Deadshirt

Last week’s episode was about the metaphor: the way we assign values to things that are too complex to be described as simply “sad” or “happy” or “perfect.” It’s what Jimmy—who insists he feels nothing about his father’s death—is struggling with as he writes his erotic novel: The perfect metaphor to describe his female lead’s sexy ass. He can’t come up with it, though. He’s blocked.

It’s a metaphor, we should believe; he insists he feels nothing for his father, but in reality, he’s blocked because he’s holding back his feelings. We’re set up to think this way through Gretchen’s ambush appointment with Justina. (Is there any other kind with Gretchen as a patient?) Justina coolly warns her that it’s only a matter of time before his father’s death hits Jimmy, and when it does, she’s going to need to be there for him. Gretchen being Gretchen, she doesn’t want this coming up during her precious Famous Pets of Instagram Cruise, so she wants to “pop the pimple” and get Jimmy through the grieving process so they can all move on.

In typical fashion, though, every attempt Gretchen makes to push those repressed emotions out of Jimmy backfires horribly. Gretchen takes Jimmy to a funeral; they get distracted by how hot everyone there is and end up fucking in a crypt. (“Make sure to pull out!…Your dad might be looking for a body to reincarnate!”) They go to a craft store to observe fathers and sons spending quality time together and luck into a dad walking out on his kid. In a stunning reversal, though, it’s the kid who’s abusive; what they saw was the dad losing his last nerve. All the activity seems to be slowly stirring something within Jimmy, though, and by the time Gretchen starts belittling Jimmy as Ronnie Overly, at the kind of old school British-style pub he would have frequented, a strange, powerful feeling does indeed well up within Jimmy.

But then he passes gas and moves on. Never let anyone tell you that fart jokes are solely the domain of crass comedy, folks.

Meanwhile, the death of Jimmy’s father leads Lindsey to the realization that she wants her child to miss her when she’s gone, so she signs up for a parenting class—the same one her sister’s in, of course—and takes every lesson to heart, acing every test, getting a toy giraffe as a prize. Lindsey’s problems as an expecting mother run deeper than being able to change diapers or administer CPR, though: She’s going to have a child that reminds her of a man she does not love, no matter how much she claims to, no matter how hard she tries. She gravitates to another parent at the class who seems to be trapped in a loveless marriage, but when she tries to make a move, he fiercely rejects her. She runs out, embarrassed, dropping the toy giraffe behind her like a lead slipper.

Lindsey doesn’t understand love, just like Gretchen doesn’t understand grief. When confronting emotions we don’t understand, we use simple ideas like attending funerals or learning CPR to figure them out. But sometimes emotions are too complex for such simple ideas. Lindsey will come no closer to understanding love by learning to change a diaper than Gretchen will come to understand grief by making Jimmy “get it all out.”

But all that is more of a problem for Lindsey, forcing herself to stay with a man who has a far different view of love, than it is for Gretchen, who’s with a man who is emotionally stunted in his own right. As Justina warned Gretchen, only Jimmy can decide when his father’s death will hit him. But, regardless of his differing reasons (Gretchen doesn’t feel equipped to handle the grief of others, Jimmy doesn’t want to feel like his father holds any sway over his emotions), Jimmy is just as desperate as Gretchen is for assurance that his father’s death means nothing to him. At the end of the night, he takes one final test, inhaling his dad’s old soccer jacket, and discovers the feeling he and Gretchen have been chasing all day. And he assures Gretchen that the feeling is happiness, and now that he’s confronted it, he finally has the perfect metaphor to describe his female lead’s bottom.

Most importantly, he can stuff all of Ronnie Overly’s things into a drawer and shut it up tight.

And because no metaphor can be too perfect, when Jimmy and Gretchen leave, that drawer pops itself open, just a little bit.

Episode Highlight: Not everything needs a metaphor. I’m giving the game ball to Desmond Borges, who conveys the absolute depths that Edgar has sunk to in one quick shot of him chugging whiskey. It’s well-worn shorthand for “approaching rock bottom,” but the casual nature of the scene took me by surprise and broke my heart.