Farewell, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 9:46AM by Dancin' Dan
When the history of Peak TV is written, there better be a whole chapter devoted to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom's musical comedy managed to last four seasons on The CW is amazing enough. But doing so with a diverse cast, while constantly pushing the boundaries of what network television would allow to be broadcast in prime time, taking anti-feminist tropes and twisting them around until they become feminist, and spotlighting mental health issues in a sensitive, impactful way is a miracle.
On Friday night, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend aired its series finale. Magically, the show was able to end on its own terms, giving us the full four-season arc its creators had always envisioned. And what an arc it's been [SPOILERS AHEAD]...
Bloom's Rebecca Bunch has gone from New York City to only two hours from the beach in California, from just a girl in love to a scary sexy lady, from the villain in her own story to something like a really good person, from being stuck in a sexy French depression to approaching that elusive state of being truly happy. And that happiness? It's not found with a man, or having a clean bill of mental health. It's found in self-acceptance, in finally being able to tell your own story, not the story our culture has told you that you should be living.
Throughout the series, Rebecca has tried to find happiness outside of herself - with Josh and Greg and Nathaniel, sure, but also with friends, work, community theater, and even a mental health diagnosis. But much to her therapist Dr. Akopian's chagrin, Rebecca has rarely if ever looked within herself to find her happiness. But in the finale, "I'm in Love," Rebecca finally takes the step the show has been nudging her towards for the past four years: She takes stock, and chooses not a man, not a job, not an elusive state of being, but herself.
At its heart, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has always been a deconstruction of romantic comedies and the unrealistic expectations they place on women of all ages. This continued all the way through the finale, where Rebecca rejects her The Bachelor-esque "three dates with three guys" situation and chooses none of them, despite the fact that each of them is now more or less perfect for her, having put in the work to become better versions of themselves. But Rebecca doesn't get to that "I choose me!" moment all on her own. She needs someone else to see her situation clearly, and that person, as it has been throughout the entire series, is Paula.
The relationship between Rebecca and Paula has always been the backbone of the show. From their first meeting, each had something the other lacked: Paula had the signifiers of a conventionally happy life (husband, kids, great job), and Rebecca had a dream. True, that dream was to steal another woman's boyfriend, but she had something that she was passionate about. And Rebecca's passion helped Paula find her own passion: To become a lawyer herself. It's important that it's only after Paula has finally gotten her dream of becoming a lawyer that she can look at Rebecca and know what it is that drives her in the absence of her quest for a conventional, rom-com-style version of happiness. She knows that Rebecca will often stare into space for a little while and come back from that with a better understanding of her situation and what she has to do (a fantastic in-show explanation for all the musical numbers we got to see). And when she joins Rebecca in her abstract theatrical space after the big eleven o'clock number, she can see what's going on. She can see that this is what Rebecca has to do to find true happiness: Take these songs from inside her head, write them down, and share them with the world. And it works! As Rebecca says to her friends a year later:
It's about how when I'm telling my own story, for the first time in my life I am truly happy... And now, for the first time in my life, I can say that, maybe I'm finally ready for the other kind of love. You know, the kind we talk about a lot more... But whoever it's with, it won't be ending up with someone, because romantic love is not an ending. Not for me or for anyone else here. It's just a part of your story, a part of who you are."
We've been lucky enough to have a few musical comedy series come and go in recent years, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's run has been the most consistent and impressive by far. Glee may have had a longer run, but it was far more uneven, and Smash had an identity crisis worthy of Rebecca Bunch herself. Bloom and Brosh McKenna's clear creative vision saw the series through, and the talent of the show's writers, actors, directors, designers, choreographer, and of course songwriting team shone vividly throughout the show's run. The show gave a greater weight and importance to mental health than most pieces of entertainment past and present, charting Rebecca's journey through borderline personality disorder with great care. There were plenty of laughs along the way, but it never minimized the seriousness of what Rebecca was dealing with and how difficult it was, even when everything looked like it was going well.
Bloom's performance as Rebecca deserves to go down in the history books as one of the all-time greats. Equipped with a great singing voice and a brazen, fearless attitude, she consistently delivered one of the most complex performances on TV. Completely free of any trace of vanity, Bloom never condescended to the character of Rebecca, even when that would have been incredibly easy. Her acting ability, strong if somewhat unpolished at the start of the series, only got better and better as Rebecca's character got more complex. Rebecca's arc from anti-hero to heroine was superbly plotted, and is just as fascinating as that of any of the (male) leads of any of the other widely acknowledged "Great TV Shows" of the television boom we're living through.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has always been a lot more nuanced than any description of the show would have you believe. Its innate understanding of the musical artform helped it to go to places most other shows can't even touch. To be fair, that was also true of Glee and Smash when they were at their peak. But Crazy Ex-Girlfriend did something more than either of those shows ever did. It took the weird little moments that we all thought were somehow unique to our own personal experiences and put them out there for everyone to see, letting us all know that we are not alone. The stories we've been told are not our stories, and while life may not make narrative sense, that's true for all of us. We're all singing each other's songs. And now, for years to come, we'll all be singing this show's songs. Together.
Season Four Grade: B+
Series Grade: A-
Top Ten Songs
1. The End of the Movie
2. A Diagnosis
3. West Covina
4. You Stupid Bitch
5. After Everything I've Done For You (That You Didn't Ask For)
6. Settle For Me
7. Let's Generalize About Men
8. You're My Best Friend (And I Know I'm Not Yours)
9. What'll It Be?
10. Time to Sieze the Day
Reader Comments (11)
I was hoping there'd be a tribute to Crazy Ex Girlfriend on this site. I'm so impressed with the 4 seasons, especially seen from a distance. It constantly reinvented itself. It very rarely hit sitcom staleness. Every character gained depth as it went on. And wow the songs are so wonderful.
My top 10:
10. The Miracle of Birth
9. Nothing is Ever Anyone's Fault
8. Sexy French Depression
7. End of the Movie
6. Put Yourself First
5. Let's Generalize About Men
4. Maybe She's Not Such a Heinous Bitch After All
3. Settle For Me
2. The Math of Love Triangles
1. You Stupid Bitch
Love the show, kind of lukewarm on the actual finale, but I'm glad they got to end it on their own terms. I don't know, the direct "Rebecca love musical theater" stuff always felt to me like it has more to do with Rachel Bloom than it does with Rebecca Bunch - it's just an odd fit. The show never limited the songs to only her POV, and was all the better for it.
Blam!!
Thanks for this thoughtful review! I think it's a testament to the strength of the show that my top 10 list of songs would be quite different from both of those already listed here. It touched on a lot of different topics thoughtfully and artfully.
JAP Battle was easily the best four minutes of a TV musical in the last 20 years.
A little-seen gem whose reputation will surely grow over time.
Not perfect, there were some plotlines/characters/songs that didn't work along the way, but always done with a level of guts and creativity rarely seen in broadcast TV. What a pleasure to see a show that didn't need any shakedown or retooling, that really knew where it was going and what it was saying from the start, done with utter integrity and blinding talent. Always insightful and entertaining, and at its best, just flat-out brilliant.
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We Tapped That and The First Penis I Ever Saw are favorites of mine. It's impressive the number of great songs they came up with over four seasons. Time for a box set!
Thanks for this, in the era of peak tv. I have not had the chance to watch this show. But obviously I should. I'm going to make a point of watching this right after Game of Thrones ends.
I think the musical number that made me go from liking to loving this show was 'Face your Fears', in S1 E3. The reprise a few seasons later was expertly deployed (as most of the reprises on this show were).
Rewatching the first season and wow the Dream Ghost episode sets up so much for the series finale. I wonder if they were expecting to be cancelled when they wrote it.