Ahead of the new season, and as if we needed reminding, let’s look back and relive the moments that help crystallize the show’s significance

Season One

When the situation’s a lot more nuanced than that

“Moments,” though? An arbitrary quantity in the realm of media criticism, which will, damn you, have little to do with arbitrary, bet. Well, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a television show that really rises above. Without pulling rank or some shit, it’s true I’ve watched an unusual amount of television, meaning I watch a lot of television I don’t watch for entertainment. Reality, variety, sitcom, procedural, and they’re variously terrible but patterns don’t correlate to genres necessarily. Reality can be compelling in spurts — highly manufactured spurts, of course — and expensive dramas can be some of the most boring, no-risk spaces on the air. So the only constant I can deduce where it concerns television being suck is when it spurns its moment. Signature CBS dramas are great for coming home and decompressing (read: not paying attention), looking up at the screen occasionally to see familiar faces doing a familiar thing. That’s fine and functional, but not as ‘storytelling.’

So then, there are shows which mine each moment, like the stories in other media do as a matter of course — movies and books, let’s say, and movies, especially — and that’s where The Tatami Galaxy and Flowers of Evil may leap to mind (except I never finished Flowers of Evil because it was literally too intense), which are however based on preexisting material. For television, even The Wire and Breaking Bad had some fluff, and Mad Men its non-sequiturs. Those might not be fair comparisons, because those five shows were telling a story, as a storyteller does by default, and that’s demonstrably not a bad thing. But here comes Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and it’s laying a labyrinthine (spelled it right, first try) puzzle narrative, like those Nolan fellows do, or David Lynch probably does but who can say. Actually, in this regard, it’s a lot like an outsized The Tatami Galaxy, which comes at my highest recommendation.

I just can’t get over how the show demands rewatches by revealing new information and casting older storylines in a compelling new light, how it accelerates and tears through plot points like it’s gonna be canceled tomorrow, and how it does all of this for a beautiful purpose. This is the best television show on television, and look — TV critics, I love you, but at some point, the collective you has called every television show on television the best television show and it cannot, by the laws of logic, be true every time. Sure, sure, it’s just a hopeful rephrase of ‘plz watch this one of too many TV shows,’ and in this case, holy shit, you’ve gotta watch. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is many things — heartbreaking, sensitive, educational, inspiring — and it is also the lowest rated show on the… what was it? Oh, yeah, television. Like, the whole thing.

Nobody in my life has ever walked up to me and asked “Why is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend your favorite television show ever?” but my answer might just be contained in this post. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend exists as a whole and as these moments, and the two are inextricable in a more important sense, but let’s just pretend anyway.

The moments discussed here may or may not be my all-time faves or what have you, because for the most part I wanted to highlight moments we might not always reflect on. It’s also not a top ten, though I did consider it, because I’m a bad person. Finally, ‘moment’ is a loose term, its definition dictated by convenience — sometimes it’s a scene, sometimes it’s a sequence.

Rebecca and Paula’s Pie Shop Raid
#117: “Why Is Josh in a Bad Mood?”

“I have two kids, I know that face.”

After Rebecca and Paula seal the deal on a night raid over a pitiable high-five, the two cartoon detectives meet outside Rose’s bakery to steal a recipe, or something? Off the high of “Oh my God I Think I Like You,” I don’t remember, but the substance of their crime is hardly at issue. This is about the relationship, about Rebecca trying to convince Paula their friendship is stronger than its wobbly foundation on the Chan-Man’s admittedly beefy shoulders.

On paper, it’s an incredibly melancholic scene, because Rebecca, unlike many anti-heroes who helped inspire her, doesn’t always get the job done. She steals the butter, but doesn’t excite Paula. Not for lack of trying; Desperate Rebecca is common, but this is different. She snakes along the ground to avoid lasers, she does a couple combat rolls — really puts in the effort, in action like a kid turning the playground into a spaceship or something. For Rebecca, the pie shop is the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark with a possibly booby-trapped fridge, but Paula isn’t buying it, and probably neither is Rebecca.

So we also have Paula shifting uncomfortably and the ticking bomb under the table of Rebecca’s UTI. Seriously, the face she makes when she pisses her pants, and really, the fact of it as capstone to this disaster: perfection. Though her pants caught most of it.

This sequence is also notable for being one of the times Rebecca/Rachel looks directly at the camera, when she and Paula spy through the bakery window. I think it happens after she says “I drank a lot of water,” and then she looks at the camera for a second before it cuts, as if to say: “Do you think she bought it?”

Rebecca’s Friend from Londontown
#108: “My Mom, Greg’s Mom and Josh’s Sweet Dance Moves!”

“It’s so hard to stop once you get started.”

Rebecca slings her mom through the underwhelming Whitefeather office (“Where’s the menorah?”) and hatches a Rebecca Bunch-scheme after being triggered by the utterance of “loser.” This episode seems to be about Rebecca struggling with her mother’s expectations, despite what Paula and “Where’s the Bathroom?” demonstrate in equal measure, in terms of Naomi’s judgment or demands. In the end, she stands up for herself and all her ridiculous choices, that even if she’s not Audra Levine, California does things its own way.

But as part of the level five mom-pleasing, Rebecca recruits Paula to pretend to be a cool friend, because she has none. As a half-troll at Rebecca’s expense, Paula shows up as a flamboyantly British Jew, and while nobody familiar with Rebecca would buy her friendship with someone who claimed to hate California and behaved just like her mother, the trick works on Naomi. So happy is she, that Rebecca’s finally made a friend who’s normal. “Finally!”

And indeed, one of my favorite parts of the scene is a simple pleasure: watching Rebecca seethe with a frustrated anger we’re not familiar seeing. For some reason, she gets so mad at Paula, and I’m not sure if it’s her obligation to stifle that anger in front of her mom or the mystery of its source that gets me. An excellent delivery: “So, you’re British. And you hate California.”

Really, what we’re seeing here is what Heather experiences in #204, an unflattering reflection. Paula goes overboard in her attempt to win over Noami, and does so for Rebecca’s sake, who’ll go even further with Calvin later on. Rebecca doesn’t like it, but she’s not equipped to do anything about it, beyond telling Paula to give her some space in classic moody teen voice.

It’s one of those scenes that involves information unevenly distributed among the players, and that feels like a comedy staple. It works here, and while this ultimately uplifting episode is rare for its moment of pure bliss encapsulated by “California Christmastime,” an endgame catharsis about 49 episodes early, consistent is its, well, fuck, I don’t know, knee-slappery. I don’t know how to write about comedy, and we’ll touch on that later.

“Have You Found Your Bashert?”
#118: “Paula Needs to Get Over Josh!”

“Are you ready to make a choice?”

End a scene on the sad instrumental version of “I Have Friends,” and it’ll stick in my heart, and we have that here with Rebecca and Josh in Moshe’s store, both shopping for the jewelry that’ll seal their futures as apart from one another. For them, it’s a mournful moment, and both Bloom and Rodriguez III play it very effectively. Moshe asks Josh if he’s ready to make a choice and we push in slowly, as the tune lingers. Of course, Moshe, unaware of their whole thing (I waaaas…), is referring to jewelry. But Josh knows the story. This is coming after his confirming Rebecca had/has a thing for him, which is why she had a bunch of photographs of him printed from some sort of mysterious photograph-printing service, back in #116. That’s where the irony of the scene comes in, but it’s also where the objectification is drawn — equating Rebecca and Valencia to jewelry, something purchased.

This episode and this moment nicely illustrate a certain divide between the first two seasons, as received by fans. As we’re beginning to see with details for season three, the shape of this overall narrative is one of pushing the microscope in, making season one the farthest we are from Rebecca in one sense, that we really don’t know much about her, despite what we think. So, the tenor of the season is light and polite, fun and engaging, not traumatic and horrifying like season two is often liable to be. It’s almost a played-straight romantic-comedy, if not for the consistent subversion, and a significant slice of the audience will forgivably invest in that romantic-comedy. So, when that slice is told romantic-comedy isn’t the point, that this fantasy is delusional, it leads to, at the very least, confusion.

I too enjoy this episode because of the fantasy bits, because I think the ending is actually romantic. Knowing what lies ahead in season two, and being hit on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper at the end of the episode, I know I’m not supposed to feel or think that way. But it’s so well-produced as a straight romantic drama, how can you not root for Rebecca and Josh in those moments toward the end? When they meet outside the hotel, it’s so beautifully shot and the lighting is perfect and the Lea Solanga performance is still booming — it’s unbelievable.

And it’s partly so ‘unbelievable’ because its emotional engine is this jewelry store scene. That longing, that distance, it’s an emotional page out of the Wong Kar Wai handbook, and it almost breaks my heart. That heart is then answered by the romantic peak of the episode, and is in short order, reminded of the show its watch/feeling: literally, with the final punchline of the season being the fucking title card. Blam.

So the question becomes: does the purpose of the scene invalidate my initial feelings it generated? And clearly, the answer’s “no,” and it’s been “no” several times over. I don’t know what this Brechtian magic is, whether I’m responsible for it or the show is, but I can appreciate that moment (and many others) for two different reasons in direct conflict with each other. I’m saying “boo, bad, Rebecca and Josh, you two are so bad for each other,” while my heart is melting.

I think that’s another reason why season two is easier for me to “fave,” perhaps, because it has less of these moments where drama is genuinely staged and perfectly executed, but it’s not supposed to be enjoyed (see also, the campfire in #110). Or maybe it is? See, I don’t know anymore. Which begs the next question: what if it is supposed to be unconditionally enjoyed? Is it more of that empathy exercise? Are we Rebecca in this moment, or Josh? Or Moshe? I think Josh, just because I’m simple and we end the scene on him, so if that’s the case, I really don’t know what to think.

This moment, this scene, this episode, require further study. But its place here, and in my melted/broken heart, will remain.

A Girl Named Charlie and a Guy Named Dana
#114: “Josh Is Going to Hawaii!”

“That’s really sweet.”

With the big Los Angeles case (which puts Whitefeather on the map) done and won (morally), Darryl decides to relax with a Cup of Boba, and who should he run into but White Josh himself, man of many reaction shots during the trial and especially during “Flooded with Justice.” (Actor David Hull showed up on set that day and apparently had no idea what was going on).

White Josh has been a tough fish to reel in for Darryl, who — granted — has just come out as bisexual — also — to his office. His new lease on life starts out somewhat challenging, as he never knows what White Josh wants exactly. Someone who’s accepted his own sexuality? Someone who’s not ashamed? Someone who’s a littler less open about everything? Someone who’s open about relationships, though? What we find is that White Josh wasn’t looking for anything in particular, he was just waiting for Darryl to be ready, to have truly accepted that he doesn’t need to play his bisexuality to anyone else, or to hide it from the very same — that the anyone else doesn’t matter to a relationship, especially one of a kind that’s been on the short end of a civil rights movement.

And David Hull’s performance here is partly why we can’t take sides between desperate Darryl and distant White Josh. He plays the character so sympathetically and yet so effortlessly, with that charming smile to make us reevaluate how we ever thought about bros. Maybe he messed up, and maybe Darryl did, too. If Mr. Gettin’ Bi is willing to wipe the slate clean, so is he. And so, at the boba stand, we have the birth of this relationship in earnest. While the ‘clean slate’ method somehow never applies to Rebecca, it’s okay here: they can and do create a host of new problems to solve together.

Rebecca and Valencia Gal Pals Again
#116: “Josh’s Sister Is Getting Married!”

“Oh, my.”

Though it doesn’t last, again, this is nonetheless a very sweet moment between two rivals. We learn about a significant insecurity on Valencia’s part, and we suspect it’s Rebecca’s natural kindness more than her revision of creeping on Valencia that leads us to the self-deprecating (and educational) “Heavy Boobs.” What’s more, Rebecca then encourages Valencia to try the dress on herself, and while from a storytelling perspective, this is, once more, the rug laid out to be pulled in the next scene, it still registers.

We make a hard cut to Valencia looking heavenly in the wedding dress, in awe of herself but uncharacteristically so. We can tell she really wants this for her future, to where Rebecca sees that too. She tells Valencia if she’s done anything to slow down that dream, she’s sorry, and it’s the healthiest she’s been — putting things right and distancing herself from her own toxic fantasy.

For additional pain, we’re witness to how she performs this role admirably, but “that bitch, fate” decided she hasn’t earned that role. She’s framed for Paula’s attempted sabotage on Valencia (Operation Rashy Nips), and Rebecca can hardly deny it, because it all traces back to her doing anyway. So she swallows the accusation and slinks out of the bridal shop, a cleavage-lollipop evidently not enough to alleviate her rage…

Rebecca vs. Paula Round 3
#116: “Josh’s Sister Is Getting Married!”

“Her password was so easy. Valencia1.”

I understand the skilled mix-tape creator doesn’t repeat artists, but as a matter of fact, the entire ending sequence from this episode ranks high on the nebulous “favorite Crazy Ex-Girlfriend moments” brain-list, from the moment cited above, through this one, to Rebecca ordering a drink, to Josh showing up at Rebecca’s door, to Rebecca’s return to Home Base. It’s a great, great episode, one that leads into another one of my favorites, #117. But anyway.

In their second big conflict, less a blowup argument than in episode two or a blowup musical number like “After Everything I’ve Done For You,” Rebecca takes her righteous anger to Paula following her humiliation at the bridal shop. And what comes out is a moment of such painful honesty, that Paula can’t let Josh go because her friendship with Rebecca was founded on it. She believed they had nothing else, and was terribly frightened they’d lose it. Rebecca’s turn as the mother figure for the entire episode (briefly lecturing Paula about ‘standing behind things, quietly waiting for people’) culminates here, where she offers Paula earnest support, in addition to something decidedly non-motherly.

Long after Bayonetta was cool… On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t fixate so much on this.

Season Two

When those exclamation points begin to wilt

I’m a pretty big fan of efficiency, and that’s the one of several possible obnoxious qualities I chose to help characterize my media consumption. Alternatively, I’m allergic to people who are pretty big fans of ‘authenticity,’ who, for example, couldn’t grok John Woo in high school because it wasn’t realistic gun battles. Yes, every movie should be Tears of the Sun. So for my annoying thing, I don’t go to the movie theatre to see a comedy film when I know what to input in the YouTube search bar to make me laugh for free. Why argue for the dramatic efficacy of certain genre films or anime shows when American cable dramas regularly blow them away? I’ll watch anime for [REDACTED] instead. And so, for a musical romantic-comedy, is it really correct to most appreciate it for dramatic moments, also?

Well, there’s a few things here. For one, of course, this is an incorrect approach to media. But more to the point, this kind of perception naturally divides a show into what appear to be separate elements. But I’m not so sure I can do that anymore. In the case of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the comedy and the music, when not inherently dramatic in themselves, are building blocks to the dramatic moments, which wouldn’t exist or work without the proper setup.

Additionally, why is ‘drama’ so much more important than ‘comedy’? That’s a bias of mine, and apparently, most industry award organizations, but I just have a closer sympatico with drama than comedy. But what drew me into this show was the humor, and that’s part of how the show functions — invitation through laughter. As a facility to the story and to the empathy at the heart of the mission, the comedy is essential, and as I realize, it can also stand alone as individually essential: wholly entertaining and wonderful. But everybody already understands that, even implicitly.

Season two ratchets up the dramatic stakes, and by this point in time, with I’d say more than five re-watches of the entire series, I now prefer the second season for that and other reasons, but there’s also healthy representation of its other essential elements, reflected here.

Nathaniel Sends a Plane
#212: Is Josh Free in Two Weeks?

“Thank you.”

Rebecca hugs her father and turns back to Nathaniel with a rather complex look on her face, a kind of “What are you up to, you duplicitous minx?” But with a strong “you asshole” carryover from his zoning permits rant. And she hugs him, thanks him, and that’s when I get a little misty. They’ve reached a new understanding in their relationship, and Nathaniel has, maybe for the first time in his life, seen something of himself in someone else — empathized, with the common ground of fealty to frigid fathers (FFFFFF). Granted, it may or may not be one part in a 42-point plan for the clearly smitten Nathaniel, and Silas is certainly not a father who deserves Rebecca as a daughter, but the moment reflects Rebecca’s emotional state, and that’s a powerful, almost overwhelming feeling.

Rebecca Fights the Wind
#211: Josh is the Man of My Dreams, Right?

“You ruined everything…”

This is a moment where Bloom’s performance and the cinematography compete for MVP — both work in tandem like the choreography of a dance number, where we push in as she turns on the wrong word from Mr. Wind, and we see that look and it’s anguish and the disintegration of denial.

She’s just kissed her boss, and from now until “(Tell Me I’m Okay) Patrick,” Rebecca’s gonna be frantic. Here we have an inside look at that feeling, which she’ll have to mask. It’s a unique and truly bizarre filmic expression of anxiety, that Rebecca says “Get away from me, Mr. Wind,” which makes me laugh every time. She’s talking to the fucking wind.

She does so before this wide shot where we see she’s alone, and certainly, in retrospect, the moment takes on a new tint. It’s not so quirky anymore. And again, even though the basis of her anxiety will soon no longer matter, the key info presented here is how she deals with it. Weatherman Gavin Johnson as an embodiment of the Winds of Diablo is a hallucination, and watching her fight him is tragic, demanding those sweeping camera movements.

Paula Keeps a Secret/So Does Rebecca
#204: “When Will Josh and His Friend Leave Me Alone?”

“I love you, Paula Proctor.”

Two moments one after another: first, the conclusion of Paula’s arc concerning her surprise pregnancy. Without any of the clamor or tone-deaf drama we expect from television, she’s chosen abortion, and it’s simply correct, not much else. Rebecca strides in looking her regular un-dyed self, and wants to know why her friend called in sick (though both of them seem to do that on the reg). The concern is genuine this time, as she emphasizes, and for whatever reason, I really love that moment of her performance, the simple line delivery of “I know something’s been up with you, and I want to know what it is– really, I mean it, this time.” I can’t really explain it, it just sounds right. I’ve been paying a little more attention to the flow, or rhythm of a sentence, and the instance of “really,” in that one gives it a good flow. (What?)

Set to another favorite piece of the score, Rebecca promises she knows what’s best for her, and how to achieve it. So it’s hard to disagree with her in that moment. Next scene, she shows up in the apartment, now shrouded in darkness (perhaps for practical production design concerns, but it’s also good for impressionistic image; these things often work hand-in-hand). And she does something that feels right, like Josh on the party bus saying “I’m so glad you moved here,” but has way too much underlying it that goes unanswered by this supposed solution.

As we see with Darryl later on, Rebecca essentially represses a memory here, or at least, a feeling, if that’s possible. She deletes the Greg Memory Spirit, marking a quiet finale to what began with “Shitshow” and crescendoed with “We Tapped that Ass.” There’s something just so slightly off about it, a gap in our emotional response being the clue to the broader thematic framework. We say this show is a high-wire act, and this is part of why: they anticipate your reaction, rely on your judgment, estimate your intelligence with a pretty high regard. Of course they know you’re smart, I mean, you didn’t wash out after the fourth episode got a little too hard. Those fools. You guys had no idea what was in store for Greg.

In this case, saying goodbye isn’t as easy for Rebecca as it is for Greg, and as we see in the season finale, he’s not completely gone. So that element of temporary closure, a closure more about feeling than being realsies, makes this moment compelling beyond its surface values, which are already plenty. It’s soft-spoken but not quite somber, and then hard cuts to the bright daylight of West Covina for the return of Valencia, the perfect tease to end a perfect episode.

“Oh, no. I don’t antic.”
“Come on.”
“No.”

“You Love Me?”
#202: “When Will Josh See How Cool I Am?”

“I know you’re not gonna get mad at me because I didn’t eat the Jewish noodles.”

Rebecca’s “crazy” in early season two is specific and wonderful. She’s going a mile a minute, her puppet master game this time fueled by the ecstasy of life with Josh, as opposed to the thrill of the hunt. We see this firsthand in the opening scene of #202, where Rebecca and Josh negotiate the nature of their relationship delicately and yet with high energy, with Rebecca able to squeeze in a mini-monologue about the NFL. By the time she’s telling Josh to shut his stupid face, I’m laughing so hard, and by the end of her juggling, her truly wild proclamation that she’s a ping pong champion was so fast and intricate even I, a viewer with a music cue, didn’t get it was a lie right away.

And by the end of the episode, we reflect on this moment. It’s not a lie delivered at that mile a minute just for the sake of its immediate comedy, but because these are the lengths she has to go to connect with him. Desperate measures are dressed up in absurdity and matching outfits, but we’re reminded of what they truly are, and that’s part of the show’s magic — the same moment that makes us laugh can, with hindsight, just as easily make us cry.

Paula Makes a Friend
#205: “Why is Josh’s Ex-Girlfriend Eating Carbs?”

“Theeeeenks.”

The fluidity of Rebecca and Paula’s mother/daughter relationship further complicates in their brief exchange here, where Rebecca sees Paula off on her first day of (law) school, but also makes off with the extra juice box she packed for her. I think this is probably the unspoken rule about writing the character Rebecca, that even though she’s not necessarily “likable,” she’s always charming as hell. I mean, she charms precious few in-universe (save for Trent), but come on.

I also really enjoy Parvesh Cheena’s delivery of “I know how hard it is to be honest with people you love.” This is Sunil’s introductory scene, and while he’s another crucial element we spend precious time on in pursuit of an incredibly compact season (better for it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has little time for fan service, or rather, dwelling on what’s proven to work. Always improving, never losing), I love that Rebecca has another rival. While her rivals haven’t historically remained that way (Valencia, Nathaniel), Sunil is like mathematically designed against her. He completed the major she had to give up, although it didn’t pay off, and his enrollment at law school means relating to Paula in a more intimate way. Like Rebecca and Greg in the pilot, Paula and Sunil hit it off over a kind of shared trauma. The moments of interplay between Rebecca and Sunil then are always priceless, and usually theatrical.

Rebecca’s Intuition
#202: “When Will Josh See How Cool I Am?”

“Then everything worked out fine.”

Rebecca’s face in this scene.

The premise of the episode is Rebecca wearing a new mask for a new occasion, this time trying hard to insinuate herself into Josh’s life while straining against the frustration that Josh indeed lives with her. So as mentioned, she takes on an elaborate lie to impress her fella, and sitting on the bench with Greg, she lies again, but it doesn’t feel the same. She doesn’t seem so deluded, and it’s not fun this time.

The penultimate scene of the episode finds Rebecca standing up for herself with Josh, and while she’s only empowered with him by the attraction to another man, it feels like two people working through a problem by first identifying it. But they don’t follow up, reiterating the truth described simply, again, by Rebecca’s face, when asked if Josh is treating her right.

And the music during this scene. I’d die for an album that’s just the score of the show, all the instrumentals that help power moments like this. And while the lighting on the show is generally always spectacular, the rare live-action television show which makes use of color, that soft-focus (soft focus?) close-up on Rebecca against the water’s shimmer is striking imagery with meaning.

Madge and Allegra
#207: “Who’s the Cool Girl Josh is Dating?”

“Toxic? Is that his word, your word, or Brittany’s word?”

I’ve long maintained that ‘comedy-horror’ is my favorite genre after my old standby, science-fiction. And by “long maintained,” I mean I’ve thought about things in this weird way for most of my life. In that mental hand-wringing, what separates comedy-horror from comedy, horror, funny horror movies (Society) and comedies in horror settings (Dead Alive) is its very specific tone. Essentially, horror movie archetypes unstuck in their unreality. As a kid, my preeminent example of this genre was Tremors 2, and I have to say — it holds up. You saw characters tip-toeing around a creature with strange rules that demanded funny, sometimes relatable behavior. Like yelling at a shrieking monster to shut up, or shooting the breeze on a lazy bug hunt. I think it might just be the incompetence, because I can see myself as those characters, doing those things.

Horror was my first experience with this ill-defined situation, but I’d go on to similarly appreciate it in crime drama. Less Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and more Dog Day Afternoon. Like Coen Brothers movies in concept, like Breaking Bad’s best season (two). You get to see people who just suck at crime, and that’s the taste I got to relive with this episode, whose premise doesn’t have to walk far beyond “Rebecca and Valencia caper duo” to be a classic. It might be telling that Rebecca fancies herself a Stringer Bell, whose street wariness in the first season was subtly retconned by the third to the point of disrespect in his own organization. We all like Stringer Bell, but look — he sucked.

Rebecca runs over Anna’s cat, and the duo’s gaping reactions as we cut to commercial are, like, from another world. What was the direction that produced the above performances? And then Valencia hurriedly describes the culprit as a pirate, which is beautiful. Both Rebecca and Anna’s reactions to that are pitch perfect. She’s not as seasoned as Rebecca in the liar game, and while she’ll later prove a caulk to Rebecca’s criminal… holes (it’s late, I’m out of writing), we feel her shock being swept up in Rebecca’s scheme.

Rebecca who sees this catmergency as an opportunity, who interrogates Anna at the vet’s with her characteristic intensity (“So, yes to boyfriend? Yes?”). Once more, we have a situation where characters know more information than other characters, making Anna’s criticisms of Josh’s ex-girlfriends almost sadistically funny. It’s just a shame Valencia never followed up about period sex, because she seemed pretty taken aback by that.

In Conclusion

Sigh. No Heather, no Hector. Their exclusions come by accident, because Heather is always in the room for the show’s best moments, sometimes instigating them with her on-brand solos, and Hector’s mom-loving stud ways are much appreciated (even if he’s kind of that Iago character when it comes to blowing up a couple romances in the show).

Anyway, I’ll be periodically posting about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend here, but I don’t have it in me to do episodic recaps. Most of what was becoming the #301 recap was adapted to “We Are All Rebecca Bunch.” I have a very strong, very good feeling about the new season, wink. I can’t wait.

Originally published to A Generic Wonderful on 10/12/2017