Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Review: Will Scarsdale Like Josh’s Shayna Punim? (Season 2 Episode 10)

Watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is typically an exercise in patience, like watching someone you love fail constantly because of their own mistakes.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 Episode 10 “Will Scarsdale Like Josh’s Shayna Punim?” isn’t simply an exercise in patience, however. It’s a falling-off-a-treadmill-and-losing-a-tooth in patience.

A few weeks into the relationship and after the L-bomb dropped, the happy, completely problem-free couple take a trip to visit Rebecca’s family for a bar mitzvah celebration. Josh “The Puppy who is willing to do literally anything to keep you from being mad at him” Chan unfortunately imprints on Rebecca’s mother, and Rebecca spends the rest of the party moping that Josh is not moping.

I will never tire of how completely Crazy Ex-Girlfriend gets me, gets everyone. The notion of wanting an ally-lover to protect you from your family is so engrained within that idealized concept of “true love” that we can somehow still believe that it’s possible while scoffing at Rebecca’s naïvety.

But if the situation (and specifically your reaction to the situation) itself is what makes you unhappy, then no ally, no lover, no amount of armor can make that better; you must be responsible for finding your own happiness before allowing someone else to aid you in that quest (as you will aid them).

So, after a brief chat with Broadway’s favorite rabbi, the incomparable Patti Lupone, Rebecca slowly reaches the conclusion that maybe her unhappiness stems from… herself.

Unfortunately, just as she’s about to leap that most daunting hurdle, Josh swoops in like a lovable idiot and proposes, while Dr. Akopian shouts “no! stop! don’t do it!” like a Black woman watching a horror movie (or me watching any television show, I’ll be honest).

And just like that, Rebecca’s self-realization is shoved back into the closet of fantasy and delusion keep her blissfully unaware.

Dr. Akopian’s various reactions throughout that final scene were perfectly representative of every audience member who has come to care for Rebecca’s sanity:

She sits quietly, resolved to the fact that her advice will go through one of Rebecca’s ears and out the other; at this point, she’s just collecting money for that kayak.

Cue the vague curiosity when Rebecca admits that maybe she’s not all too happy with Josh, the attention when she admits that maybe putting all your happiness in one person is not a good idea, the excitement when she admits that maybe she ought to search inside herself to find happiness!!

It’s an emotional roller coaster finally pulling into the… that area where you get on the roller coaster, with Josh as the eager yet underpaid teenager unwittingly sending the coaster right back up that loop-de-loop.

On the other side of town, Darryl’s generalized anxiety disorder rears its ugly head again as he begins to feel (and rightly so) left out of the office’s goings-on.

We never really find out why Cappie — dammit — Nathaniel decides to deliberately exclude Darryl from the business of his own firm, though if I were to hazard a guess—hear me out on this one—it’s because Nathaniel sees Darryl as too much of a father figure from under whose patronage he’s trying to remove himself in order to prove his capability as a businessman.

Darryl is a father, but with his laid-back attitude, he lacks the killer instincts that make Nathaniel terrified of facing his own father, thus leading Nathaniel to unfairly project his need to dominate his father onto poor Darryl.

So there you have it. Simple.

I apologize to anyone who reads my reviews expecting something other than an armchair diagnosis from a guy who watches entirely too much television. If Crazy Ex-Girlfriend weren’t so well-written, this wouldn’t be a problem.

And so, Rebecca’s back at the starting line while everyone else moves forward. Sigh. Someone call a dentist.

Musical Numbers

“We’ll Never Have Problems Again”

“Remember That We Suffered”

Sh*t Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Characters Say

• Heather: “I started off with a hypothesis and then I backed it up with a Vox article. It’s standard scientific method.” (Heather will never not have the best lines.)
• Valencia: “Just because Josh owns all those things doesn’t mean he is all those things.”
• Father Brah: “If you think you’re going to make it through a weekend with a bunch of 70-year-olds and not get called an Oriental, you’re out of your ever-loving mind.”
• Josh: “You know what they say: it’s not how long you last, it’s how big your penis is.” (oh, boy)

What did you think of this episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? Did you use a loved one to shield you from your Trump-voting parents this past Thanksgiving? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs Fridays at 9/8c on The CW.

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