Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

So we’ve done season 1 and talked about the major decisions that moved the plot along in the first season. And these videos are going to get a little longer as the show goes on because the subject matter also gets heavier. And some of the decisions that are made hit really close to home for me because I am also someone who has struggled with my mental health for quite a while now. And I think I’m going to do BoJack Horseman in congruence with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend because I do see a lot of parallels that I want to talk about. So with that, season 2 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

The first major decision is one from both Rebecca and Josh, who are clearly on opposite sides of the decision to sleep together. Now in the context of the way that they got together it was a bad decision for both of them. But for Josh he had just broken up with his live-in girlfriend who he had been with for 15 years, immediately jumping into bed with someone who you know has feelings for you was unhealthy at best, manipulative and toxic at worst. Manipulative because he decided that their sexual relationship was just casual, as he sleeps on Rebecca’s couch, there are no thoughts in that boy's brain. No human being with empathy, or common sense sleeps with the girl who he knows and has been told loves him and stays on her couch and tells her it's casual…manipulative. On the Rebecca side of it, she had just gotten out of a relationship with Greg who she claimed to have feelings for and then she sleeps with Josh, lets him stay with her because in her brain she thought “the boy I love finally wants to be with me too, we are in this together now” and then he says he wants to keep it casual and she did was most of us do and she pretends she’s okay with that. She holds on too tight and that drives him away. I know that sounds familiar to somebody because there is a point in time where we have all felt like that.

Greg's goodbye song was also amazingly self aware, he fully admits his feelings for her but also knows that she is not what is best for him. And he is for her. And though it seemed to hurt Rebecca’s feelings he was 100% correct. Also Santiago’s voice is perfect and enchanting. But again the only reason she interacted with Greg at the bridge, and found herself at the airport was because Josh broke up with her.

“I don’t know who I am without them, I know that's pathetic, I know but I don’t”

When Paula tells her to just be herself, Rebecca makes it very clear that she can’t do that because she doesn’t like who she is.

Paula also refuses to tell Rebecca that she’s pregnant. So at a lot of points in this series, Rebecca and Paula’s friendship seems very one sided but some of that was due to Paula not giving Rebecca the opportunity to be a friend, or straight up just pushing her out of her life. Once Paula starts law school she finds new people to hang out with and study with and she replaces Rebecca, and still somehow finds a way to make that Rebecca’s fault.

So one of the second season plot lines that I like for screenwriting reasons is Rebecca trying to become to poster girl for Ms. Douche. The reason I like this storyline is because in the first season Rebecca took all of her emotions; cues from butter commercials. And the fact that she is still taking emotional cues and attempting to take solace in marketing campaigns. It's funny but it's also really sad. Rebecca is also one of those people that mentions signs and fate a lot. It's something that shows the audience that she is really incapable of taking accountability for her actions or the things that seem to happen around her.

The secondhand embarrassment I suffer from while watching this show is astronomical. Pretty much whenever she talks to Josh I watch in severe cringe and beg her to stop talking.

Paula has a very clear opportunity to confide in her “best friend” and she chooses not to. She treats Rebecca like a child and not like her friend. And the problem with that, is a lot of things. But she enables Rebecca not taking responsibility for things, she encourages selfish behavior in Rebecca and then gets mad at her for being herself. Paula never really cared about Rebecca for herself; she used her as a way to escape her life when it wasn’t enough for her and when she felt more fulfilled like when she went to law school, she let go of Rebecca.

Rebecca trying to bond with Valencia is super ridiculous. Rebecca continues not to adhere to very clear and simple boundaries. Valencia very clearly doesn’t want to talk to or spend time with her but Rebecca refuses to take the most obvious of hints.

Josh is coping with the breakups, and he is one of those people that are incapable of being alone. Now these people are pathetic and need therapy, if you feel the constant need to be in a relationship then you absolutely should not be in a relationship. I was with one of those and he wasted almost an entire year of my life. These people suck, but we’ve already kind of established that Josh kinda sucks. In relationships and as a functioning adult human.

Rebecca’s more questionable actions of the series include kidnapping Valencia to take her to a burning man like festival of new agey healing. Where both women realize that they still have feelings for Josh, Valencia is sad and hurt. And Rebecca is angry. And the girls do end up bonding and defending each other to Josh and what I love about that scene is that each other was never really the problem, the problem was always Josh. He claimed that relationships with either of them was too complicated but relationships are, and he is so incapable of being an adult that he couldn’t articulate that feeling to either woman so he ended up just screwing over both of them. He’s got the emotional intelligence of a rock.

And then we have the return of Trent, which as I mentioned in the season 1 video is my favorite thing because it forces Rebecca to confront the things that she has done as well.

This season deals a lot with Rebecca and Paula’s friendship. They are both going through life changes and they don’t necessarily feel like they have a place in each other's lives. Paula with law school we’ve already talked about that a little bit. And Rebecca is finally focusing on having friends and not centering a man in her life. And continuing to stay close with the person who helped and encouraged her to center a man in her life is probably not the best for her healing process. What bothers me about this transitional time for them is that Paula talks to Su Neal like Rebecca has been neglecting her and it's completely bullshit. They both had gotten wrapped in other things and Paula wasn’t making time for her either, she was also keeping life altering information from her like that was a normal friend thing. AND then Rebecca does make a concerted effort to include Paula in her new life and Paula is a complete bitch about it, puts in zero effort and puts it all on Rebecca to be responsible for their relationship, this is probably why her kids suck even taking on the mom role she's not good at it. Now I'm all for Rebecca taking accountability because she does do a lot of selfish things but the state of their friendship is on both of them equally.

Valencia and Rebecca fall down the rabbit hole of stalking Josh’s new girlfriend. They come up with this idea that his new girlfriend is dealing drugs and of course they go nuts and up running over his new girlfriend's cat. And then they got to hear a lot about how Josh interpreted his past relationships. And rightfully so Valencia is a little angry because after 15 years of being together without a proposal she may have “hounded” him a little but the dumbass should have been able to commit or leave.

Further evidence that the fallout of Rebecca and Paula is not all on Bex is the fact that Paula is so wrapped up in her own shit that she completely misses an event that's super important to her husband, when since they've fixed their marriage she has been nothing but loving, encouraging and supportive. Look, I'm married and I could never outwardly blow off something that was important to my husband. I don’t understand that kind of mistake.

There's nothing I love more than shows that are like at me, and Rebecca and Paula’s apology song is something that we have all experienced. No one wants to be the first to admit that they've screwed up, and some of us are more stubborn than others so that's something that is very self reflective.

Paula’s next major storyline is that Scott cheated on her, and she has a little breakdown at work because of it. And Rebecca actually apologizes even though I will die on the hill that Paula should have apologized first. And Rebecca actually offers to be helpful, and she isn’t. My favorite part of this season is really the start of her actual character growth and that was Rebecca saying no to Josh and staying with Paula.

Josh and Rebecca finally get together but at the same time a new character enters the picture, Nathaniel. Nathaniel starts as an obstacle for the rest of the characters but really what he does is show Rebecca how incompatible she and Josh are.

Josh has this weird realization that Rebecca actually cares about him, ya know because he didn’t actually pay attention to her when he was using her to escape his relationship with Valencia. Now we should go into the girlcodeness of this a little bit. We know that Valencia and Rebecca are still friends and end up being fine, but the very fact that she goes after her ex boyfriend of 15 years, knowing how much that relationship hurt her friend is questionable at best. And Valencia was a fucking angel for still staying in Rebecca’s life.

Rebecca finally has an emotional breakthrough with the realization that she isn’t happy with herself and therefore will never be happy in a relationship until she works on herself. And then Josh proposes therefore giving herself an out from actually working on herself. She continues to hide in her relationship, but I love that season 2 gets her closer to realizing that she needs therapy.

I feel like the plot starts moving a lot faster when Nathaniel comes into the picture. He serves as a catalyst for Rebecca and Josh as well as being someone that challenges her in pretty much every other aspect of her life.

Getting to the rushed wedding, we see more of Rebecca’s thought process and character growth. Part of the character growth is actually the rushed wedding, Rebecca knows that her feelings for Josh and their relationship and compatibility is being challenged and what did we learn from the first season? When Rebecca is feeling anxious she acts out, now this is slightly different because she’s not necessarily self sabotaging, but she is grasping for some normalcy because she’s finally gotten what she thinks she wants, and that Josh. I mean Rebecca and Josh have been our main plot for a season and a half now so we’re reaching the breaking point, which might force Rebecca into doing the work that she needs to do on herself.

The second point of this character growth that we get to see is the fact that Rebecca respects Paula and her boundaries. She is so used to running to Paula for everything, she’s always there to help her. But during Rebecca’s wedding planning, Paula is studying for finals. So Rebecca immediately backtracks, and tells her she has it. And though it wasn’t a smart move for her personally it really shows how she’s growing as a person and as a friend. This friendship is starting to become more of a two way street.

Which leads to a really great moment between Paula and Rebecca when Paula basically bullies Rebecca’s mom into acting like a mother. And the fact that she does it without Rebecca knowing and lets Naomi take the credit is such a beautiful moment.

Also I just want to mention Valencia finding a new path in life while being the best human ever.

But I really want to talk about Nathaniel flying Rebecca’s dad out for her wedding. Considering his own relationship with his father, it was an overwhelmingly sweet, kind, and thoughtful moment that honestly made me ship them so hard. Neither Greg or Josh ever did anything that sweet for her.

And off of that we get an amazing circular writing moment as well as some insight into Rebecca’s obsession with Josh being a direct result of her daddy issues…She texts her father and it's identical to the text that she sent Josh when she first moved to West Covina. So we already knew that chasing Josh was her chasing her father, she’s been begging for a man’s attention. An emotionally unavailable man who repeatedly rejects her. Her journey with Josh is a direct mirror of her relationship with her father. It's a really well written show.

Her having these moments leads to reveal some of her past relationship trauma. Her daddy issues start coming through really really strong for everyone to see. Her reaction to the dance instructor thinking her and her father are a couple is also her reaction to people thinking her and josh were a couple at the beginning of season 1.

We start getting into some actual things in her therapy scenes, this past trauma that gets brought up is starting to come through really strongly. But it does kind of jumpstart her therapy, like she’s having trauma breakthroughs right now but they are breakthroughs nonetheless.

I’ve talked a bit about why Josh is actually terrible but there is never a reason to leave someone at the altar, and Josh didn’t actually have a valid reason. We have established that he never really cared about Rebecca romantically but to not even respect her enough as a human being to have a conversation with her instead of just literally abandoning her is so heartlessly cruel and she didn’t deserve that. She needs to do work on herself and shouldn’t be getting married but she shouldn’t have been forced into it like that. I'm on the Josh hate train forever, he's a trash person. Say he actually did want to become a priest, which we all know is bullshit but to not say that directly to the person you are supposed to be marrying is abhorrent behavior, he is a dumpster goblin.

Also the Robert situation I hate a lot, A professor was sleeping with his student and SHE got kicked out of school. He dumped her in his apartment and expected his shit to not get set on fire? That sounds like a him problem.

Season 2 has a lot more character development, it's very rich with character building moments and decisions. And I think it's such a beautifully written way to open the door to discussing her mental health.