I saw a lot of conflicting feelings from you all last episode about Jimmy’s dive into infidelity. (I wonder if that language is necessarily appropriate, though. Does what Gretchen said to him constitute a break-up? In this scenario, is Nina the other woman or a rebound?) Well, we needn’t have worried about Jimmy, at least not right away, for he is his own worst enemy: His foot fetish kills the mood because Nina has some disgusting, brutalized-by-skiing toes. Or, as he puts it, “It looks like these things got caught in the gears of a clock.â€
As the moment officially ends, Nina decides she’d rather not get busy on the bar — a lifetime of drunken sloppy hook-ups can do that to a girl, she says — but they can “do this right†when she picks Jimmy up later to go to her cabin. Jimmy, temporarily victorious, emerges into blinding daylight with his belt slung over his shoulder like some kind of fair, British wannabe cowboy.
When Jimmy gets home, Gretchen is sleeping. Jimmy reacts in the way that, honestly, I think he would have reacted four episodes ago. “You know what, you’re being dramatic and self-pitying and frankly it’s unbecoming. Just snap out of it. Just stop it Gretchen. Just stop it!†he says. Then we get a pretty funny bit in which Gretchen refuses to talk to Jimmy and will only communicate via text. Jimmy swipes her phone, calls all her contacts, and makes anyone who has any relationship with Gretchen whatsoever come over for a series of interventions.
A few highlights from this excellent sequence: Lindsay’s apologies (“I’m sorry I gave you scabies. I’m sorry I left you alone at that party with Moby. I’m sorry that during the Rock of Love auditions, I called you the poor man’s Isla Fisher.â€); Becca’s narcissism and self-righteousness masquerading as concern (“Your mother didn’t recklessly and needlessly vaccinate you, did she?â€); the return of Killian (“I forgot my joke.â€); and the not-so-cool slightly-older dude (“I have a separate credit card, my dad gave it to me for emergencies.â€)
Jimmy asks Gretchen, again, to explain what she’s going through. Gretchen attempts to articulate how it feels to be depressed: “I’m scraped out. I’m that car we sent to Mars flipped upside down so the sun can’t reach my solar panels. I’ve always been able to flip myself back over eventually, but I ran out of times. This is how I am now and it’s not okay with you, nor should it be.â€
Jimmy almost leaves with Nina, but changes his mind, then he builds Gretchen a beautiful fort and she sobs with relief that he decided to stay. This is cathartic and powerful and all, truly, but … why did it take Jimmy so long to make a concerted, no-bullshit effort to comprehend and help Gretchen in a meaningful way? I understand Jimmy was trying to give her space and not “fix†her and such, but it seemed more like he checked out because things got hard and weird. If that’s how the show wants Jimmy to be, I can go with that; the series is called You’re the Worst, not You’re the Thoughtful, Considerate Boyfriend Who Sticks Around No Matter What. The idea that this week, though, Jimmy has suddenly decided to check back in, to not quit because things are hard and weird … I want to believe! I’m just not sure I buy this arc.
In other plots, I’m excited to watch Edgar come into his own, as he figures out his identity beyond “Jimmy’s roommate†and “veteran with PTSD.†Dorothy is a little annoying, sure, but maybe she seems that way because we see her from Jimmy and Gretchen’s perspective, and those kids are annoyed by everyone and everything. It’s funny to watch Edgar run the Bloody Mary bar, but we’ve known for a long time what Edgar appears to finally realize: Jimmy doesn’t treat Edgar like a full human being. (“He still just thinks of me as a freeloading veteran with perfect features.â€) As soon as we heard about Dorothy’s apartment troubles, I thought: GO FOR IT, EDGAR. Dip those fries into a milkshake with your girlfriend. That is not a euphemism.
I’m also intrigued by Lindsay’s (apparently) sincere efforts to be a better person, even though she treats “being better†like every day is Yom Kippur, apologizing for infractions great and small. I’m not so sure how seriously we’re supposed to take Lindsay’s brush with violence at the radio station* — when she brought it up this time I was like, “Oh, right! That happened!†— but she’s treating it like an epiphany-inducer. She even tells Becca that she loves her so, there’s that. The gender of Becca’s baby is still a secret, but don’t worry: “From the length of my mucus, I have a guess.â€
Lindsay is also very slick when she crashes Paul and Amy’s picnic, just materializing out of the ether with wine in her hand and signed divorced papers in her bag. I, like Lindsay, am happy Paul has found happiness with someone who loves him, as Amy does, “to the end of the galaxy, which is ever-expanding, so technically not an actual place.†(Lindsay, sassy as all get-out, “You just talked back to me. Never do that again.â€) Everything is fine until Lindsay vomits. As readers of my other recaps may know, according to the Inviolable Rules of Television Health and Medicine, when a woman throws up, she is always pregnant. First Petra on Jane the Virgin, now Lindsay — we’re one secret-turkey-baster-baby-made-with-your-ex’s-sperm away from a trend!
The Worst: Lindsay’s pregnancy. Welp.
Runners-Up: The bad production of Caucasian Chalk Circle that ruined Jimmy’s entire summer, when your Tamagotchi starves to death, the names Gretchen gives the contacts on her phone (I bet “racist but hot†is a real winner), Jimmy texting Nina “new phone who dis,†how there was no bear when Lindsay and Gretchen went camping together and “a bear†pooped in Gretchen’s sleeping bag.
A Few Good Things: Olympic Village (“It’s like a rap video from the ’90s, except everybody’s pale and has pins in their legs.â€), watching Maury Povich while masturbating, the fact that Lindsay wants to know if she’ll be “an aunt or an uncle,†getting furniture that’s not just trash off the street.
*A previous version of this recap incorrectly stated that Lindsay attempted suicide at the radio station.