"You're the Worst," Episode 5.6: Is Jimmy hooking up with his buddy? Is Rapper Sam still bi? Is Dax a gay porn star?

 

Recently American comedies have been breaking the longstanding rule that sitcom characters have to be nice, the sort of people you'd want to invite into your home in real life.  Of course, the British have been doing it for years, but in the U.S. it's so uncommon that it still comes as a jolt to see someone who isn't very likeable in a sitcom.

You're the Worst, on Hulu, warns you in advance. Jimmy and Gretchen (Chris Geere, Aya Cash) are horrible, amoral people who dislike each other (well, except in the bedroom) and pursue a five-season long romance culminating in a series-finale wedding.  The B-plots usually involve the marital squabbles of another amoral couple who dislike each other, Edgar and Lindsay (Desmin Borges, Kether Donohue).  

I already reviewed an episode where rapper Sam Dresden  gets cancelled for using the f*-word, but turns out to be ok with gay men -- they're good at sucking.  To see if he is still bisexual or straight-but-open-to-oral interests, I reviewed Episode 5.6,  "This Brief Fermata."  According to the Google AI, "A fermata is a musical symbol indicating that a note should be held longer than its normal duration."

Scene 1: Jimmy and Gretchen are planning the table seating for their wedding reception, but Paul, Allan McLeod, is too boring to be placed.  They deserve a break from the drudgery of planning the wedding.  Jimmy suggests Fuck Week, a week where they can have sex with whoever they want.  He is surprised that Gretchen is so quick to agree.  

Scene 2: Monday.  At her job at the public relations firm, Gretchen checks out the hunk bulges and butts.  Assistant Lindsay notes a problem with Rapper Sam, Brandon Mychal Smith: his new track is bad, "Vietnam bad."  

But Gretchen doesn't care: it's Fuck Week, so she and Lindsay can go "day dicking" like they used to, at the Museum of Tolerance and Barney's Beanery -- wait, the notorious "Fagots keep out" joint?

First she has to sign up the new guy, Nok Nok -- Lou Taylor Pucci, top photo.  She figures he's so spaced-out, he'll be easy to snare, but he wants to hear the full pitch -- "Strategy, targets, concept art."  Uh-oh, she'll have to do work instead of getting dick.

Scene 3: Tuesday: Gretchen and Jimmy eat Chinese food while watching Nok Nok's videos and trying to come up with a pitch.  Jimmy has lipstick on his collar -- he's already successfully gotten laid.  Wait -- Buddy Edgar brings him a drink and gazes lustfully, but Jimmy shakes his head. Did they have sex, or is Edgar offering?

Cut to Wednesday: Gretchen revealing her pitch to Nok Nok.  He doesn't like it: how about a hard-scrabble life?  He was on the street at age 15, and he's a single dad?  

Assistant Lindsay went out dicking yesterday, and she, too successfully got laid. By the way, Rapper Sam is angry because his new, terrible track hasn't seen any radio play yet.  But screw it: Gretchen is going to forget about work and get some dick.

Scene 4: Thursday.  Jimmy comes in with a hickey, having gotten laid again. Another lustful gaze from Buddy Edgar.  Are they going at it?  Gretchen is still working. 

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Adam's Also-Rans: 8 sitcom guest spots, with Andrew Santino, Jason Bateman, and some costar cocks

After Workaholics, The Righteous Gemstones, Bumper in Berlin, House Party, Bad Ideas, and twelve movies, are you getting tired of Adam Devine? 

I didn't think so.

The guy is prolific. Between 2006, when he started filming Mail Order Comedy shorts with his buds Ders and Blake, and 2015, when he was too busy with starring roles, Adam guest-starred on eight tv series, not including animation and sketch comedy.  Let's see if there's any gay subtexts...or even texts.

1. The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, 2007, about two women film producers, appeared on the IFC. 

Left: Giuseppe Andrews as an aspiring writer who steals one of their scripts.

Adam played Toby in the episode "Dykes Like Us," the standard sitcom plot where two straight people pretend to be a gay couple in order to get some of the incredible privileges that gay people enjoy.  Like being called a "freak" at an academic conference?  Get real.

2. The Wife and Times of Teddy Berman, 2008, about a family man "struggling to make sense of a world where his father suddenly has a ponytail and an earring, his best friend is a stay at home dad, and his kids will only speak to him through Skype."  Sounds super old-fashioned.

Adam plays a Teenage Caveman who tells his parents about two problems: a rampaging bison that needs to be hunted, and a baby with a diaper that needs changing.  Thus a gendered division of labor is instituted for all time and eternity.  An anti-Women's Lib series in 2011?

  Peter Dante, left, plays the Caveman Dad.

3. Better Off Ted, 2009, starring Jay Harrington as a research developer at a soulless corporation. In Episode 1.5, "Win Some, Dose Some," a woman getting tested for a new experimental drug goes haywire, and Ted sabotages his daughter's wrapping-paper competition so she won't win and he won't have to go on a man-date with a general who has a man-crush on him.  Gay panic, anyone? 

Adam appears as Josh. The show is not available to stream, so I don't know anything about his character. 

4. Samantha Who?, 2009, stars Christina Applegate as a real estate hotshot who gets amnesia and tries to fix the horrid messes she made in her old life. 

Adam appears in two episodes as temp Tyler Banks.  I purchased Episode 2.19, "The Other Woman": Samantha tries to be nice to the girlfriend of her ex, Winston Funk -- Billy Zane, left -- but ends up sleeping with him.

At the office, Samantha asks Tyler the Temp to call Mr. Funk and tell him that she will have dinner with him tonight, but it's not a date: she's setting him up with his ex.

Tyler is happy with this news, and exclaims "I'm still in the game!"  He must have a crush on Samantha.

The morning after the clandestine sex, the girlfriend complains to Samantha that Winston is not returning her calls.  Just then Tyler brings in flowers that he sent...to Samantha. Uh-oh, her cover is blown.

5. Traffic Light, 2011, a short-lived Fox series, featured three best friends in different stages of the heterosexist trajectory: single, living with a girlfriend, and married. 

In Episode 1.7, "Stealth Bomber," Adam, Ders, and Blake appear as Tobey, Howard, and Tad.  The show is not available for streaming, but I assume they're doing a Mail Order Comedy riff.

More Adam after the break

Braxton Alexander: three heterosexual boyfriends, three serial killers, one saxophone, and five bare butts

Born in 2007, actor and model Braxton Alexander had a busy child star career. Strangely, although of course he had no control over the scripts at age eight or nine, his movies and tv shows seem overwhelmingly heteronormative, if not downright homophobic.

 

Four episodes of Mr. Mercedes (2017) as the young Brady Hartsfield, living through the horrific childhood that would turn him into a homophobic mass murderer with psychic powers.

 

(Left: Harry Treadaway, who plays the adult Brady)

The young Callahan in Tag (2018), about a group of friends who play an elaborate game of tag every year, while not making homophobic jokes and fielding gay panic.  

The young Callahan kisses a girl. So you can have boys and girls sparking at each other from the womb, but heaven forbid depicting a gay kid.

(Left: Jon Hamm, who playes the adult Callahan).

Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square (2020) is intensely heteronormative: the meaning of life is boys and girls gazing at each other forever. Brax plays a singer.

The Black Phone (2021) is about a gay predator who kidnaps young boys (I'm not kidding).  Brax plays a bully, not one of the victims.

In I Want You Back (2022), a dumped boyfriend and girlfriend try to sabotage their exes' new relationships and get them back.  Brax plays a "middle school boyfriend."

Left: Scott Eastwood, who plays one of the targets.

The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022-4) features two brothers in love with a girl named Belly. Brax plays the young Conrad, falling for Belly at the age of 13.

(Left: Brax)

In Black Bird (2022), not to be confused with Blackbird, Jimmy Keane (Taron Egerton, left) is given the task of befriending a suspected serial killer to get a confession out of him. No gay subtext: the guys both display an incessant interest in ladies. 

Brax plays the teenage Jimmy.

More Braxton after the break