'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' boss explains that literal cliffhanger in the Season 2 finale
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, titled "Can Josh Take a Leap of Faith?"
There are a lot of twists and turns in the final episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2.
But showrunners Rachel Bloom (who also stars as Rebecca Bunch) and Aline Brosh McKenna always knew exactly what line to end with:
"Josh Chan must be destroyed."
That's right, after two seasons of obsessing over Josh Chan -- aka the reason she moved to West Covina, California -- Rebecca Bunch has had a change of heart. Why? Josh Chan left her at the altar for ... God? (He's going to become a priest.)
"We write like Tim McGraw says: Live like you're dying," McKenna told reporters at a recent screening of the finale. "We write like we're getting renewed. So we just wrote like we were getting renewed. And we knew that this season was going to end with 'Josh Chan must be destroyed.' Always. I think it was in our original pilot pitch ... psychologically speaking, hating someone is the same as loving them. Because the opposite of love is apathy. It's not hatred. It's the flip side of an obsession. So yeah, we knew that pretty early on."
By the way, Rebecca says that last damning line right after she debates jumping off a cliff overlooking the ocean at her wedding. Don't worry, Paula and the friendtopia squad (Heather and Valencia) prevent her from actually going over the edge. But it's an intense moment, to say the least.
The episode -- which McKenna wrote and directed -- is filled with the show's usual smart, comedic lines.
But there are also dark moments. Viewers learn that in Rebecca's past, she had an affair with a Harvard professor named Robert. When he ends things -- despite promising to marry her -- she lights some of his stuff on fire. In court, the judge says she must get mental health help, and later Rebecca is seen in an institution of sorts.
"It stands to reason that somebody who engages in these obsessive-romantic behaviors has done so before," McKenna said of the decision to introduce Robert. "We wanted to show another instance in her life where she had engaged in extreme behavior and that this was a core wound and that she was still recovering from it. Her mother knows about it and what you learn through her dad, it's a thing that they're not supposed to talk about. Her life plan changed, she went to Yale instead of Harvard, and then she has to keep a lid on it. There was a decision made to alter the course of her life and put that behind her. They managed to do that in the courtroom. But it's in-keeping with who she is."
Rebecca also finally lets go of her father in this episode, telling him off after attempting to forget their rocky past. He calls her crazy, and she replies "a little," another moment that suggests Rebecca is finally a little less in denial about her mental health.
"I think in some ways [Rebecca's] sort of clung to this idea that [she and her dad] were in love and that somehow he got whisked away by an evil king or something," McKenna said of the show's dysfunctional father-daughter relationship. "And I think she has to come to terms with the fact that he chose to leave her because he is, as Dr. Akopian says, a negligent parent and an incompetent parent."
As far as Rebecca's revenge plan for Josh going forward?
"I don't think she necessarily needs to make a secret of it because obviously he did something publicly terrible to her, which he hadn't really done in the past," McKenna said. "So we'll see. The town and everyone knows that she is now someone who has been left at the altar. And that's a big deal. For our show, we deal a lot with tropes, so that's another trope, the left at the altar is one of the tropes."
One thing's for sure: A "new persona leaps into [Rebecca's] mind and it's the scorned woman."
Season 3, come sooner.
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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has been renewed for a third season on The CW and will return later this year.
Saba was a Los Angeles-based reporter who covers all things digital entertainment, including YouTube, streaming services and digital influencers. Prior to that, she spent two years at the Los Angeles Times covering entertainment for the Calendar and Company Town sections. Saba grew up in Santa Monica and graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in journalism and B.A. in political science. When not reporting, she is usually binge watching shows online or looking for new coffee shops to frequent.
