3x02 "To Josh, With Love"
Written by Rachel Specter and Audrey Wauchope, directed by Kabir Akhtar. Original airdate October 20 2017.
Songs:
"You Do/You Don't Want to Be Crazy" (new theme song, sung by Rachel Bloom)
- Affectionate Parody: Of music talent shows like American Idol. Four different versions of Rebecca appear: a country pop star, a pop diva, a classic rock star and a rapper and have a "sing-off" near the end.
- Doublethink: The versions of Rebecca are torn over acknowledging whether she's crazy or not, what being seen as 'crazy' means, and if she's either a victim seeking for revenge or someone who prefers being made crazy over love.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Rebecca's country pop star persona is a parody of Carrie Underwood in "Before He Cheats" and her rapper is like Eminem.
"I've Got My Head In The Clouds" (sung by Vincent Rodriguez III)
- Affectionate Parody: Of Frank Sinatra's swing songs and Singin' in the Rain, complete with Josh dancing in the style of Gene Kelly.
- Bedsheet Ghost: The Holy Ghost looks like this.
- Shout-Out: The Holy Ghost says he's going to meet Casper.
"Strip Away My Conscience" (sung by Rachel Bloom)
- Almost Kiss: Rebecca and Nathaniel, a lot.
- Call-Back: Nathaniel nods appreciatively when Rebecca compares him to Professor Snape. The previous season taught us Nathaniel is a Harry Potter fan. And a Slytherin, to boot.
- Captain Obvious: The chorus is as unsubtle as the song itself.Rebecca: However, now I know a certain beau who doesn't worry 'bout what's decent or right.Chorus: (poking Nathaniel) That's you!Nathaniel: Yeah, I got that.
- Fanservice: This is basically just Fanservice: The Song. Even with the comical bits, it's still pretty hot, both to Nathaniel and the audience.
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: "INNUENDO!"
- Shout-Out: Rebecca compares Nathaniel to Snape, and says he's fifty shades of morally grey.
- Stop Hitting Yourself: Rebecca does this to Nathaniel after their Almost Kiss.
- Summon Backup Dancers: Several appear.
- Villain Love Song: A variant. Rebecca's not trying to seduce Nathaniel over to the dark side; she's seducing him to bring her over to the dark side.
- Villain Song: Rebecca's trying to convince Nathaniel to make her as bad as him.
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: Rebecca performs a striptease for Nathaniel, much to his delight.
"The Buzzing From The Bathroom" (sung by Michael McMillian)
- Affectionate Parody: Of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from Les Misérables.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: Tim basically sings about how his wife uses a vibrator after sex, since he's never given her an orgasm.
"After Everything You Made Me Do (That You Didn't Ask For)" (sung by Rachel Bloom)
- Call-Back: Rebecca brings up all her schemes from the past two seasons to win Josh. And to Paula's "After Everything I've Done for You (That You Didn't Ask For)"
- Epic Fail: Rebecca tries to humiliate Josh in front of a crowd. She just ends up outing herself as a crazy stalker to everyone and relieves Josh of all the guilt he had running from their wedding.
- "The Hero Sucks" Song: Rebecca tries to list things she thinks makes Josh look bad. It fails miserably.
- Never My Fault: Rebecca blames all the creepy and potentially illegal things she did on Josh rather than take responsibility.
- Sanity Slippage Song: Rebecca doesn't hide how low she sank.
Tropes in the episode:
- Amoral Attorney: Dear God, Nathaniel. He attempts to ruin the livelihood of a kindly old man just for money and to prove his manhood.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Tim has a minor breakdown and then resolves to change his ways because Paula tells him he's unable to satisfy his wife. When he mentions it to her later, she can't even remember saying it.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Nathaniel sends Rachel a sexy dress and lingerie for their date/evil scheme, and meets her on the roof with a bucket of champagne to be picked up by a helicopter. She shows up in a different outfit because he didn't know her measurements, making the dress unwearable, she had no interest in wearing the lingerie all night, and when the helicopter shows up, the downdraft knocks over the champagne and musses their hair, while the noise makes it impossible to communicate.
- The Tim subplot wraps up happily, with Tim having become a more considerate lover... and then Paula points out to him that if he and his wife are so bad at communicating that she went eleven years without telling him she wasn't getting satisfied, then their marriage has problems that go way beyond orgasms.
- Everyone Has Standards: Rebecca wants to "destroy Josh Chan" but draws the line at at harming his family.
- Internal Reveal: Rebecca tells Josh the extent to which she's been stalking and spying on him.
- Kick the Dog: Nathaniel pulls no punches in this episode. He initially tries to ruin an old man's business so a corporation can buy his lot. Later he tries to destroy Josh's family by falsely convicting his sister of plagiarism, sending his father to prison, and killing his grandfather.
- Masquerade Ball: Rebecca and Nathaniel go to one of these to find powerful people that can ruin Josh.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Through the episode Josh has been feeling guilty over leaving Rebecca at the altar. When she shows up and tries to humiliate him by listing all the creepy and awful things she did in her pursuit of him, Josh feels absolved of all guilt he had.
- Oh, Crap!: Rebecca has this reaction when she realizes she told Josh Chan everything.
- Revenge by Proxy: In order to get back at Josh, Nathaniel decides to go after his family.
- Shout-Out: Father Rodgerio mutters that Josh is another Maria.
- Woman Scorned: Deconstructed. Rebecca deliberately embraces the label to seek revenge, but nothing she plans makes her feel any better. She tries to embrace her dark side by enlisting the Obviously Evil Nathaniel into her revenge scheme, but his plots were sufficiently awful to shock Rebecca into backing down (including a plan to murder Josh's grandfather). Ultimately, everything she tries to do to Josh just leaves her feeling worse about herself.
