‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Musical Recap: Triangles Are a Girl’s Best Friend
Having packed three songs into last week’s episode, it’s understandable that the third installment of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s second season would unfold in a quieter key. “All Signs Point to Josh … or Is It Josh’s Friend” offers only one big production number, an ultra-glamorous geometry-themed Marilyn Monroe homage. Actually, we do hear the opening bars to another tune, Rebecca’s ode to the joys of post-period sex, only to have it mercifully cut short by Josh. Of course, since Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does enjoy a good reprise now and then — witness the brief revival of Greg’s slacker anthem “I Could If I Wanted To” last week — don’t be surprised if Rebecca adds more stanzas to “Period Sex” down the line.
With the music mostly on mute, Rebecca has to grapple with her feelings for Josh and Greg, the two points of her imagined love triangle, through spoken word. It doesn’t go well. First, she takes a pregnancy scare as a sign that she and Josh are meant to be together, a choice that drives him away in terror. So she promptly reaches out to her “viable alternative,” Greg, who almost gives in until he summons the courage to flee to graduate school in Atlanta. By the episode’s end, though, he still hasn’t gotten on that plane, with Rebecca cornering him after one of those mad dashes to the airport that happen at the end of so many romantic comedies. Those usually end with a public declaration of love, followed by some PDA. Because this is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, though, it’ll most likely inspire a song in the key of Airplane.
“The Math of Love Triangles”
What it’s about: In her mind’s eye, Rebecca has visions of herself, Greg, and Josh living in polyandrous throuple-dom bliss. Informed by an actual polyandrous throuple that she’s instead in the throes of a classic love triangle, she insists on exploring the precise definition of that term — and the mathematical magic of triangles — through song with the aid of an all-male chorus of math nerds.
Sounds like: “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” by way of Schoolhouse Rock.
Best lyric: “We’re tired of all your tangents/That’s also a triangle pun.”
Funniest sight gag: The chorus emerges onstage and forms the shape of a perfect triangle with Rebecca as its top point.
What it reveals about Rebecca: She’s not actually interested in listening to an expert opinion, whether it’s about love triangles or actual triangles. In her mind, she’s already solved the problem … even when all she’s doing is creating new ones.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on the CW.
