You know another thing that's excellent about this show? It's relatable as fuck.
Cons:
I mean... I'm bummed about Heather and Valencia? I assume they're not being written out of the show, but I also assume we'll be seeing less of them, and of Hector, and that is a big dang bummer.
Pros:
Let's start with White Josh and Darryl. The two have been spending a ton of time together, taking care of the baby and binge watching TV, but they have no plans to get back together. At the park, a bunch of people from Darryl's work, including Maia, Tim, and Rebecca, all converge on them and try to convince them to get back together. The two extricate themselves and continue on their way. But Darryl then realizes that White Josh is using their friendship as an excuse not to give other potential relationships a chance, so he pushes him out the door. It looks like WhiJo does have another prospective partner, a friend of his from the gym.
Look. I miss Darryl and White Josh. They were obviously very cute together. But this show, despite the fact that the characters in it often burst into song, is about reality. Sometimes relationships don't work out. Sometimes two people can love each other, but just need different things out of life. This isn't the kind of show where characters improbably find each other after lots of will-they-won't-they. I'm pretty certain this was the end of all hopes for them getting back together, and I'm pretty okay with that. As long as both of them still get to be a part of the show, and each other's lives.
And that song? Utter perfection. I've never seen a fandom so expertly bitch slapped by a TV show before. "The Group Mind Has Decided You're In Love" is many things. It's funny, it's delightfully choreographed, it's a big group number, so we get to see characters who aren't really part of the story-line show up and have fun. It's the only Nathaniel moment in the whole episode. It's also an expert take-down of shipper culture, and the way people, especially women, especially young women, treat male/male ships as their personal playground. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with shipping two guys together, but women being over-obsessed with both fictional and real-life queer men is a pretty gross thing that can go way too far, way too often. We've seen it before with Maia obsessing over the relationship, and we see how uncomfortable that makes Darryl and White Josh. There's a moment in the song where White Josh says something about how this clearly isn't even about them, and that's so true. Their friends and acquaintances are just fulfilling fantasies by projecting them on this ex-couple, and it's obviously a little bit icky.
Then there's Paula. She finds out that her eldest son Brendan is about to move far away for a service project. She feels like she just started to get to know him, and wants to keep him around, so she orchestrates for a girl that he liked in high school to turn up, so maybe Brendan will get serious about her and stay. In the end, she learns that her whole family, and the girl, played a bit of a prank on her, and Brendan will indeed be leaving. Paula then sings an incredibly sweet song: "I've Always Never Believed In You." It's basically what it sounds - Paula talks about how she spent so long seeing Brendan as this troubled kid, that she didn't get to know the real him, and she's so proud of him. This song again is perfection on many fronts. It's funny, like the line "well, there's a murderer," it's obviously very touching, and it also shows off Donna Lynne Champlin's vocal chops. Damn, that woman can sing. I like Brendan a lot, actually. The kid playing him gives an excellent understated performance. And this is also such an interesting thing for Paula. We know that she has some impulse control issues, and some problems with interfering and controlling the lives of those around her. This felt like a mini-backslide for her, albeit with no serious consequences. I'm curious to see how she copes with Brendan moving away.
Finally, we get to the big news of the episode - Heather and Valencia are both moving away. Heather and Hector just a few hours away, but Valencia to New York with Beth! They throw a joint going-away party, but Rebecca manages to kind of ruin it by inviting a bunch of her cool new young friends. She's feeling insecure about all the life milestones that her friends are hitting. She's feeling behind, and she wants to show that she has the cool young life, in comparison to the others. In the end, she realizes that she went overboard, and she apologizes to the girls. They say that they are willing to forgive her for a lot of crazy shenanigans, because of how much she changed all of their lives for the better. Without Rebecca, Paula wouldn't be almost done with law school, Valencia never would have found her cool new career and awesome girlfriend, and Valencia wouldn't have met Hector, or gone for her awesome corporate job.
Let's just break this down for a second. When Rebecca confessed in therapy that she views life as a competition, and felt like she was losing, I felt so called out. I don't feel that way exactly, but there have certainly been plenty of moments in my life where I compare myself to other people I went to school with, and it sucks. I also love the fact that Rebecca has another "backsliding" moment in this episode, but again she's managed to re-establish equilibrium by the hour's end. She's not in full spiraling mode, like we've seen her before. And the conversation between the four women at the end of the episode was enormously touching. I like that Valencia and Heather don't just ignore that Rebecca behaved poorly. They expect, and then accept, Rebecca's apology. They also love her, and know their lives are better because of her. It was so touching to see Rebecca's reaction when she realized how positively she had influenced her friends since arriving in West Covina.
9.5/10
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