Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

[Pfhorrest]

A year or two ago I noticed on my girlfriend's Netflix queue something titled "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend", which intrigued me because that didn't sound like the title of a show that she would watch, unless, perhaps... the titular "crazy ex-girlfriend" is the protagonist? It's about a "crazy" person, from her own point of view?

And it turns out that that is the case, and the show is a fascinating and hilarious musical dark comedy slowly exploring the mind of the sympathetic but deeply flawed protagonist from her own perspective as she gradually comes to grips with her own issues while engaging in wacky hijinks and (possibly hallucinated) dramatic musical numbers in pursuit of her ex-boyfriend from years before.

The Season 1 Intro Song sums up the premise in about 30 seconds, though don't let the animation fool you; that's not what the show looks like, it's all live action besides that intro.

The YouTube channel that that video is hosted on, racheldoesstuff, belongs to the show's star and creator, Rachel Bloom, and has some music videos and stuff that are more in line with the show's feel, though keep your eye out because a lot of them are actually from the show and so might be spoilery if you haven't watched it yet.

The third season just began (second episode of it aired tonight), so if you want you can binge two seasons of it before catching up with the present action.

[Isaac Hill]

I like this show, but it doesn't look like the network does. It's on Fridays, which isn't great to begin with since that's the weeknight people are most likely to go out. Plus, at least on my cable setup, it's not OnDemand, making it harder to catch an episode you've missed. The show after it, Jane the Virgin, isn't OnDemand, either.

I missed the 2nd episode this season. The recap at the start of episode 3 helped, but things escalate so quickly that I still feel like I missed a lot. Plus, I didn't get to hear the songs.

"Sympathetic but deeply flawed" reminds me of something I read about Arrested Development. It was the actors' job to make their characters as likeable as possible, and the writers' job to make the characters as unlikeable as possible.

[Pfhorrest]

It seems like basically all of the songs from the episodes are now being posted on the creator's YouTube channel linked above, so if you do miss an episode and can't catch the whole thing somewhere, you can at least watch the musical numbers on YouTube.

[Pfhorrest]

Someone please catch up on this, I desperately need to discuss the latest episode (s03e05).

[Isaac Hill]

CEG showed up OnDemand this week, so I was able to get caught up, and saw 3.5 Friday.

Spoiler:

The pill-taking montage of Rebecca's suicide attempt had the same sort of matter-of-factness as a montage of, say, pulling an all-nighter would. It made the suicide attempt seem more like a logical next step in the story than a dramatic twist. Rebecca finally seeking help by pushing the button mark "HELP" managed to add a comedic touch without lessening the gravitas of what just happened.

Rebecca has a horribly incompentent mother. When she saw the suicide web search, then started making milkshakes and being nice, I took it as a genuine improvement. Mama Bunch (Naomihad talked about trying to toughen her daughter up as an explanation for being such a hardass. It looked like she had seen that she'd gone too far, and was legitimately trying to be nice. And in her way, maybe she was. But, drugging Rebecca with her consent (with medicine not even prescribed for Rebecca) is beyond the pale.

I wonder if Rebecca's actual mother being so controlling, and indifferent to Rebecca's wants, led Rebecca to seek out a surrogate mother in Paula, who spent the first season (and some time since) indulging Rebecca's worst instincts.

On a lighter note, I loved what they did with the normal person having to interact with the Whitefeather crew. It reminds me of a less over-the-top Frank Grimes, from the Simpsons.

[Pfhorrest]

I was so desperate to talk about it right after seeing it but now that it's days later and I have the opportunity I can't think of anything to say, other than that was maybe the most heart-wrenching bit of television I've ever seen and I cannot wait to see the resolution next episode. I normally don't really feel much of anything when watching TV (besides amusement or annoyance, meta-level feelings about the quality of the work itself, not about the characters in it), but as Maya would say, this one gave me "all the feels".