"Because life is a gradual series of revelations that occur over a period of time. It's not some carefully crafted story. It's a mess and we're all gonna die." ~ The End of the Movie feat. Josh Groban
Spoiler Alert! This entry assumes that the reader has already seen Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 and this is NOT a review.
I first figured that this show has something special going on the moment I saw one of their musical numbers, Sexy French Depression. There's a lot of truth packaged in this satirical comedy drama series that could just whoop you in the ass every time you encounter a scene that is way too familiar. Even the characters of this show may sometimes seem ridiculous but they are just too real. This gave me the idea to explore my thoughts and feelings by watching the third season on LSD at 125ug. As a result, I can say that you will either spiral down into a profound realization followed by an involuntary ugly cry or you will laugh so hard until you ugly cry which I both did. Although, I didn't get any solid visuals, this entire season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has provided me another angle into the world of complicated people, messed up relationships and inexplicable randomness of life.
To better explain you how this entire season made my recent 9-hour trip, I will share you some of my personal highlights and what popped out of my warped brain.
The Nathaniel x Rebecca Chemistry
I admit I'm a sucker for rom-coms and I get easily hooked on the regular bad boy meets badass girl, fights a lot, gets to know each other in the process and ended up falling in love kind of plot but all the cheeky banter and literal slap of straight forward reality in this show is a breath of fresh air. If you are so used to the normal he-gets-the-girl happy endings like me, then I understand why you also felt semi-disappointed with some of the twist and turns of this series.
We all know that Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) is so unstable, dealing with her borderline personality disorder but all of the other characters have their own equally messed up personality too including Nathaniel Plimpton (Scott Michael Foster). Isn't he just super adorbs though? He doesn't seem to be shaken by Rebecca's zany disposition, as a matter of fact, he's more attracted to her for who she is now more than the past season. Although during the first episode, when Rebecca threw him off with some cold hard truth about why he suddenly grew some twinkly feelings for her presumably caused by her "lack of interest and cold unavailable vibe", he couldn't resist her offer on the second episode when she asked him for help to destroy Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III). That entire musical number, Strip Away My Conscience, following what Rebecca said to Nathaniel as she stood by his doorstep "I want your hard, throbbing ruthlessness" which he responded in a fed-up tone "who talks like that?" cracked me up pretty hard. I mean it was hilarious for me since I talk like that sometimes, but only in my head, especially when I'm trying to hold back on being sarcastic or when I'm messing around with some random Tinder match that I never intend on meeting. Soon after, I entered one of those trap thoughts where I got stuck in a looping idea (may or may not be based on previous actual life events) that I began to question whether I should be outright honest about something, embrace the sarcasm regardless of the consequences or just stick to being cautious about words coming out of my mouth (even if I know I'm right) just to avoid hurting people's feelings.
About half-way through the second episode, I was totally peaking and yes, I was visualizing that I was one of the dancers whispering "so sad, so pathetic, weak and sad" on the background. It was funny at some point I realized I was actually snapping my vegetable fingers to the rhythm and caught myself smiling the whole time as if it was the first time I was learning how to snap my fingers. Also, I noticed that this show is a huge illustration of my principle to never get into that ugly cycle of dissing people who like me as I know how it feels like to be harshly rejected and dissed for merely liking someone as if you've done something horrible that sometimes can abruptly end your friendship with this person. These notions show how easy it is to associate and branch out your thoughts based on the material that you are watching until you spiral down to some deep rooted issues when you're traveling with Lucy. It is quite scary at first to let your LSD influenced thoughts wander around ideas coming from a TV show but I strongly think that every episode of this series brings out a lot of untapped life lessons so close to home that calling it "reality" seems like an understatement.
As their story progressed with the on again off again relationship and series of sexual encounters between the two of them, I can't help but tap my very own experience with this kind of set up in my memory palace. All of a sudden, I found myself into a spiraling blackhole that was a pattern of my past romantic engagements. It was a series of battles between myself pulling away versus me getting sucked back in on repeat. Although I'm not suffering from any mental illness and I haven't gone to such extremes as Rebecca, some of her behaviors as well as emotions brought out by it are too familiar not to recognize. To be completely honest, it made me feel self-conscious about how I handled similar situations in the past even though I know there's nothing I can do about it now. On a lighter note, an hour of analyzing past events, reflecting on my actions and decisions in life based on what I have watched has led to a reassuring feeling that everything does eventually fall into place if you put it into perspective.
Towards the end of the season, Rebecca's decision to stay single to focus on her well being is completely relatable. In my opinion, this is one of the best representations of how one decides on whether or not they should be in a relationship because they want to and not because someone told them to. She thought it's the best thing to do despite what Dr. Akopian and Dr. Shin told her during therapy which I think was great in terms of exercising her freedom. She may have took Dr. Shin's advice to another level in that song Without Love You Can Save The World but it definitely makes sense to me. All those time and effort in The Sexy Getting Ready Song to look pretty for a big date just to find yourself alone again after you've given what they wanted from you. Those painstaking hours waiting for the next Love Kernel to drop, only to realize you are stretching the idea of it just to keep what you think is real. All hilarity aside on these brilliantly written music videos, precious time is indeed being wasted on things that may seem important but completely unnecessary. I'm no expert in neither love nor relationships but I have learned to embrace the solitude over the years and with or without love, there's no better feeling in the world than to have inner peace.
The "Fake Intervention"
I've never experienced being a subject of an intervention or participated in one but when Rebecca's friends came over to her place after they discovered her criminal past and started an impromptu intervention, I couldn't agree more to what Rebecca had to say to each one of them except for Valencia (that was just mean). Nothing against their intention but I think they didn't do it correctly and I definitely agree with what Nathaniel said about making Rebecca feel cornered instead of feeling supported. She retaliated with such hostility and a whole lot of veracity that the vibe went completely ominous.
Interventions could potentially make or break someone's spirit in helping themselves mostly to get through some form of addiction. I'm not a huge fan of it especially if it's being done on a whim without proper guidance from a professional which led me to this train of thought - "Although I'm so aware that nobody is perfect, the more I trip, the more solid my understanding on how complicated and messy people's lives can get, the more I let go of petty shit that I usually hold myself accountable for and the less I become hard on myself." I'm pretty sure most of us had done something in the past that we are not super proud of but I wouldn't mind if someone would bring up mine. The fact that I'm still here after a horrible or an embarrassing experience is already an indication that I have survived that nightmare, I have gotten over it and the people involved have probably moved on or might have even forgotten about it. Those are nothing but mean old memories to me now that even if someone would have dug up a entire cemetery of dirt about me, I wouldn't make such a big deal out of it, but that's just me though. Of course, just like any experience, guilt and shame are different on a personal level depending on the kind of skeletons you hide in your closet. I'm telling you, yes it may damage the reputation that you have worked so hard to build, you might potentially lose some people in your life and it could really suck for a while but the way I see it, it's a good learning opportunity, it's another way of filtering the people that you surround yourself with and it fucking makes life so interesting. If everything is so damn perfect, then nobody would strive for anything anymore.
The trip doesn't end there, in fact, it intensified during the part when Rebecca decided to go back to stay with her mother. Naomi Bunch is such a tough cookie but just like any parent she's nothing but human. I can't blame her impulsive act of drugging her kid after learning that Rebecca is already considering taking her own life. Also, since she has gone through full on psychotic breaks with Rebecca in the past, she immediately assumed that it's safe to just give her drugs to manage her anxiety. As horrible as it sounds, she seemed genuinely concerned about Rebecca but she just didn't do it right. My whole take away on this, with or without intervention, friends and family are just humans too; hence, they could be wrong about you or you could be wrong about them.
Rebecca Bunch's Attempted Suicide
I was somewhat expecting that Rebecca will have some sort of a breakdown after Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III) left her on their wedding day. Given her mental condition and crumbling relationship with people around her, it's just a matter of time before she pulls something like that. Analyzing the situation as a non-violent, non-suicidal person, I take this as another lesson to never assume the worst in people even in difficult times.
Suicide is a serious topic that people still find difficult to talk about up to this day and age. Despite all the support from the governments as well as non government organizations' and all the programs (small screen including Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, big screen, online, etc.) available to us that are trying to send the right message regarding this matter, the number of cases are still increasing (in correlation to the increasing population). Immediately, I thought about how easy it is for that idea to slip through one's mind when crisis strikes. During one of my routine breast self-exam, I found a small pea-sized lump under my left boob after which I entered a roller coaster of emotions within the next 20 mins. It was quite a ride with all the extreme thoughts in my head. Upon touching the lump, I felt so terrified and immediately assumed it was cancer. Over the next few minutes, anxiety flooded my veins as I thought about all the pain that I will go through if it's really cancer. Anxiety turned into self-pity in just a matter of seconds when I thought about all the things that I'm not going to be able to do if I'm sick. Finally, it hit me, all the worries that flew by my mind boiled down into one question, "Do I want to go through all that just to die eventually or be the fucking captain of my ship and just skip to the end?" May I remind you that all this happened in just 20 minutes after I felt a lump under my breast. I haven't even gone to the doctor yet to get it checked. My point is, I thought about those things even if I know for sure that I'm definitely not suicidal and I don't have any mental illness, but what more those people who have suicidal tendencies.
Another thing that crossed my mind during the trip was how quick it is for someone to decide it's time to go so as to change minds. In just few short seconds, Rebecca took all those pills one by one like it was a simple task that you just want to get over with. To paint the picture, I'm not scared of dying but I'm scared of suffering before I die. Seeing how easy and painless it is to take a bunch of pills to put you to sleep until you die sort of switched on a light bulb above my head. All of a sudden, it sounded way better than getting hit by a bus or getting a heart attack, you know what I mean? However, when I thought about all the near death situations that I have experienced before, the pain that I felt with every stitch in my body, heartaches from all my failures and disappointments in life, I realized, I'm already suffering and I'm handling it quite well. This circles back to what I said on our first podcast episode that life is a precious gift and being alive is one of the most important indicators that you still have time to do whatever it is that you want to do or change whatever you want to change. I knew Rebecca will somehow survive the suicide attempt because it's barely the end of the season but I was actually surprised that she called for help. She had a last minute change of heart and saved herself by pressing the help button to call someone's attention. It was such a clear message for me that it's never too late to seek help.
Josh Chan's Career Struggles
Josh Chan's confusing career shifts is another thing that I can relate to and guess what, so as billions of people. Now, I'm not saying we're stupid I mean let's face it, Josh isn't the brightest character in the show but what I meant was Josh represents the struggle of not finding what he is really passionate about to build his career around and stick to it. Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be in a career path or even land a job that they actually love; hence, the struggle.
The moment Josh left "priest school" I figured, this is his issue in life. How I visualize it was like he was trying to pick a number coded lock and testing all the combinations. It's hard to know for sure that a certain career path is the one that you really want unless you've tried it and you know that it fits your personality. Skills can be learned but passion is what drives you to pursue something. Sure, I have my fair share of struggles when it comes to finding the right career path. Graduated Bachelors Degree in Finance, I processed bills and invoices as my first job and ended up as a Technical Recruiter after 9 months. Three years later, I got lucky meeting a very successful venture capitalist and gave me an opportunity to work with his projects focusing on the administrative side of things. I didn't dream of becoming an admin of course, it's boring as fuck but I'm good at it and it pays the bills, so I do tons of personal projects on the side. Most of which are related to tech, music and arts. Certainly, it's not just finding what you want, it's also about honing your skills to fit in the industry that you chose. Then it became clear to me, there are billions of people with different tastes and opinions about gazillion ideas that are being passed around the world. This thought among other randomness of things gave me the idea to just put myself out there, explore possibilities, and share my thoughts in a form of a podcast much so in writing regardless if it looks cool or not as someone, somewhere might appreciate it. Towards the end of the season, Josh found himself pursuing his career as a DJ which I hate to say but he is most likely to fail if he keeps on compromising his playlist. Everything worked out in the end when Valencia embraced her being a townie and Josh seemed happy which took me to my final realization; to embrace the change and navigate from there. Things aren't always going to be pretty but know that you have the power to turn your life around and just remember the good things.