Look no further than the anxious faces of every You’re the Worst character throughout “A Rapidly Mutating Virus” to understand the dramatic nadir this episode hits. To call this a “s*** hitting the fan” episode is an understatement. From Jimmy and Gretchen’s relationship to Sam’s solo career, everything is on the line in arguably the busiest episode the show’s ever delivered – and as it lines up the dominoes neatly for the season’s last two half hours, it slows down just enough to build out pathos for every depressing arc it’s followed this season, offering but a single nugget of hope as we head into Season 2’s final hour.
At the center of this episode, of course, is the topic du jour of Season 2: Gretchen’s depression hits its lowest point ever in “A Rapidly Mutating Virus,” immediately apparent when she’s snorting mounds of Killian’s Adderall to open the episode and begin her day. She’s not only lost the energy to do anything, but the feeling in it all, moving from one numb experience to the next, pushing herself further and further from Jimmy and throwing her job into jeopardy in the same sentence. It all culminates in her pulling the gun Jimmy’s father bought last week on a woman beating the crap out of Sam and his boys, in a moment that’s more unsettling and frightening than anything we saw in the Halloween episode. It may sound infinitely cruel when Gretchen tells Jimmy she doesn’t feel anything about him or their relationship: that moment proves otherwise, especially when she casually tosses the gun back into her purse and casually lights a cigarette, while Lindsay (who kind of looks like she’s starting to get herself together, even if her song with Sam was poorly received) looks on dumbfounded.
Gretchen not being herself hasn’t just been a theme for the episode. Just look at Edgar and his attempts to impress his new girlfriend (or in this episode, her friends): identity has been a big theme for You’re the Worst‘s second season. Jimmy’s had to consider his career as a writer, just as Lindsay and her sister Becca find themselves thrown into new roles in their lives, which they’ve both embraced to extreme degrees. Vernon’s become a financial slave to a woman overseas (one of the funniest character details I’ve ever heard of), Nina talks about becoming the owner of a bar instead of a skiier, and Dorothy discusses her regrets spending a decade around improv performers married to jokes about their genitals; there’s no shortage of identity crises around the Sunday Funday crew, and it leaks into every single frame of “A Rapidly Mutating Virus.”
And despite all that uncertainty and frustration, “A Rapidly Mutating Virus” has pockets of hope for those in the future. Lindsay refuses to stop being there for Gretchen in her time of need, and ultimately, Dorothy and Edgar bond over his foolish, Jimmy-influenced decision to start acting like her “friends.” These might not seem like important bright spots in an episode that finishes with Jimmy ‘cheating’ on Gretchen with Nina (she did kind of break up with him, blowing him off and telling him their relationship meant nothing, even if he misunderstood the intention of that phrase), but they act as beacons of hope among an increasingly dark, desolate season of You’re the Worst, which has lost a lot of the adorably reluctant romance that defined its first season.
Maybe it’s just blind optimism speaking, but I’m hoping Gretchen pulling a gun and Jimmy pulling a dick move with Nina is the catalyst for the return of (somewhat) happy times for the couple. Clearly, they’re both realizing how ill-equipped they are to handle each other’s problems, and it’s either going to drive them back towards each other, or it’s going to finally sever the emotional connection they’ve forged, defining their relationship as a tragic experiment rather than the life-defining romance we’ve all hoped it would be. “A Rapidly Mutating Virus” asks an important question the final two episodes have to answer: do any of these couples belong together – and if so, why? Personally, I can’t wait to find out.
[Photo credit: Prashant Gupta/FX]
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