What I’m Watching: You’re the Worst

You’re the Worst: Season 4, Episode 6 “Not a Great Bet” (B+)

This was a pretty hypnotic diversion from the reality we’re used to, with Gretchen going home for the birth of a new niece or nephew and avoiding responsibility in a different way than we’ve seen before. Running into an old teacher at the car rental at the airport and immediately lying about being a marine biologist while trying not to comment on him working there showed that she wasn’t going to be her same self, even though she’s actually somewhat decent as a publicist when she puts the tiniest bit of effort in. At every turn, she lies to her family and to everyone around her, which makes her pairing with Jimmy feel incongruous since he doesn’t bother lying about things and just comes right out and says whatever rude thing he’s thinking. Flipping through her yearbook and seeing the picture of her cancer-stricken friend could have been a more sentimental, sad moment, but her discovery that Heidi was in fact alive, well, and running the local roller rink led to an important reconnection with someone she thought she was close with back in high school. The casting of the usually more much comedic Zosia Mamet from “Girls” as Heidi was superb and very effective, and she wasn’t shy about breaking the news to Gretchen that they weren’t the friends that she remembered. Gretchen’s words also have more meaning when they’re said around people who aren’t as deplorable as her, as evidenced by the kid who ate a jar of cat food at record speed before Gretchen nearly got arrested for indecent exposure or something like that. And she didn’t even get to see the baby, a sign that Gretchen, like Jimmy, also runs when things get too real.