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S01.E06: My First Thanksgiving With Josh!

ElectricBoogaloo

By ElectricBoogaloo
in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend [V]

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

(edited)

Directed by Joanna Kerns aka Mrs. Seaver!

 

Rebecca scores an invite to the Chan family Thanksgiving festivities, where Josh’s parents fall in love with her much to Valencia’s dismay. Meanwhile, Greg struggles with taking care of his dad and wanting to pursue his dreams.
Edited by ElectricBoogaloo
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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

From the PTV article: "Have I read too much into a pattern that wasn't really there?" My answer is Yes. There's been a whole lot of extrapolating from relatively little evidence. So Greg's song was not only good in itself, it put an end to that kind of rule-pronouncing. The show's a musical, and we can just move on.

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Snarklepuss

Snarklepuss

Weak episode or not, the characters have endeared themselves enough to me for me to overlook it.  Thanksgiving episodes usually either suck or are fantastic.  Oh well.  I knew there was going to be a spectacular fail on Rebecca's part only for a while I thought it was going to be that she wouldn't make it to the toilet in time!

 

Next week's preview suggests it's going to be a great episode.  Dr. Phil is in it, and jaded neighbor girl is back.  I hate Dr. Phil but somehow I think this is going to be good.  I remember when Dr. Phil was on Frasier eons ago and that was good.

 

Santino Fontana's voice is dreamy and he really plays that piano.  ~Swoon~.  I like it that they keep giving his character more depth.  Every week I like him more and more and Josh less and less.

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whyjoshua

whyjoshua

I think the songs-are-in-Rebecca's-head thing was/is a rule, but it's a rule that has to be modified as the series progressed and more occasions for a song are constructed without Rebecca being present. Because that song was not in her head, but it was in Greg's head. The lights changed, a piano appeared out of nowhere, and when the song was over, there was a jump-cut back to Greg, who never actually moved from his spot behind the bar. The scene even ends by lingering on the place in the bar where the piano was, and now there's a table there, as if to underline the fantastical nature of the performance.

I don't think it's that big a deal, but I do think it's part of the show's way of presenting characters who are fundamentally broken (or, to use the title's phrasing, crazy). The songs aren't just songs: they're symptoms of the distortion in the mind of a person.

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alrightokay

alrightokay

(edited)

I'm kind of worried by Paula's dismayed reaction to seeing Rebecca and Greg enjoying a fun evening together.  I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that Paula's going to sabotage Rebecca and Greg's friendship so that she (Paula) can see her dream pairing of Rebecca and Josh come true.  It's almost as if she wants it more than Rebecca does.  Her husband's assumption that Paula was watching her favorite soap during Thanksgiving dinner was fitting: Paula "ships" Rebecca and Josh as if they're characters she writes fanfic about, and she's doing everything she can to make her ship/fanfic come true.

 

I like Greg's relationship with his dad--it feels real in that there's a history of pain and sacrifice and some bitterness, but also lots of love.  And I'm intrigued by the night school idea--seems like another good way to meet new characters (classmates, professors) and a chance to see what kind of student Greg is.  Oh wait--what if Greg ends up in a class with Heather?  

 

ETA: How could I forget the hilarious tag this week?  Rebecca's story about the Obama bobble-head and the Brown improv actor was perfectly delivered in that faux upper-class accent.  And then having the little girl scream and run away--the perfect antithesis to the library book story!

Edited by alrightokay
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arc

arc

(edited)

Yeah, Paula's way too invested in Team Josh, and I say this as someone who leans a little Team Josh myself. (I know, she's "Team Rebecca", but if that were really the case, she wouldn't be so anti-Greg.)

Valencia, it's OK to be dumb, but don't jump into a book discussion and talk about how the book you're reading has so many blank pages it's almost a journal.

Kevin, the bar owner, was great. I loved his cheerful acceptance of Greg's quitting speech. And as for Greg's plot, I guess the story beats re: his career were pretty predictable (a TV show probably isn't going to give up that bar set this early, so he's not gonna leave permanently) but I liked how he didn't have a really toxic relationship with his dad the way I was worried the others did.

I'm not sure I've ever seen an Asian supermarket on TV before. (and ha! to Paula begging off on explaining how she knew Mrs Chan would be there at that time.)

Pork cooked in pork blood -- dinaguan must be one of the least kosher dishes possible.

Edited by arc
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wayne67

wayne67

From the PTV article: "Have I read too much into a pattern that wasn't really there?" My answer is Yes. There's been a whole lot of extrapolating from relatively little evidence. So Greg's song was not only good in itself, it put an end to that kind of rule-pronouncing. The show's a musical, and we can just move on.

 

Or it could be that Greg has lost his mind due to the pressures of mediocrity and mundane obligations. 

 

Though I'm just assuming it's a musical where people make no sense and burst into song for no real reason solely for my varying level of entertainment.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

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(edited)

I thought that both Greg's dad and Kevin would be jerks, but then they both turned out to be pretty nice. Kevin was really upbeat and positive (well, until he gave Josh toilet duty and told him that he'd lost his seniority). And despite Greg's dad's obsession with macaws, you can tell he loves his son.

 

This episode showed that Josh often does things without thinking about the consequences. He asked Valencia to move in with him, but he never considered the possibility that she would want to find a new place for them to live instead of one of them moving into the other person's current place (and it's unclear - did Josh move back in with his parents when he came back from New York? If so, how did he afford his rent before he got his new job?). It also showed that he does not know how to say no to Valencia. When she started talking about a place she found, there were all kinds of negative things written on his face but he didn't say anything.

 

I agree that Paula is way too invested in shipping Rebecca and Josh together. The owl button cam was way over the line. I know I should take that with a grain of salt since this is a wacky show, but that creeped me out.

 

When Valencia said she's been starving since 1998, I was laughing that they went there but sad because it's true. I see so many people these days who care more about what they look like than how they feel (the thinspiration pinterest boards sicken me) that they would rather be constantly hungry and demonize food (talking about clean eating, cheat meals, and hot chicken fat water) than gain five pounds.

 

Heh, no wonder Mrs. Chan doesn't like Valencia if she is doing things like asking to join her book club and claiming that she read a book that is a blank journal. I cracked up when Chris said Josh's family doesn't like Valencia because Asians don't like dumb people. I hope they don't go overboard and make him too over the top (like they did with Manny on Modern Family). Right now, he's good in small doses.

 

I want Greg to tell me where he is buying his buffalo mozzarella. It is so hard to find! Most of the mozzarella you can buy in the United States is made from cow's milk and it's just not the same. I rejoice any time I can find buffalo mozzarella.

 

I loved that the beginning of Greg's song was very "Piano Man."

 

Well, now we know that Rebecca took her SAT by January 2005 at the latest (that was the last time the highest score was out of 1600 - interestingly, last year they announced that they will be moving back to a 1600 max score in 2016).

 

Josh reciting all those cities cracked me up. But doing it with your girlfriend while all of your relatives are still in the house (and in a bedroom that isn't yours because there's no way that Josh's childhood bedroom had flowered wallpaper)? Blech. I did like seeing Rebecca say, "They're fighting! It's so sad!" and then smiling widely. Normally she is so busy trying to hide behind her facade of being happy for Josh but in that moment, her words said one thing but her face said another.

 

On a practical note, I don't know why Valencia keeps going to Thanksgiving at Josh's house if his family doesn't like her. Obviously her family lives nearby too since she went to high school with Josh and she was picking up her sister/cousin/family member from softball practice at the place where Greg works.

Edited by ElectricBoogaloo
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FurryFury

FurryFury

A weak episode? What? I loved the hell out of it! It felt sincere and true and strong. Greg's story was awesome, although I would have preferred it to end on a more somber note (without a night school mention). And his song was just amazeballs.

Paula also had a very sad plotline, if brief. We've already known she's basically living vicariously through Rebecca, but it still hurts to see it.

Rebecca's rapping was completely unexpected and hilarious. And, well, it's once again proved that Greg and her are the show's OTP, but I don't even mind anymore because this ep fleshed him out.

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Wings

Wings

(edited)

I loved this episode, too!  They handled Thanksgiving in a refreshing way, unlike the fodder we usually get on TV comedy shows.

 

They over did the lipstick on Josh when doing his song on the piano.  I don't think it was intentional.  

 

So Paula has another job to do, break up any possibility with Greg.  Since this show has such a light touch, it will be handled with humor I am sure. 

 

I question if this show will see another season.  I am enjoying it but I am not hearing much about it in the media.  

Edited by wings707
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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

I took it that she didn't get "sick" in any food-poisoning sense... just that her innards were unused to this unfamiliar cuisine on this scale, and she ate a lot of it while being so deliberately sociable and charming.

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Ohwell

Ohwell

I did like Paula's son sleeping at the dinner table.  That seemed like such a teenagerish thing to do at Thanksgiving, bored out of his skull.  

 

I think Valencia keeps coming to the Thanksgiving dinners because she does love Josh and wants to be a part of his family, even knowing how she'll be treated.  Sure, she's dumb* and has an eating disorder, but I like her.   Even with her issues, she sure as hell would be a better mate for a guy than Rebecca would.

 

*I called her dumb but she knows Josh quite well.  Shut him right on up in that bedroom.

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EyewatchTV211

EyewatchTV211

 ETA: How could I forget the hilarious tag this week?  Rebecca's story about the Obama bobble-head and the Brown improv actor was perfectly delivered in that faux upper-class accent.  And then having the little girl scream and run away--the perfect antithesis to the library book story!

Not that this is the most important discussion about the show for me to have, but I took her accent as being more of an old-timey accent versus upper-class. I really enjoyed it, because I have always marveled at the interesting accents that people seemed to have in old historical and film footage that wasn't necessarily a geographic accent. Whenever I mentioned it to anyone, they seemed to not have ever noticed that sort of thing. But I just read an article recently that, in the movies at least, it was actually a carefully manufactured accent that many actors learned at the time. I felt somewhat vindicated in thinking I was not crazy. So seeing the tag was just icing on the cake. She did a great job doing that accent. 

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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

Me too, adam807. That seemed to be the clear reference. As to the old-timey film speech, that was the accent called "mid-Atlantic," in the sense of halfway across the ocean. Actors mastered it for stage as well as screen as a "cultivated," "neutral" way of speech so that (for one thing) British and American performers could act alongside each other as members of the same family without undue incongruity. But it didn't apply universally, of course: Deborah Kerr used distinctly British speech in The King and I (the historical Anna was Welsh, Kerr was Scottish).

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BigDfromLA

BigDfromLA

The show does a pretty good job with the accuracy of the geography of West Covina.

Cameron is a major street. There is actually a huge Asian Supermarket and strip mall on the corner of Cameron and Glendora Avenue.

The large Catholic church in the middle of the city is St. Christopher. There is a large shopping mall on Sunset right off the 10 Freeway. Also, there is an actual facility called Big League Dreams in West Covina exactly like the place Greg works...a series of softball fields with big league replicas connected by a restaurant/bar with TV's...I think the show has a different name for it.

 

One thing they are completely wrong about... West Covina is NOT four hours from the beach. More like 45 minutes. You can drive straight down Glendora/Hacienda Avenue to Beach Blvd. all the way to Huntington Beach...about a 45-50 minute drive without traffic. Actually, Las Vegas, Nevada would be four hours from the beach...I can drive from Huntington Beach to Vegas in 4 hours!

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theatremouse

theatremouse

(edited)

It's really just the requisite LA traffic joke. Although I've noticed depending on the episode they say either three or four hours (in the piano song I thought he sang three, but earlier they've said four). So since it fluctuates, for me that helps establish that it's intentional, conversational hyperbole. They key to your statement is "without traffic" which they're also joking is a scenario that does not exist. Wasn't the origin of the bit Rebecca saying it was 45 minutes? And then the local characters upping it to 4 hours in traffic? So you're both right.

I was very very very pleased the owl cam was just for Paula reaction shots during her own day, and not some unfortunate "awkward they found out and now it blows up in RB's face" situation. I was dreading that might happen.

Edited by theatremouse
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Jadzia

Jadzia

This is kind of random, but I loved the idea that Rebecca used to hold her phone in a tumbler glass while she cooked. I am totally stealing that! I always get crap on my phone when I set it on the kitchen counter.

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Rhetorica

Rhetorica

This is kind of random, but I loved the idea that Rebecca used to hold her phone in a tumbler glass while she cooked. I am totally stealing that! I always get crap on my phone when I set it on the kitchen counter.

It also amplifies the sound. I always dance when I cook.

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quangtran

quangtran

Team Valencia here.

Even though I like Rebecca and don't care for Valencia, I find myself actively rooting against the lead. Rebecca is pretty much the villain in her own story.

 

I'm also growing more suspicious of Paula. Her pushing Rebecca towards an unavailable Josh and her disappointment over that bonding with a single Greg makes it seems like she's deliberately pushing Rebecca away from making sensible choices. What she's doing is veering past enabling and more like sabotage.

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Ohwell

Ohwell

Even though I like Rebecca and don't care for Valencia, I find myself actively rooting against the lead. Rebecca is pretty much the villain in her own story.

 

I'm also growing more suspicious of Paula. Her pushing Rebecca towards an unavailable Josh and her disappointment over that bonding with a single Greg makes it seems like she's deliberately pushing Rebecca away from making sensible choices. What she's doing is veering past enabling and more like sabotage.

The reason I'm for Valencia is that there's a crazy, mean-girl, even obsessive, vibe that Rebecca and Paula have going on between them when it comes to Josh.

 

Valencia might seen shallow on the surface but I think it comes from her insecurities with herself, but I don't think she's mean and I definitely don't think she's crazy.    

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OptimisticCynic

OptimisticCynic

Even though I like Rebecca and don't care for Valencia, I find myself actively rooting against the lead. Rebecca is pretty much the villain in her own story.

.

It reminds me of "My Best Friend's Wedding" in the fact the lead isn't supposed to be right or necessarily deserve the object of her desire and more about learning that she doesn't need it.

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arc

arc

And what makes it even better is that they're managing to make that happen without making Josh a bad guy!

Or at least not any worse than anyone else in the cast. Rebecca's the catalyst, but everyone's pretty broken in one way or another.  Josh, if anything, is less self-aware than even Rebecca or Paula so he's happier on the surface. But IMO he has a fairly dysfunctional relationship with his girlfriend which he's making worse rather than better by moving in together when they're probably not ready... and given that he might have been off and on with her since over ten years ago, that's another bad sign right there.

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rho

rho

One thing they are completely wrong about... West Covina is NOT four hours from the beach. More like 45 minutes. You can drive straight down Glendora/Hacienda Avenue to Beach Blvd. all the way to Huntington Beach...about a 45-50 minute drive without traffic. Actually, Las Vegas, Nevada would be four hours from the beach...I can drive from Huntington Beach to Vegas in 4 hours!

 

 

It's really just the requisite LA traffic joke. Although I've noticed depending on the episode they say either three or four hours (in the piano song I thought he sang three, but earlier they've said four). So since it fluctuates, for me that helps establish that it's intentional, conversational hyperbole. They key to your statement is "without traffic" which they're also joking is a scenario that does not exist. Wasn't the origin of the bit Rebecca saying it was 45 minutes? And then the local characters upping it to 4 hours in traffic? So you're both right.

 

Depends on which beach. Huntington might be 45 minutes (although I made the drive from L.A. to Newport this morning and it took me 3 hours) but Santa Monica is going to take close to 3 hours.

 

And I agree that they keep varying the time, which I really like. Traffic in LA is unpredictable and the same route can take 2-3x as long due to a number of unexpected circumstances.

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Snarklepuss

Snarklepuss

It reminds me of "My Best Friend's Wedding" in the fact the lead isn't supposed to be right or necessarily deserve the object of her desire and more about learning that she doesn't need it.

 

ITA, I can see how the lesson of the series is for Rebecca to realize that Josh isn't for her but perhaps Greg is.  So until then she won't be right or deserving of anyone.  And of course if the series survives it will take her a long time and a lot of quirkiness before she gets there in order to make an interesting show.

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SmithW6079

SmithW6079

I'm also growing more suspicious of Paula. Her pushing Rebecca towards an unavailable Josh and her disappointment over that bonding with a single Greg makes it seems like she's deliberately pushing Rebecca away from making sensible choices. What she's doing is veering past enabling and more like sabotage.

 

This episode furthered my growing dislike of Paula. She's nasty and manipulative -- look how she treated her coworkers when she was left in charge (not that they didn't need to shape up, but she was particularly abusive about it). I'm starting to feel sorry more for her family because of her, not feel sorry for her because of her family. On Thanksgiving, she deliberately shut them out so she could spy on Rebecca and Josh. How was she any different from the son with his headphones napping at the table?

 

The interplay between Rebecca and Greg at her house after Thanksgiving dinner was really quite lovely.

 

I was concerned that after Greg spent all his money for his dad's care, we were going to find out the old man died. And how is it that he doesn't have Medicare or disability or some other government-sponsored aid?

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lovinbob

lovinbob

This is kind of random, but I loved the idea that Rebecca used to hold her phone in a tumbler glass while she cooked. I am totally stealing that! I always get crap on my phone when I set it on the kitchen counter.

I did it for the first time last night after watching this! It amplifies the sound perfectly.

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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

I wasn't sure where to put this, as it isn't media or musical numbers or quotes, so I'll just add it here: I was curious about what all the fun little epilogues have been after the end of each episode, so I compiled a list. Here they are:

 

  1. Nipsey apologizes to his bitches
  2. Vampire Weekend with Rebecca and Paula
  3. Rebecca hangs out with her 12-year-old self
  4. A meeting with the writer of the butter ads
  5. “Getting Real with Karen” on YouTube
  6. Rebecca plays British nanny and tells a sleazy story
  7. Calvin brings the ice and sings the sexy-gonna-do-it song
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aradia22

aradia22

Greg's Billy Joel song was great. Rebecca's "I Give Good Parent" song was amusingly performed but just OK. It was a good episode for a sitcom. Like, it held together well. And I was happy that they avoided the cliche of the owl pin/camera getting discovered while she was at the Chan's house. 

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Eyes High

Eyes High

(edited)
The interplay between Rebecca and Greg at her house after Thanksgiving dinner was really quite lovely.

 

I kvelled a little when Greg smiled after Rebecca moved the pillow to the small of his back just as he had done for his father, with her comment "Nobody likes a hot butt" echoing his dad's conversation with him earlier. Aw.

 

Greg's getting dangerously close to saint territory again. We get it, he's a good dude. Showing him sacrificing his savings and going back to a job he hated to ensure his very sick father got the medication he needed was laying it on a little thick, no? I'd like to see some more of his douchey side.

 

 

Team Valencia here.

 

When Valencia snapped "I've been starving since 1998," that was too real. No wonder she's so cranky. I can also see Valencia dieting constantly to be sexually appealing to men being part of her resentment of Rebecca, who doesn't appear to starve herself the way Valencia does but who still manages to be a threat to her relationship.

 

Chris blithely stating that "Asians don't like dumb people" and Rebecca's reaction were hilarious.

 

I loved Kevin cheerily agreeing with Greg's criticisms and preempting his big speech with genuine appreciation and good wishes. That was a brilliant bit.

Edited by Eyes High
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