When we last left the hot messes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, it was on a high note. Paula kicked her cheating husband out of the house. Rebecca finally put forth the effort to mend her friendship with Paula. The exceedingly shallow Anna dumped Josh. And after receiving a caring gesture from Rebecca, Josh came crawling back to her. After this hot streak of resolutions, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend kept the hot streak going. Real talk — this episode is one of the show’s best since the pilot.
“When Do I Get to Spend Time with Josh?”
First we catch up with Paula and Rebecca, who have been working together for a week to get Paula’s life back on track. It’s working, and Paula is grateful. But during the week, Josh has been vying for Rebecca’s attention. Paula gives Rebecca permission to restart her romance with Josh, but not before giving him a stern warning: “You hurt her, I kill you. Okay?”
Rebecca and Josh’s romance is back in full swing. They’re sickeningly adorable together, but the show is already setting up pins to knock down later in the season. There’s no way a character can promise “it’ll be different this time” without having to eat those words later.
Then, everything goes to hell. Remember when I said in the last recap that this show wants to blow things up? Well, it just blew up in the best way. This week, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend introduced a new villain: Nathaniel Plimpton. Scott Michael Foster (Halt and Catch Fire) plays this new majority owner (gasp!) of Darryl’s law firm. And the character is, in a word, perfect. He’s the bastard Crazy Ex-Girlfriend needs right now.
“Who’s The New Guy?”
Nathaniel strolls into Whitefeather & Associates with a plan: free up $250K in the budget by Friday. The easiest way to do that would be to fire four staff members, and Paula is on the chopping block. So Rebecca gets to work, trying to find a wealthy client that will bring in the necessary revenue. And in working long hours and indulging in this delicious new rivalry with Nathaniel, she neglects her relationship with Josh.
Rebecca and Paula manage to avert the crisis for now, which allows them both to flex their ruthless lawyer muscles. Nathaniel’s introduction addresses the stagnation of Rebecca’s job, an aspect too often neglected in sitcoms. Just when we thought things were going to get easy, the show’s writing team dashed Rebecca’s hopes of balancing her unremarkable job with her dreamy romance.
And now, we are reminded that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend sometimes functions as a legal drama and that Rebecca’s skills in law aren’t merely incidental. Those skills are a big part of her core. It’s refreshing to see the show address it so directly after letting it atrophy in the first half of the season.
Observations
- It seems obvious that the network fiddled with the show’s schedule. This episode was obviously intended to be the “mid-season premiere.”
- This episode had some of the best dialogue zingers of the series. Human flip-flop, intensive purposes, everything Karen says, etc.
- Nathaniel fires George (who?) in front of the whole office. George gets his own brief musical number, which is AMAZING.
- Josh’s parents are back!
- Patton Oswalt’s cameo is hysterically creepy, and I wish his name weren’t in the opening credits. The surprise would’ve been an immense delight.