54°F
weather icon Clear

Think twice before letting ‘your show’ become ‘our show’

It was my show.

Whenever someone would ask for a recommendation — assuming I thought they could handle it — I’d tell them to watch “You’re the Worst” (10 p.m. Wednesdays, FXX).

The comedy, which recently kicked off its third season, is the shockingly rude story of narcissistic British author Jimmy Shive-Overly (Chris Geere) and self-destructive American music publicist Gretchen Cutler (Aya Cash), whose one-night stand turned into the one thing neither of them wanted: a relationship. And it guarantees at least three bone-rattling laughs and one bug-eyed gasp per episode.

 

Then, a couple of weeks into a new relationship of my own, my girlfriend had an awful experience. (Not the realization she was dating someone like me. Something far worse.)

Looking for a way to distract and/or cheer her up, I showed her “You’re the Worst’s” second-season Halloween episode — which, come to think of it, revolved around Jimmy’s trying to distract and/or cheer up a depressed Gretchen.

His dragging her — along with his formerly homeless war-veteran roommate Edgar (Desmin Borges) and Lindsay (Kether Donohue), Gretchen’s dumb-as-a-sandwich-bag-of-hair best friend — through a day filled with Gretchen’s favorite things, including a Hollywood murder tour and the most insane haunted house ever, made for my second favorite half-hour of 2015. (The “Nashville” episode of Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series, “Master of None,” took top honors.)

Before that episode was over, my girlfriend was hooked.

Curled up on the couch that weekend, we watched “You’re the Worst’s” previous 17 episodes, then the Halloween awesomeness yet again.

Suddenly, “my show” became “our show.”

Lines from the series were our lexicon. When she couldn’t find a copy of the Kool Kat poster — a photo of a cat wearing sunglasses sitting behind a trumpet — that Gretchen bought to drive Jimmy crazy, she had one made for me as a Christmas gift.

Then one day, out of nowhere, she was gone.

Not like in a “The Fault in Our Stars” way. More like a “the fault was probably mine” way.

Shows that we discovered together fell by the wayside.

I still haven’t seen the second-season finale of Amazon’s hilariously caustic “Catastrophe,” about an American ad executive (Rob Delaney) and an Irish teacher (Sharon Horgan), both of whom are pretty terrible people who barely know each other but somehow make things work when she gets pregnant.

And I don’t know that I can go back to Hulu’s “Casual,” another comedy that’s just teeming with awful people.

In retrospect, the fact that all of our favorite series were about emotionally stunted people in dysfunctional relationships should have been a sign.

Regardless, I just couldn’t let go of “You’re the Worst.” Like the result of some sort of bizarre, First World-problems pre-nup, I brought it into the relationship, and I was leaving with it.

“You’re the Worst” is simply too special to give up.

Sure, it has its horrifying moments. No kink or fetish is too obscure to explore; I didn’t realize there even was such a thing as being a “money slave.” Jimmy recently pretended to care about the death of his father just to trick Gretchen into some quick sexual relief. Heck, a few episodes back, Lindsay stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife just to see what it would feel like.

But no other series I can think of has dealt with such serious topics as clinical depression and PTSD in ways that are heartbreaking and hilarious, sometimes simultaneously.

Deep down, there’s a surprising amount of heart for a show about people so very badly damaged.

Plus, it clued viewers into the fact that Daniel Craig “looks like an upset baby.”

“You’re the Worst” may not be your thing. But it was my thing. And, for a time, it was our thing.

I can’t speak for my ex, but it’s once again my thing, even if watching this season’s episodes has, at times, felt like ripping the stitches out of a festering, pus-filled wound.

I still love it, just not the way I did before it became so entangled with my feelings for her.

We’ve both moved on, but the damage to my TV viewing — silly as it may seem — has been done.

Take it from someone who’s been there: You can let pretty much anybody into your bed, your life, even your heart.

Just be careful who you let into your show.

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch.

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.
THE LATEST
UK set to launch COVID-19 vaccination plan watched by the world

Around 800,000 doses of the vaccine are expected to be in place for the start of the rollout on Tuesday, a day that British Health Secretary Matt Hancock has reportedly dubbed as “V-Day,” a nod to triumphs in World War II.

Trump halts COVID-19 relief talks until after election; markets fall

Stocks dropped suddenly on Wall Street Tuesday afternoon after President Donald Trump ordered a stop to negotiations with Democrats over another round of stimulus for the economy.