All the best to FXX's You're the Worst -- or something like that
08/30/16 03:39 PM
By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
Behind and in front of the cameras, all concerned are challenged to the hilt in Season 3’s first scene from FXX’s You’re the Worst.
Lead actors Chris Geere and Aya Cash are both butt naked in the sack after his ever-irascible Jimmy Shive-Overly more or less proclaimed his love for her clinically depressed Gretchen Cutler in last season’s final scene.
The gymnastics required to keep Wednesday night’s opening scene FXX- instead of X-rated are something of a wonder to behold. But Geere and Cash pull it off after first having pulled everything off. There should be an awards category for this.
You’re the Worst (Aug. 30th at 9 p.m. central) remains the visually and verbally bawdiest comedy series on advertiser-supported television. Commitment-phobia likewise still runs rampant as budding author Jimmy swears off any binding emotional attachments while Gretchen, a PR executive, is only slightly more willing to cave in.
“I always have one foot out the door -- with everything,” she assures Jimmy after he snorts about being “blackout drunk” on the night he threw the l-word at her.
New this season is former Orange Is the New Black co-star Samira Wiley as Gretchen’s new therapist, Justina. The character is introduced in next week’s “Fix Me, Dummy” episode, during which she takes enough verbal abuse to send Andrew Dice Clay whimpering for his mama. This half-hour also features series regular Edgar Quintero (Desmin Borges) actually saying, “The Cowboys win the Super Bowl next year.” Obviously he’s not well.
Edgar, a war veteran battling PTSD, remains hooked up with Dorothy Durwood (Collette Wolfe), whom he met last season while working with an improv comedy troupe for therapeutic reasons. But changing his meds -- and then changing them anew -- has resulted in performance problems that Jimmy dismisses as the result of same-old/same-old sex. “Your penis is clearly bored to death,” Jimmy counsels in the opening episode. But of course -- not.
The other principal characters are Gretchen’s best friend, Lindsay Jillian (Kether Donahue), whose marriage-for-the-money to wealthy sad sack Paul Jillian (Allan McLeod) had been a thoroughly lost cause until she surprisingly became pregnant. Now doughy Paul is determined to start their life anew as a “family,” but in ways that prompt Lindsay to inflict her own brand of kitchen nightmare on him at the close of the season premiere. Episode 2, the only other one sent for review, likewise ends with a sudden turn of events.
You’re the Worst, created by Stephen Falk, is intendedly cringe-worthy -- and not always to humorous effect. Gretchen’s black rapper client still repeatedly calls her a “bitch” during frequent tirades tied to her perceived shortcomings as his trio’s publicist. It’s all become one big resounding thud.
For the most part, though, You’re the Worst keeps clicking as a decidedly “adult” look at thirtysomething infantilism. Happiness pretty much remains a foreign objective in these early stages of Season 3. But there are signs that it may be improving its chances -- to at least a remote possibility.
GRADE: B+
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