(Spoiler warning: Please do not read if you have not watched Friday’s episode of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”)
“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” said goodbye to a major character in Friday’s episode, and showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna has confirmed that he’s not coming back.
Picking up after last week’s cliffhanger, Greg finally parted ways with Rebecca at the top of tonight’s episode, with a final song about their “s— show” romance and an “I love you.” And for those hoping that Santino Fontana’s appearance as a “memory spirit” in the rest of the episode might hint at his eventual return, Brosh McKenna has some bad news.
“Greg is gone for good,” she said, clarifying that the character’s departure for business school in Georgia was in fact a one-way trip.
“West Covina is a type of purgatory, everybody there is stuck in some way,” Brosh McKenna explained. “What we thought was interesting was to take the guy who has been the most stuck, and to have him change his outlook on life. And once he does that, he’s able to do what he’s never done before — leave.”
Season 2 started off with the revelation that Greg had recently gotten sober, kicking off his path to redemption, which Brosh McKenna said culminates in his decision to break off his “unhealthy” relationship with Rebecca and leave West Covina.
“It’s funny because I think sometimes fans want a happy ending, and what they think of as a happy ending is the boy and the girl ending up together,” she said. “But for us, this is a happy ending for Greg, because he’s moving on to something that he wanted to do from the second we’ve seen him.”
“Greg is a character that we adore, and Rachel especially adored. Saying goodbye to him in the right way was a challenging thing,” she said, adding that Fontana was aware of the storyline from the beginning and on board with his character’s departure. “He doesn’t know that his life is going to be perfect … but he is confident that he’s going somewhere that is going to be better for him.”
Brosh McKenna also revealed that with Rebecca’s love triangle out of the picture, the rest of Season 2 will focus more on her relationships with the women in her life: Paula, whose relationship with her best friend has become so complicated that she chose not to tell her about her abortion; Heather, who has a new career as the face of “Miss Douche;” and Valencia, whose life was turned upside down by Rebecca last season, and who made a surprise return at the end of tonight’s episode.
“She and Valencia have bills to pay,” Brosh McKenna promised.