Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Review: Josh is a Liar (Season 3 Episode 3)

First, I must gush. Scott Michael Foster as Nathaniel Plimpton singing “I Go to the Zoo” and Vella Lovell as Heather Davis singing “The Moment is Me” make Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 3, “Josh is a Liar,” worth watching.

Both performances deliver fresh satire without unnecessary garnish.

“I Go to the Zoo” is a testament to the balanced and vast talent of Foster, and also to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s commitment to detoxifying masculinity.

Each of Nathaniel’s movements calls out the “in da club” player mannerisms that cascade across the screen during Drake and other pop-culture stars’ music videos. Except Nathaniel gestures to kangaroos, who “are my boys cuz you’re nocturnal.”

Sure, it is silly. But it is also meaningful, because a powerful, white, romantic lead character is rejecting the toxic trope of drowning his rejection sorrows with sex, violence, or drugs.

Instead, Nathaniel finds comfort in empathizing with animals and appreciating the fun amenities that a family-friendly place offers. He notes how he loves the monkeys because their eyes are just like his.

Also, as a San Diego native, I can confirm that San Diego’s zoo really is just a better zoo.

When Nathaniel takes the final slurp out of his over-sized soda at the end of “I Go to the Zoo,” I find myself giddy. I feel the thrill of relating to a character who lives in a high-pressure, highly-sexualized world, but finds the greatest amount of pleasure in child-like delights.

Please don’t leave the show Nathaniel. Please.

Heather Davis is done, done, done, done, done (read to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance). If she finishes her final college course, which it seems like she will as she can’t bring herself to murder her pet starfish Estrella, she will be graduated by force and no longer able to claim “I’m a student.”

The musical theater ballad that Heather begrudgingly performs hits all the right notes. “The Moment is Me” takes on the “stepping out into my future” genre and knocks it out with an eye-roll, a meh, and a face that’s clearly vomiting in its mouth.

Heather brings the viewers with her on her resistant journey when she breaks the fourth wall and more or less narrates the experience of singing the song while she’s doing it.

The choreographed number, with two background dancers that look like they were plucked from a So You Think You Can Dance modern performance, captures the ridiculousness of glorifying a person’s first steps into adulthood. In reality, not being a student can be scary and sucky and entirely un-inspirational. We get you, Heather, we get you.

There are many other incredible moments and lines, but the painful and gut-punching journey that Rebecca continues on threatens to ruin all of it.

Honestly, I’m confused. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is wildly creative and witty. The writers are clearly brilliant. So what am I supposed to think about the horror-show that is Rebecca Bunch?

On Season 3 Episode 3, “Josh is a Liar,” we see Rebecca do a series of crazy things. At least, that’s how the show is referencing Rebecca and her actions: crazy, loony, dumb-dumb.

But that’s a problem for me. Because they aren’t just crazy. They are abusive, criminal, and noxious.

Rebecca exhibits behavior that in the real world is terrifying and would warrant a person getting a restraining order. Stalking and online harassment, a moderate way to describe what we see Rebecca do to Josh here, are serious offenses. So why, on a show that is so smart, isn’t Crazy Ex-Girlfriend taking them seriously?

Instead, the audience stays locked in a framework of considering these actions and issues as a product of Rebecca’s mental health. It is Rebecca’s anxiety, her delusions, her narcissism.

The thing is, it’s not about her. I need a t-shirt, “It’s Not About You, Rebecca.”

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is threading a very tenuous message when it makes it seem like all of Rebecca’s “crazy” is somehow an exclusively internal struggle.

Nope. Stalking is external. Sexual harassment is external. Slander is external. Online bullying is external.

I care about mental health and the many truisms about privilege and anxiety that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is giving us. But it is unacceptable, and perhaps irresponsible, to add too much levity to actions that can lead to drastic outcomes, such as suicide.

And that is heavy. My stomach is in knots seeing Rebecca ruin Josh, disrespect Paula, manipulate Darryl, condescend to Heather, and exploit Nathaniel.

That is not even to bring up a glaring issue Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has not even paused on: Nathaniel is Rebecca’s boss, and it is an abuse of power and unprofessional that they are sleeping together.

Not. Okay. Playing “Oh My God I Think I Like You” does not cover-up this egregious misstep on Nathaniel’s part.

When the episode closes with the #squad rushing through Rebecca’s door, I believe they are there to help, not deride. I want that for Rebecca, and each person suffering from mental health challenges.

Yet, it is not justice. More importantly, it is not a good reflection of what it looks like when a person’s refusal to treat their mental health issues end up exploding all over the people who love her.

I can’t concentrate on or truly enjoy the other AMAZING characters, jokes, songs, and over-the-top detailed features of the show, because it’s just so wrong.

I feel sad.

Rebecca continues to drain every emotional resource offered to her, and we have to keep watching it. I find it literally painful.

It is, of course, not beyond making into a meaningful and important message. I am just not sure at this point I trust Crazy Ex-Girlfriend to go there.

My fear is that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is exactly what its title indicates. That it’s a show about an individual’s internal struggles with anxiety, delusion, depression, and narcissism, with other characters playing the chorus line to that one individual.

It’s not going to work unless the show takes a step back and really helps us see how mental health struggles do not live only within the confines of the mind of one person.

Even with some serious struggle points, the episode has fantastic bits.

Magic Moments Amid the Madness:

• Rebecca counsels herself with the funny quip: “You need to let sleeping Chans lay.”
• When Paula is imagining herself and Rebecca on the magazine “The Corset,” she pictures Lady Justice holding the scales with no shirt on.
• Heather took men’s ice hockey twice and is not sorry about it. What a rush, indeed.
• George persists in asking to share his pottery in the lobby. George adds so much fun and levity. It would be great to see him get a romantic or other significant plot line.
• Nathaniel Plimpton recognizes his own privilege when he says, “I’m a white ten. I don’t get rejected. I get approved for loans.”
• Paula starts to realize Rebecca’s dishonesty because Josh would never listen to NPR, unless it had pictures.
• I love the entire plotline where Darryl finds out, years late, that Michael Crichton is dead. His sincere “Noooo!” when he realizes Rebecca isn’t kidding is heart-warming and perfectly played.

What did you think of this episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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

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