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You’re The Worst Season 1 Review

At one point in the premiere, Jimmy compliments Gretchen on one of the many damning but clever speeches she throws his way, calling her words, "Funny, true and mean - my favorite kind." Personally, I'd say the same of You're the Worst as a whole.

You're the Worst

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Both comedies take a been-there-done-that, warts-and-all approach to sexuality (though You’re the Worst definitely treats sex as something at least fun, not just another menial chore), and both feature jaded protagonists who have big issues with the current state of affairs in their lives and in the world as a whole. However, on You’re the Worst, it actually feels like something is being accomplished in the protagonists’ tag-team disparaging of modern culture. The dialogue is cutting, but it forms character and serves to deepen the relationship between Jimmy and Gretchen. The writing is also slyly subversive, to the point where I found myself nodding my head at some of the offensive but still on-the-mark conversations they have.

In their shared penchant for brutal and often excessive honesty, Jimmy and Gretchen find each other, agreeing to build a relationship with 100% honesty. If they both know it has no shot of working out, they conclude, what the hell, right? In any mainstream Hollywood romcom, this new arrangement would only exist for a matter of minutes before the two would begin to melt one other’s armor and see each another for the perfect matches they truly are. That doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon on You’re the Worst – though, given that I’ve only seen the two episodes given to critics in advance, I could be wrong about that.

For the time being, however, it’s great to see You’re the Worst premiere with such clarity of purpose. Like its no-nonsense, abrasive characters, the show as a whole doesn’t seem to care about being critically adored or eaten up by the masses. It has an obvious vision for where it wants to take its characters (as opposed to the seemingly aimless Married, which didn’t hook me in twice as many episodes as I was provided for You’re the Worst), and its humor is sharper than the previews would have you believe.

And sure, the partial nudity is great, and Cash’s willingness to do that will probably draw in a sizable crowd for You’re the Worst‘s premiere tonight. But there’s also a lot more to You’re the Worst than just the sex. And as it subversively points out, there’s a lot more to sex than just sex – even the type pre-packaged with “no strings attached.” That’s how Jimmy and Gretchen connect at first, and now that they’re tethered together by something that’s certainly not love but definitely more than just lust, the potential for You’re the Worst to develop into a sitcom that can deliver its raunch with wit and intelligence seems sky high.

The second episode is almost as funny as the first, and Cash and Geere demonstrate a brilliant comic timing that should keep the show afloat even if the writing goes stale at some point. But Falk seems to know exactly what he’s getting into, and I’d wager he’s still warming up in the first two episodes, waiting until his characters are better developed to really pull out the big guns.

For now, though, You’re the Worst has made a great first impression, and you’ll want to stick with it.

Fantastic

At one point in the premiere, Jimmy compliments Gretchen on one of the many damning but clever speeches she throws his way, calling her words, "Funny and true and mean - my favorite kind." Personally, I'd say the same of You're the Worst as a whole.

You're The Worst Season 1 Review