Oh, Rebecca Bunch, what have you gotten yourself—and everyone else—into this time? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend just broadcast the finale of its third season, and continues to build on its reputation as a smart, darkly hilarious, transgressive, surprisingly powerful musical comedy series.
Season three continues the saga of Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom), a troubled, chaotic lawyer whose two-season, obsessive pursuit of idealized ex-boyfriend Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III) ended in a disastrously imploding wedding. Rebecca begins this year on a hellbent mission of misguided revenge against him, but her trajectory veers substantially when her mental illness is finally diagnosed—she has Borderline Personality Disorder. Her attempts to rehabilitate are complicated by an unexpected new relationship with law partner Nathaniel Plimpton (Scott Michael Foster), and are largely unsuccessful thanks to new challenges and her own self-destructive tendencies, which ultimately take her down a truly disastrous path.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s third year continues to be unpredictable, shocking, addictive, and yes, uneven—but in a good way. As with season two, its shape is more erratic than the smoothly clocked first year, but it continues to succeed on the strength of Bloom’s delightful, immersive performance, the rock-solid chemistry between her and co-star Donna Lynne Champlin, and a robustly fun and talented supporting cast. Of course, there are also the musical numbers, which are as racy, inventive, and funny as ever—comic highlights this year include “Let’s Generalize About Men,” “The Moment is Me,” “Without Love You Can Save the World,” and most memorably “Fit Hot Guys Have Problems Too.” Its final number, “Nothing is Ever Anyone’s Fault,” is a brilliant thematic capstone, which slots Crazy Ex-Girlfriend into a new category, alongside shows like BoJack Horseman and The Good Place, as a sly, fantastical examination of terrible people laboring toward redemption. Evidently Bloom and co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna had always planned the show with a four-chapter arc, so here’s hoping the CW does the right thing and brings the series back for its grand finale.
I’ve really got to pick this back up – I think I lost it somewhere in season 2. There’s really not much else like it.