Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Review: Can Josh Take A Leap of Faith? (Season 2 Episode 13)

I know a season finale is supposed to leave you reeling, but I am legitimately worried for the fate of our West Covina pals. And they wrote/filmed this finale without even knowing if they’d be renewed!

The temerity!

On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 Episode 13, “Can Josh Take a Leap of Faith?,” Rebecca’s dream wedding day has arrived and everything is falling into place. Of course, that’s just the first 30 seconds.

The rest of the hour is a series of heavy sighs and one “oh, boy” after another as Rebecca’s long-dormant neuroses finally come steaming up like the scariest diamonds you ever did see.

Those ceiling cracks she’s held together by duct tape and denial finally give way and get one of the darker scenes in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend history.

The episode opens with Rebecca sending her father the text she sent Josh—nearly verbatim—when she first arrived into town, a text that essentially says, “I fear rejection but I fear even more your negative reaction to my fear of rejection, so I’m going to pretend that I don’t care even though I do.”

Oh, boy.

Not the kind of text anyone should be sending to their father.

The stress of Silas Bunch’s laissez-faire, hands-off approach to being a father sends Rebecca into a sort of flashback fugue state where she remembers the first time she wore a veil for a heretofore unmentioned Robert.

In front of Josh.

Oh, boy.

We don’t learn much immediately, but judging from the fact that, again, we’ve never once heard about this guy, let’s assume Rebecca didn’t get the chance to plan a wedding.

Or maybe she did! Crazy Ex-Girlfriend revels in taking the third option, the one that no one sees coming because the mind of someone as unwell as Rebecca Bunch is not at all linear. So maybe she has been married before and we’re only just now hearing about it because it just… never came up.

Truth is, we know very little of Rebecca’s life before West Covina. She was working real hard at a New York job making dough, but it made her blue. One day she was crying a lot and you get the rest.

Childhood? Got it. Josh Chan camp days? Seen ’em. The Harvard/Yale days and the days leading up to her breakdown in New York? Absent.

So, ironically, the Robert surprise should come as no surprise. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be… momentarily startling.

Anyway, continuing on, here’s a record of each time I audibly said, “oh, boy,” “oh, dear,” or something along those lines throughout the episode.

• Darryl gets a little perturbed that WhiJo, who is taking on Greg’s role as the town cynic, doesn’t believe in marriage.
• Rebecca’s father only came to ask for money for his son’s braces.
• Rebecca goes out and buys 14 Father’s Day cards.
• Trent (whom I had forgotten about AGAIN!) bribes the Harvard records office.
• Rebecca sings a medley of previous songs (this one physically hurt).
• Trent shows up at Rebecca’s apartment with the envelope.
• Darryl suggests he and WhiJo have kids.
• Josh drives away from the wedding.
• Rebecca starts walking toward that cliff.

The implications of each of these moments is enough to send Dr. Akopian into her own fugue state. Each of these is, one some level, a terrible idea or a small representation of a much bigger unsolved issue that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has only been playing at in previous episodes.

The last bullet is where we abandon the black comedy pretense completely and veer off into full-blown #dark.

It’s a testament to a show’s brilliance when it can make its audience actually fear for the safety of the main character.

The rush of flashbacks showing us that Rebecca’s been through abandonment before suddenly makes me legitimately uncertain whether she’s going to jump (it’s in the title!), even despite knowing Season 3 was given the go-ahead.

It is a beautiful and terrifying moment that leaves me heartbroken, in disarray.

Argh! And Josh doesn’t even read the f*cking file!

The doubt alone is enough to send him flying into the arms of the priesthood? Josh!

Like, yes, if there’s that much doubt in your relationship, you probably shouldn’t get married quite as quickly, but chucking the whole thing without even discussing it with anyone? (A woman he met 2 weeks ago does not count and if you don’t know why, there’s no hope of me explaining it.)

And so we go from seeking Josh, to dating Josh, to destroying Josh.

Oh, boy.

We do, however, get one win for the evening, and that’s Rebecca finally telling off her awful father while Paula, Heather, and Valencia stood by her. Let’s hope that sticks. Heavy sigh.

An overall captivating season finale for a truly remarkable show. I am so, so very scared for next season but so, so very excited.

Musical Numbers

“What A Rush to be a Bride”

“Rebecca’s Reprise”

Sh*t Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Characters Say

I didn’t get a chance to chronicle a lot because there was honestly very little to laugh about in this episode.

• We finally get an official couple name: ReJoshecca ChaBunch. Rolls off the tongue.
• Rebecca: “Thank you so much for telling me that because I value your opinion and I cherish our friendship more than anything, but, um, you’re so wrong. You’re wrong.”
• Naomi: “If it isn’t the Westchester Sperm Machine.”
• Clerk: “You got a devious smile, you know that?” Trent: “I get that a lot. [holds smile]”
• Trent: “It took me awhile to find a big enough ‘Top Secret’ stamp at the craft store.” (I love that Trent remained a non-presence in this episode. It’s so Crazy Ex-Girlfriend of them that he technically didn’t ruin that wedding.)

What did you think of this episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? Does knowing what we know about Rebecca’s past shed some new light on everything she’s done the past two years? 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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