TV Review: FX’s ‘You’re the Worst’

FX premieres You’re the Worst—executive produced and created by Stephen Falk—on Thursday July 17, 10:30 p.m. ET. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.

“Heavily leaning on Los Angeles as a backdrop, the show mimics an indie-film sensibility, with each of the leads conveying just enough vulnerability to offset their odious ways, although it’s not clear that’s enough — especially with the duo essentially being the entire show. (His roommate, her friend and the kid neighbor all feel more like devices than characters.)”
 —Brian Lowry, Variety

“But You're the Worst is the only one of these four I'm particularly interested in checking back in on, just to see if it can at some point live up to the promise of the basic concept. Rush is what it is, Satisfaction doesn't seem to be anything at all, and Married digs itself an incredibly deep hole with its debut episode. This one, at least, has the potential to be something more than it is at the moment.”
—Alan Sepinwall, HitFix

“The people populating You’re The Worst are some of the show’s weaker aspects. Jimmy and Gretchen are awful in the sense that they are cynical and selfish—rather than cartoonish and sociopathic—but their friends are broader caricatures. Jimmy lives with spacey veteran Edgar (Desmin Borges) and mistakenly befriends a neighborhood boy (Shane Francis Smith), taking the residual nastiness that leached out of NBC’s About A Boy adaptation and multiplying it tenfold.”
—Molly Eichel, AV Club

“We know the end point for these two; they’re made for each other. But the writing makes the bumpy journey nonetheless entertaining. You’re the Worstwas created by Stephen Falk (Orange Is the New Black) with a clear sense that Gretchen and Jimmy’s repartee needs to be sharp, louche, and, ultimately, a bit of a front.”
—Matthew Gilbert, The Boston Globe

“FX’s other new comedy, the much livelier and surprisingly smarter You’re the Worst, opens with a familiar rom-com trope at a wedding reception. The bride’s rejected former boyfriend, Jimmy (played by British actor Chris Geere), misbehaves, mouths off and is kicked to the curb — where he promptly goes home with the wedding’s least-happy female guest, Gretchen (Aya Cash), who has helped herself to one of the couple’s wrapped wedding presents.”
—Hank Stuever, The Washington Post