After sixteen episodes of Rebecca obsessing over Josh, she finally threw in the towel — or threw out the Chan-bear, as it were — and went for Greg. We saw a new side of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and it was glorious.
Josh had great character development this episode; turns out, he’s a real person, not just Rebecca’s perfect object of affection. When he blurts out “Josh can be in a bad mood!”, he’s not just explaining that to Valencia — he’s also explaining that to us, the audience. Of course, we’ve seen that he isn’t 100% perfect in previous episodes, but only in bits-and-pieces. This is the first time we’ve really seen him break — he even yelled at Father Brah! He’s also still uncomfortable in his relationship — a fact made clear to us exclusively through facial expressions (Vincent Rodriguez III is very talented).
This episode is also important for Paula and Rebecca’s friendship, since we get to see how their friendship evolves once the focal point of Josh is yanked away. We saw that Paula and Rebecca can have just as much fun, bonding time, and mutual respect as they did before. Josh is not the glue that holds their friendship together, and we needed to see that. The moments towards the end of the episode summed up their wonderful friendship well: Rebecca cleverly says “we don’t need a secret ingredient [in our friendship]”, and Paula is right by Rebecca’s side. I’m a bit worried about the fallout from Rebecca’s lie, but I know their friendship can survive it.
We saw a lot of humorous moments from Paula: she twirled Rebecca’s panties around, yelled at Rebecca’s comatose body, and even compared Greg to Kylo Ren. Her smile when Josh enters the room, and subsequent scowl when she sees Greg, is also hilarious.
Let’s talk about Greg. It’s nice to see him happier and less sarcastic than usual, but his dismissal of Rebecca throughout the episode is troubling. It’s clear that he lied when he said their previous drama wasn’t a problem. He’s desperate to keep the “upper hand” in the relationship for as long as possible; he sets up dates with other women, and asks Rebecca to text him (rather than the other way around. I’m glad Greg finally redeemed himself in the last few moments of the episode, by leaving the date and running to the hospital — but let’s hope he’s not just setting himself up for more heartbreak, as it seems that Josh has gotten quite attached to Rebecca, now.
The songs in this episode were its low point. Greg’s “I Gave You a UTI” was ridiculous and uncomfortable (though not as uncomfortable as the actual UTI, I assume). Excitement over someone else’s pain is always tasteless and a risky move. The silver lining, though, was the integration of kitchenware drumming and Rebecca’s protests. Her response song of “Oh My God I Think I Like You” was better; juxtaposing sweet, romantic lyrics with explicit scenes was witty. The quip about an IUD for preventing romantic attachment was particularly funny. Josh’s song, too, was fairly great — if you can call sixty seconds of dancing, jumping around, and looking mad “a song”.
There’s a lot of reversal in this episode, and that made it fresh and interesting. Josh misses Rebecca, and Greg is dismissive of Rachel until the end. We even saw Darryl assert authority over Paula and Rebecca while they’re wasting time — “This is my office — I pay for you to be here!”. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend kind of turned everything from the last 16 episodes upside-down, and it made for a fascinating episode. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
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