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nonbinarysasquatch · 7 years ago

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Josh’s Ex-Girlfriend is Crazy.

“So, what I am hearing is, it’s not really about Josh per se. Josh is more a symbol of effortless normalcy from which you’ve always felt excluded.”

Rebecca can’t you seeeeeee, Josh Chan is a metaaaphooorr.

Since the beginning the title of this show has never really been the focus of the actual content of the show. Mostly, it’s been a feminist deconstruction of romantic comedy tropes. The relationship with the word crazy has largely been through the lens of Rebecca’s discomfort with others saying it but a willingness to describe herself as crazy with self-loathing.

Something I’ve been disturbed by since becoming involved with the CXGF fandom on Tumblr is that… in the #Crazy Ex Girlfriend tag, you’ll see literal men linking to videos of their (allegedly) crazy ex-girlfriends, or people variously ranting about their crazy ex-girlfriends.

And those people? They are why this show exists. Perhaps, more than anything else this show is about the exploitation, degradation and dismissal of women, particularly women with mental illnesses. Of course, that’s not all this show is about, because it’s a complex, layered show that you can’t just take a cursory glance at and decide that you understand it.

And for the record: I think there’s totally room for critiques of this show. Have I ever seen any good ones from that didn’t come from people who weren’t fans? Nope. It’s always the same old thing where you can tell they aren’t willing to intellectually engage with the show.

All of the good critiques of the seen of the show and it’s plot have all come from fans and people willing to intellectually engage with the show.

Even while watching and enjoying seasons 1 and 2 the first time I had some issues and concerns. But I trusted that all the feminists who loved the show knew what they were talking about. And season 3 almost unilaterally eliminated all of my concerns.

Let’s go back and look at the season 1 title theme: Rebecca is called “the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” by her own opening theme. She rejects it as a being a sexist term then explains that there’s a lot more nuance than that. And you know? She wasn’t wrong. There always has been a lot more nuance than that.

She did move across the country for Josh… but she wasn’t really aware that was the case. And to just dismiss her as a stalker is to dehumanize her and disregard her mental health.

Throughout the show we have explored why she is the way she is. I’m someone who generally believes the world needs more empathy and to do a lot less demonizing of people. So to that end, I choose to understand Rebecca and I have a lot of sympathy for her.

And still, she does terrible things. She manipulates people and her actions have consequences. There is a question of how much we should see Rebecca as a person who really exists or if we should see her as a symbol for what childhood abuse and the patriarchy can do to a woman.

If we view the show as feminist satire it looks a lot different than if we choose to simply take everything at face value (though how you can ignore the innate feminism behind literally everything on this show is beyond me.)

This certainly isn’t a show for people who are only interested in a black and white view of the world. And it’s not a show for anyone who doesn’t want to ever see people with mental illnesses being portrayed in a negative light, even if to never show people with mental illnesses in a negative light is a complete and utter lie (which I can say as someone with mental illnesses who has definitely done shit I’m not proud of that was influenced by mental health problems.)

For me, as someone with mental illnesses, I’ve never felt like anything spoke to me the way this show does. I’ve never felt represented in this way before. I’ll have a lot more to say about that as this season goes on…

This show is from Rebecca’s POV and even when she’s doing terrible things, we are given her perspective. It’s a narrative that is traditionally been used to make men into sympathetic heroes, even when those stories all have men who are actual garbage with no consideration for the feelings of the women in the stories.

So, in this episode, we tackle the most egregious of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend tropes: the sort of films where the woman is spurned into murderous revenge.

Of course, Rebecca isn’t really a murderer. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She just wants to feel like her feelings matter. Her actions in this episode are terrible but the emotions behind them aren’t wrong. Josh hasn’t even approached making amends with what he did. He doesn’t seem to even think he did anything wrong. Last episode he was more interested in literally telling everyone that Rebecca was crazy and that was BEFORE he realised that Rebecca was spreading lies about him.

The opening scene of this episode is perfectly constructed and so realistic it hurts. I’ve been in that room. Not as Rebecca but as all of her friends. Rachel Bloom’s acting here is exquisite as perfectly uses her anger and fear as a mask for her pain. Her pain after she takes Darryl’s down is just so real and just… so accurate.

The grief that all of her friends feel is also very real, particularly Paula and Valencia who in many ways are the characters that Rebecca has hurt the most. Even Nathaniel looks aggrieved, despite having taken it less hard from her and having the least at stake. A solid sign that he isn’t the cold-hearted person he initially seemed.

Of course, then, he brags TO HER FRIENDS about having sex with her and says he knows her better. Which, no, Nathaniel, shut your mouth, man. To say this isn’t appropriate is putting it mildly. In some ways, this is the most mad I’ve been at Nathaniel thus far. He’s developing feelings for Rebecca but “she’s zany but in a cute way.” Nope, Nathaniel. Much like Josh Chan, I’m going to judge you for not being respectful of Rebecca’s mental health, though it is fair to say that he doesn’t know her as well as Josh (should.)

Rebecca’s friends all love her, even after the cruel things she has said. The world at large would just say she’s crazy. And no one could fault any of her friends for choosing to cut ties and take their own health and safety into account. But this isn’t real life. And Rebecca is a symbol, to a certain degree.

To readdress the point I was making above about the problem of people (particularly) men complaining about crazy ex-girlfriends, I think this show is making one point that I don’t necessarily see acknowledged all that often: that even when someone is acting in these sorts of ways, that it still isn’t OK to call them crazy. Which, it should be noted, is not the same thing as talking about abuse and mistreatment. But all this bullshit of dudes posting videos of their ex-girlfriends acting out and mocking them for crazy is gross bullshit.

If this show does have a failing, it’s that weaving the threads of being a deconstruction of romantic comedies, a deconstruction of the crazy ex-girlfriend trope and being a serious show about mental health means that engaging with it is complicated. And it’s a musical comedy to boot.

I’ve said before that I don’t think this show is for everyone. But it is for more people than currently watch it. And goddamn, I wish some of the people who dismiss their girlfriends, or any women as being crazy would watch it and absorb the message.

So, Rebecca goes to stay in a hostel. Fun fact: there are no hostels in West Covina. As far as I can tell, most hostels in Los Angeles County are in Los Angeles. But hey, there’s also nothing on East Cameron in reality too…

At the hostel she meets Danish tourist, Jarl, who might be my favourite one off character the show has ever done. Jarl happens to know a thing or two about movies like Swimfan, Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction. The only one of those I’ve ever seen is Swimfan (which I don’t recall enjoying.)

Rebecca decides she needs to reenact those films in order to force Josh to feel what she feels, telling Jarl that she’s 7 feet tall angry.

Meanwhile, her friends are looking for her. It’s easy to miss that Valencia has never understood the full scope of the scheming against her that Rebecca and Paula were doing back in season one.

Easy to miss that Valencia doesn’t realise the full depth of the scheming against her that was going on, and that was largely driven by Paula. We also acknowledge for the first time that Paula and Valencia are friends, a far cry from season one when Paula just saw Valencia as an obstacle for Josh and Rebecca’s love story.

Darryl and White Josh are being forced to address the issue of whether WhiJo wants to have a baby together, forcing Hector to bounce out before the awkward gets too bad.

We also get a follow up here on a tiny thread seeded last season of Heather perhaps having an interest in Hector. I always love how the show does a good job of putting characters together who haven’t interacted much and doing something interesting with them.

Rebecca goes to Josh’s house, trying to spook him and get under his skin. It clearly works… for whatever that is worth.

After going back to the hostel, Jarl points out that if Rebecca continues on this path, she’ll end up murdered at the end of the movie. Rebecca, of course, doesn’t buy it. Because to her this isn’t about revenge. She simply wants Josh to feel her pain. Though she’s phrasing it unhealthily, really, what she wants is empathy. Something that Josh has… pretty much never given her.

Jarl points out that if Rebecca was unhappy before she met Josh that perhaps this isn’t all his fault. And he says the line that I quoted at the top about effortless normalcy.

Back at Rebecca and Heather’s house, it turns out that Nathaniel is sleeping there along with George and the girl he’s dating, Penny. And, for the record, it’s not true that a person needs to be missing X number of hours before you can report it. I did research for a fanfic!

You can immediately report a person as missing. This doesn’t mean that law enforcement will take it seriously of course, but legally there’s nothing stopping you. And they should (and that’s a big should, obviously) take into account like whether there’s reason to worry about that person’s safety or the safety of other people and act accordingly.

Now, whether Nathaniel would be taken seriously is another issue but in theory at a minimum, Heather or Paula (as her best friend and her roommate) should’ve been able to file a report.

Josh goes back to his job at Aloha Tech and is promptly suspended because Rebecca stuffed his work locker full of remotes. And as has been pointed out, yes, this means that Alex opened the locker, found all the remotes then stuffed them back inside so he could make the dramatic reveal to Josh. What a nerd. He must be bored.

Rebecca has left Josh a note, leading to him going to the carnival where Rebecca is with his mother. When Josh can’t find Lourdes, he confronts Rebecca, unwittingly allowing Rebecca to back herself up to a dangerous pit while he tells her she’s crazy.

Did Rebecca want Josh to push her into the pit? Maybe not consciously but I think perhaps part of her felt she deserved it. Maybe she thought Jarl was right. Maybe she just wanted to see if Josh really hated her. Whatever the case, Josh doesn’t allow her to fall, saving her at the last moment.

Josh leaves, warning Rebecca that if she comes near him or his family again he’ll call the cops. Rebecca tries to smooth him over, admitting that she just wanted to get his attention and she wants to talk to him. But it’s too late for that.

Paula’s dream is painful. We, as the audience, want that moment to happen but it’s not honest. Instead, Paula calls Naomi, deciding that maybe Rebecca needs her actual mother.

Rebecca, meanwhile, stumbles into a bar that Greg frequented in season 1, even talking about him with the bartender. And then, as if fate, Rebecca gets butt-dialed by Greg. But Greg doesn’t know and he can’t hear her. And even if they did talk… what would he say? Nothing he could say could fix what she’s feeling.

And then there’s Greg’s dad, Marco. Rebecca rightly observes that Marco has never had a favourable view of her. But Marco instead tries to compliment her, perhaps recognising that she’s vulnerable. And Marco is the sort of guy who inappropriately hits on his female doctors, so I don’t really see this above him.

And so Rebecca goes home with Marco, sleeping with him. Does Marco fully understand the lowness of the place Rebecca is in? Probably not. But I also think he doesn’t care. He knows she’s pretty and vulnerable. That’s why he flirts with her in the first place.

I’ve seen some fans critique this from the perspective of Marco being such a good dad that he would never do that but… I think that erases a lot of Marco’s previously displayed shitty traits in favour of focusing on his good ones. He’s a good dad to a certain degree but… also kind of a gross asshole. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

And honestly, I’ve simply known too many dudes who seemed like stand up moral dudes who it turned out had done appalling things and used women. It’s honestly never shocking to portray a man like this. And let’s be real, if last year didn’t show everyone that men culturally have issues with consent then I’m not sure what will.

Rebecca has hit rock bottom as her movie comes to an end, realizing that life doesn’t make narrative sense. When her mom calls her, demanding that she come home she doesn’t even fight it. What else can she do?

The Songs:

Scary Scary Sexy Lady: One of the few “not my favourites” this season. A version of this was apparently considered to be the season 3 main title sequence but given what happens in the next few episodes, they realised that it wouldn’t make sense for the full season.

The End of the Movie: One of the best songs the show has ever done, sung by Josh Groban. This song is why there still isn’t a full season 3 soundtrack. Hopefully they’ll get that worked out at some point. This is damn good song.

Episode Rating: 10.0 out of 10.0.

And this still isn’t even my favourite episode this season.

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