Recap: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Episode 2

Recap: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Episode 2: “Josh’s Girlfriend Is Really Cool!” The CW, original airdate Mon. 10/19/15

(For all Crazy Ex recaps, click here.)

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Episode 2 aired tonight, and the series continues to crack me up. Tonight’s episode, “Josh’s Girlfriend Is Really Cool” in a nutshell: Rebecca meets (and desperately tries to befriend) Josh’s girlfriend, Valencia, and we gain a little more insight into Rebecca’s relationship with Paula. Greg’s still, for whatever reason, into Rebecca, and Rebecca’s still crazy funny.

Side note: Before I dive into the recap, can I just say how happy I am to have a show with an opening sequence? Am I the only one who considers TV themes a staple from childhood? I was so disappointed when they stopped doing them for most shows. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend opening is hilarious: She’s the crazy ex-girlfriend … “That’s a sexist term!” … She’s the crazy ex-girlfriend, she’s so broken insiiiiide! (BTW, if you’re looking for the recap of the pilot episode from last week, here it is!)

At the beginning of tonight’s episode, Rebecca is still adamantly denying she moved here for Josh, and Paula’s all oh, are we still doing that? — she’s done with the charades. She just wants to help Rebecca with Josh – and become her best friend in the process. And … maybe … kind of a mother figure? The two figure out that Josh is going to Club Spider’s tonight. (Or maybe Club Spiders’. Rebecca wonders if it’s possessive or plural, and right at this point in the show, I decide I don’t care how crazy she is, I love her.) The two show up at the club that evening, Paula in her new hat (hats are the new tattoos!), and the women have a really tough time getting past the bouncer. Rebecca slips him $500, but that backfires — she must be either a cop or a drug dealer. She tries her best to dodge him and push past him, but to no avail. Rebecca vetoes Paula’s efforts to go back out and heads home for an evening of alone time. After an evening on the couch, filled with TV, snacks, and sweatpants, she realizes she’s out of her nighttime pain reliever (the stuff with the sleepytime meds in it) and heads to the mini-mart for more.

As she wanders the frozen meals section, she turns and sees Josh, by the freezer, looking hot in a cloud of cold. She’s transfixed, and is about to walk over, until a smoking-hot girl in a short dress walks over and the two start making out like crazy. When an employee asks if she needs any help, Rebecca responds, “No … I’m just watching my ex-boyfriend make out with the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.” As she walks away, she runs into Greg and a couple of his friends. (Is the whole town there?) Greg looks surprised, and maybe a bit taken aback to see her in her disheveled state.

He tells her he wants a post-mortem on the whole makeout crying session, and she tries to get out of there (as he yells after her, “Bras are in aisle one,”) but again sees Josh. When Josh sees her, he tries to distract his girlfriend to no avail. She asks, “Why is Greg talking to a homeless?” Josh introduces the women to each other, and claims that the two met at camp when they were eight. (Rebecca starts to deny it, but catches herself when she catches a look from Josh.) Valencia sticks out her hand for a pretentious handshake, and Rebecca kisses it and calls her “m’lady.” It’s awesomely awkward. Greg is so confused at this point, because he assumes the two know each other from New York; Josh wants to know how she knows Josh. Oh, what a tangled web …

Valencia tells Rebecca a very odd and pretentious story about her name, Rebecca effusively complements Valencia’s dress and body, and Valencia informs her that she’s a yoga teacher (and Rebecca loooooves yoga). As they talk about the possibility of Rebecca coming to a class, the women’s voices get higher and higher as they out-crazy each other. Josh privately asks Rebecca to keep the real summer camp story from Valencia, because she’d feel threatened. Rebecca is happy when she figures out that’s why he hasn’t texted her again about dinner, and insists that she couldn’t possibly be a threat. In fact, she and Valencia should be friends! He doesn’t agree. But, of course, once she’s back home, she goes online and friends Valencia (who accepts right away). The next morning, all she can do is tell Paula how nice and pretty Valencia is, even while Paula is prepping Rebecca for a long day of arbitration (with her favorite strawberry doughnuts and an odd-yet-heartfelt gift). Paula makes a comment that shows us that she sees Rebecca almost as sort of a daughter, and though she wants to talk about her own children, Rebecca only wants to talk about Valencia. Paula has no problem talking about Valencia, but finds Rebecca’s insistence that the two should be friends crazy, because women of equal sexual viability hate each other, even if they pretend to like each other. Although, Paula reasons, maybe being Valencia’s friend will get Rebecca more face time with Josh.

Rebecca abandons her doting friend and coworker, even though they have a huge case to work on, when she gets a notification that Valencia’s teaching a yoga class. In her baggy Harvard t-shirt, Rebecca can’t compete with Valencia’s tight shorts and sports bra, and here’s where the first song of the night comes in, when she has a weird musical fantasy about how awesome of a teacher Valencia is. The song, sung by Valencia (in Rebecca’s mind), gets progressively meaner and snarkier. After class, Valencia is condescending and refuses Rebecca’s attempts to be friendly (an invitation for coffee leads Valencia to smugly comment that she only drinks water). Rebecca offers to help her get her own yoga studio — she did go to Harvard after all, and is a real estate lawyer — and this leads to lunch later in the week. (Prior to lunch, Josh meets up with her because he’s totally freaked out about this lunch thing. He’s so concerned, and she really isn’t catching on.)

Lunch has a few awkward moments, as Valencia doesn’t like humor, which is really how Rebecca relates to the world. Rebecca keeps spacing out, thinking about how much better than her Valencia is, but then gets a text that they got the studio, so all is right for the moment. Meantime, Josh and Greg are at Home Base, discussing Josh’s trepidation about lunch. He’s still lying — “No bro, I was eight years old” — and when he figures out Greg is totally into Rebecca, he encourages him to go for her. Greg tries to reassure Josh about Rebecca and Valencia — nothing will happen, because Valencia is unable to bond with other women. Cut to Rebecca and Valencia, bonding. As they laugh over wine, Valencia confesses she doesn’t really have many female friends; women are all so jealous of her because she’s so pretty (and she “only did hand stuff” with her English teacher, by the way). When Rebecca tells Paula the next day about her cool new friend, Paula (understandably) gets irritated. The ladies have a brief scuffle where Paula calls Rebecca a liar, and Rebecca manages to offend her important clients (well, she does refer to them as “stupid clients,” so … yeah). She manages to impress the clients nonetheless, with her lawyering skills, and is super-psyched to get an invitation to go out that night to Spiders’ (which, she notes, seems to be possessive plural).

That night, Rebecca and Valencia go out with Josh and Greg to Club Spiders’. Rebecca has no issue getting in this time, as she’s with the uber-hot Valencia. (Paula is all alone, still at the office, during all of this. Poor Paula.) Greg calls Rebecca out on copying Valencia — he’s onto her, and is even more suspicious when the mini-mart employee from earlier randomly shows up at the club asks Rebecca what happened with her and her ex. Greg’s confused (and perhaps a bit crestfallen) when he says “You and Josh DATED?” and tells him nobody knows … it’s complicated. She begs him not to say anything; disgusted, he tells her to get away from him. She and Valencia dance with each other (on each other, to be more precise) and Rebecca does a lot of shots, which leads to her insanely creepy-funny song about her girl crush. (“I wanna lock you in a basement with soundproof walls and take over your identity…”)

The ladies start to kiss (just to get people’s attention) but as Rebecca is wont to do in every situation, she takes it too far and Valencia stomps away, wailing, “Why does everyone want to have sex with me?” At this point, during a futile attempt to patch things up, Rebecca accidentally spills the beans on her and Josh’s summer love, which puts all of Valencia’s defenses up. Turns out, Josh and Valencia were high school sweethearts, and were “on a break” that summer. Valencia is hurt by the lies, and evilly tells Rebecca to stay away from her and Josh. Greg, ever the sweetheart, invites her to a diner in an attempt to make her feel better, but she tells him to stop being nice to her and leaves. (And it turns out the club is owned by Mr. Spiders, so the club is Spiders’ – plural possessive. All cleared up.)

The next day at work, Paula tells Mrs. Hernandez that she feels like she’s lost Rebecca. (Side note: This is the point where I finally realized that Mrs. Hernandez, the company’s communications director, never talks. I missed that in the first episode. Nice touch.) Rebecca walks in and hugs Paula, cries on her shoulder, and tells her she’s a true friend — the only one she can trust. It’s a very mother-daughter type scene — Paula even calls Rebecca “munchkin.” The duo win the aforementioned clients’ case, and Rebecca gets the accolades as the bigshot lawyer, but remember, it was Paula who really did all the work. (She put in all of those hours while Rebecca was doing yoga and clubbing.) Paula doesn’t mention this, and in fact is so graceful, but I wonder if this may backfire at some point. There’s a mother-daughter type moment involving a “Team Rebecca” t-shirt, and then Josh of all people walks into the office!

He wants to make up for all of the trouble that his lies (and the lies he made Rebecca tell) caused, and takes her to dinner (far, far away, where Valencia can’t find them). Over dinner, he tells her that Valencia wants him to never see Rebecca again, so this is the last time they can hang out. She laughs and says lightly, “Well, we’ll see about that.” Then, immediately adopts crazy eyes and an ultra-serious demeanor, and repeats in a much colder manner, “We’ll see about that.” I’m sure this isn’t the last Josh will see of Rebecca.