You’re the Worst Review: The Intransigence of Love (Season 5 Episode 1)
Even in its final season, You’re the Worst Season 5 Episode 1, “The Intransigence of Love,” proves that the series is still willing to push the envelope.
This is something that the darkly comedic rom-com has often excelled at, in one way or another: finding a new groove to tell its often depressing and realistic depiction of love. Every now and then, it tells a tale that goes outside of the traditional format.
For “The Intransigence of Love,” although it doesn’t seem this way at first, that involves Jimmy and Gretchen telling their love story as essentially a grandiose lie, taking cues from the rom-coms of the ’80s and ’90s that. In the end, it is a truly ridiculous retelling.
The story is told in two parts. The first part is by Jimmy, and his part is rather sincere and genuine in the way it treats these essentially new characters and their romance.
This first part is helped a lot by having new performers in the Jimmy and Gretchen roles, played by Morgan Krantz and Caitlin McGee, respectively. The new acting pair brings a lot of necessary laid back energy that honestly wouldn’t play as well with the original actors.
That brings it to the second part, this time told by Gretchen, where Chris Geere and Aya Cash reclaim their roles — and it’s much less successful in what it’s trying to do. Whereas the first half feels very authentic and like actual people, the second half has no problem relishing in the tropes of the rom-com genre.
That’s not bad, in and of itself. But the switch is rather jarring, especially given how excellent Jimmy’s chunk of the story is. Add to that the actor switch in the middle, and it starts to feel a bit unnecessary.
Oddly enough, the decision to bring Geere and Cash into the story itself is perhaps the episode’s downfall for no other reason than we know what this story with the real Gretchen and Jimmy would look like and that’s precisely what we get here.
This is mainly regret because of how good Krantz and McGee are in their roles, lambasting the state of film culture in the ’90s and even how it relates to the discourse today.
If nothing else, “The Intransigence of Love” shows that just because the series is in its last season, it doesn’t mean that it has any intention of slowing down or to stopping being the weird little show we all love.
Some Stray Thoughts:
- Jake is a perfect satire of a film nerd. I felt a little attacked by it, honestly.
- There are too many to list here, but the various recommendations at the store are pretty great visual gags.
- Are Red Vines better than Twizzlers? We’ll leave that up to you.
What did you think of this episode of You’re the Worst ? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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You’re the Worst airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on FXX.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.