“Two hours from the beach, four in traffic.”
Underneath Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s quirky premise is a sad story about a woman who has lived a very unhappy life. Though the musical comedy, which premieres October 12th at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, seems on the surface to be a light romp through one woman’s obsession with an ex-boyfriend from many years prior, the show’s strengths come from its darkness.
We want to hear it.
And there’s a lot of darkness in this show. The series, which was originally developed for Showtime, stars Rachel Bloom as Rebecca Bunch, an established lawyer whose entire life revolves around her job. A run-in with Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III), a man she dated for two months when she was 16, causes her to turn down a $500k-a-year partner position at her law firm to move after him to West Covina, Calif. and chase the first moment of happiness she’s felt in an indefinite period of time. This decision and her subsequent stalking of him definitely put the “crazy” in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
In West Covina she finds a new job that serves as a cover for the true purpose of her move (stalking Josh). There she meets her boss Darryl (Pete Gardner), who is going through a divorce and hired Rebecca partly so he could have his own Jewish lawyer to go to bat against his former wife, and her new coworker Paula (Donna Lynne), who is threatened by Rebecca’s New York chic vibe and determined to figure out what is off about her. Rebecca also finds a potential love interest in bartender Greg (Santino Fontana), who is attracted to her despite realizing she’s entirely using him to get to Josh.
Rebecca Bloom in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
The humor in the series primarily comes from the absurd and exaggerated situations. In one scene, Rebecca breaks out into her “sexy getting-ready song,” which plays like a Mariah Carey music video sequence and is used to offer a brief, cynical commentary on how much effort women put into getting ready. At one point in the scene, a rapper stops performing the song when he realizes just how depressing Rebecca’s actual bathroom situation is versus the one she’s imagining.
“This is horrifying, like a scary movie or something,” he said. “Nasty-a–, patriarchal bulls–t. You know what? I’ve got to apologize to some b—-es. I’m forever changed after what I’ve just seen.”
That’s funny, if harsh, and it’s in moments like that where Crazy Ex-Girlfriend really shines. It uses comedy to cut to some deep truths, and tends to do so well. But the whole pilot comes off with a horror story-with-a-smile vibe, and it left me with conflicting feelings about the series. On the one hand, I applaud the show for being so different, so biting and so unapologetic about its vision. On the other, I despise Rebecca Bunch.
Rebecca Bloom in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
I need to clarify: I dislike Rebecca, but I think Bloom is excellent in her portrayal of the character. She pulls no punches with Rebecca, and she isn’t setting out to create someone who is likable; she’s playing her best crazy ex-girlfriend, after all. Bloom makes Rebecca complex and genuine, and knows the audience is supposed to judge her obsession with Josh as extreme. But even if we don’t like Rebecca, we should relate to her in some ways, and I found her to be too generally awful to truly connect with.
There’s something honest about a person, female or otherwise, being so bogged down in their job and what people (in Rebecca’s case, her overbearing mother) expect of them that they forget to live their lives — in fact, that’s something that most people can probably relate to. If that had been the main conflict that Rebecca was built on, then that would be a great point from which to launch the series. But despite that relatable concept, Bloom’s character is a hard person to empathize with. She’s defined by being over-dramatic, obnoxious and having a tendency to brag; in other words, she’s the worst parts of a personality rolled into one.
On paper that sounds like an interesting challenge of a character, but in execution Rebecca is a tough person to hang a series on. I’m having trouble rooting for her to succeed because she’s not that great of a person. It’s easy to see how this could be a good starting point for a strong, interesting arc, but for now Rebecca is not someone I want to get to know.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has the opportunity to grow to greatness, but it begins with a flawed start. The series skews to an older audience than the traditional CW fare, and Rachel Bloom is a talent to watch. But it’s hard to grow attached to main character Rebecca Bunch, whose craziness goes well past the point of relatability.
