In the US: Thursdays, 10.30pm ET, FX
Firstly, I’d like to say that if I were American, I’d be sick of Brits by now. I like to joke about it, but we are in virtually every US TV show, either with our own accents or faking US accents. If I were an American actor, I’d probably have given up trying by now. I mean if it’s not the Brits, it’s the Aussies, so what chance would I stand?
Case in point: You’re The Worst – it’s set in LA but has Chris Geere as its male romantic lead. Chris Geere. You know, the guy from Waterloo Road and Trollied.
No? Exactly. Was there literally no one American who was better or more attractive? It astonishes me.
To be fair, he does play the dishevelled, impoverished, cynical English author very well, which is what You’re The Worst calls on him to be, but there’s no especial need for him to be English other than just because.
Nevertheless, if Marriage was a salutary example of how not to do a basic cable romantic-comedy, You’re The Worst is the counter-example, with jokes, interesting characters and situations, romance, and moments of complete unexpectedness all pushing the boundaries of what basic cable allows.
As the name suggests, the show is about two very toxic, self-destructive human beings who realise there’s a good possibility that their toxic, self-destructivenesses are highly compatible. Geere decides that a wedding is the best place to tell his ex-girlfriend, the bride, what a terrible person she is and what a mistake she’s making so gets thrown out; outside, he bumps into one of the guests, Aya Cash (Traffic Light, We Are Men, The Newsroom and the failed US adaptation of Friday Night Dinner), who’s stealing one of the wedding gifts. They hook up and after briefly returning to their individual lives, decide that actually, maybe they’re better off with each other than without.
Created and exec produced by Weeds’ Stephen Falk, the show has about 1000% times more edge than Rush, with some pretty graphic sex scenes and language, and moments of amorality Rush would sit there feeling all pleased with itself for doing but that it tosses out there with pure abandon. Both Cash and Geere have charm and charisma, both individually and together. Their characters do actually feel like real, if exaggerated people. The supporting cast don’t feel like they’re just there as plot aids or have been produced through some macro in Final Draft. The romance, twisted as it is, is romantic – you do want these people to find happiness together. And unlike Marriage, it’s funny, doesn’t offer the same trite bromides and doesn’t have complete idiots for characters.
All in all, I really liked it.
Here – watch this very NSFW trailer to see if you might, too.
