A lot of things came into focus for me when I saw Gretchen’s apartment in You’re The Worst. Regardless of the fact that my first instinct was to turn my head.
The place where Aya Cash’s Gretchen lives is a disaster area of Biblical proportions. And I thought to myself, if this were a standard sitcom or comedy movie, it would be the guy’s place in disgusting disarray.
Not that Chris Geere’s selfish and insensitive Jimmy is perfect in any way. But it says something in a wider sense about You’re The Worst, which airs its first-season finale Thursday, Sept. 18 on FXX Canada, as well as channel-of-origin FX in the United States.
“To have a show where there’s real gender parity in terms of the bawdiness and the debauchery is great,” Cash said. “I think we also want girls to be pretty and cute and accessible a lot, and this is an opportunity to have a woman who is not afraid to get dirty and ugly and messy.
“I really appreciate that, because I think we need more women in our culture presented as all sorts of women, as opposed to just sort of the palatable sweet things we’re supposed to be. The representations that we see are often that.
“So this is really fun to be part of and to play. Perfect characters are boring characters.”
Well, I can say with 100% certainty that there are no perfect characters in You’re The Worst.
Gretchen is a publicist for a fairly successful rap artist. Jimmy has had a novel published, titled Congratulations, You’re Dying. So they’re both accomplished at a certain level, but their careers have kind of stalled. Or maybe Gretchen and Jimmy have stalled as human beings, and their careers are innocent victims.
Gretchen and Jimmy both are rebels without a cause. They both seem kind of angry at life, or at least they’re really disappointed in it, to the point that they have zero expectations of themselves or others. They’re into fun, as long as it’s nothing more than that. Neither of them really knows what they want, but they both seem to be quite clear about what they don’t want, and that’s a normal romantic relationship.
When Gretchen and Jimmy first hooked up to start having sex on a regular basis – for God’s sake, don’t call them boyfriend and girlfriend – their respective friends figured it would end horribly. And certainly, heading into the 10th and final episode of the first season, things have busted apart for Gretchen and Jimmy.
The penultimate episode actually had some very dramatic moments. But make no mistake, You’re The Worst is a comedy, and one that has made me laugh quite a few times as the season progressed. The series pleasantly surprised me by having a lot of layers to it – thanks also to Kether Donohue, who plays Lindsay, and Desmin Borges, who plays Edgar – rather than merely being about how badly these people can behave.
“I think my sense of humour probably matches Gretchen’s a little – I can be very blunt,” said Cash, who had a small role as Leonardo DiCaprio’s assistant in The Wolf of Wall Street, has done some episodic TV work on shows such as The Newsroom and Law & Order: SVU, and was a regular on the short-lived Fox sitcom Traffic Light back in 2011.
“But (Gretchen) is also such a heightened version of someone that I might have become at 17, and didn’t. So I feel like I’m living out sort of a ‘step that way’ life that I did not lead, and I’m probably a healthier human being for it.
“I’m always interested in doing things that are surprising. I wouldn’t say shocking is the goal, but I think surprising is more interesting. If you’ve seen the same thing 20 times, you’re not going to laugh at it. So maybe it’s more interesting to see something that’s slightly different. And that makes it more fun.”
I agree with Aya Cash. You’re The Worst is slightly different. And yes, that makes it more fun.
Bill.harris@sunmedia.ca
@billharris_tv
