S01.E04: I'm Going On A Date With Josh's Friend!

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

You Can't Monopolize The Bathroom At A Taco Festival, And Other Difficult Life Lessons From Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Greg charms and Rebecca loses it, but will anyone learn anything?

[Snarklepuss]

That PreviouslyTV post reminded me of the exchange about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.  I swear, that was taken right out of my own life, lol.  Only in my case it happened right in front of the building it happened in, which is now owned by NYU.  Call me crazy, but I felt like there was something Woody Allen-esque about that exchange, too.

[Rinaldo]

Actually, I think one full season* would be about right for this show. I adore it, but the premise doesn't have infinite extensibility, and it's probably best if it tells a definite story and then concludes. I plan to enjoy each week as it comes, without worrying for the future.

 

(*Which would be about the length of 2 Showtime seasons -- or 3 or 4, if we calculate the re-conception to longer episodes.)

[Rhetorica]

Did any of you watch Galavant? It was a winter series, about 10 episodes, I think. The premise was the same, musical numbers, bawdy humor. ABC, surprisingly, picked it up for a second season. So there's hope.

[taragel]

I would be okay with only one season if they could wrap up/explore everything fully.... BUT I would want to see Rachel Bloom and several of the cast back in a new series next season that takes on different themes and plot and characters, but with the same awesome feminist slant and hilarious lyrics and catchy as hell tunage. 

 

Sadly, I think Glee was an anomaly and TV still doesn't really want to embrace a musical. (I was shocked Galavant got a second season--but they have Disney money behind ABC and more room to experiment I think.)

 

Another option: I would tune in every week if they made this a CW Seed show instead. 

[Zoe]

Two Asian men on the same show!  And this isn't LOST!?  This show is insane.  I'm such a huge fan!

 

Aziz Ansari has been talking so much about race on television lately in promotion of his new show.  He said something like, you never see more than one Asian man on an American television show, as if Asian people never interact with each other.

Not just Asian, but the show has tons of Filipinos! I don't think there have been so many Filipinos together on an American screen since a Black Eyed Peas video.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Haha, it's funny because it's true!

[SmithW6079]

Did any of you watch Galavant? It was a winter series, about 10 episodes, I think. The premise was the same, musical numbers, bawdy humor. ABC, surprisingly, picked it up for a second season. So there's hope.

This show makes me think of "Gslavant," although to ge fair, Galavant did end unresolved, so there's more story to tell.

[Snarklepuss]

I had my husband watch this last episode and he loved it and said he hoped that even if it were cancelled by the CW it would be picked up somewhere else as I've seen happen in other cases recently.  I just can't bear something with such promise going away completely.  BTW, nosleepforme, I don't love musicals in TV shows and originally fast forwarded through those parts on this show, but in the last two episodes have come to love them and realize that the lyrics are a part of the dialogue of the show.  Sometimes they give me a vaguely "Big Lebowski" feel.  I see elements of that movie in this, plus Woody Allen-esque dialogue, plus vaguely Python-esque moments.  It's amazingly well done.

[Ohwell]

I think I would like this show better in half hour installments.  An hour of Rebecca's issues is just too much.

[taragel]

I don't even know what CW Seed is.

 

CW Seed is their website/app channel thingy (Like HBO Go but free). They have some original content there--Play It Again, Dick (a web spinoff of Veronica Mars's Dick Casablancas character) was a CW Seed Original. 

 

Basically, I don't care if they have to ship it to a website but I want to continue watching this show in whatever form they can find to deliver it.

 

I agree that it would be unlikely they could wrap up Rebecca's problems fully in 13 episodes but they could at least get her to a healthier place maybe--therapy, medication, whatever. Then again...I don't think Rebecca's brand of crazy has been shown to be all that destructive. I think they even did a good job making it clear in the pilot that even though she moved to West Covina (specifically) for Josh, she moved/shook up her life entirely because she wasn't happy fundamentally as brought home by the timely butter commercial. The other stuff is attachment issues/self-sabotage/abandonment fears --and she could be working that out by the end of 13. But I'm not sure they're going to go with a "medication is the answer" solution. More likely it'll be a "We're all a little bit crazy...AND THAT'S OKAY." resolution.

 

I love musicals. Wish the viewing public embraced them more often. Galavant is another fave. 

Edited November 6, 2015 by taragel

[Rinaldo]

But I'm not sure they're going to go with a "medication is the answer" solution. More likely it'll be a "We're all a little bit crazy...AND THAT'S OKAY." resolution.

They do seem to be embracing a worldview (which happens to be mine too) that we all have messed-up parts of our lives, and that's pretty much the human condition.* But specifically in regard to Rebecca, Rachel Bloom has said in one article (tagging in case people don't want this sort of advance info)

that a future episode will explore how Rebecca throwing away all her medication wasn't the answer: she was overmedicated for years but finding an appropriate in-between place will be helpful for her.

 

*I have only two quotations posted on my Facebook profile, and one of them is this by Edith Wharton:

 

“There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there’s only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a fairly good time.”

[AllAboutMBTV]

Miss Wharton is so right. My happiness quote is from Alan Bennett's screenplay for "The History Boys": "I'm not happy, but I'm not unhappy about it."
 

Topic? I hope we get to see the West Brovinas.

[taragel]

I like that spoiler. I think that's a good way to go. I'm actually a bit surprised we haven't seen more of her relationship with her mother just yet. I imagine it's coming though (and maybe was dependent on Tovah's availability/shooting schedule for The Walking Dead).

 

Thinking about it though, it bothers me that when a male lead TV character is "crazy" the answer is never so mundane and realistic as getting treatment or discovering/expunging the demons that made you this way. The Sopranos started off with Tony going to counseling but that never really amounted to anything. I don't know. I'd hate to see it become the new paradigm that we can only have "crazy" lead heroines if they're also managing their medication, going to therapy etc. (I feel like there's a small pattern forming with Carrie on Homeland, Rachel on UnReal, and now Rebecca. All their brilliance is being pointed to as partially being fueled by their mental instability. Male leads never seem to be put through those paces or need to have their craziness...justified in a way. Meh.

[ToxicUnicorn]

One can get lost in a long loop of Santino Fontana's singing on YouTube, but here are a few highlights:

Whoops!  I just fell into the rabbit hole - I love a talented guy with a sense of humor:

 

 

OMG bring me all the Santino Fontana. He is just -- wow.