It's Where Dreams Live

Musicals were made for embarrassing emotions. If the musical is good enough, it can blindside you with them. One minute you’re thinking, “A musical? About Alexander Hamilton?” Next thing you know, you’re wracked with violent sobs as Aaron Burr sings about his wife. Aaron Burr! The guy from that old milk commercial! Such is the power of musical theater. The earnest, borderline cheesy sincerity of the genre allows you to more easily access your most heartfelt feelings.



And ain’t nothing cheesier than true love! We meet Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s main character, Rebecca (Rachel Bloom), at the end of high school musical summer camp as she says goodbye to her hunky, sort of blah boyfriend Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III). Between her braces, her intensity and her casual reference to a feigned suicide attempt, however, it’s not super surprising when Josh decides to dip, leaving Rebecca crushed and alone with her unseen mother, whose voicemails and off-screen criticism indicate that she is a Gorgon-level monster. “You’re really dramatic and like...weird,” Josh informs Rebecca before sprinting away forever.

Then Rebecca runs into Josh Chan on the street, and the whole thing busts wide open. Of course! That’s why Rebecca hasn’t been happy! She was missing out on the love of her life! Sadly Josh is moving home to West Covina, California, but tells Rebecca to hit him up the next time she is on the West Coast. “If I had only known you’d be so successful and hot…” Josh laughs, as if he is TRYING to make his ex-girlfriend turn down a partnership and suddenly move to his hometown 19 miles east from downtown Los Angeles.

Which Rebecca of course then does, in the first of the episode’s two songs, “West Covina,” a charming Disney-style song in the vein of Belle’s opening number from Beauty and the Beast. Rebecca sings the praises of her new town, a town in which Josh just happens to live, these things are VERY unrelated, clearly, everyone can see that, she is not acting crazy. See, apparently Rebecca doesn’t actually understand that she moved to California to follow her ex, even if the audience does. The residents of West Covina dance behind her in her fantasy as Rebecca celebrates their Applebee’s, their miles of concrete, their giant pretzels, and their high school marching band, which is defunded before our very eyes. Apologies to the actual residents of West Covina.