S04.E07: I Will Help You

[dubbel zout]

Rebecca (Rachel Bloom) takes a trip to visit her mother (guest star Tovah Feldshuh) with intentions to tell Naomi about her new career path. Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III) housesits for Rebecca and discovers being alone is harder than it seems, while Nathaniel (Scott Michael Foster) helps one of Paula’s (Donna Lynne Champlin) clients in an effort to do something good.

[Spartan Girl]

Oooh boy, I knew Rebecca would have unresolved feelings for Josh and Nathaniel return. Hope she can deal with it without losing her mind.

Glad she finally laid down the law with her mom. The fact that she'd known about Rebecca's suicide attempt and incarceration and never even tried to reach out during that time made me angry. That was just so cold.

Best part was Darryl's extremely short clean-up song with Josh. LOL, it's really not that hard.

[txhorns79]

Quote

Best part was Darryl's extremely short clean-up song with Josh. LOL, it's really not that hard.

I'm still wondering how Josh didn't end up blowing up Rebecca's oven by sticking a pan of watery spaghetti in there.  I thought it was going to create some kind of pressure cooker.    

Quote

Glad she finally laid down the law with her mom. The fact that she'd known about Rebecca's suicide attempt and incarceration and never even tried to reach out during that time made me angry. That was just so cold.

That whole storyline was just weird.  I don't believe for a moment that Naomi is so cold that she'd just ignore her daughter's suicide attempt, even if she thought Rebecca wasn't serious about going through with it.  It also seemed a little odd to me that Naomi was savvy enough to know everything that had happened in the last year, but was completely in the dark about Rebecca leaving the law firm. 

[femmefan1946]

  I thought it was going to create some kind of pressure cooker.    

 

Well, no.

Since he didn't change the  oven temperature it would be at  350F., which is the temperature I use for oven stew (meat vegetables stock in  covered cast iron Dutch Oven. Leave for up to four hours.)  The water would boil then cook the spaghetti.

The most likely disaster would be that the plastic handle on the saute pan melts and stinks out the house.

The bed making was pretty funny.

[possibilities]

I really liked this episode.

Darryl was awesome.

Really, I liked it start to finish.

Yes, Naomi is over the top. But so is Rebecca. You kind of see how she got that way. Who knows what Naomi's parents were like?

The physical comedy of Josh making the bed and doing laundry was a lot of fun.

I don't like laughing over the starfish dying, and it bothers me that repeatedly having them die is a joke and not really sad and a signal they need to stop taking more to kill, or learn how to prevent it from happening again.

I think Nathanial having a total personality change is not credible, but whatever. I think his character has been a shallowly written misfire from the day they introduced him, so what else is new?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I love that Other Rebecca is getting crazier every week. We went from "I eat my own eyelashes" to barking like a dog.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw that Rebecca's profile picture was her mug shot. I mean, I applaud her for wanting to be upfront and honest but that doesn't mean you have to disclose absolutely everything about yourself before you've even met these people who are just swiping left and right on dating apps.

I laughed harder than I should have when Jim slapped that donut out of Tim's hand. While I understand that Nathaniel is really making a concerted effort to be nicer, I think he needs to be a bit more realistic and accept that he can't instantly undo months of dickish and tyrannical behavior with a box of donuts and a picture from the pumpkin patch. Of course people are going to be wary.

I did love how much he wanted to show everyone the pumpkin patch picture though. It was like a little kid being proud of his crappy art project. His reaction to doing a good deed was hilarious though. "I feel like I bathed in honey."

Watching Josh make spaghetti horrified me. I was afraid he was going to end up burning down Rebecca's house. But watching him make the bed and try to get the comforter out of the washing machine totally cracked me up.

Like Josh, I thought his duet with Darryl was going to be a whole thing (and I was looking forward to the cheesy 80s dance moves and special effects) so I laughed when it was one line from Darryl telling him to pick stuff up and put it back where it belongs. Seriously, Josh, it's just common sense. Ha, sorry, I meant Common's sense.

When Josh was confidently rattling off all the steps required to put up the autumn mural, I thought maybe we would find out that Josh is a savant at stuff like that and it would point him to a new career, but nope. He glued his own feet to the floor. But good on him for admitting he couldn't do it himself and finding someone else to do it. There's no shame in that. I don't feel inadequate when I called to, say, have a plumber come out because there were vines growing inside the pipes.  Yes, you should learn how to do things as an adult but that doesn't mean you have to know how to do everything yourself.

The black dress that Rebecca borrowed from Valencia was very cute and stylish (and definitely unlike what Rebecca usually wears) but I was trying to figure out how in the hell a dress that fit tiny Valencia also fit Rebecca. I am not fat shaming Rebecca/Rachel here at all either because she looked fantastic. It's just obvious that these two women do not wear the same size and the dress was not spandex.

Like Beth, I was so proud of Rebecca for finally setting some boundaries with her intrusive mother. The fact that she would call her adult daughter's boss and ask for her job back is just mind boggling. Speaking from experience, it will take more than one impassioned speech to keep Naomi on her side of the line though. She will inevitably try to push that boundary and Rebecca is going to have to firmly remind her to stay in her lane.

I was actually shocked that Naomi accepted what Rebecca said. I really thought she would push back with "I'm your mother so your life IS my business! How dare you disrespect me like this?" kind of rant.

[sacrebleu]

It was a really easy joke, but Paula's reaction to Nathaniel's realization that there was unfairness in the legal system was probably my favorite moment of this season.

"Good thing you figured it out."

Donna Lynn Champlain is a goddamn treasure.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

High five for the Rent shout out! I always appreciate Rebecca's neverending love of musical theater.

The story Tim was telling to distract Nathaniel was so disturbing. First of all, there aren't any tubas in the orchestra. Losing his virginity to his band teacher made me go ack! And then he added "I was 26 at the time" which elicited more noises from me. And then he totally blew it when he told Nathaniel where Paula was. That's why don't want to tell you their secrets, Tim!

I want to know what Maisie did to get put in jail. I'm pretty sure excessive cream cheese use isn't against the law.

Edited December 1, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

First of all, there aren't any tubas in the orchestra.

Lots of orchestra pieces have a tuba part. And I have known of school orchestras who, if they didn't have enough string players for a proper section, would add wind players to fill it out. I know the whole thing was a throwaway gag, but this bit in itself isn't impossible.

I adored the "Clean Up" song.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

Lots of orchestra pieces have a tuba part. And I have known of school orchestras who, if they didn't have enough string players for a proper section, would add wind players to fill it out. I know the whole thing was a throwaway gag, but this bit in itself isn't impossible.

I guess my view was tainted by the orchestras at my middle school and high school which were pretty large and just had strings. Tubas were only in concert band and marching band at my schools. I went to a really large high school though (we had 200 people in the marching band) so there were very specific divisions about which instruments played in which groups. I just assumed that Tim's ridiculous story about his kid was half made up anyway (I'm pretty sure the half about playing the snare drum and having sex with his band teacher was NOT the made up half!).

Edited December 1, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Penman61]

What was Rebecca's mom's song/video a parody of?

[dubbel zout]

13 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

It also seemed a little odd to me that Naomi was savvy enough to know everything that had happened in the last year, but was completely in the dark about Rebecca leaving the law firm. 

I could hand wave that as there not being a Google Alert that Rebecca left the firm, as well as Naomi's fanatic need for Rebecca being not only a lawyer but a senior partner.

9 hours ago, femmefan1946 said:

The bed making was pretty funny.

I thought that was super dumb. The only ways the fitted sheet would do that is if Josh were putting on the wrong way or the sheet was the wrong size, and since it was Rebecca's to begin with, that's not possible. Josh is dense, but I can't believe he's so dense he couldn't figure out he was putting the sheet on the wrong way. 

3 hours ago, sacrebleu said:

It was a really easy joke, but Paula's reaction to Nathaniel's realization that there was unfairness in the legal system was probably my favorite moment of this season.

"Good thing you figured it out."

Donna Lynn Champlain is a goddamn treasure.

Her expressions throughout her dealings with Nathaniel were hilarious.

3 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

First of all, there aren't any tubas in the orchestra.

Tell that to Gustav Mahler.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

9 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Tell that to Gustav Mahler.

Tim was talking about his kid picking an instrument for band which typically happens in middle school, not a professional symphony orchestra, so I’m pretty sure they won’t be tackling Mahler any time soon - although I’m now picturing some frazzled middle school teacher looking distraught as a room full of 12 year old kids mangle Mahler! I’m pretty sure my parents had a similar look on their faces when my sister’s fifth grade class blasted their way through “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on their recorders. 

ETA: when Naomi revealed she knew about Rebecca’s suicide attempt et al, I thought she was going to say she knew about the pretzel shop too and say that she read the blurb in the “new local businesses” section of the West Covina paper online, so I was surprised that the only thing she didn’t know was that Rebecca left the firm to open the pretzel place. I guess they needed one more thing for Rebecca to reveal to Naomi. I agree that it’s sad/upsetting/shitty that Naomi KNEW Rebecca went through all this stuff in the last year and never reached out or tried to help her. She seemed genuinely concerned when Rebecca came home and was depressed so you’d think she would be worried about her daughter being fucked up enough to push someone off a building. I know the show tried to explain it by saying Naomi thought Rebecca just wanted attention but still. 

Edited December 1, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Empress1]

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I laughed harder than I should have when Jim slapped that donut out of Tim's hand.

I rewound that like 17 times! "Oooh, don't do it, it's a trick!"

I was so glad when Rebecca said that she didn't have to tell everybody everything all the time, because she doesn't. She's an over-sharer, which I admit is a quality I find annoying in people. Half the people on Tinder don't even read profiles, so using your mug shot as a profile pic is going to get you swiped left in a hurry. Let that stuff out slowly as you get to know people! And who cares what miscellaneous friends of your mother think that you'll likely never see again?

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

The black dress that Rebecca borrowed from Valencia was very cute and stylish (and definitely unlike what Rebecca usually wears) but I was trying to figure out how in the hell a dress that fit tiny Valencia also fit Rebecca. I am not fat shaming Rebecca/Rachel here at all either because she looked fantastic. It's just obvious that these two women do not wear the same size and the dress was not spandex.

I thought so too. Valencia is much smaller than Rebecca. Rebecca is a good three cup sizes bigger than Valencia. They have completely different body types.

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

But good on him for admitting he couldn't do it himself and finding someone else to do it. There's no shame in that. I don't feel inadequate when I called to, say, have a plumber come out because there were vines growing inside the pipes.  Yes, you should learn how to do things as an adult but that doesn't mean you have to know how to do everything yourself.

Yeah, I always say I know my limitations. I'm very independent but I wouldn't even try to put a mural up on the wall. I'd call someone who knows what they're doing.

I wish I could say that I couldn't believe that someone would call their adult child's boss and ask for their job back, but I absolutely can. I have a few friends who work in higher ed and they get calls from parents all the time. An acquaintance who works in law school admissions told me she got a call from a mother pretending to be her kid (who was a man, so ... what?). I read the blog Ask a Manager every day and she gets letters from people with helicopter parents who are fucking up their kids' lives by interfering in their jobs. I'm more surprised that Rebecca's boss went for it instead of telling Naomi where to go. I'm sure Rebecca was a talented lawyer but talented lawyers in NYC, even ones with Rebecca's pedigree, are a dime a dozen.

I can see Rebecca falling for Josh again after the mural and the s'mores in sweater temperatures. That was a REALLY sweet thing to do.

[possibilities]

I was relieved Rebecca liked the mural, because I would be outraged if someone did something like that to my house without asking me first. I just don't want my place rearranged or redecorated without me being consulted. It came out well, though, so I was glad for them both.

[tennisgurl]

Oh dear, those unresolved feelings are rearing their ugly, unresolved heads! I knew it was coming, no matter how much Rebecca has grown. I like Josh and Rebecca as friends, so I hope this doesent mess things up. 

Josh struggling with getting the sheets on was hilarious, probably because I used to struggle with those damn things! Guess I have a little bit of Josh in me! I would like to think that I know how to do basic cleaning. Like Darryl said, its common sense. Or, Common sense. Its not that hard, Josh.

Always fun to see Naomi again, in all of her disapproving glory. I dont think its really out of character, but its super cold that she found out about her suicide attempt and jail and everything, and never even called her. I dont think Naomi has ever really taken Rebecca's issues all that seriously, and writes them off often as her just being dramatic. Which, yeah Rebecca is a grade A drama queen, but her mental health struggles are very real. It was great to see Rebecca really draw the line with her, and tell her to back off. 

I wonder if Jim is missing that pretzel stand right about now?

"You cant just throw your checkbook at problems!" 

"Actually, I am totally fine with that" 

"Me too, I just thought it seemed like the right thing to say!"

[DianeDobbler]

Enjoyed the episode. Rachel Bloom looked really pretty in it. The Naomi stuff was a bit off to me. It seemed obvious we'd learn Naomi was setting a trap and already knew about the pretzel store, which would come out when Rebecca volunteered to introduce her mother. I didn't buy her mom's dismissive attitude when last season her discovery that Rebecca had been googling suicide attempts was so heartwrenching and genuine. I absolutely loved Tovuh Feldshuh's line delivery and wink trading barbs with Audra and her mother. Naomi got the last word and then some. 
Great Paula episode. One of the smaller points I enjoy in Paula's arc over the seasons is how, in her law school/becoming a lawyer journey, her look has become more corporate/polished. Her hair, her make-up, and the shiny slingback heels really caught my eye in the jail scene.  It's just incorporating little pieces showing how she'll be once she's fully fledged. It also stands to reason that with her kids a lot older and one out of the house, she'll have more time for herself.

I've always thought Josh and Rebecca had good chemistry, especially in musical numbers, and I definitely enjoyed the reveal that they've obviously become friends somewhere between the last episode and this one. I did think the contoured sheets scene was funny - I still struggle with those. I also liked Nathaniel's line after he noticed Paula was missing - I think it was that part. "I like lemonade - do you? WTF is Paula!"

Edited December 1, 2018 by DianeDobbler

[txhorns79]

Quote

I thought so too. Valencia is much smaller than Rebecca. Rebecca is a good three cup sizes bigger than Valencia. They have completely different body types.

I think it's possibly the same magic that allowed Melanie Griffith not to look ridiculous when she wore Sigourney Weaver's fancy party dress in Working Girl, or when 5'3 Rachel Bronahan had no issue wearing 6'0 Jane Lynch's fur coat in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  I mean, you are entirely right that it's not like Valencia and Rebecca could really trade clothes in real life. 

[willowk]

I really liked the time spent on the mother/daughter relationship, I feel I really understand Rebecca a lot more after seeing how demanding Naomi can be. I loved how the person Naomi wanted to introduce her, in answer to Rebecca's question of "Do you know my mother? said, Of course she's Know-it-all Naomi and said she had avoided admitting it due to her mother's personality. And then they did that terribly awful-wonderful duet of their camp song.  I know I'm in the minority, but I don't think they have changed Nathaniel that much. He's still pretty self-absorbed, but has broadened out a bit since his talk with Heather. I don't think he anticipates getting back with Rebecca and I don' know if the show is going there. Josh is so not Rebecca's type, I wonder how she fell for him in the first place. I somehow don't see the show having Rebecca end up with any guy, at least not in a happily ever after scenario.

[DianeDobbler]

Well, what is Rebecca's type? As far as a guy? I think she and Josh are quite similar, emotionally.

Putting in spoiler tags in case: 

Quote

Unless I misunderstood  her, Aileen Brosh McKenna said the back half of the final season would be Rebecca choosing between two guys. As somewhere in the last part of S1 I became of fan of Josh and Rebecca, I still did not anticipate that Josh would be one of the guys. I thought it would be Nathaniel and Greg, when Greg returns.

Edited December 2, 2018 by DianeDobbler

[theatremouse]

1 hour ago, willowk said:

 I don't think he anticipates getting back with Rebecca and I don' know if the show is going there. Josh is so not Rebecca's type, I wonder how she fell for him in the first place. 

He likes musical theater and is nice to her. I really genuinely believe that's literally all there was to her falling for him in the first place.

My favourite detail in this episode was how as Noami got more and more pissed, she started dropping more and more yiddish into what she was saying to Rebecca. That was on point.

[Cthulhudrew]

Wow. Who thought watching an episode of Josh Chananigans would make for compelling and humorous tv? 

Fire that person.

[DianeDobbler]

Aileen Brosh McKenna wrote this episode.

It was mentioned that Josh putting up the mural in Rebecca's house could really backfire, but upon re-watching there was already a mural there of the beach, and he switched it out for fall foliage. If it was a fail, I'm sure it could be switched back to the beach.

[theatremouse]

I'm not so sure....it's basically wallpaper I think? You put a bunch of wallpaper paste (poorly) over existing wallpaper, you've probably ruined it? That's assuming he didn't have to steam/remove the existing panels before putting up the new.

[Irlandesa]

6 hours ago, willowk said:

Josh is so not Rebecca's type, I wonder how she fell for him in the first place.

I think there were things like she found him attractive and thought he was nice to her.  But I also think she was attracted to his happiness and the fact that he absolutely doesn't seem moody or brooding.  I think she could imagine being with him would mean she could be equally as happy.  Overall, his lack of depth meant she could project whatever she wanted onto him.

I can't believe everyone was encouraging Josh to leave Hector's mom's house and was cheering him on once he did even though he had no plan on what he was going to do once he left.

[sweetcookieface]

I thought this was a pretty unfunny, clunky episode. It didn't help that it focused on characters I find uninteresting (e.g., Nathaniel), super-annoying (Naomi), or bland (Valencia now that she's "nice"). That said, I did laugh at a couple of points, both mentioned above - the fitted sheets struggle and the crullers ("Oooh, don't do it - it's a trap!"). 

Quote

I can't believe everyone was encouraging Josh to leave Hector's mom's house and was cheering him on once he did even though he had no plan on what he was going to do once he left.

I was thinking the same thing - how is staying with Hector's mom worse than crashing at the Y or at his unstable ex-fiance's house?!

I also wondered how Rebecca fit into Valencia's dress. But I actually didn't think it was flattering at all. I thought the black dress she wore at the actual award ceremony was way cuter on her - and more in line with her usual style. 

So, in the preview for next week, was that Greg returning? I may be in the minority, but of Rebecca's love interests, I thought he worked best as a foil. There was a snappiness to their exchanges that I enjoyed - and I just found the relationship believable in a way that I don't with Nathaniel. Who knows what the relationship will look like with a new actor though. Speaking of recasts... was that a different actress playing Audra Levine?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

21 minutes ago, sweetcookieface said:

was that a different actress playing Audra Levine?

Nope, it's still Rachel Grate, who has been playing Audra since S1.

13 hours ago, willowk said:

Josh is so not Rebecca's type, I wonder how she fell for him in the first place.

I think it's fair to say that most high school crushes/summer camp romances are based on very little beyond proximity and hormones.

 

20 hours ago, Empress1 said:

I was so glad when Rebecca said that she didn't have to tell everybody everything all the time, because she doesn't. She's an over-sharer, which I admit is a quality I find annoying in people.

Same here. I dated someone who was an oversharer and would tell total strangers really personal stuff within two seconds of meeting them. We're talking the cashier at the grocery store while he was paying for his food. I tried to explain to him that there is a big difference between keeping secrets and spilling your guts to every random person who comes across your path (and that there's a happy medium), but he claimed the issue was that he was more of a people person than I was and I therefore just didn't get it. Apparently he didn't get that not everyone cares about a stranger's personal woes or childhood traumas or whatever some random person did at work today.

With dating, there is definitely a happy medium. You should disclose major stuff that could be a deal breaker, but you also don't need to do an info dump immediately upon first contact. A friend of mine met someone on a dating website and at their first in person meeting, she told him about all of her previous relationships that ended badly, her eating disorder, her depression, etc. and he said it was just way too much information to get at once. On the flip side, you shouldn't try to keep stuff like that a secret and you should be prepared to have a discussion about it at some point.

[Empress1]

39 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Same here. I dated someone who was an oversharer and would tell total strangers really personal stuff within two seconds of meeting them. We're talking the cashier at the grocery store while he was paying for his food. I tried to explain to him that there is a big difference between keeping secrets and spilling your guts to every random person who comes across your path (and that there's a happy medium), but he claimed the issue was that he was more of a people person than I was and I therefore just didn't get it. Apparently he didn't get that not everyone cares about a stranger's personal woes or childhood traumas or whatever some random person did at work today.

I once bought a cell phone and the guy selling it told me ALL about his divorce. I walked in and said "Hi, I'm interested in [make and model phone]," and he was like "Cool cool cool, so my wife left me ..." I'm only barely exaggerating. He went on so long that I finally had to interrupt him and say "I'm sorry you're having a hard time. May I have my phone, please?" And he had the nerve to look insulted that I didn't want to hear any more about his very personal problems. Same thing happened on a plane - the guy sitting next to me told me all about HIS divorce and how happy he was in his new relationship and the only thing I'd said to him was that I'd be happy to move over to the aisle so his daughter could sit between us (he'd lied about her age to avoid buying her a seat but the seat ended up being open anyway). He talked for the entire four-hour flight, only pausing to attend to his daughter. I have one of those faces that makes people want to open up to me ON SIGHT, I guess - people have told me they feel really comfortable talking to me, but like, damn.

Rebecca has apparently told her employee all about her very personal problems and that's totally inappropriate - she's probably a nightmare boss. I can just imagine him writing into Ask a Manager all "My boss overshares about her love life!"

[ElectricBoogaloo]

2 minutes ago, Empress1 said:

I once bought a cell phone and the guy selling it told me ALL about his divorce. I walked in and said "Hi, I'm interested in [make and model phone]," and he was like "Cool cool cool, so my wife left me ..." I'm only barely exaggerating. He went on so long that I finally had to interrupt him and say "I'm sorry you're having a hard time. May I have my phone, please?" And he had the nerve to look insulted that I didn't want to hear any more about his very personal problems. Same thing happened on a plane - the guy sitting next to me told me all about HIS divorce and how happy he was in his new relationship and the only thing I'd said to him was that I'd be happy to move over to the aisle so his daughter could sit between us (he'd lied about her age to avoid buying her a seat but the seat ended up being open anyway). He talked for the entire four-hour flight, only pausing to attend to his daughter. I have one of those faces that makes people want to open up to me ON SIGHT, I guess - people have told me they feel really comfortable talking to me, but like, damn.

Apparently I have one of those faces too. I'm the one everyone tells their secrets to (strangers and friends alike). This is one of the many reasons why I'm glad it's so common to see people wearing earbuds everywhere these days. Sometimes I wear earbuds or headphones on the plane even if I'm not listening to anything just so I don't have to hear someone's life story for four hours.

Ha, I totally agree about Rebecca being a nightmare boss. Based on the very little we have heard from AJ, she has been oversharing since day one (to be fair, she was oversharing with AJ before she was his boss so she's always been inappropriate with him but now it's even MORE inappropriate since he's her employee).

[iMonrey]

Elayne Boosler was a very popular stand-up comic in the 80s and then she sort of fell off the face of the earth. I always wondered what happened to her. 

I thought the songs in the episode were awful but the episode itself was very good.

[DianeDobbler]

Josh and Valencia rented an apartment and moved in together, and one of the issues was Valencia had bad credit so the lease was in Josh's name. I believe he ultimately ended up back in his parents' home because Rebecca got him fired and trashed his reputation. For him now to be presented as a guy who has never had his own place is ridiculous. Remember when all of the guys were assembling the table? Remember when Rebecca spied on the move-in process?

[SomeTameGazelle]

1 hour ago, DianeDobbler said:

Josh and Valencia rented an apartment and moved in together, and one of the issues was Valencia had bad credit so the lease was in Josh's name. I believe he ultimately ended up back in his parents' home because Rebecca got him fired and trashed his reputation. For him now to be presented as a guy who has never had his own place is ridiculous. Remember when all of the guys were assembling the table? Remember when Rebecca spied on the move-in process?

Rebecca's point was not that Josh had never had his name on a lease but that he was not accustomed to doing his own housework. I have no memory of how Valencia and Josh handled housework when they were together, and I don't think it was particularly highlighted when the subject of Josh living with Hector's mom was brought up.

 

On 12/1/2018 at 1:43 AM, femmefan1946 said:

The bed making was pretty funny.

I have to admit that I did laugh at Josh wrestling with the fitted sheet.

On 12/1/2018 at 6:24 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I was actually shocked that Naomi accepted what Rebecca said. I really thought she would push back with "I'm your mother so your life IS my business! How dare you disrespect me like this?" kind of rant.

They cut off the scene at a point that left her acceptance somewhat ambiguous. I mean, Naomi's response seemed cold and dark, but they didn't show her or Rebecca leaving so we don't know what the aftermath was -- it could have been a stony silence or it could have been a raging counter-attack.

I found Naomi completely unpleasant throughout the episode. I prefer it when she appears to have some redeeming love for Rebecca, but this time they didn't even try to patch it in in post.

On 12/1/2018 at 7:50 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I want to know what Maisie did to get put in jail. I'm pretty sure excessive cream cheese use isn't against the law.

Not on a bagel, maybe, but it sounded like she was teetering into vandalism. I hope she committed a more serious crime to be charged with, but cream cheese did seem to be the only revenge option she had on her menu, so it's hard to be sure.

I was happy to finally see more than lip service paid to Rebecca's pro bono legal work with the inmates she had met. Nathaniel's chance of redemption is completely not interesting to me. I would have been just as happy to see Paula come up with the legal solution and Nathaniel's only role be to let Paula do it and to cover the fine for Nicky.

On 12/1/2018 at 12:16 PM, Empress1 said:

I can see Rebecca falling for Josh again after the mural and the s'mores in sweater temperatures. That was a REALLY sweet thing to do.

She was also distracted by Nathaniel at the end though, which I think was to make sure it was clear to us that what Rebecca is hankering after is not specifically Josh or Nathaniel.

[DianeDobbler]

2 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Rebecca's point was not that Josh had never had his name on a lease but that he was not accustomed to doing his own housework. I have no memory of how Valencia and Josh handled housework when they were together, and I don't think it was particularly highlighted when the subject of Josh living with Hector's mom was brought up.

I completely disagree. The point was Josh had never lived on his own. Rebecca asked, and he mentioned having another older woman roommate in NYC. The implication is he's always been dependent or with his parents. Plenty of people live on their own and suck at housework. It is down to Rebecca that he lost his independence and moved back home - she stalked him and trashed his reputation. Now in the retcon of Josh Chan his immaturity has extended to him never leaving his parents' house, and NYC and Hector's mom his only stabs at independence. No. He was the one with decent credit who rented a place with Valencia. He has lived on his own, and from what we saw of it, his and Valencia's place was hardly a pigsty. This is totally a retcon.

When Rebecca returned home from New York, her apartment was in good shape, and she had no realization that Josh was unaccustomed to housework. He did confess he couldn't do the mural on his own, but from there you don't extrapolate that he can't make a bed. Bet Rebecca couldn't do a mural either. Rebecca and Josh have also lived together before and the issue of his being unable to keep things neat never came up.

Edited December 2, 2018 by DianeDobbler

[txhorns79]

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I found Naomi completely unpleasant throughout the episode. I prefer it when she appears to have some redeeming love for Rebecca, but this time they didn't even try to patch it in in post.

I did think they doubled down on Naomi's nastiness during the episode for reasons that seem more about having Rebecca close this thread on her mother's role in her life than anything that was true to the character.  I don't think Naomi would have ignored her daughter's suicide attempt, like the episode suggested, even if she thought the attempt was more about Rebecca wanting attention.  I mean, even when Naomi was secretly drugging Rebecca last season, I thought that was a perverse way of showing Naomi really cared, i.e. that she drugged Rebecca because was terrified of what would happen if Rebecca was not medicated.  

[possibilities]

Living with someone else is not the same as living alone. Darryl made the point that he himself had never done his own  housework until he lived without another woman in residence. I think it's implied that Josh had never lived alone, not that he had never supported himself or lived outside the parental orbit.

I can easily see Rebecca not noticing any flaws he had when they lived together before, because she was in total obsessed insane mode. And I think Valencia was chronically pissed off at him when they were together, so I have no problem imagining that he wasn't pulling his weight about chores then, either.

Even when Josh was employed, he tended to be kind of impulsive and childish. Affable to be sure, but even his friends seemed to think he could do a little growing up and being less oblivious.

I like him, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think he didn't do his own housework. I've met a lot of people like that, and I always wonder how the hell they survive, but they seem to always have some excuse for why they never learned nor had to learn, even if they're somewhat functional in other areas of life.

[theatremouse]

You know that thing where you work somewhere terrible for so long, you don't realize it's not normal? (Not that you don't necessarily recognize the terrible, but that's just how workplaces are so nothing you can do.) And then you go work someplace else that's not dysfunctional and you're like ohhhhhhhhhhh that was not normal after all?

Reading all the comments about how mean and nasty Naomi was in this episode make me feel like that. When Naomi talks, all I hear is a not-even-exaggerated-seeming version of all of my Jewish relatives in her age bracket. That's just...how they talk about stuff and react to things. It didn't even strike me as especially harsh.

At the same time though, all the actors I know who've worked with Tovah Feldshuh cannot say enough nice things about her. So maybe my issue is not just desensitization but also that I'm conditioned to think she's wonderful so when Naomi is mean it doesn't sink in?

Probably a bit of both.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

4 hours ago, possibilities said:

Living with someone else is not the same as living alone. Darryl made the point that he himself had never done his own  housework until he lived without another woman in residence. I think it's implied that Josh had never lived alone, not that he had never supported himself or lived outside the parental orbit.

I can easily see Rebecca not noticing any flaws he had when they lived together before, because she was in total obsessed insane mode. And I think Valencia was chronically pissed off at him when they were together, so I have no problem imagining that he wasn't pulling his weight about chores then, either.

Even when Josh was employed, he tended to be kind of impulsive and childish. Affable to be sure, but even his friends seemed to think he could do a little growing up and being less oblivious.

I like him, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think he didn't do his own housework. I've met a lot of people like that, and I always wonder how the hell they survive, but they seem to always have some excuse for why they never learned nor had to learn, even if they're somewhat functional in other areas of life.

I totally agree with all of this. There are always people who manage to become adults (age-wise, that is) without having learned to take care of themselves. For someone like Josh, his mom probably did his laundry and made all of his meals when he lived at home. Then Valencia took over those roles when they lived together. Rebecca was so eager to please him that I'm sure she was taking care of most of that stuff when he moved in with her the first time.  Moving out of your parents' house doesn't necessarily mean that you have lived on your own and taken care of yourself 100% (washing/ironing/folding your own laundry, making your own meals, cleaning the bathroom, etc) so I have no difficulty believing that Josh is one of those people who doesn't know how to do basic things like make the bed with a fitted sheet, deal with a wet comforter, or make spaghetti correctly.

[DianeDobbler]

Housework aside, Crazy Ex Girlfriend is now pretending Josh has never lived on his own. Josh HAS lived on his own, and his financial situation was apparently in better order than Valencia's at the time they moved in together/rented an apartment together. There were grown up things like a moving truck outside the building. He ended up back at his parents after Rebecca's reign of terror trashing his life. There was even a time when he slept on the floor of his job rather than move back with his parents. Just to be clear, my problem is not with his housekeeping skills, but the insistence he's never lived on his own. That is contrary to what the show told us in the first three seasons, including the time he slept on the floor of his job rather than move back home.

Now we're all retconned, thinking he never ever had his own place in a "normal" living situation. IMO Josh's ability to keep house or not is not the point. It's CEG trying to sell us he's never been independent. Yes, he absolutely has maturity issues, particularly around getting some kind of grown up job or career path, but he has lived independently and was unhappy about moving back home after Rebecca's reign of terror left his life completely trashed.  I think Vinnie can be very funny, but I also think the job CEG did on Josh, making the victim the butt of the joke, and almost a target of derision from Rebecca and her friends, was in very poor taste and a big misfire, comedy or no comedy, and didn't sit well with me. I felt that CEG just wanted to make the joke of "Can you believe THIS is the guy she chased for 2 years? Just shows how sick she was, because now that she's enlightened it's clear it had nothing to do with him!" It wasn't fair to the character to trash him. She was HIS problem, not vice versa.

Whatever Josh has or hasn't done in terms of maturity (Heather, for instance, apparently needed a wake-up call from Nathaniel about her garbage filled car), it is no worse or more ridiculous than stuff done by Nathaniel, Heather, Darryl, etc. and I just get tired of him being reverse engineered into a whipping post to the point where we're supposed to forget it contradicts actual episodes written by the same scriptwriters trying to put this one over. And didn't Heather just move out of her own parents' home last year or something, having never lived on her own? And straight into the same convenient arrangement Rebecca has now provided for Josh?

Just as an aside - Rebecca is a 30 year old woman who still hasn't learned not to stuff the toilet with her tampons or use another woman's vibrator.

For S2, Hector's situation with his mother was a running joke. There were boundary issues and girlfriend jokes. Hector clicks with Heather, moves in with her (at Rebecca's, naturally), and all the jokes (except for the sexual innuendo) get transferred to Josh. Nobody was telling Hector - dude, you have to move out of your mom's place! Hector, despite having never lived on his own either, and going straight into his girlfriend's set-up with Rebecca, was considered a perfectly viable romantic choice for Heather.

Now that I mention it - what does Hector do for a living?

Edited December 3, 2018 by DianeDobbler

[willowk]

11 hours ago, theatremouse said:

You know that thing where you work somewhere terrible for so long, you don't realize it's not normal? (Not that you don't necessarily recognize the terrible, but that's just how workplaces are so nothing you can do.) And then you go work someplace else that's not dysfunctional and you're like ohhhhhhhhhhh that was not normal after all?

Reading all the comments about how mean and nasty Naomi was in this episode make me feel like that. When Naomi talks, all I hear is a not-even-exaggerated-seeming version of all of my Jewish relatives in her age bracket. That's just...how they talk about stuff and react to things. It didn't even strike me as especially harsh.

At the same time though, all the actors I know who've worked with Tovah Feldshuh cannot say enough nice things about her. So maybe my issue is not just desensitization but also that I'm conditioned to think she's wonderful so when Naomi is mean it doesn't sink in?

Probably a bit of both.

I didn't find Naomi all that awful. I just thought she was super stressed, and that brought out all her insecurities and need to be seen as successful. And if she were this super sweet person then Rebecca would be someone different. Watching them together helps you understand how Rebecca got so messed up (beyond having the disorder itself).

[mrsbagnet]

3 hours ago, DianeDobbler said:

Now that I mention it - what does Hector do for a living?

IIRC, he's a surfing instructor. Nathaniel mentioned that Hector was his instructor, and I think Heather mentioned that he'd gotten a job in the area where they moved.

Edited December 3, 2018 by mrsbagnet

[piperkat]

On 12/1/2018 at 4:24 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Like Beth, I was so proud of Rebecca for finally setting some boundaries with her intrusive mother.

 

Beth quietly stole the show for me this episode. She didn't have a lot to do, but she made it count. "I'm proud of her but I'm too WASP to look." :)  Both her and Valencia's expressions during that confrontation were gold. 

[angora]

I enjoyed it a lot.  I liked the so-real jokes about Valencia and Beth's tiny apartment, Rebecca completely understanding why Elayne Boosler wouldn't want to do Naomi a favor, Jim slapping the donut out of Tim's hand, Darryl's "it's really not that hard" adulting advice, Paula's reaction to Nathaniel's amazed discovery of injustice in the legal system, and much more.  I'm happy Rebecca came around to understanding she didn't have to tell everyone everything, while at the same time realizing she couldn't handle Naomi's disrespect of her boundaries anymore.  Oh yeah, and Valencia low-key pretending she knew what Camp Kvetcha(?) was and Rebecca exasperatedly asking, "Why would she have heard of that?!"

I've always liked Josh and have been disappointed for a while with how the show's used him, and I've liked getting a bit more focus on him this season.  They've been getting back a little more to the stuff I liked about him in the first place - no, he's not the sharpest, but he can be pretty thoughtful/a genuine source of positivity for someone - as well as letting him grow a bit.  Here, I laughed so hard at him wrestling with that fitted sheet, smiled at him using Common's sense, and liked him admitting he needed help with the mural and then doing something sweet for Rebecca.

[iMonrey]

Not for nothing, but you can't really just go to a pet store and buy a starfish. Even assuming your local pet store sells saltwater fish (most don't), the chances they sell starfish are pretty slim. The chances they have a starfish that looks exactly like the one you already have? Even slimmer. That also doesn't look like a saltwater tank it's living in.

[Iseut]

18 hours ago, piperkat said:

 

Beth quietly stole the show for me this episode. She didn't have a lot to do, but she made it count. "I'm proud of her but I'm too WASP to look." :)  Both her and Valencia's expressions during that confrontation were gold. 

That was the second great WASP joke of the episode, after the WASPy mom waving "Everything's fine" when Naomi and the other non-WASP moms were singing "Forget it!"

I can buy that there was some retconning with Josh's history and ability to live on his own, but it's also true that one doesn't just become an adult overnight. Him moping around in the damp comforter cracked me up; we just bought a nice big fluffy bathmat, but it takes forEVER to dry, to the point that I almost gave up after 3 drying cycles. I'm 41 so should be a pro at this whole adulting and housekeeping thing after 20+ years, but I still feel there are huge gaps in my knowledge. Josh, who is relatively young and has been pretty sheltered, mostly by women fussing over him, is bound to have some even bigger missing pieces in his adulting toolbox.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Iseut

[DianeDobbler]

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I like him, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think he didn't do his own housework. I've met a lot of people like that, and I always wonder how the hell they survive, but they seem to always have some excuse for why they never learned nor had to learn, even if they're somewhat functional in other areas of life.

Oh, not to beat it to death, but to clarify, I am not talking about housework!!! Not at all! I am talking about the concept that Josh Chan has never lived "on his own." He did live on his own - he had an apartment with his live-in girlfriend, his name on the lease because she had bad credit. To suggest he never did is re-writing history. So again, I am not making any kind of point about doing housework, but more to the point of this episode, neither was Rebecca talking about housework when she asked if he'd ever been on his own. The subject of my post was Josh's independence and did he ever have experience with it. That has been rewritten.

The housework thing is fine and was done well for comic relief, although how a guy who "daylights" as a bro with a truck who is savvy enough to bring along a wood filler pen in case of dings or scratches is apparently completely helpless about every other aspect of taking care of things is a curious character quirk.  I am bugged about how Josh is handled because in S3 what Rebecca did to him was dismissed, although I am gaining some confidence he will finally get to speak to that this season without just having grimace-y reaction or shrugging it off. And his living situation is part of that whole thing that was dismissed - he lost his job and had to move home because of Rebecca's actions, and now they are letting her off the hook by re-writing that he's never managed to be on his own before, always had some sort of parental figure (which Valencia hardly was). That is what, to me, grates. She's been let off the hook almost entirely for behavior around which 2 entire seasons of this show was built. That's where this is coming from.

On another topic, I thought Rachel Bloom / Rebecca Bunch looked more rested this episode than she has most of the season so far. Up until this episode I thought Rebecca looked really different, mostly because they weren't putting make-up on the character and not really dressing her - the sweatshirts and t-shirts she liked to wear in her downtime had kind of become her uniform. And I thought that Bloom's singing and performance had become louder and brassier and kind of more one note. This episode there was more nuance and fluidity. I didn't know what explained any of it, but on another forum it was said she looked and sounded exhausted, and THAT could have been it, with all the hats the actress/writer/producer has been wearing, it was starting to tell on performance choices and appearance.

Edited December 6, 2018 by DianeDobbler

[chaifan]

I liked this episode, probably more than any other in the season.  I like relatively sane Rebecca, instead of crazy hijinks Rebecca.  I loved the one line "clean up" song by Darryl, more so because it really made you think there was going to be this whole cleaning montage and it was cut so wonderfully abruptly short.  I like how they are bringing Josh back into the fold with storylines directly with Rebecca.  I thought the fall mural was cute, as was the indoor s'mores.  And I liked Rebecca finally setting boundaries with Naomi.  I didn't expect Naomi to be anything but Naomi, so all that was fine with me. 

And I agree - Rebecca looked really good this episode.  Healthy, happy. 

[aradia22]

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Josh struggling with getting the sheets on was hilarious, probably because I used to struggle with those damn things! Guess I have a little bit of Josh in me! I would like to think that I know how to do basic cleaning. Like Darryl said, its common sense. Or, Common sense. Its not that hard, Josh.

I disagree about the love for Darryl's short song. It was incredibly unhelpful. By the time he showed up, the apartment was a mess. But before that everything we saw was not about Josh's inability to clean. It was about him being unable to use various appliances or cook. Use your common sense to put the thing in the right place isn't really useful advice for most of those situations. That said... it's 2018. You have the internet.