2) You’re the Worst – “You Stayed?”
Calling You’re the Worst a half-hour comedy is like calling Game of Thrones a medieval fantasy – it’s a disservice to the nuance of the show. You’re the Worst is also hiking away from its blatant macabre silliness that dominated season one; the characters are still deviously humorous in their self-aware misanthropy, but the year’s 2015 run gave one in particular a surprising origin story for all of the personality traits we’ve come to love.
Gretchen, it turns out, has been diagnosed with clinical depression since she was young. As she tells boyfriend Jimmy mid-way into season two, she can usually deal with it with her classic brand of cutting wit and carefully weaponized distance from others. That’s the entire reason Jimmy fell for Gretchen in the first place, a bold statement for a series known for bold statements, even if it occasionally careened year two of You’re the Worst into some of the most maudlin “sitcom” episodes I’ve ever seen on TV. It all culminates in the penultimate episode of the season, when Jimmy is seduced by a cute bronze-medal Olympian/bartender to ditch Gretchen’s can’t-be-fixed depression behind for a weekend at a woodland cabin.
[zergpaid]He does so, leaving Gretchen lying in a lump at their Los Angeles abode, but when the sultry bartender arrives to pick him up, he dives for the bushes, embracing the rom-com you knew who to choose all along cliche as he walks back into the house. There, he silently builds a pillow fort around his living room floor-locked girlfriend, before embracing her.
“You stayed?” An introverted, rock bottom Gretchen asks in full-on tears. “You stayed.” Sad in its spoken clarity but euphoric in the potentially bright future it hints at for such well-drawn, weirdo characters, those two words – and the moment they embody – finally justify a gloomy twist that could have otherwise driven a great show into a mawkish mess.
Published: Dec 29, 2015 02:57 pm