The first season of FXX’s You’re the Worst was a story about how two people, Jimmy (Chris Greere) and Gretchen (Aya Cash) were falling for each other, despite not wanting anything resembling a modern relationship. The show, created by Orange is the New Black exec Stephen Falk, came out of nowhere as it featured almost all newcomers. The concept might sound cliche, but through sharp dialogue, real performances and lots of alcohol and drugs, the idea was very fresh and the show was a sleeper hit last year.
Jimmy and Gretchen aren’t always happy with each other. In fact, they argued quite a bit in the first season and despite real moments of affection, the duo battled with their emotions and becoming adults. In an interview with Vox, series creator David Falk said those inner struggles, like the one between the two main characters, drove the story.
“Where there’s no conflict, there’s no story. Where there’s no story, I think you can only get by with a good hang for so long,” Falk said. “There has to be story and conflict. I’m a big believer in that.”
There’s plenty of conflict in the first episode of season two.
We last left off with Christmas lights burning Gretchen’s apartment down, so she now lives with Jimmy and his friend Edgar — the latter who’s now got a job at a gym scrubbing equipment. Edgar needs to wake up early, but Gretchen and Jimmy’s excessive loudness from partying (she needed to show the British Jimmy House Party for the first time) are keeping him up. He asks them to be quiet, but they hold a vote on whether to remain quiet, and they outnumber him and continue on.
Both soon realize the partying is taking a toll on them. Jimmy is passing out in bars, needing to call his emergency contact Edgar to bring him Gatorade, while Gretchen can barely function at work.
In our side plot, Lindsay is still taking her surprise divorce from Paul, who’s about to meet his new chat room girlfriend IRL, poorly. After he comes over to get her to sign papers, to remove her from joint accounts, she manages to trick him into staying and having sex. Proud in her deceit, Lindsay is shocked to learn Paul’s unhappy with cheating on his new online squeeze. Edgar, who hasn’t been hiding his affection for Lindsay, comes over to check on her and finds her crying in her wedding dress. He calms her down and tells her to shed everything she owns of his, and she does — except for the sperm she kept from last night, which she hides in a balloon (or a really huge condom) in the fridge.
(Image via FXX)
Gretchen and Jimmy, meanwhile, want to tell each other they need a mellow night, but both don’t want to admit it and become “sweater people.” On Lindsay’s suggestion, Gretchen dresses up in a sexy outfit and asks Jimmy if he wants to do butt stuff, which he begrudgingly accepts (because he’s tired). “I’m just excited for a night of drugs and potentially dangerous sex acts.”
The two end up having another cocaine-fueled night, and keep failing on plans to have a normal night in. They meet hipsters in a bar and when they’re laughed at for doing cocaine (it’s seen as a drug for old people), they buy Belgium pills off of them, and take those instead. That plan goes catastrophically bad (they hijack a Google-maps type car and crash it – which is hilariously recapped from the perspective of the car in the end credits) and the two decide they need to slow down. But they don’t, as they fittingly go to the bar.
The premiere didn’t miss a beat. Gretchen and Jimmy are struggling to fully adjust to adulthood, and despite not getting that mellow night they needed, going to the bar just to drink is their form of calmness.
It’s very easy to show a call underrated, but You’re the Worst may deserve that distinction more than any other show. Not many people tuned in to watch the first season, which is a shame, because when it’s on, the show is not only gut-bustingly funny, but touching and affecting. Jimmy and Gretchen may seem like bad people sometimes, but their hearts are firmly in the right place. Season two continued the promising dysfunction of all the characters we’ve grown to care about.
