Delivering tragic news is a kind of service. To sacrifice your own comfort so they can have the gift of truth? That is true nobility.
Bad News: Dude's Dead
Samira Wiley's Justina Jordan is in this episode once but she adds to it in a comedic way that is utterly necessary, given the dramatic turns the story keeps taking. We see her drinking coffee in peace at a coffee shop until Gretchen barges in, rudely interrupting her breakfast as she starts talking about her current predicament, clearly looking to be talked into doing the right thing.
Justina: You haven't told him?
Gretchen: No! Ew! I couldn't, he was so stoked about selling his book. And then I got busy and forgot for a couple of days.
Justina: I get it. It's tough. The idea of seeing Jimmy in pain...
Gretchen: Jimmy? No, this is gonna suck for me. We've been having hella fun lately. Boning like crazy, I tricked him into giving me back rubs, saying that it made me horny. Joke's on you, dummy, I'm horny already.
So she goes home decided to tell Jimmy the news and finds him on a self-organized photo-shoot for the book. She asks to talk to him but when she's about to get it out, he tells her he wants to take her on a trip, because of how supportive she's been of him, and she gets so excited by the idea of going on a cruise (her dream vacation since she was a little girl) that she forgets all about her decision.
After that, she goes to a filming set to steal food with Lindsay who's talking about how easy it was to stab Paul and how, afterwards, she'd convinced herself she hadn't done it on purpose, so she was thinking maybe she'd be able to convince herself she loves him as well. She struggles with that particular task, but she does manage to convince Gretchen that if she tells Jimmy, she will be forever linked to that news, so she has to get "some other sucker to tell him".
So, immediately, they go to Edgar's work at the gym to convince him to do it, but he says he's had to tell too many people that their loved ones had died. It's a little weird to me how they disregard the heartbreaking line, not only because of the characters but the show in general tends to make fun of it, I know it's the way they treat almost everything, and most of the time it's hilarious, no matter how dark they get. But sometime I feel it's a bit too much, specially with Edgar's storyline. Also it looks like they're not doing much with the fact that Edgar's off his pills, except making him talk about it more, but I can't see the reason for that particular arch yet.
In the end, Gretchen decides to invite everyone over to celebrate Jimmy's book and use them as a buffer to break the news with a lot more people to be attached to it. That includes Vernon, Becca, and Paul who's in crutches, I still can't seem to find Paul even remotely interesting or funny, I almost wished Lindsay had killed him, if only to avoid seeing him again. When Jimmy gets home, he tells Gretchen he's found the perfect cruise for her (the one of the Instagram pets) and she's so ecstatic she doesn't want to ruin it and cranks up the music. Which leads to a bizarre rave-type scene where they throw champagne at each other, smoke and even the pregnant ladies are drinking. In the middle of all of this, there's Killian (the kid who played video games with Jimmy last season), who's been left by his father and, going to Jimmy's to steal his food, got dragged into all the vices by the party people, which could've been fun if it wasn't for the Lindsay-part.
Jimmy is having the fun of his life until Becca is nice to him and he gets immediately suspicious, but the conclusion he arrives to is that they're there to distract him from writing because they don't want him to succeed. So he goes downstairs, to look for a file where he wrote every bad thing he's though about them, and, in the meantime, Vernon convinces Edgar to man up and tell Jimmy the truth.
Vernon: Delivering tragic news is a kind of service. To sacrifice your own comfort so they can have the gift of truth? That is true nobility. Like when I was born dead, I vividly remember the pain in the doctor's voice when he told my parents "I have good news and bad news. The good news: it's a boy, and he's hella hung. Bad news: dude's dead."
So Edgar goes to Jimmy decided, but when he tells Jimmy there's something about his father, Jimmy realizes all this time he's been trying to prove he's not "Shity Jimmy", so he calls to insult him. Edgar in panic goes back up, they don't know whet to do but Paul mans up (still doesn't make me like him) and makes everyone go down to stop him, but once they're there they listen to Jimmy just say: I sold a book, Daddy. And everyone's face falls apart. The entire cast was great in his whole episode but I have to mention Desmin Borges specially, his face, the way he shows so much pain for his friend, is heartbreaking. Everybody decides to leave after that and Gretchen finally tells him. The episode ends with Jimmy's face in total painful shock.
This episode literally had me in tears, they managed to do the same in the final episodes of last season, but this is only episode three. That moment when everyone realized, no matter what he said or what his father had done, all he wanted was just to make his dad proud resonates in every father and son relationship ever.
This was for me one of the best episodes of the show so far. What did you guys thought of it? Where do you think Edgar and Lindsay's storylines are headed? I'd love to read your thoughts.
Note: English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes.
