Rebecca's the crazy ex-girlfriend. In season one, she would object. But now, maybe not. The actions that she takes in this week's episode, however, definitely makes the title fitting.
S3E4 "Josh's Ex-Girlfriend is Crazy"
The episode begins right where the last one ended. Rebecca's friends are concerned about her, but Rebecca doesn't see that, she seems them ganging up against her. Rebecca lashes out at them, and it is absolutely heartbreaking. She then leaves, and ignores their calls as she goes to a youth hostel, and becomes friends with a very funny Danish tourist named Jarl.
The episode then becomes like a horror movie. She torments Josh, which is fairly entertaining. After a night of tormenting Josh, she explains to Jarl what she is doing. She is hilariously very excited about it, and when Jarl reminds her that in these movies the monster always dies, Rebecca insists that her movie has a different ending: "I'm independently financed, in my mind."
However, Rebecca's aimless-seeming horror movie comes to an end when Josh confronts her at the carnival. Defeated, she goes to a bar, the one Greg would sometimes go to, which leads to a mention of Greg. It was great for Greg to get mentioned, and when Rebecca realizes that the call she gets from Greg was a butt dial, she is devastated, and Rachel Bloom portrays this excellently.
I did expect Rebecca to go have sex with a guy at the bar when she first showed up there. I would not have guessed in a million years though that she would sleep with Greg's dad. Afterword, she has no idea what to do anymore. As she says earlier in the bar, "I don't know what story I'm in anymore."
Rebecca thinks of herself as the protagonist in a story, so she constantly needs to define what that story is. For a long time, it was a love story. Briefly, it was a horror movie. Now, she has no clue what her story is, in what story does the main character have sex with her ex's dad? That's why, after not taking any of Paula's calls throughout the episode, she accepts the call from her mother, and says that she will go back home.
Rebecca definitely takes most of the focus in the story, but there is also the rest of the episode, where her friends search for her. As they do so, Darryl brings up having a baby with White Josh again. This causes Hector to leave them alone, and he walks around with Heather. Hector and Heather have a great chemistry, and I like that the show is going for something here, after hinting at it in the previous season finale. In the end of the episode, Darryl and White Josh talk about this again, and it's great that there's no easy solution here, it's realistic and believable.
A few other thoughts about the episode: priest school/pre-school might be the best running joke on this show. It's up there at least. And I don't get why Paula and her family would go to the carnival. That didn't seem logical. And the "end credits" were very funny. I had to watch a second time to really enjoy them though, because they were going on at the same time as other things.
Additionally, Valencia doesn't really seem to have much of a role in this story anymore. She has done hardly anything so far this season, and it caused me to realize that her only role last season was to be part of the female friend group. It seems that Gabrielle Ruiz was only upgraded to the main cast because of how much they liked her as a performer, not because of how much purpose Valencia serves in the story.
And now for my thoughts on the songs of the episode...
"Scary Scary Sexy Lady": This was enjoyable, and it transitions the show into the style of a horror movie. Also, the appearance of an oxygen tank during this foreshadows Rebecca sleeping with Greg's dad.
"The End of the Movie": I absolutely loved this song. The lyrics were all really good and the style made perfect sense with how the episode was set up.
This was mostly a strong episode. Rebecca's tormenting Josh isn't the most entertaining, and there were other small flaws, but mostly a great episode.
Score: 9.5/10
What did you think of "Josh's Ex-Girlfriend is Crazy"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!