Fans of FXX’s edgy comedy You’re the Worst may have thought that last season’s exploration of depression was the darkest the series would get. They were wrong. This week, the show waded into even murkier waters with a prolonged focus on Edgar (Desmin Borges) as he grappled with PTSD and the frustrating bureaucracy that often prevents veterans from getting the help they need. Though her character was largely on the fringes of the episode, star Aya Cash was bowled over by “Twenty-Two” and spoke with Vanity Fair about how it’s a stepping stone to a larger comedy revolution.
“I love how they’re playing with form,” Cash said of the episode, which acts as a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead-esque companion to last week’s “Men Get Strong.” Both episodes were directed by show-runner Stephen Falk and, Cash explains, each scene was shot two ways—the second time from Edgar’s frazzled, unraveling perspective. “We were definitely more assholes,” Cash says of the attitudes she and co-stars Chris Geere and Kether Donahue adopted in order to populate Borges’s nightmarish point of view.
Speaking with Vanity Fair before the season started, Falk said he felt it was his “duty” to revisit Edgar’s damaged psyche. This season picks up “those threads that we dropped very purposefully in Season 2. I don't think we made any big mistakes in the last season by allowing a veteran character to claim a life outside of that status, but that season, it did feel like there was some unfinished business—not that this season will finish it, but there was a lot of road to explore. So we're doing that this season.”
In addition to acting as a companion to last week’s episode, “Twenty-Two” featured bold choices when depicting Edgar’s despair. The episode opens with a surprising floating shot that recalls Breaking Bad at its most visually innovative. “I’m constantly surprised and thrilled by their willingness to experiment,” Cash says. “I think you're going to get some more of that throughout the season, as well.”
Cash is experimenting herself a lot these days. She joined the large, starry ensemble cast of Joe Swanberg’s Netflix anthology Easy which itself also plays with the definition of TV comedy. Told over eight half-hour installments and featuring some overlap of character, each Easy episode acts almost as a self-contained mini Swanberg movie.
The director of Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas is famous for his improvisational style. “It was amazing,” Cash enthuses. “I’d never done anything like that. He just gives you an outline, and then you make it all up from there. My favorite note is when he’s like, ‘Guys, stop being funny. That’s not what the scene is about.’”
Cash plays a stressed, pregnant woman who discovers her husband had been keeping a secret from her, and the actress says she relished playing against type: “Joe asks you, ‘What do you never get to play?” I said, ‘I never get to play kind, maternal, sweet.’ So I was super excited to play someone who was a little softer, a little more eager to please. I just thought that would be a really fun change of pace from playing Gretchen the last couple years.”
Cash’s character is not the one she was originally meant to play. When her initial Easy story fell through, she then was offered a part that was too close to Gretchen—and one that required nudity. She turned down both. But the sweet-tempered Sherri is one of only four characters to get two episodes dedicated to her plot line, and though she’s not sure how Easy will move forward next season, Cash knows she wants to be a part of it. “I don't know how if he's going to American Horror Story it with a lot of actors doing different things. I don't know if he wants to interconnect them all. But I know both Joe and I would like to work together again, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in Easy.”
One of the great advantages of Netflix’s flood-the-market approach to programming is the room it gives artists like Swanberg to experiment with form and tone. But Cash is not content to merely be a player in two of the most experimental comedies on television: she’s also working on producing a movie based on her mother’s book, Little Beauty. “I‘m working with a wonderful new female filmmaker on that. Female filmmaker, female producer, two female leads,” Cash laughs, “You know, be the change.”
