'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' Postmortem: Co-Creator Aline Brosh McKenna on That Rebecca/Josh Finale Scene

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the “Paula Needs to Get Over Josh!” episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Season 1 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ended with a scene that Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) and viewers at home had been rooting for all season long: Rebecca and the object of her crazy affection, Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III), doing a dance best known as the horizontal mambo. If you’ve been watching the show all season long, though, you know that happy endings can be short-lived. Sure enough, after their snogging session, Rebecca confessed her long-held, oft-denied secret to Josh: She moved from New York to West Covina specifically for him. “Now our love story can begin,” she coos, while a look of profound uncertainty spread over his face, a feeling that can’t be helped by the fact that he broke up with his other girlfriend, Valencia (Gabrielle Ruiz), mere moments before.

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Although that final line is a clear set-up for Season 2, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna tells Yahoo TV that she and Bloom (whose numerous jobs on the series include star, writer, executive producer, and lyricist) always had this ending in mind, even if the critically-beloved, but criminally low-rated series hadn’t gotten renewed. “We didn’t know we had a second season when we shot it, but that’s what we were always building towards,” she explains. “Thematically, it said what we wanted to say. Everybody in the finale is trying to move past their problems, but they’re issues are so deeply rooted. Rebecca is pulled backwards into this fantasy about Josh at all times. In the second season, she’s going to continue to try and figure out what this obsession means to her.” McKenna filled us in on the extended hoverboard dance we didn’t see in the finale and why she doesn’t consider Crazy Ex-Girlfriend to be a rom-com.

The very last shot of the finale reminded me of the final scene in The Graduate. There’s ambivalence, rather than happiness, in the air.
Totally. Another movie that does that is The Heartbreak Kid when Charles Grodin finally gets Cybill Shepherd and realizes “Oh no, what have I done?” When you define a goal as a romantic goal and that’s your be all and end all, you’ll always end up in hot water. One of Rebecca’s early songs in the season is her fantasizing about Josh solving all her problems. But no one person can do that.

I thought it was interesting that Rebecca didn’t get a big season finale musical number.
It just sort of came out that way. She’s disappearing into other fantasies; the last song she sings this season is, “Oh My God I Think I Like You.” And one of the great things about Rachel is that she has no ego about that. She’s also writing the songs, so she’s got tons to do anyway. She had a big hand in writing Paula’s song. Donna is so phenomenal, so we were pleased to give her that big forum. It was inspired by big barnstorming numbers like “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy.

Who came up with the idea for Josh’s hoverboard dance at the wedding? And does more of the footage exist than what we see in the episode?
That was part of our Arabian Nights theme, and was brilliant executed by the prop department. The choreographer designed an amazing hoverboard dance that would have been epic, but we didn’t have time to shoot it more than once or twice. We have more footage of it, but didn’t get a chance to edit it. We have hours and hours of dance footage for this series; we just can’t use everything. But if you want to see raw footage of hoverboard dancing, we’ve got it. [Laughs.]

This was the first episode of the season that you directed. Did you enjoy the process? What was your favorite scene to shoot?
It was a natural extension of what I’ve been doing all year in terms of working with everybody. We were a real community by this point, and it was a nice extension. I’m most thrilled with the performances. I thought Rebecca did an amazing job in the scene where Rachel tries to tell Greg how she feels. And Vincent and Gabrielle were amazing in their break-up scene. Santino [Fontana] manages to convey the humor of Greg’s predicament and Donna is obviously just gangbusters as Paula. I was really pleased with the performances and what they brought.

Speaking of Gabrielle, Valencia must have been a difficult role for her to play all season long since fans are rooting against her and Josh staying together.
For her big scene at the end, I told Gabrielle, “Valencia’s right. They’re wrong and you’re right.” Rebecca’s been trying to steal her boyfriend and he’s been a passive wind vane bobbing between the two of them. That’s the thing about Valencia: She may not always be the most charming person, but she’s the one who is being aggressed upon. It’s a tribute to Gabrielle and what she brings to the part that she’s so winning playing our antagonist.

One of the things that’s been so great about the show all season long is how you’ve left room for seemingly throwaway characters like White Josh who become important personalities.
We always loved White Josh. We created that character for David [Hull]. He came in to audition for Greg in the first round of casting, and he looked so much like Vincent. So we always wanted to cast him, and during the long, long journey it took to getting the show picked up, one of the things that sustained us was imagining David getting the call saying, “You didn’t get the part you auditioned for, but you’re playing a part created specifically for you!”

Now that you’re out of the grind of production, are you enjoying having the time between seasons to prepare for Season 2?
Rachel and I have some kind of obscure mental disorder where we work on this show even when there’s absolutely no need to. We talk about the characters like they’re real, obsess over them and send each other texts and e-mails about them. You know those people who build elaborate worlds out of tiny dolls? That’s sort of what it looks like in our brains. It’s nice to have a little bit of time to make plans; this is a very labor intensive show because of the songs. And Rachel is on set most of the time, so the biggest logistical challenge can be getting her up to speed on what’s happening in the writers’ room and giving her time to write the songs. I’m a bit of a hazard on set, because once she and I see each other, we’re going to be talking about a million things.

It sounds like you’re the real-life version of Rebecca and Paula!
Oh, yeah. Slightly less crazy, although we have our moments. [Laughs.]

One of the challenges of a rom-com is keeping the relationships fresh in Season 2. Does that concern you at all?
I know our show looks like a rom-com, but we’re not interested in the “Will they or won’t they.” It’s really about these peoples’ coming of age, and the journey they’re on personally. If they collide romantically, that’s a part of it, but it’s not our primary interest. We’re not concerned with who’s kissing who as opposed to what their personal evolution is.

Aline Brosh McKenna directs Santino Fontana on set.

Originally the series was going to be on cable, before The CW picked it up. Have you gotten accustomed to some of the constraints of network television?
We’ve fallen in love with the format and the fact that young people can watch show, particularly young girls. We don’t feel particularly constrained, although we do often wish we could say “F–k!” [Laughs.] For Greg and Rebecca’s sex scenes in last week’s episode, we had the Standards and Practices person on set with us. To call her every time or send her screenshots would have been too labor-intensive. So she was hanging out in video village, cracking up and telling us, “No, you can’t do that.”