"You’ll drive everyone away."
In Four Goddamn More Days, we see another flashforward; in this case, Gretchen goes to the hotel bar where she meets a guy, she tells him she almost got married once but she’s now single and she orders a whiskey, which seems weird given she was throwing out all the alcohol in her room, she’s either previously sober and falling off the wagon in the most cavalier way, or there’s something else going on.
In the present, Gretchen keeps stealing Edgar’s meds, even snorting them, and she’s super on edge about everything because she's been fired and she's trying to keep it a secret from Jimmy until the wedding, she tells Lindsay he won't leave her after they're married cause it's too much work. And we know what happens later, but it's weird that she thinks that's why he'd leave her.
"Divorce is so much paperwork, he’ll never get around to that shit."
Edgar and Jimmy finished the scrip but it seems the studio hired Diablo Cody to do it instead. Jimmy’s sad for a day and decides now he understands Gretchen’s depression, he says it was selfish of him to inflict his pain upon her and he’s glad the depression days are behind them, which doesn’t really help Gretchen’s state.
Lindsay is still as needy as ever with Yvette and since Vernon was apparently raised by two moms and he gives Lindsay a “lesbian test” filled with stereotypes. This only makes her go full-on cliché and unwittingly doing exactly what she always did for men, transforming into whatever she thinks other people want. She ends up getting fired for threatening to stab Yvette if she doesn’t say she loves her, I really thought there could be something there for Lindsay, but maybe it’s just a stepping stone.
Egar calls Gretchen's work and learns what happened so he tries to get her to say something all day, he even follows her. When he finally confronts her, she says his meds were making life bearable, he says he knows she’s been fired and she breaks in tears, she begs him not to tell Jimmy because he'll leave her for good. She’s scared that she always fails, even when she tries, and she can’t imagine failing with Jimmy. Then they hug, this was such a powerful scene but it only makes what Edgar does in the next episode even worse, Aya Cash killed it though. After that, Gretchen comes home and tells Jimmy everything, he tries to be strong and supportive for her but he’s clearly terrified at what another meltdown would mean.
"Even when I tried I failed, I always fail."
In We Were Having Such A Nice Day, we get confirmation that the flashes of Edgar running happen on the wedding day (or is it A wedding day?), it turns out he’s not in danger but merely playing with a blonde little girl in way over-the-top fashion. Since, by the end of the episode, the best friends have a fallout, I wonder if they make up or if this is another wedding altogether, I also wonder if that little girl is someone's daughter, maybe Jimmy's? Maybe Paul's? And Lindsay's? Iug, I'd rather avoid those thoughts but I do have to say, I need her to get rid of that haircut.
Jimmy and Gretchen finally have everything ready for the big day, except maybe themselves. She tells him she feels unconditionally accepted for the first time in her life, but then her sweet thoughts take a slightly darker turn, saying that now she can do anything and he’ll never leave her. She even throws a metaphorical glass which's very really glass fragments hurt her by the end of the episode, I wonder what this means as well.
Lindsay has Gretchen's whole pre-wedding day planned, she says since it’s Gretchen's special day they get to go to her favorite place: nowhere, Meaning everything will come to the house, Gretchen is super grateful and Lindsay tries to kiss her, which is not fully surprising since she’s so confused right now and Gretchen is pretty much her only “stable” person. They don’t make a big deal out of it and I don’t think it is either. But before their awesome day starts Gretchen’s mom drops in unannounced and, after trying to hit her with a chair, Lindsay bails on her best friend, leaving her on her most vulnerable day with the worst person she could ever be with, such a good friend.
When Lindsay gets home, Paul's there and he asks for help with Becca who's been careless with her pregnancy. Becca is trying to get more money out of him so she says if he doesn't pay, she’ll fight for custody. Paul says maybe he’s not ready for a kid and seems ready to leave till Becca drops her bluff saying she can’t raise a kid all over again and they agree on a contract. After that, Paul and Lindsay have a disgusting "sweet" moment, which really worries me, I trust the writers to only do this as a way to show how vulnerable she is right now but these two better not get back together.
Vanessa takes Lindsay's place and she and her daughter get pampered. At first, Gretchen is clearly trying to go full-on numb to protect herself but it's not that easy, her mom says she actually already knew she was marrying Jimmy and she was going to be there anyway, Gretchen has a moment of hope there, but then her mom chooses the perfect words to kick her down.
"We’ve had front row seats to all of your mistakes, so why stop now?"
Not knowing that Gretchen has been left alone with her biggest fear-generator Jimmy spends the whole day with Edgar who planned dit to perfection. The first stop is, Jimmy's beloved curling, then a smash-room, which leads to some wonderful imagery, and then Edgar presents him with a dummy with his father’s face and Jimmy’s about to smash him too but then he hugs him and tells it he’s getting married.
Back at home, Gretchen is finally full of it, she confronts her mom saying she knows nothing about her life but Vanessa says she knows every terrible thing she ever did. This shocks Gretchen and she asks if she ever thought it might have been a cry for help but her mom says they didn’t want to indulge her. Vanessa seems to want to ignore Gretchen’s mental health but her daughter keeps pushing her, saying she tried to kill herself once and the impulse still shows up sometimes.
At first, it seems like there could be a connection there when Vanesa says she’s miserable too, though I have to say even if she was willing to open up she's terrible by comparing her situation to Gretchen's, but then she backtracks all the way back to denial. She says no one ever wants to hear those things, but Gretchen says she’s wrong, that Jimmy knows it all and he’s not leaving her. Later she says she doesn’t feel any pleasure in being a mom but it’s her job to want more for Gretchen than she wants for herself. She says if she wants someone who doesn't push her and embraces her flaws, she glad she has Jimmy. Which was such a shitty thing to say, and hypocritical, considering her own life.
Finally, Jimmy and Edgar go to a prestigious private club and Edgar addresses Jimmy’s impostor syndrome, he says Jimmy still thinks of himself as he was years ago, but that now he belongs in those places. So Jimmy finally relaxes and has the time of his life, he even hugs Edgar at the end which was a sweet sign of appreciation he doesn’t usually get and he says he finally appreciates him.
You belong now.
But this is the time Edgar chooses to come clean about his thoughts, he says Jimmy shouldn’t marry Gretchen, that even when they are honest with each other, they never do anything to fix things. Jimmy gets pissed about the way he’s talking about his fiancé and says he doesn’t want to see him again. Edgar says they’ll destroy each other but Jimmy’s answer is that there’s no other way he’d rather go. For a moment I thought Edgar just wanted to ensure Jimmy’s assertiveness about the marriage but it seems they’re going for it for now.
I have to say I’m really resenting the way the show is going, I get that it’s not a healthy relationship, but it’s as healthy as it gets with people like Jimmy and Gretchen. When broken people get together with normal people, they tend to hide their flaws, they might seem better from the outside, and it might last for a while, but eventually, the cracks start to show, and the explosion is never good. Also, Edgar has been such a supporter of the relationship, I get you could say he wants better for him than Jimmy wants for himself, as Vanessa put it, but I’m really disappointed that they made it a situation where Jimmy had to choose between Edgar and Gretchen.
There's another foreshadowing that really scares me, Gretchen's word choice when she comes clean to Edgar is that the meds are making "life bearable" and then in this episode we hear her tell her mom she still wants to die sometimes, and I don't really want my mind to go there but I worry that's the road they'd take with her vharact6er, it would be absolutely heartbreaking, hopefully I'm just putting too much thought into it. In a way, I’m dreading this series finale, but I can't wait to watch it. This show has been absolutely amazing but there’s so much riding on this ending, it could solidify it as one of the best dramedies, if not the best, I’ve ever seen, or it could ruin the whole thing, it doesn’t change how many great moments we had but I would not like it to leave a sour taste in my mouth.
You’ll destroy each other...
There is no way I’d rather go
Any theories about flashforwards? How do you think this ends? Let me know in the comments.
