Crazy Ex-Girlfriend // Review #13

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! In the spirit of the season, I'm going to tell you something that I'm thankful for: a TV show called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was a musical romantic comedy show that ran for four seasons (2015-2019) on the CW network. The show follows a lawyer named Rebecca Bunch (played by Rachel Bloom) who up and left her successful law career in New York City to chase her ex-boyfriend Josh Chan to California on a random whim. If that sounds insane to you, that's kind of the point. 

The series follows Rebecca as she attempts to win back the love of her life in a new city, all while attempting to look less crazy and obsessive than she definitely is. In fact, just to get a feel for the show, check out the theme song for the first season that aired back in 2014:

Despite the batshit premise and the insane title (literally), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is probably one of the best shows I've seen on network TV recently. This show contains more heart, music, and comedy than most other shows of its type. It especially provides important insight on the value of prioritizing your own mental health and taking care of yourself.

Rebecca Bunch is honestly one of my favorite characters in TV history because of how charming and likeable she is, while also being a bit of a garbage fire in the process. Everything that she goes through is somehow relatable and tragic while also being hilarious and fun to watch.  

One thing's for sure, though: This show wouldn't be nearly as influential or even half as fun to watch without the most important element of this musical-comedy show: the music. 

Category 1: Music- A+

Hands down, the best part of this show is the musical numbers featured in each episode. Each episode contains at least two songs in which the people in Rebecca's life burst into song in order to express their true feelings. It is established in the show that Rebecca often daydreams and dissociates in her day-to-day life, romanticizing the world around her like its a big Broadway show or a movie-musical in order to cope with her problems, and so we, as the audience, get to see what she is imagining.

Unlike some other shows that follow a similar format, (like Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist which has its characters sing covers of popular top 40 songs) all of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's songs are completely original. Most of the music was even written by the lead actress, Rachel Bloom, along with co-writer Adam Schlesinger. All of the songs function as musical theater "asides," in which they each reflect a different emotional or comedic moment of the characters that are singing them. To make things more fun, many of the songs are direct parodies of other artists and music genres, like the Bobby Brown/ New Edition parody "Don't Be a Lawyer," or the "Kung Fu Fighting" parody "Real Life Fighting is Awkward." It's exactly this variation that makes this show so much fun to watch despite the darker overarching themes.

Below are some of my personal favorites from the first two seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend:

"Tap that Ass" performed by Rebecca, Josh, and Greg (Rachel Bloom, Vincent Rodriguez III, and Santino Fontana). 

"You Stupid Bitch" performed by Rebecca (Bloom).

"The Math of Love Triangles" performed by Rebecca (Bloom) in an obvious Marilyn Monroe "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" parody.

The inclusion of musical numbers not only brilliantly show how Rebecca struggles to cope with her true reality, but it also demonstrates the brilliant creativity of Bloom for writing them, and the amazing talents of the rest of her cast for performing them. I'm pretty sure that everyone in the main cast has at least one individual song that helps establish their character's arc and singing ability within the show. 

Probably the most important thing the songs do is convey some of the show's heavier themes such as self-hatred (See "You Stupid Bitch" above), taking anti-depressant medication ("Anti-Depressants are So Not a Big Deal"), and coming out as bisexual ("Getting Bi") while still making these moments comedic and lighthearted.

As if that wasn't enough, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has won several Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Critics Choice Award, presumably because the music was so smart, catchy, and funny.

In conclusion, the musical numbers are what make this show. If nothing else, you should stream the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend soundtrack on Spotify. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll feel painfully seen by the time the playlist is over.

Category 2: Comedy- B

A lot of this show's humor is baked into the initial premise. The show is funny because even though Rebecca is the main character of the show, she's the "crazy-ex girlfriend" who wants her old boyfriend back, despite having not seen him in about a decade. The show wants you to root for Rebecca while also acknowledging that she is very problematic and obsessive. For about half of the show's run, she is essentially stalking her ex-boyfriend John Chan, in a way that is humorous (admittedly only because Rebecca is a woman), but still concerning. 

Speaking of concerning, there are times where Rebecca obviously goes too far in her efforts to win over Josh, and the show wants you to know this. While it is still funny to watch her maneuver her way out of her own hijinks, the show presents these moments as a form of dark comedy. The underlying humor of the show is essentially watching a person unravel in real time. The show wants you to laugh at Rebecca and her antics, but it also wants you to know that Rebecca is not okay, and recognize that she needs help.

Rebecca (Bloom) singing, "I'm in a Sexy French Depression."

When the show isn't making fun of Rebecca for being obsessed with her ex-boyfriend, the show's humor can get weirdly meta. I appreciated this, though, because it was funny to watch a musical-comedy be a little self aware of how ridiculous it is.

For example, when a new character is introduced in Season 2 of the show, the pre-existing characters sing the song "Who's The New Guy?" (below). This song is incredibly self-referential, and a sort of wink-and-nod to the audience that the characters in the show know they're in some sort of "show." There are a few other meta moments throughout the show that are like this, and they all barely break the fourth wall in terms of acknowledging that the characters are in a show with an audience. Every time it happens though, they manage to stick the landing, and it makes the humor that much funnier.

"Who's the New Guy?" sung by the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend cast.

Overall, I think that most of the humor in this show works, as it's conveyed through songs and the wildly inappropriate actions of Rebecca and her friends. Most of the time, they're fun to watch; sometimes I worry that all of these characters need to go to therapy.

Categories 3 & 4: Characters & Diversity - A-

Speaking of characters and therapy- let's talk about the characters in this show.

From left to right: Heather (Vella Lovell), Darryl (Pete Gardner), Greg (Santino Fontana), Rebecca (Rachel Bloom), Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III), and Paula (Donna Lynne Champlin) 

This show does a very good job of presenting people of multiple different backgrounds, while also fully fleshing them out as a characters, which is more than I can say for most other media that I've seen recently. 

I mentioned previously that Selfie was the first network TV show with an Asian romantic lead opposite a white lead (disappointing, but true). However, it is because of the color-inclusive casting of Selfie that shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend get to have openly Filipino characters like Josh Chan be in a romantic relationship with Rebecca Bunch, a white Jewish woman from New York.

Josh Chan, the main romantic lead of the show, is a religious Filipino American, who is kind and good looking, but maybe not all that bright. He is, essentially, the traditional himbo archetype. He was in a relationship with Rebecca when they were both 16 years old, and he's completely oblivious to most of her attempts to win him over. Overall, he's an emotionally immature sweetheart who tries his best, but still needs to work on himself.

Then there's Rebecca Bunch herself: Rebecca was an overachieving attorney from New York who grew to hate the life she lived. She pursued a career in law because her overbearing Jewish mother all but forced her into it, when she would have much rather done something more fun and different. She moves to California to reunite with Josh, in the hopes that their union will solve all of her problems.

(Spoiler- it doesn't. No matter what this song says...)

Throughout the course of the show, Rebecca recruits her friends into this scheme, like Greg- the cynical bartender/alcoholic who is secretly in love with her, Heather, the perpetual student/cool girl, and Paula, the unfulfilled mother who takes care of Rebecca like her own child. All of them, along with her dorky boss Darryl, try to hook Rebecca up with Josh Chan, for better or worse.

The range of characters in this show is impressive, as there are multiple other characters featured in this series that come from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds, and that have different sexual orientations. Of the shows that I've watched recently, this was one of the few that felt like it didn't have a quota for how many people of color they could have in one scene, or how many gay people had to be included in order for the show to be "woke."

The representation in this show is natural and it feels like everyone involved in this project tried to make it as realistic as possible, which is one of the reasons why I admire it so much.

Category 5: Plot- B

The first couple of seasons of this show follow Rebecca and her best friend Paula, as they attempt to trick Josh Chan into falling in love with her in the name of true love. For the most part, it goes about as well as you would expect, as both Rebecca and Paula commit several stalking related crimes to get close to the poor guy.

However, to hear Rebecca tell it- there's nothing wrong with this, because there's nothing wrong with being a little crazy for love. 

"I'm Just a Girl in Love" sung by Rebecca (Bloom) (Season 2 theme song).

Despite Rebecca's obsession with getting Josh to love her, the show is about more than just her compulsion to be in a romantic relationship. Throughout the course of this show, Rebecca is tasked with discovering who or what will make her truly happy, and how she can make that happen for herself. She was miserable when she was working as a lawyer in New York, which was why she moved to be with Josh in West Covina in the first place. However, the real reason that she wanted to be with Josh was because he made her truly happy when she was younger, and she wanted to feel true happiness again.

(Spoilers for later seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.)

In Season 3 of the show, Rebecca is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which helps to explain her previous obsessive behavior regarding Josh and her other ex-boyfriends. Because of this diagnosis, Rebecca is forced to confront this element of her mental health and determine how she can be truly happy with herself and/or with other people.

Romance definitely plays a big part in this show’s plot, as Rebecca is often confused about how to navigate romantic desire and sex and relationships (much like we all are), but it's not the heart of it, really. The heart of the story is Rebecca herself, as she combats her own mental health problems in an effort to make her own life better. Most of the later episodes of the show are more about Rebecca struggling to determine who she really is as a person.

By the time the last episode of the show rolls around, you come to realize that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's plot didn't actually have much to do with Josh Chan or any of Rebecca's other love interests at all, but it was about happiness, and discovering who you truly are in the world.   

Category 6: Themes- A

Speaking of discovering who you truly are, if you've ever thought there was something wrong with you- I'm sure you can relate to at least one of the characters on this show.

Feeling lost? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's got you covered.

Feeling depressed? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's got you covered.

Feeling like no one else understands? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's got you covered for that, too.

"No One Else is Singing My Song" sung by literally the entire cast of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

As a whole, this show is primarily about mental health, and how important it is to take care of yourself, and make sure that you're doing what's right for your body and your mind. This show doesn't tackle everything, but it tackles quite a bit, and most of the time there's a big musical number to go along with it. 

"Tell Me I'm Okay, Patrick" sung by Rebecca (Bloom) (featuring Seth Green).

This show's also not afraid to get to the heart of the matter and discuss more serious forms of mental illness. (Spoilers for later seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.) In Season 3 of the show, Rebecca tried to commit suicide because she felt like she had lost everything and everyone she cared about. Eventually, Rebecca reaches out for help before she can successfully do so, but it does end in her being hospitalized, and results in her having to go to therapy for her problems later on. This was hands down the darkest moment of the show, and it marked a turning point for the series as a whole. After this point in the series, Rebecca needed to acknowledge that something was wrong, and she decided to get the help that she needed from the beginning.

The show really goes out of its way to destigmatize mental health, while also humanizing those dealing with mental illness, such as Rebecca with her borderline personality disorder, and Greg with his alcoholism. Every character in this show learns and grows from their mistakes (even Josh Chan goes to therapy, which we love for him!), and becomes a better person for it.

It was clear to me that the Bloom and the showrunners had a vision for how they wanted this show to play out, and how they wanted the message of prioritizing mental health to come across. To me, they absolutely nailed it, and this show has proved that it's never too late to discover who you are and what really makes you happy.

In all seriousness, this show really helped me get through a tough time in my life, by helping me see that I'm not the only one who doesn't really know how to cope with existing sometimes. By watching this show, I felt more seen than I had in a long time. I appreciated everything that this show had to say about friendship and love and therapy, and it made me feel less alone when I watched it. I even recommended it to a friend of mine who I also knew was going through a hard time, and we fangirled over the show together for a while.

Overall, I love this show. I think it's practically perfect, and I would recommend it to anyone having a tough time, or anyone who just wants to watch a really good show about mental health. On my personal rating scale, I would give this show an A, for "Absolutely watch it on Netflix."

Even if you think the entire show's not your thing, all of the music videos from the show are up on Rachel Bloom's YouTube channel, and so you can check those out instead. I definitely recommend "West Covina" and "I'm the Villain in My Own Story."

Have a happy holiday season, and stay blessed, y’all.