S04.E17: I'm in Love

[bijoux]

Agreed. It really stood out to me during Vincent's solo. I remember I've Got My Head In The Clouds being weaker on the show than what he gave in the special. 

[Black Knight]

5 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I'm with the author of that article linked above that Rebecca didn't have to think she was perfect or know exactly who she was to be ready for a relationship.  I know a few women that for their entire adult lives kept thinking they weren't ready and needed more therapy that are now 60 and still single.  And there's no need for that.

I agree that a woman doesn't have to be perfect or know exactly who she is, but in Rebecca's case, even as of last week's episode she was unable to choose between three very different men she knows very well indeed. The fact she couldn't even at least rule one of the three out, that they were all very much in the running, really spoke to her not knowing herself well enough to be in a relationship.

The author of the TV Guide article had good points, but I also think she projected her own story onto Rebecca to the point where she failed to notice the ways she and Rebecca are fundamentally different. The most obvious being that, as she noted, she knew that the guy she chose to pursue a relationship with despite still having some substantial work she needed to do on herself was the guy she wanted to be with permanently. She did know herself well enough to know who she wanted. Rebecca did not.

Now maybe they could have shown her with a guy at the end of the time jump, but I feel like that wouldn't have been satisfying because we missed out on the entire journey that the time jump skipped. Without seeing at least some of that journey, I couldn't have an opinion on her choice of guy, because I don't know exactly who Rebecca is now after the time jump. Now if instead of the time jump, we'd had a season 5 that covered that journey, I would have been fine with the show then coming to a close with her being with someone.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Black Knight

[femmefan1946]

I'm really happy that Donna Lynne Chaplain got to sing her Disney Princess song. Her voice is beautiful even when singing comedy.

I'm now crossing all my fingers and toes that Netflix Canada will have all four seasons. No Canadian network picked up Season Four and we can't access the CW website or stream it.

[tennisgurl]

I am definitely going to need to think about this one some more, but I think...it worked for me? I like that they left things kind of ambiguous, and that the thing that Rebecca hatred about herself and made her feel ashamed of herself was actually her spark of creative genius. The call back to the original West Covina song when Paula said that everything she needed was right there. And that there is a possibility that she could end up with Nathaniel or Greg at some point, now that all of them have grown and changed. I think she will end up with Greg at some point, but Nathaniel is also a solid possibility. 

I do wish that the rest of the cast had gotten a bit more than a brief Where Are They Now, but I really love how things went with Nathaniel. In a way, he got a similar ending to Rebecca, leaving behind what he thought he was "supposed" to do based on what his family expected, and did what he really loved. Of course he is still going to be a lawyer, but now at a zoo! His favorite place!

So yeah...lots to chew on...will need to think further. But no matter what, I will miss this show a lot. Its been a wild ride filled with ups and downs and a TON of catchy as fuck musical numbers, but its had a lot of really important, insightful things to say about romance, mental health, gender, and several other topics that people struggle with, and they said it while making it fun, which is pretty awesome.

[Penman61]

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I was surprised by how many of the cast members actually came across as stronger vocalists live in concert (assuming it was entirely live and not sweetened with backing tracks or in production) than they have on the show. I can't tell if it was the difference between singing in a studio and singing live on stage, if they were overproduced for the series, or if maybe they were doing the singing for the series more in character and with less focus on really singing, but usually it's more of a letdown when you hear someone who's mostly been very produced sing live, and in this case it was more like, "Wow, they can really sing, and why weren't they cutting loose like that on the show?"

Yup. I knew Donna Lynne Champlin could sing from hearing her just on the show, but in the concert...man. 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Penman61

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, bijoux said:

It really stood out to me during Vincent's solo. I remember I've Got My Head In The Clouds being weaker on the show than what he gave in the special. 

I think they really overproduced him on the show, possibly because they were going for the "boy band" sound with Josh, and I tend to interpret that particular overproduced sound as meaning a weaker vocalist who needs electronic help.

Actually, most of the characters other than Rebecca, Paula, Greg 1.0 and a couple of the recurring or guest characters who obviously had musical theater voices got that kind of heavy production treatment, so they sounded like what tends to happen when a regular TV show does a musical episode, so they have actors who aren't really trained singers who can carry a tune and sing okay, but they need a lot of production help. But in the live concert those same people sounded like really strong singers. With Heather and Valencia, I think they were also doing "character" voices because even in the concert, their solo numbers were very different from the way they sounded in group numbers.

One thing I've been thinking about ... we've been seeing musical numbers all along from all the characters, even when Rebecca wasn't present, but the idea of making up songs in your head as a way of coping with the world was apparently completely foreign to Paula. So has Rebecca been imagining what the other characters might be doing when she wasn't there? I remember back in season one, at first it looked like all the musical numbers were in Rebecca's head, then it was kind of a shock when Greg had a song without Rebecca around, so it looked like he was also making up musical numbers in his head. From there, it became more common. Paula has had several songs without Rebecca there, and sometimes about things Rebecca wouldn't have known about (like the song to her son before he left home). I wonder how that's supposed to fit into the concept.

[SomeTameGazelle]

23 minutes ago, femmefan1946 said:

I'm now crossing all my fingers and toes that Netflix Canada will have all four seasons. No Canadian network picked up Season Four and we can't access the CW website or stream it

The W network has been airing it about a week behind the CW and I can see episodes 15 and 16 are still up in their on demand. (I also get the CW in my cable package. The only thing I haven't found in Canada is the documentary they showed on CW seed.)

[scrb]

How old is she suppose to be?

How long would she be fulfilled by creativity before she goes man crazy again?

Or get overwhelmed by the ticking of the biological clock, though they haven’t shown her longing to be a mother someday.

I read a quote of Rachel Bloom saying Rebecca is obviously not well emotionally.  So the reason for that is that she was filled with song all this time?  Or that she’s cured now because she’s going to have a creative outlet?

Rebecca/Rachel says romantic love is not an end.  Hmm, what does Rachel’s husband think of that?

[theatremouse]

3 minutes ago, scrb said:

I read a quote of Rachel Bloom saying Rebecca is obviously not well emotionally.  So the reason for that is that she was filled with song all this time?  Or that she’s cured now because she’s going to have a creative outlet?

The character is diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder on the show, so we know she's not well. It's a tremendously difficult disorder to treat. Having a creative outlet will definitely not "cure" her if we treat Rebecca like an actual human character, but it may be an effective coping mechanism for her to lean into, which may make her symptoms overall less severe. Or it may have very little effect on her mental health, other than generally making her happier, which ain't nuthin'.

[SmithW6079]

Maybe because I kind of stopped watching for the last several episodes  (they built up on my DVR and I deleted them when I realized I wasn't going to catch up), but I thought the finale was dull and boring -- just an hour's worth of Rebecca's exposition.

Even though I wasn't up to date, I knew Rebecca wasn't going to choose any of the guys, because that's the trend these days -- a woman's "happy ending" doesn't need to include a partner.

Like White Josh's dislike of Rebecca, my dislike of Darryl remains unabated. I don't understand why they wasted so much time on such an annoying character. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

2 minutes ago, scrb said:

I read a quote of Rachel Bloom saying Rebecca is obviously not well emotionally.  So the reason for that is that she was filled with song all this time?  Or that she’s cured now because she’s going to have a creative outlet?

Therapy with Dr Akopian (the real one, not the dream manifestation) and medication stabilized Rebecca. And she has ongoing maintenance to stay stable. The creative outlet makes her happier and she realized that she craved that more than monogamy with one of the available suitors. And then she explicitly left open the possibility that she might be ready for monogamy in the future.

8 minutes ago, scrb said:

Rebecca/Rachel says romantic love is not an end.  Hmm, what does Rachel’s husband think of that?

That every day is a new day and things continue to happen to you even after you get married?

[Eolivet]

The more I think about this ending, the less I like it.

To me, you don't separate out one suitor above the rest narratively, as they did in the last episode, in order to "trick" your audience. Yes, lots of people guessed Rebecca was going to choose herself, but it wasn't set up as such in the text. A "choosing herself" ending would've been showing three equal dates, not two artificially perfect dates and one with a love confession. By doing that, you've set it up narratively for her to lean towards the third guy.

Now I never expected a big, sweeping romantic declaration or even for the "choice" to take up more than three minutes of screen time. Even a "hey, what are you doing after, maybe let's get something to eat." But if the show was going to explicitly reject what it explicitly set up in the last few episodes to do a "it was all about self-love and finding my happiness" ending, then was it necessary to pull the wool over the audience's eyes to do it?

And that's what bothered me about it -- no, romantic love is not an ending, and maybe romantic love is a tool of the patriarchy, and that's fine. But going through all the narrative sign posts leading to an ending that includes some type of romantic love (including the "we're here for a big reveal" at the beginning of this episode and all the dialogue that pointed to a romantic choice), and then going "ha ha ha ha, gotcha suckers" isn't creative or surprising. Especially when many people guessed that's exactly what the show would do.

Maybe "life doesn't make narrative sense," but television shows kind of should, and there was a way to foreshadow a non-romantic ending in a more explicit way rather than laying out all the sign posts for an ending with some type of romance and then going "ha, you seriously thought we'd go there?"

I'm sick to death of "surprise" endings on TV shows. Tricking an audience doesn't make one a good writer, it makes one a trickster. But I guess these days, an ending that actually makes narrative sense with the text is the biggest surprise ending of all.

[scrb]

23 minutes ago, theatremouse said:

The character is diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder on the show, so we know she's not well. It's a tremendously difficult disorder to treat. Having a creative outlet will definitely not "cure" her if we treat Rebecca like an actual human character, but it may be an effective coping mechanism for her to lean into, which may make her symptoms overall less severe. Or it may have very little effect on her mental health, other than generally making her happier, which ain't nuthin'.

21 minutes ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Therapy with Dr Akopian (the real one, not the dream manifestation) and medication stabilized Rebecca. And she has ongoing maintenance to stay stable. The creative outlet makes her happier and she realized that she craved that more than monogamy with one of the available suitors. And then she explicitly left open the possibility that she might be ready for monogamy in the future.

That every day is a new day and things continue to happen to you even after you get married?

If you look at Rebecca through the filter of her condition, doesn’t it invalidate her feelings?

There were moments of what seemed like genuine happieness, euphoria or what the French call  bonheur for Rebecca.  But it turned out to be a condition all along?

She wasn’t chasing romantic love, rather she was living out a pathology?

Yet she was thinking up these fun songs about UTI, period sex or back pain from a big bust during her man-crazy exploits and heartbreaks?

[justmehere]

10 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I know a few women that for their entire adult lives kept thinking they weren't ready and needed more therapy that are now 60 and still single.  And there's no need for that.  Sometimes it's just an excuse to avoid taking a risk.  Relationships are risk and no one is ever perfectly ready for one.

I have a different thought on this, in general (since I obviously don't know the women you know). Women have been so highly conditioned to want marriage that even if we don't want to feel affected by that conditioning, we often are. It's a gigantic should. But, what if the delaying and not feeling ready is actually because someone doesn't really want it? Only fairly recently has it been OK-ish for women to say they don't want children or even marriage. Someone already 60? It's going against society and family and inner programming, so you make excuses. The not-wanting may not even be conscious if the should goes deep enough. Actually, I'm speaking for myself, and though I'm younger than 60, I can't be the only one to have this issue. Even after I realized that I don't want to be married, I felt like something was wrong with me. I still have to tell myself it's OK. --Rebecca was smart, I think, to take the time for herself. It's only been a year, and she now realizes she does want romantic love. That's also wise ... she didn't say marriage. She's taking things a step at a time.

Anyway -- I kind of wish the timing or composition of episodes had been different, maybe cut some of the earlier filler material and push up other elements to allow a two-hour finale story (yet still have the concert!) where the resolutions could have been a little more fleshed out, because the "where are they now" did feel rushed.

I never like when they show someone in a flash forward with a partner we know nothing about, so Josh's new love felt awkward. Plus, when Rebecca talked about how anyone in the room could be her future love, they put the new girlfriend in the background, leaving Josh as a candidate, so why should I care about his present attachment?

I loved Nathaniel telling off his father and ending with I love you. And he didn't need to say that he's nice now.

I noticed something in the dream sequences that was very interesting: With Greg, Rebecca realized at the wedding that she wasn't happy. With Nathaniel, they were married and about to have their first child. With Josh, their kids were around 6 or 7 before she realized she wasn't happy. So, was that a reflection of her true feelings for the guys -- i.e. she didn't love Greg and realized it right away, yet loved Nathaniel more and Josh even more, and so took longer to realize -- or was it that she didn't fool herself as much with Greg, and so realized earlier, but had such an idealized view of Josh for so long that it took years longer to realize her unhappiness (with Nathaniel somewhere in the middle)?

When it was over, just on an emotional gut level, I felt saddest that she wasn't with Josh, which surprised me -- and then Nathaniel. Not at all for Greg. I can't tell if that's because of the re-cast or the character himself. I thought she had the best chance with Nathaniel, but then they sort of downplayed him the last couple of episodes. The date with Josh was the most emotional, and so was his reaction to her not choosing him, so maybe that affected me. He was working on himself, too, so it could have almost been like he and Rebecca would grow up together. Even Nathaniel, in a way, was frozen at a younger emotional age, so that could have been somewhat similar. Greg... again, nothing. I just can't judge him fairly.

[30 Helens]

I loved loved this show in Season 1. Season 2 was almost as good, but 3 and 4 had diminishing returns. The plot dragged a bit, and the songs were fewer and less inspired. (Worse opening theme songs, too.) I think it would have been much better if the last 2 seasons had been combined into one. 

That said, there’s a reason I kept watching. This show was like nothing else on TV, and when it was good, it was sublime. I’m going to miss it like crazy (pun intended) and I can’t wait to see what Rachel and crew come up with next.

[Empress1]

11 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

That every day is a new day and things continue to happen to you even after you get married?

Yeah ... I mean, if you get married in your 20s and marriage is an end, does that mean your life ends in your 20s? Because that is depressing as hell. It's like fairy tales - there's a whole life after "and they lived happily ever after." I think I read that Rachel has been married for five years and the other show runner has been married for 20, which means this show came to fruition during their marriages. If their spouses, are even halfway decent people I'm sure they were thrilled by their professional success and hope for more good things to happen for them outside of their marriage, and I would hope the women feel the same way about their spouses' aspirations outside their marriages.

[crashdown]

12 hours ago, Eolivet said:

And that's what bothered me about it -- no, romantic love is not an ending, and maybe romantic love is a tool of the patriarchy, and that's fine. But going through all the narrative sign posts leading to an ending that includes some type of romantic love (including the "we're here for a big reveal" at the beginning of this episode and all the dialogue that pointed to a romantic choice), and then going "ha ha ha ha, gotcha suckers" isn't creative or surprising. Especially when many people guessed that's exactly what the show would do.

I don't think that the season four narrative was set up perfectly; parts of it were certainly a little awkward and rushed. I do, however, think that the redefinition of the typical narrative signposts was part of the point, so it doesn't seem right to me to criticize the show for ultimately upending them: the entire series was about reconsidering the usual tropes of romantic comedy. Ending the show with Rebecca choosing a romantic partner would have been an absurd betrayal of that entire premise.

I have to add that, even though the finale wasn't perfect (how many finales are?), parts of it just made me think that Rachel Bloom is a genius. The scene with Rebecca walking through the costumes of the series and singing an unaccompanied medley of some of the lines from the show's songs was just haunting. I also loved the meta ending, which ultimately boils down to the human need for creativity, to the way that artists are able to turn the broken bits of themselves into beauty. Rebecca's ultimate lesson was that creativity is love, and that art is the path to healing herself. That's awesome.

[Eolivet]

3 minutes ago, crashdown said:

I do, however, think that the redefinition of the typical narrative signposts was part of the point, so it doesn't seem right to me to criticize the show for ultimately upending them: the entire series was about reconsidering the usual tropes of romantic comedy. Ending the show with Rebecca choosing a romantic partner would have been an absurd betrayal of that entire premise.

Then last episode needed to be make all three dates awful or perfect. But setting one date aside from the other two (as a less idealized, more realistic version of love and affection) set up a narrative sign post towards that ultimate romantic choice (even as a throwaway line).

Make all dates awful or make all dates perfect and the show has absolutely stuck within narrative parameters. The minute the show made one "better," it stuck a signpost there. Kicking it over and going "ha! fooled you!" is not redefining tropes, it's just bad writing.

[dubbel zout]

13 hours ago, justmehere said:

I noticed something in the dream sequences that was very interesting: With Greg, Rebecca realized at the wedding that she wasn't happy. With Nathaniel, they were married and about to have their first child. With Josh, their kids were around 6 or 7 before she realized she wasn't happy. So, was that a reflection of her true feelings for the guys -- i.e. she didn't love Greg and realized it right away, yet loved Nathaniel more and Josh even more, and so took longer to realize -- or was it that she didn't fool herself as much with Greg, and so realized earlier, but had such an idealized view of Josh for so long that it took years longer to realize her unhappiness (with Nathaniel somewhere in the middle)?

That's a fascinating point, @justmehere! I wonder if it's not so much about the guy as the specific stage of life he represents in the dream. Had Rebecca married any of them, her discontent would have set in at that stage of the dream because that was when she realized she wasn't where she wanted to be or that that stage wasn't giving her the satisfaction she wanted/expected.

No matter which of the three buys Rebecca chose, she'd still be unhappy at some point because she hadn't thought enough about what she wanted from her life.

[crashdown]

2 hours ago, Eolivet said:

Make all dates awful or make all dates perfect and the show has absolutely stuck within narrative parameters. The minute the show made one "better," it stuck a signpost there. Kicking it over and going "ha! fooled you!" is not redefining tropes, it's just bad writing.

I don't think it's bad writing, and I don't think that we were ever meant to see the three guys on some sort of equal plane. I see the three guys as in some sense representative of Rebecca's character arc, and the way she saw what she was looking for in each season. Josh is gentle, idealized, rom com love. Nathaniel is a more manic, damaged version of that; he's Rebecca's bottoming out before she was ready to start doing some serious work on herself. Greg is post-therapy love: it's more realistic, but still not there yet. The three dates with the guys really follow the arc of the whole show: the idealized fantasy love that one might expect from a teenager (Josh); the adult version of that fantasy (Nathaniel); and a taste of a real-life relationship (Greg). It's a journey, but it's a journey that isn't finished yet. I think the writers did a pretty good job with all that.

[Zap]

3 hours ago, Eolivet said:

Then last episode needed to be make all three dates awful or perfect. But setting one date aside from the other two (as a less idealized, more realistic version of love and affection) set up a narrative sign post towards that ultimate romantic choice (even as a throwaway line).

Make all dates awful or make all dates perfect and the show has absolutely stuck within narrative parameters. The minute the show made one "better," it stuck a signpost there. Kicking it over and going "ha! fooled you!" is not redefining tropes, it's just bad writing.

But was one réally better? Weren't Nathaniel's and Josh's date very much Nathaniel/Josh-dates and Greg's nondate very much a typical Gregdate?
It's not like that episode stopped people from rooting for any of the guys.

[willowk]

17 hours ago, scrb said:

How old is she suppose to be?

How long would she be fulfilled by creativity before she goes man crazy again?

Or get overwhelmed by the ticking of the biological clock, though they haven’t shown her longing to be a mother someday.

I read a quote of Rachel Bloom saying Rebecca is obviously not well emotionally.  So the reason for that is that she was filled with song all this time?  Or that she’s cured now because she’s going to have a creative outlet?

Rebecca/Rachel says romantic love is not an end.  Hmm, what does Rachel’s husband think of that?

I don't think the year leap suggested she had changed completely, and I'm not sure we were meant to think she was totally fulfilled by creativity during that time. I expect like the last time she "gave up" dating that there were times she was really lonely but she just doesn't know how to be in a relationship and focus on herself at the same time -I know they repeated this narrative decision from start of season 4, but think that's the way Bloom views Bunch. Snippets like her overenjoying the hot tub, her lack of understanding that learning the piano takes time or how to sing and blurting out Darryl's news were typical Rebecca.

I don't think she will ever be "cured", she has a mental disorder that she manages with help. And that's realistic. One of the things I really loved about the show was showing that people with mental problems are valued and its possible to thrive with certain mental problems.

I think the emphasis on romantic love not being the end is an important one, and something I don't think most men struggle with. They see marriage/romantic love as a step on the journey, compatible with their careers, while women have been trained in fairytales -where the story ends with the proposal or marriage. Another way CEG could have shown the ridiculousness of happily ever after would have been for Rebecca to marry and then have her creative burst. But I think they wanted to make clear that her success wasn't due to the presence of any one guy

[willowk]

1 hour ago, Zap said:

But was one réally better? Weren't Nathaniel's and Josh's date very much Nathaniel/Josh-dates and Greg's nondate very much a typical Gregdate?
It's not like that episode stopped people from rooting for any of the guys.

Good point. Each date fitted the person.

[bijoux]

https://tv.avclub.com/how-crazy-ex-girlfriend-got-to-eleven-o-clock-1833804512

It’s a good article with a video of the song coming together creatively, and some good pics. I especially enjoyed the one of Vella Lovell and David Hull practicing for the special. There’s also this fun misprint:

Quote

Better luck next time, George and Nathaniel.

😅 Particularly fun because George actually was in the background of the shot where Rebecca talked about maybe finding love in the room and I did think maybe his lustrous pony would enchant her.

I couldn’t help myself, I watched the special again. What’s a woman? Panty liners in Period Sex, dropping the lift from Let’s Have Intercourse and Scott pulling on Rachel’s hair all had me in stitches. I just love it so much. And props to the cast on the tap dancing and the coordination during I’m So Good At Yoga.

[Shanna Marie]

The ending was actually pretty radical for American popular entertainment because not only was the "happy ending" not about a romantic relationship, but it also wasn't about status or material success. It was about something that was purely a personal interest and self-expression. I think it's important that it ended before we even saw whether or not she was any good at songwriting and if her performance had improved because that wasn't the point. It was more a self-care narrative than a finding success narrative. The more likely thing to see in this kind of story would have been her turning out to be really good at this passion and then using it to make a living and being successful. I can't think of any show or movie that's done something like this, where the happiness wasn't either a relationship or material success but just finding something that's fun to do.

And if that's the theme, then it's important that she wasn't paired off at the end, since the start of the show was her deciding that Josh was the answer to all her problems. She had to find some other answer outside the go-to of romantic love. Her actually being in a relationship with Josh (or possibly anyone) would have undermined the message of her finding something else to fulfill her since she was wrong about what would make her happy back in the pilot. What's funny is that she ended up being right in what she said in the first season theme song about why she moved and what being in West Covina would do for her, when those things at the time were lies/rationalizations to cover up her real reason, which was chasing Josh.

[whiporee]

I had to distance this a little from You're the Worst, because they both were similar to me in a lot of ways. 

I wish they had left Greg out, period. I understand the new guy, but he didn't fit stylistically or narratively, and adding a third guy at this point just clogged things up and set up an impossible to resolve choice. Or, if they absolutely had to bring Greg back, then having Josh fall and Nathaniel stay in love didn't need to be done, either. In a season that had been about her growth, bringing this complicated choice into it just muddied everything far too much.

That said, the callback medley was perfect. And the childlike, giddy look on Rebecca's face when Paula told her she was okay -- that this actually made her fantastic -- was amazing to see. 

I was hoping that the concert hour would have been a continuation of the show -- that this was Rebecca performing all her songs, but I eventually got that the songs we've heard won't necessarily be the songs Rebecca writes. I had predicted that in the end, Rebecca would become Rachel, but she didn't. And that was cool. 

Fun show -- at times brilliant, at times not quite as brilliant, but a lot of fun.  

[Iseut]

22 hours ago, Penman61 said:

Yup. I knew Donna Lynne Champlin could sing from hearing her just on the show, but in the concert...man. 

My husband was only half-paying attention by this point (he likes the show, but two hours of it, is, to quote Josh's new squeeze, a LOT for him!), and even he said "Wow!" when Donna Lynne hit that final high note. She is so amazing. 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Iseut

[Irlandesa]

10 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

That's a fascinating point, @justmehere! I wonder if it's not so much about the guy as the specific stage of life he represents in the dream. Had Rebecca married any of them, her discontent would have set in at that stage of the dream because that was when she realized she wasn't where she wanted to be or that that stage wasn't giving her the satisfaction she wanted/expected.

That's how I see it.  I think saying "this is the point where Rebecca would have started to feel unfulfilled with Greg/Nathaniel/Josh" undercuts the point the show was trying to make.  The point which says that Rebecca has to find happiness within herself and not from the love of a man. Or that one choice could keep her happier longer. I didn't get the impression that marriage would be the first time Rebecca was sad with future Greg.  I didn't get the impression that pregnant was the first time Rebecca would be sad with future Nathaniel.  I didn't think that Rebecca felt sad for the first time after a few years with Josh either. 

I saw it as the dream trying to tell Rebecca that if she thinks getting married will be the end of sadness, the wedding scenario shows her that's wrong.  But once she has love and is feeling unfulfilled, it's pretty easy to think that the next stage will bring that happiness.  So the dream moved to Rebecca expecting a baby but nope, she's still not totally happy.  So maybe Rebecca would think that many kids and active family would bring that feeling of having it all but again, that wasn't it.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Irlandesa

[Yeah No]

On 4/6/2019 at 8:51 PM, Eolivet said:

And that's what bothered me about it -- no, romantic love is not an ending, and maybe romantic love is a tool of the patriarchy, and that's fine. But going through all the narrative sign posts leading to an ending that includes some type of romantic love (including the "we're here for a big reveal" at the beginning of this episode and all the dialogue that pointed to a romantic choice), and then going "ha ha ha ha, gotcha suckers" isn't creative or surprising. Especially when many people guessed that's exactly what the show would do.

Maybe "life doesn't make narrative sense," but television shows kind of should, and there was a way to foreshadow a non-romantic ending in a more explicit way rather than laying out all the sign posts for an ending with some type of romance and then going "ha, you seriously thought we'd go there?"

I'm sick to death of "surprise" endings on TV shows. Tricking an audience doesn't make one a good writer, it makes one a trickster. But I guess these days, an ending that actually makes narrative sense with the text is the biggest surprise ending of all.

I was one of those that said I'd be pissed if they lead us up to her making a decision and then she chose none or herself or whatever.  Only the worst part about it is that they didn't make her not choose once.  They made her do it TWICE.  That's kind of nasty for the big part of the audience that was actually hoping she'd chose one of the guys.

I also don't think that to make the point that being happy with herself is more important and comes first before being happy with someone else had to mean she didn't end up with any of them by the end of the show.  They could have found a way to factor all of that into the ending.  They certainly had enough time.  They could have even accomplished with with a "flash forward".  And add me to the list of people that thought the finale was going to be 2 hours and there would be an extra hour for the musical part of it.

I can't help but think that one of the reasons they made her not choose any of them is because TPTB knew that there were fans in all the guys' camps and if she chose one, they'd be letting down all the other fans.  So in this way they let us all down a little bit but we can fill in our own preferred future so we can feel like there's still hope for our favorite guy to be "the one".

Edited April 8, 2019 by Yeah No

[Yeah No]

On 4/6/2019 at 10:23 PM, justmehere said:

I have a different thought on this, in general (since I obviously don't know the women you know). Women have been so highly conditioned to want marriage that even if we don't want to feel affected by that conditioning, we often are. It's a gigantic should. But, what if the delaying and not feeling ready is actually because someone doesn't really want it? Only fairly recently has it been OK-ish for women to say they don't want children or even marriage. Someone already 60? It's going against society and family and inner programming, so you make excuses. The not-wanting may not even be conscious if the should goes deep enough. Actually, I'm speaking for myself, and though I'm younger than 60, I can't be the only one to have this issue. Even after I realized that I don't want to be married, I felt like something was wrong with me. I still have to tell myself it's OK. --Rebecca was smart, I think, to take the time for herself. It's only been a year, and she now realizes she does want romantic love. That's also wise ... she didn't say marriage. She's taking things a step at a time.

Neither woman I was referring to necessarily had to end up married, but both never ended up in any long term relationship either.  One serial dated and never settled down with anyone and the other gave up early on and got involved in a church.  The first one felt pressure to marry but did want to settle down with someone even if not married.   The second one felt no such pressure.  Both of them came from pretty dysfunctional homes with one parent that was verbally abusive.  Interestingly and coincidentally, both are from NY and Jewish.  I have seen shades of Rebecca's life in both of them.  Both have some kind of disorder - One is not diagnosed, but I would venture to guess she has borderline, and the other one is diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.

I don't get the feeling that either one of them is happy being single or made a conscious choice to be single.  I think both of them really wanted a relationship but they let their problems got in the way.  With the one with BPD, it's like the diagnosis became the excuse for not even trying.  The other one dated and even had proposals, but found something wrong with everyone.  It got ridiculous and it was obvious it was her problem.  Of course neither of them got therapy, which I think they should have.  The one that has BPD is on meds. but hasn't had therapy in decades.  The other one is not on meds. but IMO should be. 

I actually think that even though Rebecca got therapy by the end of the show she still wasn't quite ready for a LTR yet.  Her problems were still getting in the way and that's why she ended up not choosing anyone.  I don't think she actually made this "I am free to be me and I choose me" decision.  She just decided not to decide, like someone else said above.  I am hoping she ends up feeling ready one day and doesn't end up like my girlfriends.  She's still young yet so there is hope.  I still hold out hope for my friends too.  You never know, it could still happen.

BTW, I have been married for 39 years!

Edited April 8, 2019 by Yeah No

[alexa]

On 4/6/2019 at 8:36 PM, SmithW6079 said:

Maybe because I kind of stopped watching for the last several episodes  (they built up on my DVR and I deleted them when I realized I wasn't going to catch up), but I thought the finale was dull and boring -- just an hour's worth of Rebecca's exposition.

Even though I wasn't up to date, I knew Rebecca wasn't going to choose any of the guys, because that's the trend these days -- a woman's "happy ending" doesn't need to include a partner.

Like White Josh's dislike of Rebecca, my dislike of Darryl remains unabated. I don't understand why they wasted so much time on such an annoying character. 

This sums up my feelings as well.  I was very unimpressed with the finale, found it very dull and boring to the point of why did I bother?  I had been off and on this season, and there were a few enjoyable episodes, so I had hope that the finale would be good, and not based on which man will she pick.  Once I knew that was the story, I kind of had doubts about the finale anyway, but the actual episode did not help.  I would have preferred to see something more interactive with all of the cast.  To me this seemed like a regular episode--one of the more boring ones.

[shang yiet]

Meh. The show kinda fizzled out in the end. It was pointless getting new Greg back just so he could revolve around Rebecca and a whole episode about Nathaniel learning to let go and in the end, he didn' t do that. Ah well, at least career wise, they both moved on.

And all the fuss about Darryl's baby last season and he ends up with a girlfriend who got pregnant pretty quick. And yes, he' s annoying. 

I wanted to know more about White Josh instead. As for the musical, also meh.and pointless with recycled songs. The songs seemed randomly chosen and the concert was all over the place.

[seacliffsal]

What hit me during the episode was the idea that at some point Rebecca became unhappy with each relationship and seemed to indicate that the relationships were mistakes because she wasn't happy at one point or another.  I think this reflects a major misconception that many have which is that when things are "right or perfect" one will always be happy.  I think they tried to redefine the concept when Rebecca questioned who she really was, but to expect to be "happy" every moment of every day forever is unrealistic and an underlying cause of many real life break-ups ("I'm not happy anymore"). 

And, in the cases of Josh and Nathaniel, maybe it was the children who made her not happy...  

[theatremouse]

I thought the point they were making there was she'd been assuming once she had the right relationship she'd be happy, but the problem was that she was just unhappy having nothing to do with her relationships. So the relationships couldn't fix it. She wasn't unhappy in the relationships in the flash forwards (nor was it the kids). It's that she needed to find what makes her happy that isn't another human. (and the answer to that is "musicals") 

[Yeah No]

24 minutes ago, shang yiet said:

Meh. The show kinda fizzled out in the end. It was pointless getting new Greg back just so he could revolve around Rebecca and a whole episode about Nathaniel learning to let go and in the end, he didn' t do that. Ah well, at least career wise, they both moved on.

I agree that it was pointless to bring Greg back especially if they couldn't get Santino to play him. I get it that they wanted to attempt to tie up all of Rebecca's love interests but the way they did it was kind of lame anyway so it would have been better if they just didn't include Greg at all.  It was better thinking that they both had moved on from each other and were better off for it.  

13 minutes ago, theatremouse said:

I thought the point they were making there was she'd been assuming once she had the right relationship she'd be happy, but the problem was that she was just unhappy having nothing to do with her relationships. So the relationships couldn't fix it. She wasn't unhappy in the relationships in the flash forwards (nor was it the kids). It's that she needed to find what makes her happy that isn't another human. (and the answer to that is "musicals") 

I thought the point the show was making was that she really wasn't ready for a relationship with any of them because she couldn't be happy in any relationship until she was happy with herself first.  While she had made a lot of progress, she just wasn't quite there yet.  And "musicals", while somewhat therapeutic for her I'm sure, can become just another thing outside herself to take her away from herself, as we have seen her do so many times before.  But maybe we're supposed to believe that's the thing that finally puts her in touch with herself, I don't know.

[possibilities]

I didn't take it as a moral judgment, but that she wasn't as interested in a relationship as she was in her internal exploration at that moment in time. She was not in fact looking for a boyfriend until the 4 guys decided they wanted her to commit. And then she literally could not decide between them. She was drained by having the dates. She had spent her life in manic pursuit of a romantic distraction, but she finally realized that it was coming from outside of her, and her real desire was to find out what was inside.

The show did not say that she couldn't have love. It offered her love and she realized that she actually wanted something else. And not forever, either. She said in the finale that now that she was no longer running from herself, and had fully embraced her own joy, and pursued it without judgment or fear (she even said she didn't know if it was good or not, but just that it was what she wanted to do and had been doing), she was open to romance.

It's not presented as an either/or. It's presented as "on my own terms and in my own time and not the biggest and most pressing priority".

I thought it was balanced.

[scrb]

Who's to say this songwriting thing will last any longer than her pretzels thing.

Or any of her infatuations?

[Irlandesa]

23 minutes ago, scrb said:

Who's to say this songwriting thing will last any longer than her pretzels thing.

Or any of her infatuations?

Isn't she still doing her pretzel thing? 

But I think the difference is that theater has been something that she's been attracted to since college.  Just because acting wasn't the answer, doesn't mean the whole environment needs to be ruled out. In other words, I think this is an infatuation that has already lasted longer than other flights of fancy she's had.

[dubbel zout]

10 hours ago, scrb said:

Who's to say this songwriting thing will last any longer than her pretzels thing.

Or any of her infatuations?

Maybe it won't! But the point is that Rebecca has decided to explore it in a serious way. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

11 hours ago, scrb said:

Who's to say this songwriting thing will last any longer than her pretzels thing.

Or any of her infatuations?

Even if she doesn’t stick with songwriting for the rest of her life, the point of doing it isn’t longevity. If it makes her hapoy now, then she should do it. I know there are some hobbies I have left by the wayside but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get joy from them at the time.

Exploring your interests is a lifelong journey, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep doing all of them for the rest of your life. Hobbies are similar to dating. You try lots of things until you find one you love, but as you grow and change so may your feelings for this hobby or this person. That doesn’t mean you failed or that you wasted your time. It just means you’ve changed and maybe this isn’t the best thing for you anymore (even if it used to be)

[PugLoaf]

I was always in this for the humour/romcom aspect so I only watched a bit of the finale. I was on the forums while viewing it, found out she didn't pick anyone, and quit. 

I feel like it was the easy way out after an entire season/series of the show focusing on relationships. She could have both, creative outlet and a romance. You also don't have to be in the  perfect mental health place to have a happy relationship. Mental health, especially for those with disorders (I am married to someone who has to constantly work on this), is a life long effort. 

Edited April 9, 2019 by PugLoaf

[lavenderblue]

I think it also needs to be taken into account that processing her world through music has been Rebecca's one (non mental health-related) constant from Pilot onward. This is who she is and who she's been for as long as we've known her; she's just now accepted, thanks to Paula (another near-constant!), that her creative force is a positive to be embraced and acknowledged, not a source of shame.

ETA: I want to do a rewatch and may get a better idea from that, but I also wonder if this specific side of her was suppressed during her NY career years, until the inciting incidents.

Edited April 9, 2019 by lavenderblue

[possibilities]

This show has always been deconstructing the romantic narrative and mocking its foibles and excesses. I've seen it as a critique of romance all along, not a promoter of it.

[bijoux]

On 4/7/2019 at 2:28 AM, scrb said:

How old is she suppose to be?

She was 26-ish when the show started (the camp she and Josh were at at 16 was in 2005, and she says to Mrs Chan it was 10 or so years ago when they first meet), and there were those two biggish time jumps - during Heather's pregnancy and now the year in the finale. So my guess would be 31-32.

[Blue Plastic]

On 4/6/2019 at 7:08 AM, Eeksquire said:

I think they did a good job with the mess they wrote themselves into, but Rebecca's big revelation about how she sees the world through songs in her head felt very off to me since, as far as I can tell, the songs have been totally deemphasized since her diagnosis.  Had this season included as many songs per episode as the prior seasons, the final realization would have worked better.

Yes.  If they were trying to say that the reduction of songs in her head was indicative of her getting healthier mentally but then also that the songs in her head are beautiful and the basis of a possible new career for her to pursue, that doesn't make much sense.  If the songs in her head were something that she really loved and a big part of "who she really is," then they shouldn't have lessened.  The subject should have changed as she got better, but the number or frequency of them shouldn't have.

On 4/6/2019 at 9:10 AM, AllyB said:

There was a great season in there but it was lost in all the stupid bachelor stuff. The ending could have been great but the lead up to it was so poor it made it hard to care.

Yep, the "Bachelor" stuff was a complete waste of time if that was going to be the ending.

On 4/6/2019 at 10:28 AM, Yeah No said:

I also think that if they were going to go into the future they could have shown us how things REALLY worked out in the end instead of leaving us with her still not making a choice.  She already chose herself the year before - Why couldn't they have shown that the year she spent writing songs put her so in touch with herself that she now knew which man she belonged with?  I don't buy this "I love all of you" ending.  One of them should have become clear after all that time and if not, I question whether she really loved any of them ever.  And I think that is a disappointing ending for the show, and for her.  I would have hoped for more growth from her after all that time of self-searching and getting in touch with the real her through music.

The time jump confused me so much.  I kept having to look at Paula's outfit to figure out which scenes were "a year ago" and which were "now."  I don't see the point of having a time jump just for the "big reveal" to be "I choose myself."

I can see that maybe she never really loved any of them.  But I could also see her choosing one of them, particularly Nathaniel or Greg.  Nathaniel is probably the best match in terms of personality IF he really retains his personal growth at being no longer mean.  If Greg really doesn't like anything, I don't see Rebecca doing well with that long term.  And I just don't think it would be healthy to be with Josh - she stalked him and that just doesn't seem like a good basis for a relationship.

They just made such an emphasis on Rebecca's love life that it seems like a real cop-out to continue to build it up until the 11th hour (heh) and then say, "Psych!  She chooses none of them!"

I really liked this show, though, and will miss it.  My favorite thing of all was the friendship that developed with Rebecca, Paula, Valencia, and Heather.  That was a great friend group and I don't like that Valencia was supposed to have moved to NY because I need to think of the four of them being TOGETHA 4EVA. 🙂

I also really loved how Paula's story turned out, even though IMO we didn't get get to see enough of her new office (understandably) for me to "feel it" when Paula said she loved it there.  I didn't see a lot to "love" with their weird obsession with those suits.  Not sure if there was some way for them to quickly show instead of tell how great the office was, but IMO they didn't achieve it.

On a superficial note, all this season Rebecca's hair drove me crazy.  It was so cute in the first season.  It looks so much better short!  If the actress just wanted to grow it long that's totally her prerogative, but it was so cute short and they rarely styled it once it got longer.  It made sense for the first few episodes of season 4 that Rebecca's hair would just be straggly, but after that she just never styled it?  The only time they ever styled it again was for the fantasy rom-com episode.

[SomeTameGazelle]

8 hours ago, Blue Plastic said:

I don't see the point of having a time jump just for the "big reveal" to be "I choose myself."

I think the chief value of the time jump was to reinforce the fact that choosing herself was not just another impulsive move that she backtracked on and messed up. We saw Rebecca make the choice and then she and all her suitors moved on and made that choice real. Given the way the season 4 storylines bounced around the 3 guys, without the passage of time I would have questioned whether she or they could stick with it.

The post-diagnosis part of season 3 and all of season 4 had a lot of flaws IMO and I often wonder if they should have just brought the conclusion in at the end of season 3. But could it have been dramatically satisfying to make the start of season 4 the point where Rebecca chose to work on music instead of romance so that we saw the year play out as story? 

[aradia22]

I didn't love it. It was a weak finale for a weak final season. I feel like they really didn't know how to end it. A stronger fourth season would have really delved into exploring Rebecca's mental illness and how she learned to manage it and then resolve the identity and romantic plotlines in a satisfying way. Instead we got some solid musical numbers about her mental illness but the show picked it up and dropped it as casually as it did in previous seasons when we just got hints that something was off and Rebecca wouldn't really acknowledge it.

Also, working through your identity issues is not quitting your job, spending most of the season operating a financially unsuccessful pretzel shop you're not even fully invested in after the initial buzz of a new project, and then deciding around the final episode that you want to write songs. In this case, I thought the concert special was a good choice because it reminded me of when the show was good and the different kinds of immensely talented people it put onscreen, and how much it made its audience feel seen and accepted. That does not mean that they stuck the landing with the finale or this fourth season. But the concert helped me to see the show as a whole and did a much better job of blurring the lines between Rebecca and Rachel. I don't believe Rebecca reached the resolution of her character arc (at least not properly) but Rachel feels self-actualized.

As for the romantic plotlines, what can I say that hasn't been said already? They botched it very badly. The finale basically only paired Josh off so Nathaniel and Greg are still open as possibilities. The show even jokingly opened it up to anyone in the room (minus Father Brah and AJ... I did find that funny). There was a way to make Rebecca choosing herself work. Instead, I think the show just wasted our time and then threw a Rebecca-narrated epilogue at us to explain what happened to all the other characters and gave us barely more than a montage to show her "training" to be a songwriter. Of course it doesn't feel satisfying to then still leave the door open to so many romantic possibilities. At least knock out 2 or more prongs of the love quadrangle. 

I feel disappointed but the concert special showed how truly talented some of the cast is. I look forward to seeing what they do in the future. And I'm kind of thinking about spending the $100 and seeing the live concert when it's in NYC.

[aradia22]

Quote

Santino's absence was really felt due to the lack of so many songs from the first two seasons. I would have loved to see We Tapped That Ass one more time.

I just thought they were emphasizing the songs from season 4. But now that you mention it, I wonder what was behind the decision to not let Skylar sing any of the Santino Greg songs. It wouldn't have been the same but I don't think their vocal ranges are that different. 

Quote

I am bummed that he didn’t end up with a boyfriend, though...

Given that Rebecca couldn't remember that his house and childhood house burned down, for all we know, he does have a boyfriend and she just didn't remember.

Quote

I just don't think the show ever had the narrative chops to really pull off the "drama" they wanted to in a believable way, and it worked a lot better as a slyly self-aware musical with an intensely likable lead, and cast.

Some day I will rewatch the show. I wonder if this will come across in hindsight. I think they wrote some really brilliant songs. But starting to think it through, I remember story/character arcs so much when they were tied to songs. Even big stuff like her sleeping with Marco slips my mind more often than not unless I make the effort to remember that it was tied to that Josh Groban song.

[aradia22]

Quote

 I noticed something in the dream sequences that was very interesting: With Greg, Rebecca realized at the wedding that she wasn't happy. With Nathaniel, they were married and about to have their first child. With Josh, their kids were around 6 or 7 before she realized she wasn't happy. So, was that a reflection of her true feelings for the guys -- i.e. she didn't love Greg and realized it right away, yet loved Nathaniel more and Josh even more, and so took longer to realize -- or was it that she didn't fool herself as much with Greg, and so realized earlier, but had such an idealized view of Josh for so long that it took years longer to realize her unhappiness (with Nathaniel somewhere in the middle)?

I thought this while watching the episode. Actually, I wrote out a post but I think it got deleted in the site update. Anyway, I don't know if it's about love but I do think those moments in the relationship were significant. With Greg, I can see her agreeing to get married and getting swept up in some planning (but not anything crazy because it doesn't seem like a big wedding, though maybe she changed into a more casual reception dress). But then she'd be around (I'm guessing since they're all strangers to us) Greg's friends and family and feel the lack of her own strong family relationships (weird that they didn't bother to fill out the scene with more of the characters we know but maybe it was a budget thing) and she'd realize she felt that emptiness. I do think it would come sooner with Greg because at least as New Greg has been written, he's negative and while he's supportive, he has his own stuff and I don't think he's capable of giving Rebecca the attention the other guys do. 

With Nathaniel, I think it makes sense that it would happen with her pregnant and him going off to work. In the dream, he made space in his life for her (thus, seeing the way there's space for Rebecca and the baby in his apartment) and he's inclined to shower her with attention and provide material comforts but also take care of her emotional well-being. But as soon as she's stuck at home on some kind of maternity leave and he's not there to be that reassuring presence, she feels the emptiness. 

With Josh, I think she'd just be so overwhelmed by all of these life events that of course it happened later. They'd get married and there would be all the wedding planning with his family and then the first pregnancy (which Josh would be very involved with) and the challenges of a new baby and then the second pregnancy and then raising two kids and sending them off to school. And finally when she could catch her breath, Rebecca would realize she still wasn't happy. 

I take @seacliffsal's point about happiness not being a constant thing but this is how I read into it as a TV show. Within the show, I think the suggestion was that these were the big moments when Rebecca would have the epiphany... and launch into a song or backslide in her progress with her mental health. 

[LisaM]

Loved seeing Dr Akopian come out for the finale of the concert.