In seasons 1 and 2 Rebecca Bunch swings on that crazy pendulum between funny and psychotic with a lighthearted ease. Of course you cringe as she does weird stuff and develops (normal TV) co-dependent relationships. The plot develops rather linear, her single focus is Josh Chan and her underlying issues surround her mother and the fact that she refuses to address her underlying issues.
Season 3 makes a few dramatic changes that result in Rebecca Bunch no longer leaning on her friends in unhealthy ways but actually learning to independently sort out her issues. There are a few things I appreciate about this season.
I realized the reason I relate to Rebecca is because she’s my brand of crazy. Some people create drama about work or thrive away from drama. I have always created drama based on the romance. As Rebecca navigates what it’s like inside a relationship and outside of one in a more healthier space we get songs like the one where she imagines an Asexual altruistic universe. Since mental health is about balance its fun to watch her to navigate between extremes to where she finds her happy medium with the help she is finally seeking for herself.
One thing that is small but hugely stands out is how there’s an underlying shift to her conversations with people. In fact, the whole cast seems to have graduated from Middle School antics to interacting in kinder, more healthier tones.
One thing that the author Rachel Bloom addresses is the fear of failure. I didn’t like how they dealt with that in the episode where her therapist gives her a star. Rebecca wants to impress him with how good she’s doing right off the bat. He challenges her to be normal and then treats her bad decisions as good ones just because she’s not concerned with her performance. But I loved her conversation with her new old therapist, Dr. Copian, who tells her that it is ok for her to want intimacy, which she fears because of her failures
This is also when we are dealing with her crazy obsessions. She doesn’t think she can separate relationships from obsession. For example, the T-shirt scene. I absolutely died laughing when you see her smelling her boyfriend’s shirt and then she’s in therapy about her obsession and we realize she is wearing his shirt. The obsession continues but she is aware of it and realizes there are ways to avoid it.
I realized as I watched this show what has been profoundly missed in my TV watching experience- ethics. It seems these days that edgier and edgier is what flies. But this season in particular Rebecca has an affair and is forced to confront how she is hurting others and herself as she talks to Paula. Paula was cheated on last season and so her reaction to the affair is moving.
One of the themes throughout the show (both blatant and less obvious) is the fact that we will do anything to avoid having hard conversations. The season starts out with Josh Chan bailing their relationship and becoming a priest because he doesn’t want to tell Rebecca he doesn’t love her. Similarly Rebecca continues to have a difficult time confessing her own failures. Hilariously she calls a business meeting and hands everyone she has wronged a memo with all of her grievances they didn’t know about.
I love the challenging of wrong mindsets this season, especially the victim mentality. By the end of the season she has to face many lies. She has to live with guilt and shame and take responsibility for the things she’s done to hurt others.
I know some people have commented that this season the music isn’t as great, it’s too dark, and too dirty. I want to address those things.
I think Rachel Bloom is the first prime time television show actually head-on addressing these issues in a very real way. The lack of focus on the music doesn’t bother me because it’s not as needed this season. The metaphors are still there and there’s still color and flare throughout the songs. But the cheesy shortness of the musical numbers offsets the complex dialogue and plot throughout quite nicely.
I think I already addressed it but the darkness in my opinion is so necessary. Everything in the first two seasons was taking her to ridiculous comedic extremes. This season we finally get to see where endless cycles of shame and not getting help ultimately lead to. As I mentioned before, there’s a real theme of taking responsibility for your actions. I applaud Rachel Bloom for navigating this tricky subject so well.
I did have a hard time with how much sex was in this season but I don’t think it’s because there was less in other seasons. Certainly not season 2. She slept with a lot of people in season 2.
Of course I do think overall this season had a lot of songs about sex. My personal favorite was the song about the dude who thought he was sexually pleasing his wife and discovered he wasn’t. I can see how this can be too much for some people. And I do think she went a little far in the song “the very first penis I saw.” But if you’re going to be refreshingly honest about other things like “the miracle of birth” I guess talking about the first penis you saw makes total sense. Also, remember that these songs are things going on in Rebecca Bunch’s mind. Don’t pretend that you don’t have similar fantasies (perhaps less musical).
I think I was bothered by the constant unhealthy sex with Nathaniel. I do think one could argue that this was a great way of showing that relationships built on sex alone are not good relationships. Although I’m not sure she argued that well either.
Overall, I highly recommend the third season of Crazy Ex Girlfriend. Owning up to our own emotional instability is rough. I’m thankful that this show gives me an outlet to do so.
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