You’re the Worst Review: The Pillars of Creation (Season 5 Episode 8)
You’re the Worst Season 5 Episode 8, “The Pillars of Creation,” goes off on a side adventure with Paul, Vernon, and Becca.
For the most part, “The Pillars of Creation” is a competent, well-made episode of You’re the Worst. The only problem with it? Centering it around that trio of characters is a bit like bicycling uphill in the wrong gear.
Ultimately, Paul, Vernon, and Becca are characters that we don’t have much investment in, and the effort that the series has put in over the years to get us to care about those three is, quite frankly, tiring. To the show’s credit, “The Pillars of Creation” is the closest that the series has ever come to accomplishing that feat of attempting to engender an active interest.
This is, no doubt, due to the fact that this is the most human and well-realized that these three have felt in quite some time. So often they feel a bit like caricatures that don’t actually exist in the real world, but here, there’s actual weight being put into these characters that hasn’t always been present through the run of the show.
At the same time — and this goes to the bungling of these characters over the years — we’re so used to hating these characters for either being completely outlandish or truly despicable. Because of that, it’s hard to view them in a positive light now.
The show wants to be able to use them for an entire season to have Paul be an incel or Becca spout Trump ideology, but also have us be sympathetic towards them now. You can do that, in theory, but it takes a lot more work setting that up than it’s obviously willing to do.
It places the burden of that all upon this one episode. And that’s all well and good, but it makes the episode a bit lesser, like it’s simply telling us there’s been this development without actually showing it.
Thankfully, the episode more than makes up for that by brazenly swinging for the fences in an attempt to make everyone happy by the end of the episode. It is a truly laudable attempt. Resolving the tension of the episode by having the trio be in what is essentially a polyamorous relationship is a pretty genius move — and not one that other shows would attempt.
The only problem here is that this isn’t a show anymore that I fully trust to do something worthwhile with this in the end. Somehow, You’re the Worst is going to find some way to squander this throuple. But there’s also a kind of excitement with that!
How is this dynamic going to crash and burn, leaving these characters in a wreck? Who’s to say? But it’s going to be a wild ride until that point.
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.
One thought on “You’re the Worst Review: The Pillars of Creation (Season 5 Episode 8)”
I think this episode was finally a break from the painful and mean things that usually the characters. I was completely on the edge about the next thing Gretchen will go out and destroy ever since I saw her punishing Jimmy for what he did at the end of season 3. I am happy to see Edgar and Lindsey’s FWB, but that has already come to it’s conclusion. I was quite surprised for the side characters to get a wholesome episode without showing something that eventually fails or leads to another wrong action, although it does stick to gross, at the end, lol.
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