So I have to disclose before I opine about the writing, acting, or direction that I am about as male as it is possible to get. Every aspect of my appearance from the near-black when freshly shaven facial hair to the shoulders you can balance a beside table on, all screams very male. I grew up in an abusive household where my mother and sister might as well have been aliens. The former may as well have been one of the Aliens from the film of the same name. And the male half of the gene pool, a person I would show to Jimmy and say I would be glad to swap with him (this is putting it *very* nicely), well, that was no help.
I have been dealing with support workers, people who are helping me, one of whom has in conversation helped me better understand the workings of the feminine form and Odin above, it is like nature hates women, too. So after watching this episode with a new perspective, I have to wonder what Gretchen is thinking in the wake of Jimmy's histrionic failures to understand.
Jimmy, for those who have been misled by the idiotic plot summaries, has Histrionic Personality Disorder, a condition in which the sufferer experiences their emotions very shallowly or superficially, and is prone to enagage in all manner of histrionics with the slightest provocation. This episode comes before the disclosure Gretchen's illness, Major Depressive Disorder, but if you are capable of imagining the effect that having that mental illness, being in the middle of menstruating, and experiencing the complete lack of understanding combined with histrionics that on occasion stem from the subject. One of the funniest things about You're The Worst as a series is how the relationship survives in spite of the two halves of the couple.
The other side of the plot, as stated in the plot summary, is Jimmy attempting to take Gretchen on a date. His choice is to take her to a restaurant, one that the episode derives its name from, and hoo boy what a restaurant it is. Jimmy has clearly never been there before. When Gretchen tells him she has, and she enjoys it, just not with him, it is one of the biggest laughs in the episode. This kind of honesty is, contrary to what many people who carve smiles into faces will tell you, essential to a healthy relationship. I enjoyed listening to G. G. Allin, just not with the girlfriend I had at the time when I first heard one of his most disturbingly-named songs. It is just one of those things.
And really, I like it when a show about relationships demonstrates how much drama can be made out of a simple misunderstanding, and how the drama can be resolved. Again, the honesty. Jimmy mistakenly believes he has to take Gretchen somewhere "special" because of his insensitivity concerning one of (what I have been led to understand is) the most unpleasant aspects of being a woman. This is so early on in their relationship, so neither of them really have a good idea of how to respond to one another's quirks. So it is a bit of a joy to see them enjoy each other's company by going to a theatre showing Ferris Bueller's Day Off and both being insensitive to the other patrons.
For reasons I still cannot fathom, people who clearly do not understand the show wrote reviews saying it was good until the nature of Gretchen's illness was revealed. To that, I say did you even watch any of the episodes before then, especially Insouciance? Or do you really think so-called normal people behave like Jimmy in public?
For a show with an average episode length of twenty-two minutes, You're The Worst manages to cram in so much insight, and this is no exception. It is not my first choice of episodes to introduce new viewers with, but just as the first episode after a pilot generally finds the series getting into its stride, Insouciance shows that they quickly figured out what worked here. You're The Worst works best when two or more characters have conflicts about things that normies (the real meaning of that word being neurotypicals who hate neurodivergents for being neurodivergent) take for granted.
You're The Worst is best watched in sequence, and there are greater, in a number of cases much greater, things to come. Think of it as a snowball. The pilot was the boy smooshing the snowball together, and this is the snowball beginning to roll down the hill. If you think this one has outrageous behaviour, just you wait.
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