Critically acclaimed, featuring a complex heroine, and chock-full of catchy and irreverent musical numbers, the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which finished its run last night, was both an anomaly and a gem. What’s more, it was one of the most consistently good, constantly evolving shows on TV, reinventing itself each season with distinct chapters that steadily built to its never forgone conclusion. It was a show with such a high degree of difficulty that I kept waiting for it to go off the rails, only to be surprised when even OK episodes were better than most of what was on. Consider the sheer number of things this show was: a romantic comedy, a meditation on mental health, an ode to musical theatre, a critique of gender stereotypes, a celebration of female friendship…I could go on and on, and that’s what makes Crazy Ex so impressive.
Almost from the start of the series, cocreators Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna said theirs was a four season story. However, even with a plan in mind, they also made slight or even major adjustments throughout the show’s run so smoothly that it became impossible to tell if they were part of the plan or not. Greg’s departure in season two for example, had the hallmarks of an actor leaving unexpectedly, forcing the writers to scrap what I assumed at the time was a relationship that would last the entire series. Instead, Greg and Rebecca were always destined to break up, leading to their reunion this season as newer versions of themselves—in Greg’s case, literally.
There were smaller shifts too, particularly between the first and second seasons, ones you could chalk up to that old TV standby of writers figuring out what works and building on it. The second season and beyond focused on the nuance of Paula and Rebecca’s friendship, their hilariously offbeat coworkers, and Vella Lovell’s scene-stealing turn as Heather. They tweaked Valencia into someone with more depth but suggested that it had been there along; Rebecca and, by extension, we as viewers just hadn’t noticed, keen as we were to cast her as the villain. They introduced Nathaniel, who fit in so well that I often forgot he wasn’t even in the pilot, let alone most of the first two seasons.
Those shifts are just one of the many, many things that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend did well. Another is its theme songs, which were different each season depending on Rebecca’s story. I loved dissecting those theme songs. They functioned as a thesis statement of sorts each year, offering clues about where Rebecca’s journey might take her. To go back to season one for a moment, that year’s theme featured a starry-eyed Rebecca headed to a new city, full of hope for romance, and taken aback by your critiques about doing something big for love. She was defensive and probably for good reason; it’s not every day a sun gleefully sings “She’s so broken inside!” at you. That line was the show’s first hint at something darker bubbling beneath the show’s candy-colored, song-filled world and its sunshiny heroine, but it was far from the last.
In contrast, the Rebecca in season two’s theme song was confident, coy. She bagged Josh Chan, after all. She proved her haters wrong while acknowledging that “oh, maybe they were a tiny bit right about the crazy part.” But it’s OK, because when you’re in love, acting crazy is no longer weird or unhealthy, it’s adorable. In that song, the hint that things are not quite as OK as Rebecca thinks comes with the hilariously disconcerting beat after Rebecca says “Blam!”
Season three’s theme isn’t hinting at anything. Rebecca’s turmoil is right on the surface (“You do (don’t) want to be crazy”). She’s made progress in that she recognizes something is wrong but still won’t take responsibility for it. Instead, she argues “This is what you’ve done to me” Both things, the turmoil and being unwilling to take responsibility for her actions, come to a head in season three, the first with her suicide attempt partway through the season—heart-wrenching because it’s simultaneously shocking and far too easy to see coming—and the second with her owning up to her mistakes in the finale.
In contrast to the other three themes, season four’s song is practically a celebration. It finds Rebecca embracing her nuance in a way we’ve never seen before. It’s also the first one that doesn’t reference love or relationships at all, similar to how the show quietly switched from boy to “I” statement episode titles this season. The person narrating the theme song may give up on her by the end (“Let’s go back to other Rebecca”), but our Rebecca is smiling and waving throughout. She has a look of “that’s a good point!” when the singer mentions her flaws instead of denying them as she did in season one, dismissing them like in season two, or blaming them on someone else like in season three.
In addition to the theme song, each season also features one big number sung by Rebecca that shows her mental state with devastating clarity. There may be disagreement among viewers about what those songs are for each season, but for me season one’s is undoubtedly “You Stupid Bitch.” It remains one of my favorites from the series, I’ll admit partially because, like a lot of aspects of this show, it makes me feel seen on an almost uncomfortable level.
However, I also love it because it neatly encapsulates the show and Rebecca. It’s quietly heartbreaking—or sometimes not so quietly heartbreaking; the way Rachel Bloom sings “simple, self-hating” gets me even when I’m just listening to the soundtrack—but it’s also funny. It embraces the hilarity of singing a self-indulgent song of self-loathing to a crowd who knows all the words. I bring that up because while breaking down the show as a moving portrait of one woman’s mental health, it’s easy to forget how rare that mix of soul-crushingly human drama and smart, silly comedy is.
Season two’s most defining song comes in its penultimate episode, when Rebecca is planning her last-minute wedding to Josh and begs Seth Green’s affable but confused delivery man to assure her she’s OK, in the aptly titled “(Tell Me I’m Okay) Patrick.” There’s a desperation in that song, a sense of just how close Rebecca is to the edge, that foreshadows that season’s finale, the end of which finds Rebecca literally on a ledge after Josh leaves her at the altar. In that moment, being crazy in love doesn’t seem so adorable any more. It’s funny that Josh wants to be a priest until Rebecca’s standing there telling Paula not to come any closer and suddenly it’s not so funny anymore.
That scene is the first time I realized something that had been building in the back of my mind throughout the first two seasons: that even as I was laughing at Rebecca’s hijinks, her crazed obsession, her hilariously specific songs, there was a nagging sense that something was wrong, that this escalation that was usually amusingly dangerous could quickly become actually dangerous. That was intentional; as I said, part of what made Rebecca’s eventual suicide attempt so awful was how easy it was to pinpoint what led her there.
After that unbearable low, though, season three’s big song, “A Diagnosis,” is thrillingly hopeful. It’s joyous and bright, and marks the biggest turning point for Rebecca. Despite her uncertainty, it’s the most clear-headed she’s ever been, because she finally believes she can be clear-headed. She’s pinning all of her hopes on this one thing in a way that’s very in-character, but it’s not a boy she’s pinning them on this time, and that’s why it feels like it might finally work. Throughout the rest of season three and into season four there are believable backslides, especially in her romantic relationships. However, she also puts in a hell of a lot of work, sending herself to jail to atone for her mistakes, exploring new careers and opportunities, and being there for her friends more than she’s ever been before.
You could make an argument that season four’s most important song is the medley from last night’s episode, which includes reprises from the show’s theme songs and some songs mentioned here. That medley is lovely to watch and brings everything full circle. With the costumes worn in those numbers swirling around Rebecca, she finally lets someone into the madcap musical theatre world she’s created for herself. Of course, that person is Paula, who, let’s be honest, was always her real soulmate.
However much as I loved that medley, for me, this season’s most important number is “The Darkness” back in episode twelve, sung after Rebecca lapsed in therapy and haphazardly threw herself at Josh, Nathaniel, and Greg all in one night. It’s one of those realistic backslides, but it’s what comes after that counts: Rebecca waiting outside her therapist’s office, finally putting a name to the thing that’s plagued her for her whole life. By treating it like a bad ex, she finally allows herself to consider that she may be able to get rid of it forever.
This song also comes a couple episodes after one of the most enlightening scenes in the whole series: an honest conversation between Rebecca and Greg about how her bipolar disorder manifests itself. Throughout the series, it was sometimes easy to think that Rebecca had made no progress at all; just as Rebecca’s brain tricked her into thinking that, the show could sometimes trick viewers too. But think about season one Rebecca who wouldn’t even admit that she needed help, let alone acknowledge that she had an illness, let alone name it, let alone talk about it with a romantic partner, let alone admit that she had messed up and explain why.
And yes, she had this conversation with Greg, not Nathaniel or Josh, and it’s easy to take that as a sign he’s the person she ends up with at some point in the future. You can take last week’s fun The Bachelor inspired outing as an indicator of that too; she had a great time on her dates with Josh and Nathaniel, but it was on her “date” with Greg, which found the two of them waiting for his car to get fixed and arguing over what food to order, that she seemed the most content. I got the sense from that episode that Josh is who she’d be with if she remained an idealistic teenager, Nathaniel would be the one for her in the dream version of herself (that one we all have), but Greg is the one for her as she is now. Not who she wishes she could be or who she was in the past. This version of her, the one she actually is, who’s messy and honest and makes mistakes and has finally stopped seeing herself as a problem to solve.
It doesn’t seem wrong to mention this; as much as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend made it clear that, as Rebecca said in the finale, “romantic love is just a part of your story,” it also showed that wanting that is perfectly OK. This show was a deconstruction and critique of rom-coms, but it was also a celebration of them. That’s why it’s great that the finale lets you have both things. As it should be, front and center is Rebecca finding peace with whom she is and what she wants—appropriately meta-ly, to write songs—but it also suggests that romantic love is in her future if she wants it, but not because she needs it.
The finale feels intentionally unfinished, because this character who was always striving for something is finally content just being. It isn’t clear if she eventually winds up with Greg, Nathaniel, or neither of them. We don’t even hear the song she wrote. What we do know is the episode’s title, which I’ve always understood to be written by Rebecca herself: “I’m in Love.” Going into the finale, I had no idea what it would be in reference to: a guy, a career, or something else entirely. Now we know: it’s herself.
Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a TV... 