[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Season 3, Episode 11 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.]
There’s plenty to discuss in “Nathaniel and I Are Just Friends,” the most recent episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Rebecca’s welcome moment of self-realization, the time hop, Doctor Akopian’s amazing musical number, and Heather’s growth into an adult were all exciting and moving elements of the episode. However, the one that most surprised me—both in the way it was revealed and the fact that it happened—was Valencia’s new relationship with Beth.
When we first met Valencia back in the first season, she was the walking stereotype of a painfully straight girl. Her boyfriend was a huge part of her identity. She dressed to provoke male approval and female jealousy. She torturously regulated her diet and her exercise. She didn’t seem to have any female friends, instead primarily hanging out with Josh’s male friends. What she wanted, more than anything, was a commitment from Josh so she could become a wife.
However, over the course of the show, Valencia grew past that. She grew out of Josh, who was never as ready for adulthood as she was. She grew into female friendships, coming to appreciate the support systems that other women offer. She became a small business owner after realizing, to her own genuine surprise, that she was really good at something she really liked. And now, she’s ended up with a girlfriend whose first compliment to her was not about her beauty, or how ‘cool’ she was, but “God, you’re funny.”
(When Valencia responded to that compliment with an excited, incredulous, “What, me?” my heart just about broke. As Gabrielle Ruiz, who plays Valencia, explained to Bustle, “the reason she falls in love with Beth is because Beth laughs at her and she thinks Valencia is funny … [Valencia]’s usually the straight shooter and sets up the jokes for everyone else, so she’s never seen as funny.”)
And Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was incredibly casual about that relationship reveal. While Darryl had an entire coming-out arc and song about his newly discovered bisexuality, Valencia just slides into her relationship with Beth without fanfare or musical number.
There was definitely a part of me that really appreciated this casualness. Not every woman has to struggle with recognizing her bisexuality; for some women, it’s just effortless and more about the person they’re attracted to, and Valencia’s arc throughout the series has been about coming into her own, letting go of her anxiety about outside approval and performative perfection, and learning to embrace her own talents and the talents of other women. This feels like a beautiful, natural step in that character progression.
Plus, straight relationships are often introduced in a similarly laid-back fashion. It’s a great example of how far we’ve come with queer representation when a character can just casually pursue a same-sex relationship without anyone making a “thing” out of it.
This reveal was also apparently a character decision. Executive producer Aline Brosh-McKenna explained that, in Valencia’s case, this is far more about actually “focusing on her happiness” than coming to terms with her queerness. “It’s different from Daryl’s story,” said Brosh-McKenna, “because Daryl discovering his bisexuality was a big part of his identity. For Valencia, the stakes of her having a lesbian relationship, which makes her bisexual, is more about the personal investment in this specific person. She’s a Bethsexual. So it doesn’t come up as an issue of self-proclaimed identity as it does for Daryl, because Valencia really knows who she is.”
“Daryl’s journey of discovering he’s bisexual is so different from Valencia’s because she doesn’t question her choices,” Ruiz agreed. “She’s confident and committed. She inspires me in real life because she’s so sure of who she is.”
I definitely appreciate that Valencia is the sort of person who just knows what she wants, but in another sense, this did feel like the sort of thing that she might struggle with. I personally know some hyper-femme queer women who had a similar journey, whose discomfort with their own sexuality originally manifested as a Cool Girl mentality where they competed with other women. This can be a particularly poisonous temptation for bisexual women, who can lean into their genuine attraction to men to deny this other part of their sexuality.
Valencia spent so much time shaping herself for male approval, and then so much time escaping that mentality. Hearing how that journey interacts with her newly explored queerness, and her first romantic relationship since Josh, feels important. But Crazy Ex-Girlfriend didn’t really address that aspect of Valencia’s new relationship, so I did feel like we were missing out on some crucial character moments. Finding the strength to love again after heartbreak is hard, and it’s even harder when it’s tied up in learning to love yourself for the first time. I do want to see more of that journey—and luckily, it sounds like we will get to see Valencia’s evolving sense of self as the season goes on.
“She’s so happy and comfortable with Beth, and they’re in business together too, which I love,” Ruiz said to Bustle. “You get to know Valencia’s inner workings because of Beth. We’re focusing on Valencia’s own sense of self, and her opinions on who she is, and finding herself as a woman in a small-town world and a powerful businesswoman. Beth really shines and calls Valencia out in a way where she’s the first person who Valencia really listens to to change.”
What did you all think of the reveal?
(Featured image: Robert Voets/The CW)
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