirtation with MRA stuff, which felt like it was just there to set up the meme punch.