Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Josh Chan is the worst

He may have been the original object of Rebecca Bunch’s affections, but he is by far the least interesting of her love interests.

The season 4 premiere of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend illuminated many things about its characters, including Rebecca’s obliviousness to her privilege, Nathaniel’s intensity and lack of sensitivity to Rebecca’s mental health issues and even Valencia’s pitch-perfect comic timing.

Unfortunately, it was also a reminder that Josh Chan continues to be an idiot loser with no career prospects who lives with his best friend’s mother. Thank the rom-com gods that Rebecca finally realized how useless Josh was and moved on to better guys.

Let’s power-rank Rebecca’s love interests through three-plus seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend:

1.) Nathaniel, who became a better person purely because of his feelings for Rebecca and who has been given the most emotional depth of any of her potential beaus

2.) Greg, an overly negative alcoholic who at least was always good to Rebecca and was such a good lover he gave her a UTI (That’s how that works, right?). Side note: That this is Rebecca’s second-healthiest relationship on this show is quite depressing.

3.) That guy Rebecca hooked up with in the premiere who showed up again in “We Tapped That Ass.”

4.) Josh Chan

5.) Robert, the Harvard professor Rebecca had an affair with and whose apartment she tried to burn down, leading to her first acknowledgement of her mental health problems.

6.) Trent, the man who stalked Rebecca, blackmailed her and forced her to push him off a roof because he was threatening Nathaniel’s life.

That’s right: Josh is only slightly ahead of Rebecca’s most unhealthy relationship and the man who actively terrorized her. That may sound harsh, as Josh Chan isn’t exactly a bad person. And Vincent Rodriguez III is a decent actor who has been doing his best to add layers to a purposefully surface-level character since the show’s earliest days.

Josh at his best is a human puppy: fun, affectionate and loyal. It made sense in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s first seasons that Rebecca would be attracted to someone who represents the sunnier, simpler side of life that she craved.

But now Rebecca has been through a lot of emotional ups and downs, and has come out the other side a more mature, well-rounded person. That’s why her relationship with Nathaniel makes more sense at this point in the series than trying to force sparks between her and Josh again would. Nathaniel is more attuned to her emotional wavelength than Josh could ever hope to be.

He reinforced just how hopeless he was in the show’s season 4 premiere, in which he spent the entire episode blaming his stupidity and self-absorption on some sort of “disorder” that he must be suffering from. All of the misfortunes that have befallen him couldn’t possibly be his fault, so it must be because of some phantom illness he has been unaware of his whole life.

It’s clear from this storyline that Josh hasn’t learned a damn thing after all this time. Whereas Rebecca has displayed real, tangible character growth throughout Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s run, Josh has stood still and in many ways regressed back to the kid Rebecca fell for at camp so many years ago. That kid is now an adult who has know idea how to function in modern society.

To his credit, Josh has proven himself more than adept at the show’s musical numbers. He’s a talented dancer, with his most impressive performance coming when he and Valencia broke out their old routine they dubbed “The Royal.”

Josh certainly has a place on this show, but it’s not as a love interest for anyone who desires a partner they can take seriously professionally or personally.

Sorry buddy: You stopped being lovably dumb a long time ago. Now it’s just sad.