You're the Worst season 3: Alison Bennett recaps episode 10

Every week, the cast and crew of FXX’s sharp, raunchy, cult comedy, You’re the Worst, is taking EW behind the scenes. For each episode, one member is recapping, sharing thoughts on what went down, and walking us through the ins-and-outs of the show. This week, writer Alison Bennett bring us into the tenth episode of season three, “Talking to Me, Talking to Me.”

Hi! I’m Alison Bennett and I wrote tonight’s episode: “Talking To Me, Talking To Me.” While our characters are always thinking about themselves (except Edgar), they’re all engaged in some serious self-reflection this week.

Meanwhile, fed up with Paul the Worm, Lindsay heads to Marie Callendar’s for her usual pre-abortion ritual with Gretchen. Even though she has no issues with the procedure itself, she hesitates because ending the pregnancy means ending her relationship with Paul, “for real this time.” Paul is clearly not the right person for Lindsay — but he is a good person who texts her scientifically inaccurate bitmojis and gets all of the marbles out of her gas tank. After getting sidelined by the world’s nicest anti-abortion protestor, Lindsay tells Gretchen she’s worried about becoming an actual human being and living on her own again. Gretchen promises that she’s got her back, and in the first step of exiting her terrible marriage, Lindsay walks into that abortion clinic.

Gretchen is now no longer resisting the therapy process — she’s digging deep and reflecting on her toxic relationship with her mother. She even suggests that Jimmy tries therapy, if only to look at his life from a different perspective, “like when they stood on the desks in Dead Poets Society.” Like most thirtysomething women in Los Angeles, Gretchen is also reading a self-help book and downloads a meditation app for her phone. She tries listening to it while waiting for Lindsay to have her procedure, but it’s so boring she wants to kill herself, so she watches her favorite kind of porn (group sex, doy) and masturbates with her “car vibe” instead.

Edgar lends his helpful ways to Dorothy’s career: He runs lines with her and even tags along to provide moral support at her commercial audition, which she needs after being asked to read for “Overworked Mom” instead of “Cute Yoga Girl.” While in the waiting room, Edgar runs into “pot comedy guy, among other things” Doug Benson, who happens to be a fan of Edgar’s Dr. Weed videos. Would Edgar want to meet with him about a sketch show he’s doing for the GPS app Waze? Edgar almost bursts with possibility as he starts to see himself as more than just a veteran/personal chef to a pasty novelist. Meanwhile, Dorothy has started identifying as a failed actress who can’t even rub off enough under eye concealer to book “Overworked Mom…”

But sometimes self-reflection means you then see others in a different light: Back at Marie Callendar’s, Gretchen discovers that Lindsay is actually a secret mindfulness guru, as she’s thinking about the pie she’s eating instead of the abortion she just had and her impending divorce. (Taking cues from Lindsay, Gretchen later turns off the negative voices in her head while watching “Wheel.” Of Fortune.) Dorothy tries really, really hard to be happy for Edgar’s first comedy writing job, but the power balance in the relationship has shifted now that he’s living her literal dream. And while stuck in the treehouse, Jimmy gets a rare bird’s eye view of his home and Gretchen, and finally gets that new, Dead Poets Society-esque perspective on life. But does he like what he sees?

Some additional thoughts:

• The meditation app is actually based on one that fellow You’re the Worst writer, Eva Anderson, recommended to me. After three seasons of working on the show, Eva and I are now best friends in real life, but we do not have any abortion rituals.
• This season, we discovered that Jimmy and Gretchen keep “car booze” and Gretchen has a “car vibe.” What else do they have in their cars? (Cocaine.)
• I think Edgar smooching Dorothy’s hands as he offers to make her breakfast soup dumplings is one of the cutest moments of the series, despite Dorothy being kind of unsupportive at the time.
• This is the second script I’ve written this season that contains a nod to Mad Men — Doug Benson’s secretary in his surprisingly fancy office was inspired by Ida Blankenship (RIP).
• I like that Killian references the Los Feliz Coffee Bean in this episode because that’s where I first met Stephen Falk when I interviewed for this show!
• Gretchen and Lindsay know exactly how long an abortion takes (in unison): “Forty, forty-five minutes.”

You’re the Worst airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FXX.