Ever since Gretchen (Aya Cash) was seen crying in her car a few episodes back, You’re the Worst fans have been expecting disaster. As the pieces slowly came together and depression reared its ugly head, we were given even more reason to have a sense of dread. When Gretchen told Jimmy (Chris Geere) that clinical depression was just a piece of who she was, their relationship had an even clearer expiration date than it may have already had. Despite her warnings, Jimmy was still going to try to fix her, because Jimmy fancies himself the cleverest man in any room. After a few episodes of Jimmy’s attempts to make things normal again, it became clear in Wednesday’s episode, “A Rapidly Mutating Virus,” that things may never return to what was normal for them.
This episode opens with Gretchen snorting Adderall in an attempt to feel something. She can’t handle life at Jimmy’s place anymore, so she flees to Lindsay’s (Kether Donohue) for a while, telling Edgar (Desmin Borges) that it’s for Lindsay’s sake, and not hers, and taking the gun that Jimmy’s father had purchased with her to dispose of. She also blows off Jimmy, which sends him in the direction that fans have come to expect. Ever since Halloween, he’s been not-so-casually flirting with Nina the bartender (Tessa Ferrer), which certainly wasn’t unexpected. Jimmy is an insecure man, so Gretchen’s growing distance and his inability to do anything about it was always going to take its toll. After Nina practically invites herself over to Jimmy’s to watch a Buckle Your Shoes holiday special, Jimmy realizes that he may have taken it too far. After some not-so-subtle thigh rubs, Jimmy realizes his mistake and comes clean about his relationship status to Nina, who angrily steals his region-free DVD player and weird British comedy on her way out.
At this point, Gretchen’s moved on to cocaine, and Jimmy finds her doing drugs alone at Lindsay’s house. He proudly informs her that he said no to an opportunity to cheat, and Gretchen reaches her breaking point. In one of the saddest moments on the show thus far, she lays things out for him in the clearest way possible:
“I feel nothing. About anything. Dogs, candy, old Blondie records, nachos, you, me, us. So, for the last time, please go.”
Jimmy leaves right away, and there’s a deep sense of finality in the exchange. Official break-up or not, the two are so far apart, it makes last year’s “Drink Your Milk” seem like a small bump in the road. Gretchen has moved from just hurting herself to hurting those around her, and that insidious apathy that her depression has brought is preventing her from seeking any kind of treatment. Depression is so painful and isolating, but it’s not something that you can just muscle through on your own.
Still, it’s not just her relationship with Jimmy that’s begun spiraling. Sam (Brandon Mychal Smith) is still stuck in his petty beef with his former creative partners, and he keeps making terrible diss tracks and losing his cool with callers in live radio interviews. While these moments add some much-needed humor, it’s becoming clear that Gretchen is losing her grip on her professional life, as well. When a brawl starts after the terrible interview, Gretchen unflinchingly puts the gun (you knew that would come back in a bad way) to a woman’s head, telling her to “run.” While this effectively ends the fight, even Lindsay is a bit unnerved by how far Gretchen has fallen. Still, Lindsay is the only one with who Gretchen is really honest, opening up ever so slightly to tell her how she feels nothing and how even pulling a gun in a fight left her bored. While Lindsay responds with hitting her in the face with a spoon, she’s starting to sense how bad things have really gotten.
Elsewhere, Edgar and Dorothy (Collette Wolfe) have a disastrous barbecue with her old improve buddies that actually brings their relationship to a more honest place, Vernon (Todd Robert Anderson) is hemorrhaging money as a “money slave” to a woman he met online, and pregnancy is turning Becca (Janet Varney) into even more of a monster. However, none of that really matters by the end, when Jimmy inevitably hooks up with Nina in the wake of Gretchen’s rejection. The final two episodes of the season are bound to deal with the fallout, and I’m left wondering if You’re the Worst can even be called a comedy anymore. While it is still as well done and sharp as ever, how much destruction is too much?
