You’re The Worst is the closest FX will ever get to producing a rom-com. It’s a cutting, hilarious and fang-sharp comedy about two apparently irredeemable jerks who, despite their best efforts, see something lovable in each other.
We’re seven episodes into season two, and recently-cohabitating-couple Gretchen (Aya Cash) and Jimmy (Chris Geere) are trapped together in their house, along with roommates and sidekicks and such, because the L.A. marathon has produced city-wide gridlock. Gretchen has been sneaking out in the middle of the night for a few episodes now, driving to who knows where, and when Jimmy finally founds out where it’s both worse and not as bad as he expected: Gretchen drives to a scenic overlook, alone, to cry in her car.
She tells him it’s fine, he accepts that it’s fine, but clearly there is something very not-fine here, and in Wednesday night’s episode, we find out exactly what the not-fine-thing is.
First Gretchen gets trashed, draining every bottle in the building until there’s no alcohol left to consume. Then she spews out a stream of too-real vitriol at everyone around her. She calls Edgar (Desmin Borges), a veteran with PTSD, “the guy so riddled with anxiety he can’t sleep through the night without screaming”; her best friend, Lindsay (Kether Donohue), “someone who is clearly obsessed with her lame, soft ex-husband” and “a giant doofus”; and Dorothy (Collette Wolfe), Edgar’s theater-girl girlfriend, “what this town calls a ‘tweener.’ You’re not hot enough to be the lead and not fat enough to be the funny friend.”
Spent from her rant, Gretchen retreats to her room, where her Lindsay finds her to ask if “it’s back again.” “It” is Gretchen’s clinical depression, news to viewers and to, well, everyone in her life, except for Lindsay, who implores her to come clean to her boyfriend. “If anyone is going to be okay with who you are, it’s Jimmy. You guys went into this both knowing you’re total creeps. Don’t start keeping secrets now.”
Gretchen is not so sure: “I can’t tell him my brain is broken.” But eventually, she does, assuring him and unnerving him in equal measure with her explanation that “it strikes me whenever, I have no idea why, and I’m sorry I never told you, but it’s totally fine.”
Cash delivers an incredible performance: Gretchen, who has been wobbling on the edge of some precipice only she can see for the entire series, is honest and brutal and terrified all at once. The day after the episode aired, she spoke with ThinkProgress by phone about preparing for and shooting these scenes, how this revelation will change her character and the show going forward, and what it’s like to portray mental illness on a comedy
How are you feeling about the episode now that it’s out in the world?
I’m super excited it’s out. I hadn’t seen it either. I’m pretty self-conscious about watching myself, and I can’t really watch with a lot of people around. I hate premieres, it makes me want to shoot myself in the face. And for some reason, with You’re The Worst, as long as I’m not with a big group of people I don’t know watching it with me, I can watch and enjoy. I think that’s a testament to the writing, because normally I’m so neurotic and in my own head about things that I can’t do that.
When did you learn Gretchen’s diagnosis? Have you always known she struggled with clinical depression?
We get episodes, like, three or four at a time. So when I got the first four episodes, I had the same cliffhanger as the audience did, which was Gretchen driving away, sneaking out in the middle of the night. And I went to Stephen and said, “YOU CANNOT DO THAT TO ME. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME.” He didn’t give me specifics, but he basically told me what was going on with her and that that would play a role. We’re all friends with the writers and they’re all terrified of spoiling stuff, even to us. I remember last year having a drink with two writers and asking what was coming, and they said, “We’re going to do some things that haven’t really been done on TV before in a comedy.”
What are your thoughts on exploring a subject like this in that comedic framework? When it comes to handling mental health issues in particular, are there things you can do in a comedy that you can’t do in a drama?
I think it’s wonderful. What I love so much about this show is how interconnected comedy and drama are, as pain and humor are sort of two sides of the same coin. I really appreciate that about it. I also think you can get away with certain things in comedy that you can’t in a drama, just like comedians can get away with certain jokes and comments on society that may be inappropriate out of a comedic context. So I appreciate that about our show a lot. And I just feel lucky that I’m tasked with things that demand more of me than what is the obvious, easy choice all the time. As an actor, you often get asked to do the same thing over and over again. If you’re good at one thing, they ask you do that again. I love being a part of a show where they trust me to go there and know that we’ll figure it out together.
How did you prepare for this episode? You have a bunch of really heavy scenes in here: Your monologue where Gretchen is drunk and rips everybody to shreds, the conversation with Lindsay where it’s clear Lindsay understands Gretchen’s depression is back, Gretchen’s admission to Jimmy that she has depression and that she needs him to be okay with it.
I also think you can get away with certain things in comedy that you can’t in a drama.
I sort of prepare the same way always. I don’t spend a lot of quiet time in a corner, even for more dramatic scenes. This whole episode I was very sick, so in some ways, my prep was Sudafed. I had a really bad cold that half the crew had as well. They actually moved the date of that five-page scene where I go off on everyone because I was too sick to do it one day; we scheduled it for later in the week. I never asked to do that, but it shows what a gift the cast and crew and director and showrunner are, because they wanted me to do my best with it. Because it was really important.
I know that, obviously, Gretchen is not real and her insults are aimed at fictional characters, but is it tough to go to that place where she is just eviscerating her closest friends? And then do have to do it over and over again when you’re shooting?
Well, nobody does a rant like Chris Geere, so I feel the pressure when I get one of those monologues. He is so good at them. I find that if I am doing well, meaning, if I am focused and feeling connected, it’s fun to do it over and over again, because you get to try new things and do things differently. So hopefully, not every take is exactly the same, and people’s reactions are different in different takes, too. Hopefully, you get to play around. When you’re stuck in your head, you’re repeating things and it feels like a drag, because you’re forcing something.
Were you surprised to find this out about Gretchen? Does it change the way you think about all the episodes you’ve shot before and everything you’ve seen her do and say?
Yes and no. It was a big reveal to me, but I also don’t think that anyone who struggles with the struggles that Gretchen has — I feel like it makes a lot of sense. It was more of an “aha” moment than an “oh, really?” Because obviously, you can’t delve into every single reason why someone is the way they are, especially in a TV show of 22-minute episodes with multiple main characters. This is not just a character study of Gretchen. So, like all information about her, it sort of gets added to a big fact of who she is. But I also bring my own backstory. I didn’t necessarily think, “Oh, Gretchen is suffering from clinical depression.” But obviously, she swings low, and that is very clear, and something I can definitely identify with. I would say it was surprising and then completely not surprising and doesn’t feel at odds with what we know about her so far.
I was really touched by the way Lindsay came to Gretchen — right after Gretchen publicly says some ugly, cruel things about her — and tells her, without judgment, not just that she knows what’s going on but that Gretchen needs to be honest with Jimmy about it.
One of my favorite things about the dynamic between Gretchen sand Lindsay is it has always felt like a very old friendship. They’re in such different places in their lives, especially at the beginning of season one, and you are sort of confused about why they became friends. And you find out Lindsay was not always this trophy wife, that they have history. It feels like a very lived-in, old relationship. And in those kind of relationships, someone has borne witness to your struggles, and when you’ve been in a relationship — friendship or love — for a long time, part of what makes it so special is just the time and having borne witness to each other as young people, as slightly older people.
He just wants to make it better and for it to be over with. Unfortunately, clinical depression is not something that just goes away.
I love that she immediately identifies what’s going on and is there for her despite the terrible things Gretchen has just said to her. Jimmy has his own issues, and we don’t know whether he can really handle what’s going on with her. Of course he just wants to fix it, which is a typical male/female thing. We sort of play with that trope of the guy always wants to fix it, and girl is like, “I just want you to say, I’m here.” She happens to be dealing with something that is much more serious than, “My boss screamed at me today.” But I love that. It’s not that he doesn’t love her or understand; he just wants to make it better and for it to be over with, which is an understandable reaction. Unfortunately, clinical depression is not something that just goes away immediately, and we’ll see them deal with it as we go forward.
Was there a line or a moment in the episode that resonated with you the most?
I feel like “I can’t tell him my brain is broken” is a pretty powerful line about what she’s going through, and the sort of shame one feels about being a depressive, that that is a very shameful thing in your own eyes, as opposed to other people’s eyes. People outside of you, I would say, are very supportive. But for someone actually struggling with clinical depression, you think, “Why can’t I just be better?”
And she does tell him, point-blank, not to try to fix her. That she isn’t someone that can be “fixed.”
In some ways, that’s true of just relationships in general. Although what I would say is some things can only be fixed through a relationship, and not even necessarily depression, just that, you kind of can’t know how to deal with certain things until you deal with them in relationships, sometimes, because you’ve never been through them before unless you’re confronted with another person. So I would say she is both right and wrong in this moment.
What’s the reaction been like from fans of the show? Are people excited to see You’re The Worst take this on, concerned that the series is getting too dark for a comedy?
I hope people stick with us. I know we’re a comedy and there will be humor in this as well. But we’re also taking this really seriously, even though we’re going to find humor in it. Twitter has been a very wonderful place for me today and made me tear up on the streets because people’s reactions were so positive and vulnerable and open, and a lot of people were saying, “Thank you for being honest and putting this on my favorite comedy.” They’ve been really appreciative of it, so I hope that we continue to live up to those expectations, and I think we do. I hope that everyone continues to feel both supported and amused by our show.