What I’m Watching: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Season 2, Episode 10 “Will Scarsdale Like Josh’s Shayna Punim?” (B+)

If I had seen this episode’s title before I watched it, I think I would have known what I was in for much more. I think it’s fantastic that this episode had so much Jewish content, and even though most of it is about how much Rebecca hates religion and associates everything bad with her Jewish upbringing. The most enjoyable part of all of it was Josh’s excitement about learning about Jewish things, including learning how to make challah French toast even though he can’t pronounce it, thinking whitefish and fish sticks are the same thing, and ending the trip with “hashtag shalom means both hello and goodbye.” Seeing the two of them compete for hashtags to celebrate their relationship suggested that they might actually make it, but the clear difference between the two of them is that Josh just tries to make the best of any situation, making friends including enemy Audra’s husband, and Rebecca instead wallows in her misery when she’s back in her own life. That first song with Josh and Rebecca enthusiastically singing about love after telling Heather to shut up was so wonderfully incorporated into this show’s more optimistic trajectory at the start of the episode, and then Rebecca soured the mood with a hora-themed song of suffering. Rebecca’s therapist was ecstatic to hear that Rebecca was finally coming to a point of realization about her issues, and instead Josh came in to propose and then take her back a few steps to a happy place so that she couldn’t acknowledge that she was always headed for somewhere dark. I enjoyed Darryl’s candy rebellion against Nathaniel, and I like that he succeeded in getting Nathaniel to relax a bit and finding a place for himself not be seeming serious but instead being totally affable and just what Nathaniel needed in that moment. I’m sure we’ll have lots of craziness when the two big plotlines we had in this episode reunite for the show’s final three episodes of the season.