‘You’re The Worst’ Finale: Chris Geere Talks Jimmy and Gretchen “Going Off Into That Broken Sunset”

You’re the Worst has officially aired its series finale on FXX and while I’m personally still in denial that the brilliant series is over, that was a damn satisfying ending. Created by Stephen Falk, the show followed Jimmy (Chris Geere) and Gretchen (Aya Cash) as two Los Angeles singles unsuited for a committed romantic relationship with anyone…except maybe each other. Along with their besties Edgar (Desmin Borges) and Lindsay (Kether Donohue), You’re The Worst was a series that not only tackled modern dating, but themes from mental illness to brunch in ways that were realistic and sensitive and laced with sharp humor, making it one of the most unique and addictive comedies that dared to stand out even in the era of Peak TV.

So when Geere stopped by the Decider offices last week ahead of the finale, we certainly had more than enough to discuss. (Spoilers ahead, and shame on you for waiting to watch!) Here, he explains why he was just as nervous as the rest of us when it comes to the relationships between Jimmy and Gretchen and Jimmy and Edgar, what it’s like for him to go to brunch now, and why the show forever changed romantic comedies in his mind (and possibly career).

Decider: I loved the ending. Team Decider as a whole thought this was the perfect way to go, everybody felt very satisfied by it. Is that the same for you?

Chris Geere: Yeah, it felt right. It was the first time I did that really naughty thing of reading a script and reading the last page first before I read the rest of it. It was just kind of a real cool nod. They were never gonna walk off into the sunset. It had to be complicated in some way, it had to feel like it wasn’t insulting to the fans, but satisfied the journey they had both been on. That was really cool. If I was a viewer, I would be satisfied.

Were you nervous that they maybe wouldn’t end up together at all?

Yes. Every single episode I would, again, start reading it and think, ‘I’m just waiting for him or her to say or do something which would be too far a step, cross the line too much.’ But they’ve always been so broken together that they’ll probably go off into that broken sunset together, you know? Always having one foot out the door was the message from the get-go. So to follow that through was pleasing.

I was also nervous about the relationship with Edgar. That was hard to watch. How was that for you? Were you nervous about that one too?

I was, I was. There was a very different energy to the scenes that we were shooting with Desi and I towards the end, because the status scale shifted so much. Edgar became so much stronger, so much more articulate with his feelings, and that was surprising to Jimmy, he had to take a step back. Usually he either contradicted everything he said, or didn’t listen to him. And this was the one time where he went, ‘Whoa okay. We’re going into a new realm of friendship now.’ Which is just great. I just think that, again, the fans would be so pleased with that. Because the entire run they’ve wanted him to stand up for himself a little bit more, and he found that level this time. So it’s good.

Has it hit you that it’s over? 

No. I don’t think it ever will. It feels like I’m trying to compare it to something and I’ve used several different examples. Either a relationship that’s ended, a first love type relationship that will stay with you forever. And every other relationship afterwards will be comparable to that. In one sense it feels like that, in another sense it feels like a family home that I grew up in, and loved, and knew back to front, and suddenly you have to move out of that house. So I think there’s a transition, there’s an adjustment. But the bottom line is an overwhelming sense of gratitude that it happened in the first place. And I met up with Aya yesterday and everyone feels the same. What a lovely memory, I think we’re just so grateful that we could’ve done it and finished it. Because that’s so rare! That’s incredibly rare these days. Not only to go five seasons but to be able to finish it on our terms. Rather than find out online that you’ve been dropped, which is quite a big thing these days.

Do you have plans for when the final one airs? 

Yeah. My wife’s coming out, and Stephen did this really cool thing towards the end where he incorporated everyone’s family, their life and things [into the show]. So there’s little snippets of…people’s kids in real life are in it, and their husbands and wives are playing background at some point. My wife is a singer, one of her songs is used in the background of a scene in the finale. The families of everyone, the spouses and kids of everyone involved over the course of five years needs to be celebrated as well.  I’m hoping that the four of us are go and have a little beer together, and a little cheers and go, what a great adventure. But I think as a whole it’ll be a big cast and crew and our families, nod to what has been a life changing five years now.

The four of you can sneak out and have a cigarette, just like in the show.

Exactly, maybe steal something from the wrap party.

It was also very fitting that this show started and ended with a wedding. How are those to film? Is it fun, is it chaos?

It’s an awful lot of coverage. You get there in the morning and do the big master shot and think, oh this is great. It feels like a play. Everyone’s in character but there are thirty, forty people. And then the camera slowly moves in, and before you know it 25 hours have passed and you’re still doing the same scene. So from that point of view it takes an awful long time.

It’s nice when all of us are together. I always enjoyed those scenes that everyone was in, Vernon (Todd Robert Anderson) and Becca (Janet Varney) and Paul (Allan McLeod) and the dynamics between everyone. But it’s interesting I actually…sometimes I have a bit of a reminiscent watch of a previous episode from another season. I watched the pilot, and my. We all look so different, feel so different, the characters have evolved so much that it’s really fun to see how we’ve all changed and grown through the writing and everything in our own personal lives.

How high is the bar for you now if you’re gonna do another series after this?

Annoyingly too high. Because I think it’s really important to do something that is as good if not better. And it’s really highlighted to me how lots of things aren’t. I feel like I’ve had such a great experience with the best writers and actors that there are, that nothing will compare. But that’s a good thing, that doesn’t mean I have to give up now it just means I’ve been fortunate enough. So I don’t know what the next step is but I’m excited I’ve got those five years under my belt now.

What it has done is it’s changed romantic comedies for me. I was always a huge fan of the formula and the premise of the romantic comedy. They meet, they fall in love, they fall out, there’s a huge montage and then they get back together again. I think we’ve turned the whole trope on its head really. So I think it would be quite foolish of me to go back to something like that. But at the same time, that’s where my heart is, it’s always been romantic comedies. It’s always been that laughter and those tears. I think You’re The Worst did that to such a great degree that it would be important to honor that.

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In honor of tonight’s @youretheworstfxx SERIES FINALE 😭, we asked @cwgeere to share all the elements of a perfect Sunday Funday🍹

A post shared by Decider.com (@deciderdotcom) on Apr 3, 2019 at 11:13am PDT

Are you able to go to brunch?

What, now? Are you asking me out?

If you want to go, we’ll go have some scrambled eggs and pancakes. But mostly I mean without somebody coming up and screaming Sunday Funday in your face?

I’ve had that in England, weirdly. I didn’t think the show was available that much in England, but it seems that it is. And yeah, it’s rather peculiar. We live in an age where if people don’t know your name off by heart then they might shout out your character. If they can’t remember your character, they shout out the name of the show. So when someone comes over and shouts ‘You’re the worst’ in the middle of a busy restaurant, that’s quite off-putting. People have really grasped onto the song, and I think Sunday Funday was always a thing, but we really put it on the map. So much so that my friends call Monday ‘Second Sunday.’

Is it the same activities or is it like nap time?

Monday is the nap time. You start work again on a Tuesday morning. Monday you need to recover from the Sunday. Sunday for me growing up was always the day of rest where you would do your homework and pack your bag for school. No. It’s not that anymore. It should be as fun if not more fun than Saturday.

I like starting the week on a Tuesday, I’m fully on board. I also wanted to ask you about Detective Pikachu, which seems very secretive.

It is, isn’t it? I think that’s the world of such a huge franchise like that. But what I can tell you is I am extremely excited. It was a wonderful experience, brilliant people. I think the Pokemon Universe is something that I completely underestimated the size of. And I think it’s gonna be pretty big. There was an awful lot of working with tennis balls, which was a bit different. But I got to do some incredibly cool things and I just can’t wait to see it. So who knows? It’s a bit of a switch from shooting in a studio in Silver Lake to this big kind of set-up. But yeah, I’m excited to see what people think.

You talked before about liking romantic comedies. But in doing this role, did you at all get into romance novels, did you read any of them?

Erotic novels?

I was being polite about it.

I think as the whole erotic novel runner started to go out script-wise, the writers — and Stephen especially — are so thorough with everything that they did, they actually have written The Width of a Peach. The whole book. So they wrote a book. Fans have said please can I have a copy? I think it would be wonderful. So between takes and between set-ups and things like that I would read set-ups from The Width of a Peach. And one, if not all of the writers have been spending weeks writing this novel. And it’s so funny.

Will they release it? Are there plans to?

I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything. But I’d buy it.

Hell yeah. And then you’d have to go and do signings and everything.

Maybe it could be the You’re the Worst equivalent of doing like a Comic-Con. So I could go into proper erotic book festivals, in character. Do you remember that episode when they went to the erotic book festival? Some of the people who dressed up in that were fantastic. They were genuine erotic fantasy fans who had been hired by us. There’s a world out there that could be explored.

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