Normally, I despise romantic comedies. I hate how they frequently operate on the same old tired cliches, reinforce horrible gender stereotypes (often of the Men Act, Women Are variety), and give out horrible toxic ideas of how relationships function (for the record, I personally HATEBelligerent Sexual Tension "When A Jerk Loves A Tsudere" stories that romanticize the fighting over the other things that make up a relationship).
Yet, I absolutely love You're the Worst, which not only works to subvert and deconstruct (and in some cases, play straight and reconstruct) the usual tired cliches of the rom-com genre, but to breathe a new life into them by injecting a fair dose of reality into the story.
YTW follows Jimmy and Gretchen, whose brief hook-up leads to an actual relationship and their attempts at navigating it. They live up to the show's title - they are rude, crude, self-centered and self-destructive. But they're also capable of great acts of kindness and love, with the right amount of backstory and realistic issues to frame their actions - in short, they are characters you can root for and sympathize with and want to see work past their issues and make it work. But they're not total screw-ups; mostly, they just have a great deal of growing up to do, but they're doing it on their own terms. Every actor is perfect in their role, especially Aya Cash as Gretchen, who just nails every aspect of the character with sharp clean precision.
But the best thing about this show is the love story. In a pop culture landscape that's been so thoroughly dominated by the "bickering couple" Will They or Won't They? model for decades at this point, seeing relationships based on mutual respect, support, trust and mature communication feels like a welcome break. Moreover, YTW eschews the typical rom-com storyline so many of us are familiar with. In rom-coms, the relationship must reach "peak happiness" where the story ends and the leads go on to live happily ever after. YTW turns that on its head, showing that relationships take work, they never reach perfect happiness, people aren't ever truly "fixed", and they change and grow over time and so too do their relationships. Their road is fraught with ups and downs, and these characters' emotions are fully realized and explored. It has its funny moments (it is a comedy after all), but also has its moments of real sadness, just like life itself.
I could gush on about how good this show and its characters and depiction of relationships is, and while it's had its shaky moments so far, it's been a consistently entertaining ride, one I'll be sad to see end with its fifth and final season.
Series The worst kinds of people making the best love story on current TV
Normally, I despise romantic comedies. I hate how they frequently operate on the same old tired cliches, reinforce horrible gender stereotypes (often of the Men Act, Women Are variety), and give out horrible toxic ideas of how relationships function (for the record, I personally HATE Belligerent Sexual Tension "When A Jerk Loves A Tsudere" stories that romanticize the fighting over the other things that make up a relationship).
Yet, I absolutely love You're the Worst, which not only works to subvert and deconstruct (and in some cases, play straight and reconstruct) the usual tired cliches of the rom-com genre, but to breathe a new life into them by injecting a fair dose of reality into the story.
YTW follows Jimmy and Gretchen, whose brief hook-up leads to an actual relationship and their attempts at navigating it. They live up to the show's title - they are rude, crude, self-centered and self-destructive. But they're also capable of great acts of kindness and love, with the right amount of backstory and realistic issues to frame their actions - in short, they are characters you can root for and sympathize with and want to see work past their issues and make it work. But they're not total screw-ups; mostly, they just have a great deal of growing up to do, but they're doing it on their own terms. Every actor is perfect in their role, especially Aya Cash as Gretchen, who just nails every aspect of the character with sharp clean precision.
But the best thing about this show is the love story. In a pop culture landscape that's been so thoroughly dominated by the "bickering couple" Will They or Won't They? model for decades at this point, seeing relationships based on mutual respect, support, trust and mature communication feels like a welcome break. Moreover, YTW eschews the typical rom-com storyline so many of us are familiar with. In rom-coms, the relationship must reach "peak happiness" where the story ends and the leads go on to live happily ever after. YTW turns that on its head, showing that relationships take work, they never reach perfect happiness, people aren't ever truly "fixed", and they change and grow over time and so too do their relationships. Their road is fraught with ups and downs, and these characters' emotions are fully realized and explored. It has its funny moments (it is a comedy after all), but also has its moments of real sadness, just like life itself.
I could gush on about how good this show and its characters and depiction of relationships is, and while it's had its shaky moments so far, it's been a consistently entertaining ride, one I'll be sad to see end with its fifth and final season.