'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' Tackles Another Stereotype

Now that Rachel Bloom has won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Comedy, I really hope that more people tune in to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The CW musical dramedy is smart, hilarious, and incredibly insightful into so many relatable aspects of life, such as friendship, which was the main topic featured in Monday night's new episode of the show. More specifically, Monday night's episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend presented a nuanced portrayal of female friendship that was refreshing to see on TV.

It's no secret that Rebecca has been desperately trying to find friends ever since she moved to West Covina, Calif. from New York. The fact that I can't get the "I Have Friends" song from earlier this season should be proof enough of that. Watching a sappy yet uplifting movie about a crew of cancer patients definitely didn't help with her feeling of loneliness at all. Neither did stumbling upon and subsequently eavesdropping on Josh on his friends right outside of the movie theater as they planned their "Crew Day" for the upcoming Saturday.

But shockingly, Josh's girlfriend Valencia not only invited Rebecca to join their conversation but also asked her to join them on the group outing. Valencia claimed she did this because she's a nice person and wanted to support a fellow female. However, Valencia's ode to female friendship, in which she espoused the importance of sisterhood one minute and then cut down all of the ladies around her by insulting their looks and sexuality, made it clear that Rebecca's seemingly ever-present enemy would have ulterior motives behind the invitation once again.

That became apparent when Rebecca, Josh, Valencia, Greg, and "White Josh" all boarded the party bus Rebecca had rented to take them to the beach for the day. Yeah, it was as awful as it sounds. Valencia wanted to use the crew's time cooped up in the bus in traffic to show off how hot she is and how strange Rebecca is so that no one — especially Josh — would want to be friends with her.

The weird thing was that actually kind of happened all on its own without really any involvement from Valencia. After Heather, Rebecca's neighbor and Greg's new boo, officially joined the party to announce that they're an item for the first time, everyone had someone to pair up with except Rebecca. This was a great example of when people say they feel "lonely in a crowded room," by the way.

Rebecca finally got all eyes on her in the most unfortunate way possible. She showed off her admittedly sick moves on the stripper pole on the bus (Didn't I tell you the decor was awful?) to the group, and from then on, the action was just a snowball of awfulness. Josh and Greg start arguing with each other and then to their partners about the time Greg and Rebecca hooked up and didn't tell Josh, some drama that Rebecca was interestingly also left out of. Then, Rebecca did become involved, even though she probably wished she wasn't. When the group started digging around to find out why she actually did move to West Covina, Rebecca got caught up in her lie that she got a job offer and admitted that she moved there because she's in love... with the city.

So we all know that wasn't really the truth, but it was more honesty than we've gotten out of Rebecca thus far, so I'll take it! Greg was turned off by the admission and Valencia wanted everyone to turn their backs on Rebecca, but it actually helped Josh understand her more and brought the two closer together.

The other major exploration of female friendship in this episode came in the form of Paula, who threatened to sort of cut Rebecca out of her life if she didn't admit her true feelings about Josh. Whenever Rebecca gets down about her social life, I just want to shake her and be like, "Hello? You have a friend in Paula standing right in front of you," but we all have a habit of making consistently supportive friends feel underappreciated every once in a while.

However, something very interesting did occur when Paula came to pick up Rebecca from the beach. Not only did Rebecca finally admit that she's in love with Josh, but she also treated Paula like she's her mother. I guess at the end of the day, that's the real nature of this friendship, which is understandable, considering the complicated relationship Rebecca has with her biological mother. But then again, who says female friendship can only look a certain way, anyway?

Images: Mike Yarish/The CW (2)