What’s the best way to follow up an episode about clinical depression? A Halloween episode! You’re The Worst can do no wrong. Last season’s “Sunday Funday” episode was a fan-favorite highlight, and this week You’re The Worst follows it up with a Halloween-centric sequel.
Still reeling from Gretchen’s admission last week, Jimmy is trying to make good on his remark that he can help her out. He’s on a mission to cheer her up — a mission that is impossible when it comes to clinical depression; you can temporarily make someone feel a bit happier on a surface level, but you can’t change the wiring of their brain — because he loves her, and he means well, even if he’s not entirely right about the execution. His plan is to have another “Sunday Funday,” but since he’s Jimmy and he can’t exactly propose such a silly idea (it would be off-brand), he enlists Edgar’s help. Edgar pretends this was all his idea, while Jimmy pretends that he doesn’t want to do it even though he made a list of things Gretchen would love.
Once they’re all decked out in costumes, they proceed on their spooky Sunday Funday. Jimmy’s list consists of some Gretchen-friendly morbid activities such as a murder bus tour of California that eventually lands them at the site of Biggie’s murder using a Ouija board to figure out “Who shot ya?” (Edgar’s the best) but get directed to”Tupal.” After a Spice Girls cover show doesn’t work out, they end up at the scariest haunted house ever.
All of the scenes in the haunted house are hilariously gruesome, totally bizarre and off-putting, and all with layers of character moments hiding underneath. Lindsay is still grappling with her inability to function while alone, and a meeting with Paul (dressed up in costume as Stephen Hawking) in which he calls her a quitter, sticks with her throughout the night. She becomes determined to do things on her own although it takes her stuck in a dungeon combined with an honest conversation with one of the scary haunted house workers to talk her through how to get her power turned back on in her house. She eventually succeeds and her triumphant return to her house — which is completely in shambles, still with burnt toast sticking out the toaster — is actually a pretty beautiful scene.
Edgar and his new girlfriend Dorothy are going strong and they’re clearly very suited to each other. They’re both weird in fun ways, both with some baggage (Edgar’s clearly heavier than Dorothy’s) but complement each other well and know how to work together. Their conflict today stems from the fact that Edgar has not had sex with anyone in three years (which the gang obviously finds hilarious as they joke and drink from a flash on the bus tour). He’s gotten some over-the-bra action but that’s about it. There’s a moment in the haunted house when he displays some of his pent-up aggression and PTSD issues by instinctively flipping over someone hired to scare him, and kicking the poor guy while he’s down. It’s a good way to show his aggression without it being a huge deal or resulting in something more than just a hired haunted house worker getting a few kicks. Edgar and Dorothy quickly talk this out and Edgar blurts out his secret, which just results in them finally getting it on in one of the haunted house’s rooms.
That leaves us with Gretchen and Jimmy. They both enjoy the haunted house, especially Gretchen who excitedly talks about someone biting her tit, and once outside Jimmy comments on how he knew his plan to cheer her up would work. Gretchen immediately — and definitely understandably — takes offense to this. She’s already told Jimmy that her depression is a problem that she’s going to deal with it, and that it’s something he can’t fix. Being told that depression is something that’s easily fixable, or having a partner shrug and say, “Yeah, I can fix you!” is incredibly frustrating. It makes you feel like you’re a problem or, worse, that you’re somehow broken. Neither is true.
Gretchen calls him out but then decides it might be best to just pretend that it all worked — once again faking it — in order to sort of get him off her back. It seems to work, but there’s another wrench thrown in: a cute bartender who flirts with Jimmy prior to Gretchen showing up. Will this be another obstacle in their relationship?