Recap: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Episode 15: Josh Has No Idea Where I Am!

Recap – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Episode 15: “Josh Has No Idea Where I Am!” – The CW, original airdate Mon. 3/21/16
(For all Crazy Ex recaps, click here.

Congratulations to Rachel Bloom and the entire Crazy Ex-Girlfriend cast and crew on being picked up for a second season! (More about that here.)

📝 The recap:

When we left off last week, Rebecca was getting on a plane and the assumption was that she was going to Hawaii anyway — even though she had just overheard him tell Valencia he doesn’t love Rebecca.

This episode starts off with Paula (and Mrs. Hernandez) walking into Rebecca’s apartment — Paula bought back Rebecca’s couch for $80 — and telling the movers that Rebecca’s on her way to Hawaii.

But Rebecca isn’t going to Hawaii. She’s going back to New York, because her life in SoCal is “nothing but a pile of garbage and turds.” She admits to Dr. Akopian that she moved to West Covina for Josh, and when the doctor is surprised that nobody saw through her story and her excuses, she tells her, “You lie to yourself well enough, you can convince other people too.” Word. As she tells the shrink that love never works out for her, and she’s horrible at all relationships, she realizes that the doctor knows more about her than she should from the one therapy session she actually attended. When the flight attendant puts her arm through the doctor to hand Rebecca a snack, she screams. “Are you a ghost?” she asks? No, turns out she downed some sleeping pills and a bloody mary, so the doctor she’s talking to is actually a dream ghost. The doctor delivers her dream ghost news musically (of course), along with some help from other dream ghosts on the plane (guest stars Ricki Lake and Glee‘s Amber Riley).

On the first stop of their Christmas Carol-type spectral vacation (sans Christmas), they visit Rebecca at the onset of puberty, the first time she visited her dad in Santa Fe. (The first time she made a rash decision to win back the man she loved.) Dad didn’t know she was coming — surprise! — and Rebecca begs him not to tell her mom. She saved up her money, lied and said she was going to choir camp, and she’s prepped for a good time. And so’s dad, or so we think. After some promises of a wonderful visit and future holidays, mom shows up. Grown-up Rebecca has assumed her whole life that her mom ripped her away from her dad, but in this vision we see how wonderfully protective her mom really was. It turns out that dad was kind of a douche, and he didn’t have time for Rebecca. He didn’t need anyone holding him back, and actually called her mom to pick her up. Mom never told Rebecca what really happened, not as a favor to dad, but to for Rebecca’s sake.

Meanwhile, everyone back in West Covina is trying to figure out where Rebecca is. Paula’s hanging out in Rebecca’s bathrobe, going through her mail (!) when Josh shows up. Confusion abounds — Paula wonders why he’s not in Hawaii, he wonders how Paula even knows he was supposed to be there, and he’s been texting and calling Rebecca with now answer. Darryl shows up, too, because Rebecca didn’t show for work.

The ghost doc takes Rebecca through another life memory, wherein Rebecca (who’s been cast as Fish #3 in a musical adaptation of Moby Dick) meets Peter (who’s playing a deck swabber) but winds up falling for and sleeping with the director, Warren. (Her face as she and ghost Dr. Akopian watch her having bad college sex is pretty funny.) Warren post-coitally upgrades her role to Fish #1, but when she finds out they’re not exclusive and he’s sleeping with another woman, she quits the play. Rebecca assumes that the lesson here has to do with picking the wrong men all the time, but in reality the lesson deals with her passion — not for men, but for the love of music and theater: the passion that has sustained her for so much of her life.

Everyone back at her place is still trying to figure out where she is, when Greg comes over. He talks a little sense into everyone else, who seem to have gone off the deep end wanting to call her mom or the police. Paula, being Rebecca’s BFF, knows her password and goes into Rebecca’s computer to find the truth: she’s en route to NYC, where she’s got a job offer and is planning on looking at sublets. Ghost doc, who’s pointing out that Rebecca might have not just one special person, but many special people, takes her to her apartment to show her how much everyone loves her. Rebecca’s happy to see everyone (and a bonus check to fix her financial woes) and listens to the nice things everyone has to say about her. She’s helped Darryl change his life, helped Paula with her marriage, and helped Josh get a job. (Greg says she’s just caused problems for him, though.) Ghost doc asks Rebecca to contrast their sad reactions to the horribly elated reactions her departure elicited in NYC (from Audra Levine and her ilk). West Covina is the first place that Rebecca actually forged real relationships, and everyone cares about her so much. Rebecca points out that Greg doesn’t care if she lives or dies, and ghost Doctor Akopian freezes time so Rebecca can look at Greg’s phone. She does, and sees that all of the calls he made before he knew she was going to NYC were to hospitals and morgues (because he cares, not because he hopes she’s dead). After a brief conversation on how middle age ladies find Greg hot, Dr. Akopian points out that Rebecca has been so obsessed with Josh that she’s lost sight of everything and everyone else in her life. “Wake up, Rebecca,” the doctor says, as more of a life wakeup call than anything, but Rebecca literally wakes up and confuses the hell out of the real, non-ghost Dr. Akopian, who’s been binge-watching Broad City while Rebecca sleeps. (Rebecca thanks the other dream ghosts, too, which only adds to the confusion.)

As the group stands in her apartment, trying to figure out what they can do to convince her to stay in West Covina, she comes home. Josh, who’s somehow totally blind to Rebecca’s feelings for him, is looking through pictures of the two of them together. Rebecca tells Paula she’s back in West Covina for good, and thanks Greg for being there (complete with a big, confusing-to-Greg hug). Josh is clearly disturbed by the photos, and as Paula leaves the apartment (still in the bathrobe), he asks Rebecca why she has all of these photos of the two of them. “Are you in love with me?” CLIFFHANGER.

I can’t wait to see how she answers this one next week.

💬 Best quotes from tonight:

Paula (referencing the couch that she bought back from the guy who paid extra for Rebecca to lie on it naked): Ugh, what is this stain? Oh man, if she sits on that she might have triplets.

Rebecca (excited, upon realizing that Dr. Akopian is a dream ghost): There’s a ton of stuff I want to do. One: I want to haunt Hitler and get him to rethink a few things. Two: I wanna see what Oprah does in her bathtub and three, I want to go to the nearest planet with intelligent life and see a play.

Darryl, to Paula, who just realized where Rebecca is: Has she been catfished by a drug smuggler? … I’m watching this TV show called Catfished by a Drug smuggler, it’s on the new cat fishing channel. Oh, my God, it’s so good, I binged the entire thing.

Dr. Akopian, regarding Rebecca’s comment that middle age ladies really dig Greg: Oh yes. I wish he was a search term on porn sites.

🎼 The song (just one this week):

Dream Ghost (with the guest stars!)

All photos © The CW Network, LLC.