Wow. Wow. Wow. Those are my first words after watching the season premiere of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season three. Hopefully you know that season two left off with Josh leaving Rebecca at the altar and Rebecca subsequently vowing to take revenge on the men that have wronged her, but mostly Josh Chan. I know that we were promised a crazier Rebecca in season three but I just don’t think I was prepared for what happened in the premiere. Don’t get me wrong because it’s not that I didn’t enjoy certain aspects of the premiere but it was just a little off to me. They were poop shenanigans, there was a fake Josh, there was someone in a giant anteater costume, the weird Nathaniel and Rebecca romance thing, and did I mention a Disney inspired number? Let’s break down what happened.
Josh's Ex-Girlfriend Wants Revenge
So we got to learn through Maya and Paula that Rebecca has been MIA for two weeks since the wedding and Paula is tired of being asked about it. (A. it's kinda expected because she was left by Josh at the altar to join priesthood. BTW Joshua sucks and I’m glad I didn’t get married so team Greg FTD. B. Paula knows she;s alive because she liked her Ice Bucket challenge video from three years ago) So basically there’s a local trending hashtag about where is Rebecca Bunch? There is also a cute Disney inspired number here where the whole town of West Covina is up in arms about where is Rebecca? Is she at brunch? Is she planning revenge? Where is she? It’s a nice number and the visuals were nice and it really fell together at the end and kind of brought it home and definitely was worthy of skipping over the new intro in favor of being a recap number. During said number Rebecca decides to take charge of her life and turn into a whole fatal attraction version of herself. (I love that she called a Google calendar meeting for the office to re-introduce herself as a butterfly with a dagger, that's my new life saying.) Nathaniel is over the meeting pretty early one despite everyone being so impressed by her new look and he dismisses the meeting and confronts Rebecca for not calling or sending a thank you for the basket he left outside of her door. Rebecca being her new self is acting aloof about his attraction and honestly I’m OK with that because I don’t want another forced Rebecca romance and I don’t get the attraction between the two of them.
Rebecca‘s next meeting is with her girl group and I’ll admit I found the beginning of the scene to probably be one of the better parts of the episode. I mean how could any scene with Heather, being Heather not be great? (I died when she said “what else can we say that we have never said”) This 2nd meeting was because Rebecca wanted to talk about her plans for revenge against Josh and it turns out that her plans were crap. No literally they were crap. She wanted to send Josh her poop for him to eat because he somehow would think they were cupcakes! (Now I do get that Josh is stupid sometimes, but I don’t believe that he would eat poop) When the ladies aren’t receptive to the idea as Rebecca would like she of course gets defensive but then they ask for her next idea and swear they will go along with it. Something they instantly regret when they find the new plan is to hire a fake Josh to have sex with her or fake having sex with her and mid intercourse have fake Josh yell out that he hates Jesus so he can be kicked out of seminary school.
The ladies seem to be taking a cautious approach to telling Rebecca this is a horrible idea and even when they happen to find a British actor who looks exactly like Josh to star in the movie no one wants to stop and tell Rebecca this is unhealthy. When Rebecca goes out to dismiss all of the other actors waiting outside her place, she sees into the Nathaniel, who just "happens" to be in the area and she does her thing where she turns Him on and then shuts him down and I am doing my thing where I roll my eyes. Heather and Valencia seem to be reaching the point where they really think Rebecca needs to be stopped when the day comes to shoot the porn and she hasn’t backed up yet. It isn’t until Rebecca comes out totally naked and says she wants to have a real sex with fake Josh that Paula shuts this thing down. They tell Rebecca that it just wasn’t healthy for her to be doing this and she listens and so they decide to sit around and just gab about how Josh and other men just ruin lives.
For me, something that was a lot more enjoyable was watching Paula and Scott try to find their way back to sleeping in the same bed. Since Scott cheated with Tonya things of been difficult and we learned that he is actually having to work to get back in her good graces. That includes a sign in book and a series of lie detector tests that he has to take. We learn that he’s about to enter the final lie detector session and that if he passed he can come back to the bed. You ca tell there is hesitation from Paula about the fact that he’s about to take this test and may be coming back into the bedroom but she sticks to the contract and lets him take it. He does indeed pass so she awkwardly invites him back into the bedroom. Once in the bed they eventually start to have sex and Paula tells him to call her Tonya.(I just knew it was a trap!) They have the sex and she’s like we can never talk about that again because I don’t know what that was. I really love that Heather is the one to break down to her that she wanted him to call her Tonya because that was the woman he chose over her and she wanted to feel sexy and she wanted to feel wanted because she was feeling insecure. This storyline is one of the ones that feel so zany yet grounded that makes it worthy of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend because it makes sense and it totally seems like an awkward and human that would happen and I loved it. Finally, after Paula helps Rebecca come to the idea to sue Josh, she comes home to sleep with Scott and he’s like I don’t want to call you Tonya because I want to call you Paula because I want you Paula. Aside from joking about killing Tonya, this is actually a really sweet moment for them because I think Paula is finally getting her groove back and is feeling like somebody that should be desired because she is smart and she is passionate and so when she says no call me Paula, I cheered because Paula has got her Paula-ness back.
Ant protein leads to therapy.
Honestly, I don’t know how I felt about this white Josh and Darryl story. I’m all for some white Josh and Darryl time but I didn’t like the idea form last season that Darryl was going to get the idea of having kids in his head so I didn’t have the best expectation coming into this season. So when we see that white Josh is trying to work on his protein bars that are made with ant protein (that’s really gross and I don’t think I could ever eat that because I just don’t see how that’s good but if the show ever wants to actually like release some ant protein bars as like a promo item I won’t say that I won’t buy it) we learn that Darryl has been turning every conversation into some sort of discussion about having kids and white Josh just isn’t ready to have kids. He tells Darryl he wants to get his ant protein bars off the ground before he even thinks about kids, he's been working on this two years, just perfected the recipe and it doesn't even have a name. This sets a fire to Darryl because he’s like if he can get this protein bar selling then they can talk about kids. So Darryl takes it upon himself to name the bars, package the bars, and dress up in a giant ant eater costume and pass out bars. Once white Josh sees it he realizes that Darryl is only doing this because he wants to try to force his hand at having kids so he suggests therapy when Darryl apologizes. In therapy is where I kind of start to feel a little uncomfortable with this the storyline. Josh points out that Darryl has a tendency to go overboard(which he did) and that he can find out one thing and then he reacts emotionally and does something so grand(and selfish) in response to it, like what he did with the ant protein bars just because he wants kids. Somehow, instead of it being like an open discussion about why about why Darryl decided to take over Josh's project and his work and make it his own in attempt to force Josh to be ready, it turns into white Josh apologizing because he’s judgy? I just don’t feel at this point this is a healthy adult relationship. So later on white Josh comes in thanks Darryl for the Ant eater costume because he actually is getting orders and even says he will consider consider kids, I was distraught. I just don’t like how what Darryl did is swept up and White josh just concedes to Darryl. In a real relationship it’s about discussion and compromise and each person accepting their faults in a situation and that wasn’t what happened here.
Grading the songs:
"Where's Rebecca Bunch?" B. Like I said it was nice and I didn’t miss having the opening and it was a great way to address the time passing and Rebecca’s transformation.
"Let's Generalize About Men" C I just didn’t like this one all that much for reason I mentioned earlier but it was visually pleasing.
To Josh, With Love
I’ll go on the record and say I don’t like the new theme song. I just wasn’t the biggest fan of the structure, sound or visuals of it. I got what it was going for but for me it just wasn’t something that I enjoyed. I know the second season title wasn’t my favorite at first but that eventually came to grow on me. I don’t see the title growing on me. The second episode of the season didn't really offer up improvements on the first for me. To Josh, With love wasn’t awful and it definitely had some moments that I felt like were a long time coming, (Rebecca admitting the truth to Josh) I still just felt like a lot of what was happening wasn’t very interesting.
We do get to learn a bit more about what Josh has been up to in the two weeks that he’s been gone this episode but honestly, I actually kind of liked the first episode of this season more because there wasn’t much Josh other than fake Josh. (I’ve never been a fan of Josh can I don’t understand Rebecca’s obsession with him and I’m sorry but I think he’s a horrible character). So for me flashing back to what he’s been doing or what’s going on with Josh just wasn’t very interesting. I don’t care that Josh feels guilty about what happened with Rebecca, I don’t care that he’s hiding in seminary school to run from his guilt and I definitely wanted to wipe the glee off his face at the end when he was like it’s not my fault. A lot of what’s happening with Josh this episode until he meets with Rebecca at the end is that he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t feel better about what happened at the wedding now that he’s in seminary school. From Josh spilling his problems to the door priest, to his the opening number for the episode (which I really kind of tuned out except where he was dancing with the Holy Ghost),and when he’s talking to Father Rodrigo and he essentially admits to not putting any thought into being in seminary school and the work it takes to be a priest, I was waiting for something important to happen. Of course Josh‘s friends would come to talk to him because he's disappeared from social media and of course ask if he has even talked to Rebecca because the show has to keep forcing us to care about them. Josh says he has an email that’s been in his drafts for Rebecca for a couple days and because he’s Josh that makes sense. We later find him praying to God to give him a sign or you know maybe just fast-forward through all of the actual work it’s gonna take to be a priest and let him just cut to handing out wine and crackers. Later on when he’s playing his zombie game the father comes up on him, he let's him know he has a treat for him because he has seemed so upset; he gets to pass around the collection basket during service and he's just so excited to get to wear the super awesome wedding suit! Of course, Josh's big moment at service is when Rebecca comes in, after having realized a couple things due to her adventures with Nathaniel , and confronts him, calls him a coward and addresses (in song) how she really feels.Josh's response to this.... God just gave him a sign that this wasn't his fault.
She wants his throbbing Ruthlessness
I can’t root for Nathaniel-Rebecca and I am not a fan of the pairing so I know I definitely was rolling my eyes a lot during this episode. Rebecca and Nathaniel basically team up to ruin Josh and it’s some sort of weird Fifty Shades of Grey parody that is really just necessary. (That summary saves us all some time) Rebecca loves when Nathaniel comes into a meeting (after having a conversation with himself about how he feels about Rebecca) and he’s ruthless and he’s barking orders about how to destroy a local restaurant owner and that turns her on because she need his help to destroy Josh Chan. (She has her reservations with Paula's plan to sue Josh.) She wants instant gratification and she wants to destroy Josh now and she sees Nathaniel as a means to do it (she loves using men to get to Josh if you haven't noticed) so she shows up and she propositions him to an awesome musical number that I really really enjoyed. I actually thought it was clever and sexy even though I was still grossed out by the Nathaniel and Rebecca of it all. So she basically offers to let Nathaniel do whatever he wants to her, if he could help her help our destroy Josh. He excepts her offer and sends her a package and tells her to meet him on the roof. (In the package is like skimpy lingerie and she shows up on the roof without it because it was way too small and the lingerie made her muffin top look like a hamburger bun. I love their convo about her unconventional body because I think the show is a lot more body positive than people give it credit for) So his helicopter comes and it’s incredibly unsexy and he takes her to a masquerade party where she has to distract the wives there so he can ask the most powerful men in this part of town do what they need to destroy Josh. She later asks why he helps her and he tells her that when she’s around he stops thinking about himself and thinks about her and she gets turned on so they go back to his house and they have the sex. She asks him the next morning what he did to Josh and Nathaniel tells her that they basically ruined his family because that is what is important to Josh. They going to get his sister expelled, his father arrested and kill his grandfather basically. She then freaks out tells him to take it all back and realizes that this isn’t what she wants. She wants Josh to face what he did and to be embarrassed like her but she doesn’t want anybody dead. At her home, the poop is returned to her and she’s like damn he didn’t even get the poop, so she sees her wedding dress and courage and rage overcome her, so she drives up to the seminary and confronts Josh in her wedding dress and she sings her feelings to him. The song isn't perfect but it’s rewarding because Rebecca is finally telling Josh the truth about why she did all of these crazy things that he never asked for because she thought that was what needed to happen. It was such a relief for me and I was happy when she’s in the car after confronting him and she says she feels so much better! But then she realizes that she told Josh everything, and panic sets in and I start getting annoyed that we are back to letting Josh dictate things.
The other story in this episode revolved around Tim finding out the truth about women’s orgasms, and the fact that his wife has been faking them for 11 years. Tim just has been under the impression that he and his wife have orgasms at the same time every time they have had sex for 11 years and Maya helps enlighten him to the fact that women’s orgasms are different and it's Paula's offhand comment that really drives him down the spiral to where he eventually realizes that when his wife goes to the bathroom after sex she isn’t brushing her teeth with her electric toothbrush, she’s using her vibrator to actually orgasm. So once he faces these realizations and sings what will probably become my new audition song if I have an audition for a musical, he takes the ladies advice and he later tells Paula that he had some of the best sex that he’s ever had and that they both came because she opened his eyes with her comment.Paula doesn't even recall her comment because she was just saying something mean that day and then she hits him with another truth that obviously he and his wife have a communication problem because she never told him in 11 years that he wasn’t doing it right. Poor Tim.
Grading The Songs:
"You Do/You Don't Want to Be Crazy" C Not. A. Fan
"I've Got My Head In The Clouds" D. I looked up the title and can't tell you a single lyric. Holy Ghost in a sheet gives it passing grade.
"Strip Away My Conscience" A Love. It.
"The Buzzing From The Bathroom" A+ Amazing. Iconic. Audition Worthy
"After Everything You Made Me Do" B. Cathartic
