What’s life in West Covina like without Greg Serrano? We’re starting to find out in episode 5 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s second season, “Why is Josh’s Ex-Girlfriend Eating Carbs?”
Last week’s episode ended with Rebecca and Heather spotting Valencia scarfing down a couple doughnuts, so we knew this episode would be focused on Rebecca and Valencia. And the episode starts off just that way. In a somewhat unusual move, the episode starts with a non-musical fantasy sequence. Rebecca imagines dealing with the Valencia situation in caveman times, 10,000 B.C. specifically. Here, she makes peace and bonds with Valencia by eating the lice Valencia can’t reach (ewwwww).
Turns out this is coming from a book Rebecca has read called Blood and Lice, as she explains to Heather. Rebecca wants to bond with Valencia over grooming and their shared heartbreak over Josh. The cunning Heather makes Rebecca give her $5 every time she mentions Josh. Rebecca’s already racked up $300 in “Josh fines.” That’s 60 times she’s mentioned Josh in what seems like a short period of time. For Rebecca, however, that seems almost low. If Heather had also added a “Greg fine” she could easily have $500 by now.
Heather rejected her plan so Rebecca’s obvious next step is to try and get Paula to agree with her. It’s Paula’s first day of law school, like they’re sitting in the classroom waiting for her class to start. A nervous Paula tells Rebecca to leave because all the other “kids” are looking at her. Rebecca has a rare maternal moment when she gives Paula a packed lunch (with an extra juice box) and kisses her on the head. She quickly goes back to child mode and asks for the extra juice box for herself.
When Rebecca leaves, a fellow older student tells Paula that he has really self-involved kids too. Paula explains that Rebecca is her best friend but then rambles about Rebecca’s distraction, narcissism, and inability to get recommendation in on time before blurting out that she just had an abortion. It turns out this guy’s wife killed herself 9 months ago and he hasn’t told his kids the truth. Looks like Paula has her first law school friend (his name is Sunil)!
Rebecca shows up at Valencia’s door trying to explain the lice book. She sees the apartment is a mess and a muffin and high fives Valencia for eating carbs. Wasn’t the pile of doughnuts a clue she was eating carbs, Rebecca? Rebecca tries to bond over the fact that they both got rejected by Josh, but Valencia points out she didn’t get rejected by Josh. She dumped him. Rebecca counters that Valencia is clearly depressed
Josh is hanging out at work before his shift because he’s organizing. His boss arrives and points out that Josh is afraid of being alone, leading to the first song of the episode, “Thought Bubbles.” It’s a Jack Johnson-ish tune that Josh sings a song while he sorts through a mess of headphones, but realizes his mind keeps going to dark thoughts and needs the distraction of other people.
At the office Rebecca eats a muffin (NBD for her) and sees White Josh in the kitchen in a BUTTON UP?!? She finds out they haven’t said I love you and he hasn’t met Darryl’s daughter yet. “An insecurity?” Rebecca says, “Me likey.” Darryl comes up to him with some terrible spandex pants for them to wear to Electric Mesa (the San Gabriel valley’s version of Burning Man). His comment about a primal experience sparks an idea for Rebecca.
She shows up at Valencia’s again, who realizes Rebecca just wants someone to talk about Josh with. Rebecca claims she just wanted Dairy Queen and that she’ll buy Valencia’s blizzard. Valencia agrees because PostMates won’t deliver to her anymore. Rebecca tells her to pee before they go indicating she’s probably going to kidnap Valencia and take her to Electric Mesa. Valencia communicates her anger regarding the situation, but like so often happens, Rebecca convinces her to stay out of sheer annoyance. She admits she has nothing else to do. Rebecca notices that somehow Valencia’s already lost weight. Valencia tells Rebecca to stop talking about her weight and that they will not be talking about any “shared trauma.”
Darryl feels out of place at the Mesa since everyone is so young until he meets Carl, an acquaintance of WJ. Carl and Darryl bond over being the only ones who know who Marlo Thomas is.
In class, Paula has a hard time taking notes, listening and understanding what the professor is saying, as does Sunil. They see a younger student with an app that seems to record the lecture and somehow organize the content. When she asks the kid what it is he says “nunya business bitch.” She’s shocked, mostly that there’s someone ruder than her son.
Valencia tries to meditate in a meditation tent while Rebecca chats away that something must be wrong with Josh for not wanting either of them. She wonders if he’s on the spectrum (sexually) or if he has narcissistic personality disorder. Maybe you should look at yourself there Becks. On the other side of the tent Darryl finds out Carl and WJ used to date (saw that one coming. He’s pissed no one mentioned it before and then the sound system blows out. No music apparently ruins the entire Mesa experience. Valencia shuts this down as an opportunity for Rebecca to talk about Josh, who, ironically, is on his way to fix the problem. Because apparently Best Buy-like stores such as Aloha Tech make house calls to the desert.
Paula and Sunil struggle to understand their own notes after the lecture. He mentions a “crazy” idea to steal the fancy note-taking software. Of course Paula knows exactly how to do this from her Rebecca hijinks days. She tells herself she gave up “skulking” for Rebecca, but since this is skulking for herself, it’s okay. Plus she loves saying skulk.
Fed up, Valencia tries to leave but Rebecca convinces her to get a drink at a tea stand. After they down two cups each, they discover it’s laced with drugs. Valencia has a ballerina dream trip where Josh shows up and becomes a Triceratops (the name of the drug). Rebecca has a less elegant version of the same dream but in her version she turns into a triceratops. In the end Valencia kills Triceratops Josh, but cries in grief over his body. Over in Rebecca’s trip, Triceratops Rebecca rips out Josh’s heart and eats it while laughing. When they come to next to their tent, Valencia realizes she is sad about Josh after all, but Rebecca realizes she just wants to kill him.
WJ enjoys watching people trip balls while Darryl stews and finally admits he’s surprised WiJo’s ex is also older. WJ claims he just likes smart, confident guys. Darryl is many things but I wouldn’t consider confident one of them. Also, I love Darryl and WJ, but come on there are plenty of smart and confident guys in your own age bracket WJ. Later, they run into more of WJ’s exes on a hike, prompting Darryl to wonder if WJ just has an older man fetish and he storms off.
Rebecca has realized how Josh took advantage of her when Valencia starts crying. She admits she only “killed” the relationship because she had to, but she’s scared of being alone. She says never wants to see Josh again and cries on Rebecca’s shoulder. Right on cue, they see Josh arrive at the campsite. Valencia wants to hide until Josh leaves, but Rebecca’s not having any of that. She decides they’re going to go pee on his audio equipment. He marked them so now they’re going to mark him. What?! It’s not even his stuff, it’s his company’s.
Paula and Sunil break into the kid’s dorm room to steal the software. Paula can’t get the app to copy to her flash drive, but Sunil saves the day with his computer programming knowledge.
Valencia and Rebecca pop up among the equipment, super pumped about what they just did. While Rebecca seems strangely excited that they saw each other’s vaginas, Valencia loves that Josh will never know it was them. Josh walks into the A/V tent, right on cue again. He quickly ascertains that they peed on the equipment. Valencia owns up to it immediately and she and Rebecca quickly go to each other’s defense, attacking Josh for mistreating the other. They stray away from talking to Josh and just express amazement with each other, so Josh slips out unnoticed.
A little while later, Valencia walks up to Rebecca at their tent with a new outfit and new lease on life. She and Rebecca seem to officially be friends. When she leaves to go help people with their yoga poses, Rebecca sees Darryl and notices he’s upset. When he explains what’s wrong, she points out that even if WJ has a type, their relationship is special and Darryl just needs to reach out to him.
He goes to find WJ and after getting him to stop doing angry crunches, he admits he was wrong to get upset and that he’s just insecure. WJ informs him he has insecurities too, like worrying he’s just a boy toy to Darryl because he hasn’t met his daughter. Darryl just didn’t want to scare him, but they both admit they want something serious with each other and say “I love you” finally. Awwww.
Josh packs up the audio equipment and explains to the Sherpa in charge (Alan) that he’s glad he came because it made him realize why he’s glad to be single. Then Brittany Snow immediately walks up and flirtatiously thanks him for fixing the sound. Josh seems to have forgotten his self-imposed dating sabbatical and just blurts out, “I work out!”
WJ waits nervously at the Boba stand to meet Darryl’s daughter Madison. He greets her with a stuffed snail, but she also wants a Pegasus. He laughs and agrees. She exclaims, “I like your boyfriend Daddy. He ain’t cheap.” Ha. Then they all hold hands to go get a Boba. Seriously, I don’t think I can take any more cuteness from them.
Valencia joins Heather and Rebecca at the doughnut place. The trio throws around a lot of friendly “bitches” and Heather and Valencia realize they like each other too. Paula and Sunil walk in and she and Rebecca look shocked to see each other (like they’ve both been caught cheating). After a few moments of stares, Rebecca comes up to them. She notices Paula and Sunil are wearing friendship bracelets. After some chit chat, they awkwardly say goodbye and go back to their respective “bitches,” but keep giving furtive glances at each other. Continuing with the romantic relationship mapping, it’s like exes who sort of regret letting other one go. No CXGF, you just made me say goodbye to Greg you can’t break Rebecca and Paula up too!
Josh tries to concentrate at work but singing thought bubbles of Brittany Snow (her character’s name is Anna apparently) keep popping up. He debates calling her and that’s where it ends. I’m excited to find out more about Brittany Snow’s character. The ending seemed a bit abrupt, but I guess they just wanted to make sure and tease her upcoming arc.
Side notes of the week:
- I know Rebecca needs to be alone right now, but I kind of can’t wait for her to get a new love interest.
- This show requires a certain suspension of reality, but I still couldn’t believe Sunil knew how to hack some app from three semesters of computer programming classes about two decades ago.
- Not sure how I feel about the show’s running joke that Rebecca is “crazy” so she must be super kinky. Now she has a fetish for getting choked out with red licorice?
- Is the doughnut place the new boba stand? They still have the Boba stand, so maybe the writers just realized it might be good to have another regular hang out for the various characters.
What did you think? Sound off in the comments below!
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