'You're The Worst' Season 3 is on the edge of total, complete darkness

If you want good drama, watch more comedies.

In the year that black-ish tackled police brutality, Orange is the New Black dealt with death and movies like The Hollars and Other People left millions cry-laughing in theaters, it's only fitting that the deceptively sunny and funny You're The Worst would plunge viewers so deftly into the dark.

In the four episodes of Season 3 that have aired so far, we find our characters on the cusp of what seems long overdue: A total collapse of the world they thought they understood. It's a feeling that many start to see in their 20s, juxtaposed with phases of sex and success which are overcome by familiar existential dread. Gretchen (Aya Cash) was the first of the group to face this head-on, and now she's in therapy for her clinical depression; the universe now sets its sights on Jimmy (Chris Geere), who just learned that his father passed away.

In Wednesday night's episode, in the Jimmiest of moves, Jimmy plasters on a serial-killer-smile and goes about his life, which includes faking sad to con Gretchen into a blowjob and then spending his day trying to find the perfect metaphor for an erotic novel (his creativity is, mysteriously, blocked).

Beyond the intense denial of his father's death, we're faced with the possibility that Jimmy might have a drinking problem, which we’ve seen at its worst in the Season 2 finale, even if that was the butt of a joke.

Gretchen convinces her boyfriend to spend a day actively seeking triggers for his grief: A graveyard, a British pub, a paint-your-own-pottery place full of potentially dysfunctional father-son duos. Each place pushes him further into the chasm of emotion, until he gathers his father's old things and realizes that he's still not sad.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

More on that later, but first: Edgar (Desmin Borges). If you feel a cold shiver about the trajectory of Edgar's story this season, you should. Now that he's off his medication, Edgar is completely at the mercy of his PTSD, which he's spoken of candidly since Season 1. But now, he's suddenly gone quiet. He offhandedly mentions having a “rough night” and the urgency of an appointment at Veterans' Affairs.

Gretchen and Jimmy are completely self-absorbed at the best of times, but it’s hard this time to fault them for the quest to thaw Jimmy’s cold, dead heart.

Maybe that’s why Edgar abandons his usual attempts to even say something to his friends and suffers entirely on his own, drinking car booze from the bottle with a deadened look in his eyes. We know things are about to hit bottom for Edgar, and no amount of dread will keep it from happening.

On the bright side of it all is Lindsay (Kether Donohue), the comic relief red herring who stabbed her husband two episodes ago and thinks she might become a dad or an uncle someday. Turns out, Lindsay is a natural at maternity -- at least in theory. She's the star of parenting class and it's gratifying after a floundering Season 2 to finally see her win, even if she's got a long way to go.

Even Dr. Jordan (guest star Samira Wiley) is mired in problems, arguing on the phone with a man who says she's therapizing him when he accuses her of being mad. She insists to Gretchen that Jimmy is processing and that sooner or later, his father's death is going to hit him hard. For now, Jimmy feels free, and Gretchen is glad to hear it. He stuffs every memento of his father into a drawer, compartmentalizing and closing it off from the rest of his life. But the drawer won’t stay closed.

Now that’s a perfect metaphor.