7 Posts: Bonus Bonus Bonus Post - The Top Twenty Songs

It's been popular to rank the songs season by season, but I decided to wait for the whole thing and try to come up with a list.  I ranked this on a combination of could I still remember the song, did the song offer some sort of useful commentary and surprise, as well as being fun to couch dance too.  Okay, some of these are not couch dancers.  Some of them are super weird and that's what makes them great. 

-A Boy Band Made Up of Four Joshes - This song is just pure joy in it's 

-A Diagnosis - It's a great song, and a song that survives outside the context of the show, and yet is more meaningful if you've been on this journey with Rebecca. 

- Don't Be A Lawyer - This one falls into the mostly fun side.  It's also the culmination of a journey for Rebecca as we've been watching her struggle to like this job she clearly hates.  

- Dream Ghost - Dream Ghost hits on multiple levels.  It's a fun tune, it pokes fun at a common method of change for fictional characters, and the dream ghost also has great advice.  

-Face Your Fears - This song remains the moment I went from cautiously interested in the show to fully on board.  Much like the "Sexy Getting Ready Song" it makes use of challenging the text within the song to make sure you understand that the metaphor is terrible, but also involves a back up children's choir because why wouldn't it.  

-First Penis I Saw - It's a catchy tune about a moment we all come to recognize has special significance and yet also maybe shouldn't. 

-Friendtopia - It's hard for me to choose between "Friendtopia" and "Let's Generalize About Men" but to me both fall into girl group bonding stuff, and yet, this one is just a little more of a bop.  

-Gettin' Bi - This was a delightful song, and also did a thing that is sadly unexpected it network TV right now.  Darryl realized he was attracted to someone of the same gender and didn't decide he was gay, he decided he was bisexual.  Obviously, all paths are valid, but it was so nice to see a show represent bisexuality as even an option.  Plus it is fun to couch dance too. 

-The Group Mind Has Decided You're in Love - Again I think this works on many levels, although I have some friends who disagree with me.  I think the send up of shipping along with the typical declaration of group peer pressure towards a specific coupling in musicals, the we won't be falling in love (followed of course by the couple always falling in love).

-How to Clean Up - Cracked me up in it's brief simplicity. 

-I Hate Everything But You - It is a delightful song.  Yes, I love snarky dude, as established, but this song is great.  

-I've Always Never Believed in You - I do love a Paula song, but also, I love a song about how you might not really have known if your kid was going to be great, but are glad they kind of did. 

-JAP Battle and the JAP Battle Reprise - Both delightful.  The songs both thread a very careful line of acknowledging and yet not playing into stereotypes.  Besides we all need a good frenemy song. 

-One Indescribable Instant - I swear it's not the Lea Salonga of it all.  Okay, it's totally the Lea Salonga of it, but still, this song again captures these songs that outlast the movies they are from such that you can still hum the song even when your memory of the characters is muddled.  

- Remember That We Suffered - I know there's a lot of love for "Where's the Bathroom?" but for me "Remember That We Suffered"  manged to be both funny and poignant in equal measure. 

-Settle for Me - This song was an early entry, demonstrating character notes, as well as a willingness to use multiple styles.  

-Sex With a Stranger - This song demonstrated some wonderful sex positivity as well as nice balance of concern and excitement, in other ways it felt very real. 

-The Buzzing From the Bathroom - This is one of those things where if I told you there was a "Les Miserables" style song about realizing your spouse has not been getting orgasms from sex with you, but this worked and managed to be funny and tragic.  Well, tragic for Tim.  And his wife.  

-The Moment is Me - Heather hated all of this, but the song rolled on regardless of her feeling about songs about realizing she had everything she needed to move on. 

-The Sexy Getting Ready Song - It's just amazing.  It showed the layered, knowing, and quirky vibe the show was going for.  And captured a very real thing. 

7 Posts: Bonus Plus Post - I Had a Theory

The show creators have always been pretty transparent that "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" was a show about someone raised on the rom-coms who tried to take them literally.  Which is to say it's a look at what it would mean if you watched some of the crazy stalkery manipulation that gets passed off as adorable when in pursuit of love.  I listened to a podcast once where two dudes said, unironically, the only difference between a rom-com and a stalker movie is that it's positively received behavior.  And here's the thing, they are not wrong.  But it sounded to me that they were sort of saying if she likes it, then you're cool.  And if she doesn't and you don't back down, then you're wrong.  Not, hey, we shouldn't engage in this behavior ever.  

Over four seasons, Rebecca has upended her life, engaged in terrible behavior, been the victim of terrible behavior, dated three different men for long enough for them to be considered contenders, made new friends, changed her career, gotten into therapy, and worked on her mental health.  In many ways the trajectory of the show had already been a lot and enough.  

I confess, I am often the person who tries not to pick sides, pick ships, especially in a show that had a whole song about shipping people who don't want to be shipped.  It's not because I can't decide, it's that I have often seen shows do things I would not have predicted and they made me believe.  So I kept an open mind as they brought in Greg 2.0, revisited Josh, and Nathan.  I watched people do polls about which she should choose.  But as I mentioned in the post about the rom-com episode, by the end of that episode they almost had me convinced that Nathan should be with Maya, so I try to enjoy the ride.  

But I also wondered.  Early on, Dr. Akopian had said true love doesn't have to be a person.  And I wondered if that was the message.  Not that Rachel doesn't deserve love, but that that love doesn't have to reside in a person.  People often say to me, oh but you read and write romance, you want the happy ending. I do. But I am also well aware that ending a story with characters smooching doesn't always feel like the happiest choice.  

So, yeah, my theory was what if the back and forth between Josh, Greg, and Nathan wasn't the typical final season stuff about drawing out the decision.  What if the point was that this wasn't really the thing that was going to make her happy.  This was the distraction.  

And after going "The Bachelor" style with dates, and choices, Rebecca realized that her true love was the songs.  The thing that had always been there for her.  And that's who she ended up with.  

7 Posts: Bonus Post - The Community Around You

By titling the show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" it focused on how Rebecca upended her life in pursuit of Josh.  But, of course, the Josh pursuit, was a metaphor. (Sorry, Josh.  You deserve love too!)  Because what Rebecca, and anyone who watched the panic attack caused by success in her prior life, knew, was that her life back in New York had sucked.  And yes, moving across the country to reconnect with your camp boyfriend is not a great choice.  And it won't always work out.  But it is very true, much like that are you emotionally stable enough to get bangs quiz, there are moments when you know something isn't working and you reach out to change something to make it better.  

Regardless of how Rebecca's relationship with Josh did or didn't work out, her life got better in West Covina less because of Josh, but because Rebecca found community (and also, therapy, a diagnosis, and some medication).  Early on it looked like they were quickly wrapping up the folks around Rebecca, much the way that shows often do to get some resolutions out of the way to clear space for the finale.  But they weren't done.  Heather and Hector got married and moved into their own place and figured out how to negotiate life as adults.  Kind of.  Valencia and Beth move to New York, but struggled with being ready for commitment on the same timeline.  (Valencia's joy at realizing she could propose was a thing to behold.) Nathaniel decided to be nice, a thing he told many people, because that's exactly how that works.  Paula passed the bar and sent her kid off to the non-Peace Corps thing.  Greg figured out that West Covina and his dad's restaurant were actually kind of great, and a lot of his negativity had to do with his dad having been a drunk who mishandled the business.  Darryl and white Josh figured out that they were leaning on each other for emotional support too much, and white Josh got back in the dating game and Darryl found April in the hospital waiting room.  

There were further developments in finale episode, but in many ways, despite the decision that Rebecca revealed, the thing she really found by going after the wrong thing in the wrong ways, was a really great community.  (Well, white Josh still isn't sold on her, but really who could blame him.)  

7 Posts: Everything is Under Control

The show makes this point so beautifully, that it almost seems repetitive to discuss it, but I still loved the parallels created in the episode in which both Rebecca and Paula tried to power and/or positive outlook their way through their differing health needs.  In many ways this season, and even the series has looked at the circumstances that allowed Rebecca to get to this part of her life, with plenty of success and sure some failures behind her and not have fully recognized her brain and her were at odds. Paula got married young ended up adjacent to the life she truly wanted and is so, so close to getting it.  In the way of many of us of a certain age, it won't be everything she dreamed, but it's a dream about to be realized, and having had to give up so many dreams she is not willing to listen to people who tell her she looks bad, and she might need to take a rest, and she could take the bar next time.  Paula has seen success come to her when she powers through, so she keeps powering through the sweat, through the fatigue, through the pain, until finally she admits she might need a teeny tiny bit of help and goes to her gynecologist assuming she's experiencing menopause, to discover she is actually having a heart attack.  

Similarly, Rebecca has been doing all the work - going to therapy, having changed her job, and now having done a new thing, entered into a relationship with someone who already knows all the worst things she has done.  So, yes, romance has been a crutch for her before, but not this time, because she has done the work.  And she doesn't need medication because she has done the work.  And yes, also, because she let her mom drug her and it ended badly, so medication is wrapped up in some really bad baggage for her.  And so she gets Greg to go to a water park.  And while Greg looks like a totally different person, he is still Greg.  Water parks and Greg are not going to be a happy joint outing.  And so it doesn't go the way Rebecca had envisioned and so she reverts to alcohol and bad behavior and in a way that was super real to life but less so to TV, the folks she tries to throw her self into realize this is Rebecca in pain not Rebecca in love with them again and they send her on her way.  

Both Rebecca and Paula are forced to realize that sometimes pushing your body and your brain and trying to power through your illness doesn't work.  Sometimes you have to stop, or let the drugs get your brain chemistry closer to where it needs to be, and that's not cheating or slacking, it's just what you need at the moment.  

And I think it's a lesson we all need sometimes.  

7 Posts: That Rom-Com Episode

It's not uncommon for shows to to an episode where they dive into a side character.  Within the world of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" we've known who Nathan is since he showed up, and we know who Maya is too.  But this Nathan realizes that Rebecca loves romantic comedies and that perhaps by watching some he could learn something works on a number of levels.  First, learning about something the woman you profess to love has loved and tried to share with you all along well after the fact is in itself rom-commy.  As is dreaming about the thing.  Obviously totally happy and functional couples have interests the other doesn't (see also, water parks, but I digress).  But Nathan wasn't checking out rom-coms to see if by dismissing an entire genre of film, he had missed out on something he might enjoy.  Nathan was looking for research he could use to hijack his way back into Rebecca's life, much the way he had thought about using the diary that her half brother had used.  He was, in fact, using season 1 (and yeah, okay, the other seasons too) Rebecca behavior.  In prior seasons, Trent had been the mirror for how over the top Rebecca's behavior was.  But Nathan also had a lot to learn about being appropriate.  

So, dream Nathan and dream Maya fake dated in order to make both their exes jealous and in a testament to the wonderful writing and acting in the show, by the time they got to the building karaoke scene, even though I knew this was a rom-com set up, and I still knew there were lots of reasons Maya and Nathan were not the appropriate choices for each other, I was kinda ready to buy into it.  

It was a dream, so we don't have to worry about if Nathan is still technically Maya's boss, or the other various power differentials that make this a bad choice.  Instead, we got a dream rom-com.  But that episode also served as a reminder to both the viewers and to Nathan, that it's easy to get swept up in the moment, it's easy to feel like all the forces of the universe must be behind you. It's easy to justify a long line of terrible choices in service of one good ending.  Nothing is ever perfect, but that doesn't mean that bad behavior should be rewarded, even when people sing delightfully about it.  

7 Posts: The Sex Ed Chat

"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" from "The Sexy Getting Ready Song" to "Sex With a Stranger" has always been sex positive and sex informative at the same time.  (See, it is possible!)  So, I particularly enjoyed the balance, or "Cats" episode.  To distract herself from what would later be referred to as the love quadrangle of Josh, Greg, and Nathaniel, Rebecca decided to up her exercise and get back on the dating apps.  Valencia warns her about cheap leggings, but Rebecca continues on, only to end up with a yeast infection.  She reschedules her date, but then attempts to overtreat it, and ends up with bacterial vaginosis. 

In an odd parallel Greg and Nathaniel meet at the gym and become buddies, putting white Josh in the uncomfortable position of knowing a thing that would affect their bonding, but not wanting to have his day job infected (pun intended) with Rebecca stuff.  

So Rebecca tries to not tell her date why they can't meet, and white Josh tries to not see what's happening with Greg and Nathaniel, and in the end neither of these strategies work.  Rebecca ends up confessing the infection to Jason, who turns out to be the kid of a gynecologist who would have preferred honesty anyway.  Greg and Nathaniel both decide to declare themselves to Rebecca, and meeting outside her apartment realize they have her in common.  They also run into mostly naked Josh who has also decided to declare himself and the noise outside means Jason discovers the love quadrangle and opts out.  

The show has done a lot of great things to normalize some really common and hopefully uncommon things.  (I wouldn't wish a love quadrangle or a Trent on an enemy.)  But the idea that hiding the truth instead of owning it, while not uncommon in TV shows as a message, is applied here to things like yeast infections in a really lovely way.  

7 Posts: That Casting Change

"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" did a thing that used to be more common. They brought back a character with a different actor.  Obviously, as adults we know that people have to take jobs and opportunities on the table, and if your show would like you back in a future season, but you book, say a Broadway show, well, we all get it.  But of course, just as a show makes side notes about the new guy this season, season meaning the quarterly one because of course anything else would be a weird way to talk about you life, they weren't going to do it and not talk about it.  

It was time for a high school reunion.  And of course that meant Josh had assigned extra importance to his role as prom king.  And it meant Rebecca pondered - as her friends all made big life changes, if maybe she had overanalyzed and missed out on a true love.  Heather and Valencia both said of course it was Greg, which seemed, maybe not entirely in keeping with Heather and Valencia.  Rebecca said well, except for how they were toxic and brought out the worst in each other, so basically only if he was like an entirely different person.  And then an entirely different person walked through the door.  

It is a credit to many things, casting, writing, and the acting skills of Skylar Astin that by the end of the season (and by this I mean TV season) I had to keep reminding myself that Santino Fontana originated this role.  It isn't that I will ever forget "Settle For Me" or let's get drunk and make fun of people, because I will not. But the show made me believe that sober, getting his life back together Greg looked like Skylar Astin.  

7 Posts: Singing to the Darkness

Early on in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend", the show made it clear that the songs are in Rebecca's head, that she's not even that good at singing in real life.  Nevertheless the songs are a delight.  Even when things are hard, or sad, or everything in between.  The "Sexy Getting Ready Song" was weird and strange, and I've told people over time that it took until "Face Your Fears" to see the vibe that the show was going for, but it was all there from the beginning.  The songs are a sign that Rebecca doesn't see the world clearly, not because they are songs per se, but because the songs contain an awareness, both of realities Rebecca isn't ready to see, but also clues to the larger pop culture landscape.  

"Crazy -Ex-Girlfriend" isn't blaming pop culture per se, but it is taking a look at the behavior that gets held up as romantic, at how these things look different when done by people of different genders or different sexualities.  Whether it's the idea that a woman who truly wants love would of course mold and wax and pluck herself into a better, skinnier, hotter version of herself, that shipping people who have told you they can't make a relationship work, or that folks who are sarcastic and mean might actually need deep therapeutic work and possibly addiction counseling before they are ready for a relationship, and all sorts of things in between, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" has addressed both the deep dark scary stuff and the oh my gosh excitement of bonding with friends through song.  

Certainly many of Rebecca's various coping mechanisms have been shown to be unhealthy, but the singing, real or imagined has helped this show seem wonderful and often bright as it addressed a range of things, many of them dark.  

It's possible you could argue the songs are another mask, but I think the songs provide a useful balance.  Musicals often go places that would be fairly unbearable in pure play form, whether it's failed revolutions or mental health struggles, or more successful revolutions.  I always talk about telling someone I was seeing "Fun Home" and "Hamilton" the same week and they thought "Fun Home" sounded dark, and I was like, but you know lots of people, like lots more people die in "Hamilton" right?  "Fun Home" had songs too, which is honestly part of why I added it to the list.  (In fact it has a very sparkly song, and love song, and a longing song.)  

So, the songs in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" helped keep the darkness away, even when the songs were about the darkness. 

7 Posts: The Mom Resolution

Since it was the final season of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" they had a lot of things to resolve.  One of them was Rebecca's relationship with her mom, a relationship that had often times fed into and exacerbated some of Rebecca's behavior.  The last time Rebecca had seen her mom had ended with Rebecca in the hospital, so, this was a test in many ways of how well Rebecca's therapy and work on herself had been successful.  Mental illness or no, I think we can all sympathize with the idea that this time we are so sure we are grown enough to handle being with our parents, around other adults who still think of us as kids, and who still want to view our lives through a specific marker of success or no. 

So Rebecca has a job she loves, but doesn't sound cool, she's unmarried, she's childless, and yet, for most people having a job and friends and being able to pay rent would be plenty.  But of course, Rebecca's mom is getting an award but it's about who will give it to her, and she has made a huge promise she kind of hasn't been able to live up to and had been hoping that will just come true.  Fortunately for all of them, Valencia is now on the East Coast and makes it happen for them.  So in the end Rebecca's mom gets the night of pretending she had always dreamed of, and Rebecca gets to see her mom happy and sometimes that's the best you can get from family.  

7 Posts: Car Trips

The fourth and final season of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" wrapped last week, so it's time again for 7 Posts.  For those not quite caught up, I'll alert you when I get into finale spoilers.  

I found the car trip episode, well, honestly a little like a car trip with someone you generally haven't been alone in a confined space with for a long stretch in a while.  It was partially an excuse to create usual character pairings.  Paula and Josh have known each other a while.  For a while Paula was so team Josh it was, well it was definitely not healthy.  And in the way of friends, Rebecca and Josh have figured things out and come to a good place, and Paula, the dedicated friend who had fought for him, had felt just as invested in him, but of course got none of the apology directly, was still meh on Josh. 

Rebecca of course hangs out with Darryl all the time.  Her concern here is that Darryl is the best friend to have when you want to dive deep into your feelings and therefore, as she warned him, not the best friend when you want to have a day where you pretend everything is okay.  And of course it was fair for Rebecca to state boundaries, but also endemic of these weird parameters we try to establish to maintain social norms.  Saying let's go on a trip but please don't be yourself is not super fair.  Rebecca is entirely within her rights to establish topics about herself that are off limits.  But they were both asking too much of each other in the end and probably would have both been better off not trying to piece together a trip that was never going to live up to their imagined version of it.  

Nathan and Heather obviously know each other and have mutual friends, but of course, Heather is a straight shooter to say the least, and Nathan is a pretty shallow well most days, so his interest in knowing who Heather was was pretty minimal.  I felt the Nathan turns out to have a deep connection to the nanny the weakest part of this.  It's a challenge because most of the time in this show goes to Rebecca, so Nathan's daddy issues had been clear and he certainly didn't have a good relationship with his mom, and it makes sense given what we know about his family that there would be a nanny. I just found the jerk has a squishy underside not as powerful as I felt like it was supposed to be.  However, it's very possible that this was the point.  Tons of shows have a character who seems mean, or shallow, or whatever suddenly reveal secret pain. ("Grey's Anatomy" even riffed on that, having Alex ask in an early season if he should reveal his secret pain to make everything okay.) 

Nathan then spent several episodes telling people he was nice now.  And the other characters reacted to that with a healthy amount of skepticism. Knowing he had secret depths of emotion for this one person in his life helped, but it didn't address or undo all the other behavior he had engaged in.  And it shouldn't.  

So much like a real car trip, there was good, there was bad, and we learned some things. 

7 Posts: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - The Many Passions

In the first season Rebecca's dream ghost, that looked just like Dr. Akopian, told her that love comes in many forms, and it can be a passion.  One of the things the show has subtly displayed is that Rebecca has been relentlessly pursuing things, but usually either her job or a boyfriend.  So we know Rebecca fell in love in college and when that fell apart, she was unable to continue there, and after some hospitalization, she ended up at a different high powered institution.  Then she ended up at a high powered law firm where she had done well enough to make partner even though the idea of being partner gave her a panic attack.  So, she runs into Josh, upends her life to move across the country and be a lawyer at a much less high powered firm, but where she will have time to pursue to the fullest extent possible, Josh.  And when the Josh thing didn't work, she then ended up with Nathan (and I know that Greg was in there too, and I'm not forgetting him, but she wasn't done with the Josh dream during the Greg phase).  And then she realized she was repeating patterns, trying to micromanage and level up their relationship by granting him the dream sibling he didn't know he had (because he didn't).  And when she realized that was a bad pattern she ended things with him.  She tried working for Valencia, but was unable to do that without butting into client's lives, so she decides it's time to go back to work.  Only she had forgotten that she had quit (or her mom had quit for her while drugging her, which was a nice nod to continuity, a lot of shows would have skimmed over that while we all wondered if she was using FMLA or what).  So, then she enacts a plan to get the firm back from Nathan.  (Who then continues to work there.  It is still a TV show.)  But then she and Nathan resume the sexual part of their relationship which Rebecca decides is totally not the same as her repeating old patterns.  

All of this is to say that a lot of shows about working women do that great at her job, terrible with feelings thing.  She's a tough boss at work, but her home life is out of control.  And in this case Rebecca is, well, she's clearly a very good lawyer, but there's something to be examined in that she's in a profession where thinking creatively about the truth and manipulating people are lauded skills.  My point is not that lawyers lie or cheat, my point is that Rebecca lies and cheats, and it turns out to be a sometimes lauded skillset as a lawyer, but it makes her not always a great friend or girlfriend.  Or party planner.  And Rebecca flips from job to guy when one isn't working for her. And back again.  

7 Posts: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Josh and Hector

There was an interesting progression with Josh and Hector in season 3.  In season 1, Josh was back from New York, back with Valencia, back at a job he didn't like.  And then, he got his dream job at Aloha selling electronics, moved in with Valencia, and then well, the relationship stuff changed around a bit, but in some ways, Josh seemed to have found the correct path.  Meanwhile Hector lived at home with his mom, said it was fine since she was his best friend, and they had a relationship podcast together.  Hector and Heather began dating and it honestly seemed like that might be shortlived.  Heather is pretty unsparing in her assessment of people's choices, and yet, they now seem incredibly suited.  Hector is so incredibly steady that he isn't insulted by Heather's truthiness.  Meanwhile Josh, on probation from Aloha, then bounced from job to job, and now without a girlfriend to live with or a steady income had moved back home.  Josh's parents were not excited for him to live with them.  And so, when Josh's mom kicked him out, and he bonded a little more tightly with Hector's mom, Hector realized that it was strange watching his mom bond so tightly with his friend and maybe he was ready to move in with his girlfriend.  

And Hector was great with Heather through her surrogate pregnancy, and now, something that seemed like a shortlived relationship now looks like the most obvious thing.  Meanwhile Josh is still job hopping, and now living with Hector's mom.  So, Hector has progressed forward and Josh has backslid.  

7 Posts: Crazy Ex Girlfriend - The office mates

This year we dug a little deeper into some of the office mates that were not Paula, Nathan, or Darryl.  It's hard to succinctly describe the amazingness of Tim singing a song of the grief he experiences learning his wife has never orgasmed with him, or Maya's weird millennial quips that still are on point, such as her note to Paula about seeking more female mentors but needing to be on the side of consent.  Nathan tries to take advantage of Rebecca (via her mom) quitting by hiring a new lawyer who is great at lawyering but turns out to be unable to handle the barrage of emotional support the various co-workers at the firm need. 

And returning to our more well-known office mates, some of the separation of Paula and Rebecca has been great.  Paula learned that her family has to work around her, and her co-workers all think she's the office bitch.  She brings in Sunil to get someone who is on her side, and finds he sides with the others. He tells her she is so used to giving out office criticism, she's not prepared to deal with and appreciate good work, only able to seek the flaws.  

7 Posts: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - An actual diagnosis

Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide and other mental illness.  Spoiler warnings for season  3 of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend". 

"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" has been taking a hard look at some of the behavior that gets lauded as kooky in some romantic comedy and what it might mean to be a person who actually does these things.  Season 2 ended with Josh leaving Rebecca at the altar and Rebecca promising revenge and season 3 starts with us learning that Rebecca's initial plans for revenge are, well, they are not great.  After sleeping with Nathan, kidnapping Josh's mom, and then sleeping with Greg's dad after an accidental butt dial, Rebecca realizes she might possibly have ruined everything and goes home to her mom.  In case you couldn't remember where some of Rebecca's bad coping behaviors come from, Rebecca discovers her mom has been drugging her.  Rebecca ultimately overdoses on the medication in an attempt to commit suicide. In the hospital, afterwords, they are able to diagnose her with borderline personality disorder. 

Once Rebecca accepts the diagnosis, she goes all in on being the bestest patient.  I think the show does a really fabulous job of straddling the line between being humorous and yet serious, and I think this season has really tested that.  Rachel's borderline personality disorder is shown as serious, and yet, they also show how some of the tendencies and behaviors are the things that got her through law school and made her successful.  The idea of your strengths also being your weaknesses is often explored in superhero stuff and only played for laughs, haha, that neatfreak, in other shows.  

And, incredibly realistically, Rebecca's diagnosis doesn't solve her problems.  It just gives them context.  

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has both resources and a hotline with English, Spanish, and hard of hearing options. 

7 Posts: Planning For Just You is Hard - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

It's not super hidden that "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" is looking at the long term effects of trying to live your life like you're in a rom-com.  Rom-coms operate on the assumption that no matter what the character says at the start, things are always better as a couple.  So provide no guidance on planning a life for yourself.  (And in fact often suggest that plans you make for yourself will be upset by your impending coupledom.) 

Heather, who seems super together, was still living with her parents.  Hector is living with his mom and seems exceedingly happy with this arrangement.  Valencia no longer enjoyed being a yoga instructor, but didn't know what else she should be.  Paula had always wanted to be a lawyer, and then, when that got in the way of supporting her husband' Scott, her worst fear came true.  He cheated on her and validated all her worries that going after things for yourself make you unlovable.  

So if rom coms have taught us bad behavior in the name of love gets rewarded, we have also been trained by media that coupling up is the desired way to approach life. Even TV shows that tend to shy away from permanently coupling anyone at the center of a show usually break that rule for the series finale, because we view weddings as closure. 

[PS.  If you're still reading and haven't watched the season finale yet - spoilers ahead.]

The first season ended with a wedding, and Rebecca finally getting the dream of getting together with Josh.  (Never mind that at the beginning of the day her dream was getting together with Greg.) The second season ended with her wedding day to Josh, with Josh, being the one to realize that this wasn't right.  Possibly because having the lighter load on planning, gave him more time for introspection.  

It is both silly and true to look to hard at the metaphor the show presented of Rebecca's wedding planning.  Rebecca decided to plan this wedding on a certain date because it being available was a sign even though she had no idea how to plan a wedding.  She found a picture of a pretty wedding and tried to recreate that exactly regardless of if it had any meaning for her or Josh. But, when she let her friends help, Valencia showed up with a perfect plan.  Nathaniel got Rebecca's dad there.  And Paula yelled at Rebecca's mom until she fell in line.  And Father Brah told Josh he dealt with uncertainty by attaching himself to the first pretty girl he could find.  

So yes, Rebecca's dad turned out to be a jerk.  Rebecca's mom showed that underneath it all she cared for Rebecca when she tried to steer Josh away from talking about Robert. Trent tried to spoil Rebecca's wedding but ultimately it wasn't Rebecca's past, but Josh's own uncertainty with his life's direction that had him choosing priesthood.  So Rebecca tried to create a perfect picture of a wedding, but what she got was a group of friends who stood on a cliff with her ready to give her whatever she needed. 

I can't wait to see what happens next. 

7 Posts: Searching as a Dude - "Crazy Ex Girlfriend"

I think media, or maybe just TV, since there are childish men in many a movie, doesn't explore as much the idea that this issue of reaching the stage where you expected your life to be done or formed or to make sense, as a male.  There are childish men on TV.  But that's often viewed as a character component and not something like Greg worrying about who would look after his dad is he left his hometown to go off to the college of his dreams, or of there was any point in doing so at his age.  Trent was played for laughs, but also made a subtle point that some of the very things that Rebecca did last year (and okay this year too), come off with an added layer of creepy when done by a man.  

And Josh.  Josh, much like Rebecca, doesn't really know that he's searching.  He had a plan. He was happy with his life and because for so much of his adult life he had been with Valencia, he hadn't really noticed that he'd spent the year finding women who he felt like gave him purpose.  

And yeah, to finish this out, we've got to get into the season finale. So, do I think Josh will be a great priest?  No.  (Teacher, quite possibly as his camp and coaching experience have shown.) But for all the differences between Josh and Rebecca, they both had been using each other for validation.  That Josh realized that enough to not go through with the marriage is great.  (It would have been nice if he had realized it enough to tell Rebecca to her face, but baby steps.) 

I hope Josh, and even Trent, find a focus or path that makes them happy.  And again, the lesson that dream ghost therapist imparted in season one is still true, falling in love is not the only way to find a lifelong goal or even a lifelong love.  Josh becoming a priest to get out of the bad habit of turning to the nearest pretty girl for validation is still looking for an external person (be it more godly) to provide him a goal. 

7 Posts: Rewards and Signs in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

Another aspect of the new and old friendships explored this season in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" is that it allowed the characters to grow in new ways. Darryl figured out how to bond with Nathaniel.  In Sunil, Paula found someone who saw how much of a helper she was in some of her other relationships. Heather, Valencia, and Rebecca bonded as single women.  But one thing that happens often in media, is that our character shows some growth and then the universe immediately rewards them.  Now in fiction this is kind of a shortcut, the uncaring hero rescues a cat and we all know that he isn't as uncaring as we thought.  The selfish heroine does something selfless, and we all see that she is grown.  Most audience members know that this is a storytelling shortcut, helping one person across the street does not earn you a job promotion.  

But, of course, Rebecca is not your average audience member.  So, she saw that when Paula's trip was in jeopardy now that she had kicked Scott out, Rebecca, swept in and decided to babysit for a weekend, despite her lack of experience. And she was doing pretty well, until she had to stalk Josh.  But even though Tommy was okay and home, Rebecca owned up to misplacing him and turned Josh away in favor of staying to help Paula when Josh realized that Rebecca was the soup fairy who had always cared about him. 

Now, Paula has always been biased about Josh, so she encouraged Rebecca to go after him.  

Love isn't a prize you get for being unselfish.  One of the things that Rebecca and Josh have struggled with is that they are looking for signs instead of looking within themselves.  Josh decided Rebecca being his soup fairy was a sign that she was his one true love and not a sign that she wanted him to get better.  Rebecca decided that Josh proposing was the universe telling her that she didn't have to work on herself but should go get married.  I'm a big believer in signs in fiction and in life.  But it's really easy to interpret the signs in the easy way, in the way that requires the least amount of introspection and work.  Being unselfish, much like relationships in general, is, more than a moment. 

7 Posts: The Nature of Friendship in Crazy Ex-Girfriend

This season "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" went deeper in on the nature of friendship. Part of that is Rebecca has now been there long enough that she has real friends in West Covina.  But we also got to spend more time with Heather, see more of White Josh and Hector, Father Brah, Darryl, and watch Valencia and Rebecca bond over the mutual ex-Josh-ness. We watched Paula bond with new law school friends, especially Sunil, and look at how that changed her relationship with Rebecca, and her husband.  

Some of this is of course because shaking up relationships makes for good TV, but ssh, no one wants to talk about that. (Well, except for the song they sing about the new guy.)  But also, this is very true, friendships go through phases where you spend so much more time with one person, and invariably that has to come at the expense of something or someone else.  Paula going to law school meant she needed friends who were going to law school.  Rebecca needed people who had time to sympathize about her being dumped.  Or just hang out and do single person things with.  

Rebecca and Paula had bonded hard and fast over Rebecca's pursuit of Josh and once that was on hold, it was natural that they would have to reconfigure.   

But the other thing that was apparent this season is that your friends are the ones that get you with all your flaws.  Not exactly a revelation, but they demonstrated it over and over as they tried to step up and step in and help their friends.  When Josh W. stepped in and tried to get Anna to look away from the amateur modeling at the club he was trying to help. Ultimately Anna and Josh were doomed as she began to realize that the refreshingly charming viewpoint Josh often brings to things, is also a lack of depth. Josh is a great guy, don't get me wrong.  Josh W. knew it was doomed, but figured he could maybe save Josh for one more night.  

So friends are the ones who even when they don't think you are making the best choices, try to save you from some of the fallout. 

7 Posts: When You Bring a Friend/Love Home on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

We looked at this a little last season too, when Heather went to visit Greg's mom's family and discovered they were super nice.  This season Rebecca brought Josh home for a family bar mitvah, and hoped that having Josh there would help her stay on a cool California wavelength.  One of my friends said that when she brought her now spouse home to meet her family for the first time, afterwords, her spouse said, wow, you had warned me, but they are quite something.  And I think we all kind of want that.  We all feel misunderstood by our family. (Okay fine, you raising your hand there, have no troubles, so fine, almost all).  Having someone come home and take our side is an amazing thing.  

Yes, Heather set Greg straight.  And Josh was right, that Rebecca wanted to see the worst and the unhappiness, but in his delightful and charming ability to see the best in just about everything, he also couldn't see how her mother's behavior affected Rebecca.  He couldn't see that Rebecca wasn't wrong that her cousin was digging at her unmarried status, and that underneath at least some of the questions about her move to California, were concerns that what she had done was so ridiculous that it must be a sign of mental illness that she should get over. 

Now of course, Rebecca does have some issues that need to be addressed.  And certainly, from her family's perspective, where they have likely only gotten her mother's side of this decision to go to California it doesn't make sense.  Much of the world does not really value, my job was making me unhappy even though I was succeeding and making lots of money, so I quit, and moved across the country to live in a lower stress environment, and because Rebecca doesn't fully understand that that's really what she did, she likely hasn't explained it well. 

But, family also does cause you to regress.  And so Josh in trying to smooth things over for her, smoothed so well, and had so much fun, that Rebecca didn't get to live out her dream of sitting in a corner and bitching about everyone, which likely also isn't a healthy choice.  But it is understandable. 

7 Posts: When Your normal Coping Mechanisms Fail You - "Crazy Ex Girlfriend"

We all develop coping mechanisms.  Reading, yoga, blogging, drinking. But eventually, your coping mechanism fails you in some way.  Either there's an event so big, it overwhelms what little comfort you can get, or you just reach a point where you can no longer get yourself to that happy place.  There's not enough yoga, not enough alcohol and so then what.  On After Rebecca's move she had bounced around friends, houses, boyfriends, but the part of her job that had worked was her job. And okay we could argue that it worked because there's a limited number of law firms where spending the day stalking someone would barely be commented on.  But the big fish, little pond metaphor often gets used to look at how going from a small town or school to a large school can cause challenges.  It's very rarely used to look at how maybe some people just do better in smaller or medium sized ponds.  

But then Darryl sold part of the firm, and it ended up in the hands of a more traditional group of hourly and wage driven lawyers.  Or, well, one lawyer who was working to impress his dad.  And in a rare moment of self-reflection Rebecca said, this was everything she moved away from New York to avoid.  But in order to save the folks at the firm, she dug down for her old lawyer ways*, and landed a new client. 

But when the happiness of being with Josh turned out to not be enough, she went back to her therapist.  Finally ready to admit, or think about admitting, that maybe her problems and issues weren't lack of a love interest, but things she needed to look at inside herself.  And then Josh, having had his own revelation, burst in on her therapy and proposed.  But just like last season, I have faith that this is a continuing theme.  

*While Rebecca's money situation came up before, in the way of TV we are just putting that back under the rug and not worrying how Rebecca's salary is supporting pretty much anything this season. I'm sure a roommate helped.