TV’s best and most offensive garbage people are back. No, I’m not talking about the Paddy’s Pub crew; rather, Gretchen (Aya Cash) and Jimmy (Chris Geere), You’re the Worst‘s pair of begrudging lovers who, over the course of its first three seasons, learned to love each other in the face of hating everything about everyone else. And then Jimmy proposed and after Gretchen said yes, he panicked and high-tailed it out of there, leaving her high in the Los Angeles hills, stranded, alone and visibly shaken.

The fantastic fourth season premiere starts with the lovers still torn apart and floating aimlessly in their respective lives. Part 1 is dedicated to (Shitty) Jimmy and Part 2, to our favorite red headed basket case. (I mean…woman is smoking crack now!) In the first half of “It’s Been,” we’re introduced to Jimmy’s new life hiding out at the High Mountain Retirement Motor Court where he’s at least 30 years younger than every other resident. He’s off the grid: no phone, no email. He’s renting DVDs from the library and his porn now comes from a printed page. He spends his time with Bert, an old curmudgeon who is more or less Future Jimmy, and quite an asshole, at that. It’s been three months since he left Gretchen, and somehow, hanging out with someone as miserable as he is, regardless of age, is comforting, or at the very least, it helps him avoid dealing.

In Part 2, Gretchen is super busy mastering her own version of avoidance. For her, that means crashing with Lindsay and not physically leaving the apartment for months. She’s manic and about to crack at any second. Speaking of crack, she buys some from a guy who sells it to her through the window—what a score! Gretch has always been a mess of sorts, but she was always in control of the terror she’d unleash upon society, projecting her own insecurities outward in a brazen attempt at survival. Even during her most depressed state, she was at least there, somewhere. Now, as Gretchen hatefucks a douchebag from her past, we can tell there’s nothing behind her eyes anymore. She’s gone.

As Jimmy observes more and more of Bert’s sad, depressing life, it stirs something in him. Does he see, as we do, that Bert’s angry state is exactly where his own life is heading? Hopefully that’s the lesson learned there. But for a character like Jimmy, it’s hard to say. He does, however, text Gretchen finally, as she’s riding on top of said douchebag. His text reads: “Hey…” Not exactly the kind of apology or communication appropriate for the proposal/abandonment combo he served Gretchen months prior. It’s going to take these two a lot of time to recover from this, which indeed sets the scene for what’s to come from the rest of Season 4.

As our main two terrors hit rock bottom, things are looking up for Lindsay (Kether Donohue), whose job as a stylist’s assistant turns full-time, despite her shoveling someone else’s noodles into her mouth. As for Edgar, he’s mellowed out thanks to marijuana and killing it as a sketch comedy writer. He’s living in Jimmy’s now-abandoned house and waiting for his friend to maybe return one day. After Lindsay storms Jimmy’s compound, the two reflect on how the tables have turned for the four friends, with Lindsay and Edgar being the ones who finally have their shit together, as opposed to their successful writer and PR friends who are now spiraling. (“We’re the serious ones now.”) They reflect all the way to the bedroom for some “dope sex,” the script absolutely flipped for YTW‘s central four.

This show has done wonders depicting these reprehensible Angelenos, but it’s always walked a thin line between its comedy and drama elements. From Jimmy’s deep-seated feelings of alienation and fear of commitment, to Gretchen’s clinical depression and Edgar’s PTSD, the show never plays it safe by using comedy as its safety net. It displays its characters’ flaws, but then pulls back the curtain and digs deep into why these people are as horrible as they are (horribly funny, but still). The show isn’t afraid to take detours or throw creative curveballs, structurally or narratively. It begs us to ask: Who are these people we’re watching and do they even have the slightest grip on their own senses of self? Gretchen and Jimmy remain shattered souls who can’t seem to rise up out of their own bullshit. On other shows, that might be increasingly frustrating to watch, but here, it’d oddly fascinating. Who knows how long it will take to get Jimmy and Gretchen to pick up the pieces, but if someone like Lindsay can learn to stop stabbing people and injecting herself with stolen semen, anything is possible. Grade: A