Last nightâs episode of Youâre the Worst dove a little deeper into the death of Jimmyâs father and the ways in which he and Gretchen are dealing with it. Creator/director Stephen Falk describes it as a âtwo-parter of sortsâ with next weekâs episode. If you watch this episode closely, youâll kind of be rewarded for paying extra attention when next weekâs episode airs, which will focus more on Edgarâs ongoing struggles. Recently, we talked about the episode, how selfish everyone is, and why Youâre the Worst can get away with some things other shows canât.
The fourth episode of season three begins with Gretchen giving Jimmy another blowjob while he processes the death of his father. Do you think thatâs a healthy way to deal with death?
I think itâs a very giving thing to do. I think itâs clearly in Gretchenâs psyche. Itâs a tactic to avoid actual human interaction and communication and normal expressions of sympathy. You know, sheâs not good at the normal girlfriend stuff. So no, itâs not healthy at all but it seems to work for them.
I was thinking a lot about it and how itâs not a handjob, itâs not sex. A blowjob is one of the more intimate forms of sexual interaction.
I mean, it makes for damn sure that she doesnât have to talk to him about it. But in her defense, at the end of it she does say, âDo you want to talk about it?â and thatâs when he reveals he totally remembered and he just stole a blowjob.
I feel like a lot of other shows couldnât necessarily get away with him stealing one but they have this relationship where sex isnât treated as a huge deal.
I know what you mean. I think that theyâre both equally selfish in certain ways or at least hedonistic, and so when he says âfree food tastes betterâ I think that appeals to her logic in a way that she canât deny. Even later she tells her therapist that it was a pretty good heckle. So I think heâd only do it with someone he knows is pretty much on the same page.
Jimmy obviously didnât have the best relationship with his father. He seems to believe that if he pretends to feel nothing, heâll actually feel nothing. How will that affect Jimmy this season?
I think the interesting journey for us was to address the fact that obviously the death of a parent, no matter how lukewarm you are on that parent, is going to have some effect. So weâre really stretching that out this season because Jimmy is someone who is not really that aware, even if he thinks he is, of his emotional inner-life. So in this episode, they try to accelerate the grieving process for someone whoâs not in touch with it and sort of ironically, I guess, what comes out is, yes he was feeling something that he was sublimating but that feeling is happiness and a sense of freedom. Which I think from the last image in the episode, the drawer opening, you get the sense that may not be all there is to it.
Itâs fun to watch Gretchen almost use her therapist to provide her own therapy to Jimmy.
She almost thinks that sheâs a little bit more of a master of psychology, now that sheâs had four therapy sessions, than she probably really is.
Gretchenâs relationship with her therapist is definitely unique and we get to know a lot more about her therapist than we normally would on a television show.
I think for me it was really important not to just portray a typical therapist/patient relationship. I think theyâre kind of boring and often just kind of an easy cheat for emotional character exposition. So, for like what we try to do with everyone on our show, we wanted to make sure the character felt well-rounded. And itâs a thing that Iâve heard from some of my friends that are therapists, theyâre just humans. They have patients that theyâre really fascinated by or interested in or would want to be friends with if it wasnât unethical and then other patients who bore the shit out of them. And you know, in creating a young therapist whoâs still kind of trying to feel her way out, we thought those minor little complications, without getting too dramatic about it, would make their relationship feel not only funny and stand out but feel plausible for a relationship between two girls who are around the same age or even the therapist is younger. It felt like an interesting dynamic to us.
We havenât seen them back in the actual therapistâs office since their first meeting, right?
Well yeah, Gretchen has no boundaries whatsoever.
Since the beginning of the season, weâve watched as Lindsay attempts to act like a good wife and mother. But as soon as she sees an opportunity, sheâs willing to cheat on Paul. Will Lindsay ever change?
I think the hallmark of our show is that characters go through profound changes and then itâs revealed that theyâre still exactly who they were. I think thatâs very normal. I do believe people can change, but itâs probably a lot harder than people may think. Any revelation they might have, thereâs always that ability to backslide, and I think thatâs a very human trait.
It turns out that she has this magical, natural ability to swaddle a baby, burp it, and do CPR. She knows all the little tricks, somehow intuitively, and that freaks her out. When her sister Becca tells her that sheâs a natural mom, she immediately takes that to mean thatâs all she can be and will be and that freaks her out. There is something going on, more so than just residual Lindsay horniness, in the scene.
Whatâs going on with Killianâs dad? Whereâs he at?
Well, he left him at the Sunglass Hut and I donât think we know. I donât think at this point in the season we know where Killianâs dad is and so Killian is living alone, fending for himself in that house. Which is just typical of the neglect that they force it on weaker people in the world of Youâre the Worst.
Yeah, and that they just completely ignore this kind of huge problem.
Yeah, this is a jokier, more heightened version of the absence of care that everyone possesses in this show. Itâs an extreme version of selfishness but yeah, his dad couldnât hack it and he bailed. Killian is trying to fend for himself. As the season goes on, weâll see him slide into even greater disrepair. Which is just us as writers entertaining ourselves. We think itâs funny.
How do you set the tone for those kinds of scenes? Something that should maybe be emotional but is played for comedy.
The tone of our show is something thatâs really a moving target. Itâs something weâre constantly needing to calibrate because it does swing so wildly. But I think here in season three, weâve gotten to a point where I feel pretty confident that we earn those moments or that even when things are kind of silly weâre still revealing character, weâre still learning things, or itâs very important to the story and I think somehow it fits. Iâm not sure it could on any other show but somehow in this world with these actors and the tone of the writing, it somehow fits together in a weird sort of way.
How about Jimmyâs drinking? Is that going to become more of an issue this season?
I donât know if weâre going to delve too deeply into it. Weâre not going to suddenly become a show about alcoholism. I think the sort of fun for me is to have these characters kind of express this hedonistic behavior and not really see any bad results of it. Itâs the truth. Iâve always loved British sitcoms where they get to just drink, and fuck, and be carnal, and not have to then make a big deal of it. I think his drinking, while maybe worrisome, particularly in this episode, you realize itâs not true, he wasnât blacked out. Heâs just lying to get a blowjob.
Chris Donahue is a writer, filmmaker, and comedian who lives in Brooklyn and listens to too much emo music.