It's back! This show is a life-changing, beautiful, incredible journey and I'm so happy that we get to see the story play out as the creators intended, even though I'm bummed this will be the final season. Let's hop to!
Cons:
The only thing I ever have to complain about with this show is that I want more of some of the side characters. So while everything in this episode was golden, we didn't spend any time with Valencia and her girlfriend, we didn't see White Josh going about his life journey, etc. etc. But that's not really a problem of bad writing or anything. It's just that when I watch this show I'm so enamored with every little moment that we get, that I find myself constantly craving more. Not a bad problem to have!
Pros:
I want to talk about the technical proficiency of this show for a second. The songs are just so excellently produced. "No One Else is Singing My Song" is a song that relies in part on tight vocal harmonies not just to make the song sound pretty, but to carry the punchline to a multi-layered joke. And if these talented vocalists, the sound mixers and editors, etc. didn't do a good job of creating these harmonies, the joke would fall flat. In "What's Your Story?" we see how the use of light can make or break a song, and there's an excellent moment towards the end when Rebecca flinches away from a spotlight and breaks the fourth wall, adding another layer to the title of the song itself - this is a story about someone telling their story, and she's not doing it right.
And let's talk about titles a little more broadly, too: this episode, and the episodes coming up, do away with the naming convention of having the name "Josh" or "Nathaniel" in every title. Now, we get "I Want to Be Here" and next week's "I Am Ashamed." So on and so forth. There's a great deal of power in that decision. For one thing, Rebecca's "I Want to Be Here" is about wanting to be in jail to serve her penance, but it's also a pretty hopeful moment given the fact that she survived a suicide attempt in the last season.
Let's talk about privilege a little bit, too. Rebecca wants to hear her fellow prisoners' life stories, only to come out of the experience realizing that she has an enormous amount of privilege, and that choosing to be in jail as a symbol of her penance is a really gross thing to do. Her friends tell her this, but she also comes to the realization on her own. There's a bit part where a white prisoner tells us that she got two months for stealing a sweater, and a black prisoner remarks that she got three years for the same crime. We don't need any more time spent than that to get the point that this whole system is completely screwed up, and Rebecca, while suffering marginalization for being a woman and Jewish, is still undeniably more privileged than virtually anyone else in jail with her. This, all by itself, would be a good point to make. But as is always true with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, they take it one step further. Valencia yells at Rebecca, telling her to stop whining. It's good that she's realized her privilege, but now what's she going to do about it? She can use her advantages to help people, or at the very least she can shut up about how hard it is to be aware of your privilege. This was such a great message for liberal, progressive folk in general. God knows it's a lesson I could certainly be reminded of every once in a while.
Okay. Now for the boys. Both Nathaniel and Josh have "backsliding" moments in this episode, just as Rebecca does, where they fall back into selfish patterns and look for an easy fix for their complicated problems. Josh wonders if maybe he has some sort of disorder that would explain his behavior. Heather and Hector tell him he's being selfish and needs to place responsibility on his own shoulders, but Josh wants that "easy fix" that Rebecca sang about back in "A Diagnosis." And Nathaniel is back to pushing himself to unhealthy extremes, or "emotional cutting" as George puts it, as he embarks on a "Death Wish Adventure" out in the woods without supplies or directions. But by the end of the episode, Josh has decided to see a therapist (Dr. Akopian's husband!) and Nathaniel has reached out to George and allowed his friend to help him. It doesn't mean they've both solved their problems. Recovery and actual improvement take a long, long time, and the journey never really ends. It's something we're learning with Rebecca, too.
As a side note, I want to comment on George for a second as well. He was a character introduced as a running gag, and now we get to a point where when Nathaniel shakes him awake in his tent and asks for sausages, and George smiles in delight, there's a real emotional investment and joy in the moment. I love that this show can do such magical things with such apparently one-note jokes or characters. Valencia is one of the biggest examples of this, but it happens with so many of the characters on the show. George is just some guy. He doesn't have to go out of his way to befriend Nathaniel, who treats him pretty harshly most of the time, but he decides to put someone else's happiness ahead of his own comfort every once in a while. And he's genuinely pleased to be able to help Nathaniel learn about himself. How adorable!
There's this small part of me that felt annoyed that this first episode of Season Four turned back the promises of last year's finale. Rebecca's cathartic moment of "pleading responsible" is revealed for what it truly is - a cop-out and a way for Rebecca to use symbolism to try and dramatically right her wrongs in one fell swoop. But then I think to myself - of course. If we've learned anything from watching this show, it's that the big, dramatic "aha" moments aren't really what changes a person and helps them get better. Rebecca's suicide attempt was a huge moment that dramatically altered her life, sure, but it's not the first time she's done that, and it didn't magically turn a new page for her last time either. It's her decision to do her homework, to try and take risks while not going overboard. It's her decision to attend her therapy (both with her group and one-on-one) and rely on her friends for support. These aren't big moments, they are the every-day things that you need to do if you want to really grow as a person. So here we see that Rebecca "pleading responsible" wasn't a cathartic reset. It was just yet another attempt at a reset. And now Rebecca, who doesn't get to stay in jail, because Trent wakes up and confesses the truth, needs to find the way to improve organically and over time. She starts by volunteering at the jail with free legal advice.
Oh, and we must not forget Paula. The end of last season saw her feeling an intense sense of betrayal upon realizing how often Rebecca has manipulated and used her. Here, we see that Paula is desperate to help Rebecca get out of jail, and ultimately she succeeds in this goal. How? Well, Trent wakes up from his coma and confesses the truth about his stalking and his attempt on Nathaniel's life. But here's where it gets interesting - just as Josh, Nathaniel, and Rebecca all have moments of backsliding but ultimately seem to make a step in the right direction, we see Paula threatening to blackmail Trent unless he comes clean. This is a big step backwards for Paula, who has been worried that her sketchy behavior would hurt her chances to become a lawyer. While we see the others take at least a token step towards a better version of themselves (Nathaniel is honest about his feelings for Rebecca, Josh goes to therapy, Rebecca decides to help people), with Paula we see the step backwards without the hope for a course correction. I'm really curious to see how this goes!
Nathaniel and Rebecca's scene at the end gave me so many complicated emotions and I'm at this point where I genuinely don't know if they're going to be together when this show ends, and I also don't know how to feel about that. What I love so much about their scene together is that it encapsulates so much of what is wonderful and what is damaging about them as a couple. They genuinely love each other so much, and you can see that. Nathaniel is so head-over-heals it's almost devastating to see. When Rebecca says she can't go to Hawaii because she's still working some stuff out, Nathaniel says she's being silly and selfish. This is an unkind and maybe a bit unfair thing to say, but the bigger point here is that Nathaniel is not totally wrong. Rebecca has to learn to be middle of the road. It's a lesson she started last season and she's got to keep going with it now. She's learned that she is privileged and that she needs to own her past bad behavior. Volunteering to help women in jail is an absolutely wonderful idea and hopefully she can do some real good in someone's life. But all of that doesn't mean that she can't go on an expensive vacation with the man she loves. The two aren't mutually exclusive. I think it's a lesson Rebecca and Nathaniel are both going to have to learn if they want any chance of personal fulfillment, let alone a stable and honest relationship with one another.
I could talk about this show indefinitely. It's so good. It's funny, and charming, and real, and sometimes harsh. I'm so glad this final season has a longer episode order than the last couple of seasons, because I don't want to say goodbye too quickly!
9/10
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