Like its Protagonist, ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ is Brilliantly Ridiculous

Have you ever wanted to watch a middle aged lawyer in a prison jumpsuit and an oversized thong realize her internalized racism and class privilege half way through an overeager “Chicago” parody?

Welcome to the world of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” One of the most heartfelt shows on TV, the CW veteran is fresh and unpredictable at every turn. In the new installments of its penultimate season, it promises even more fantastic surprises.

The brainchild of Rebecca Bloom, who also stars as its lovestruck, music-theater loving lead, “Crazy Ex Girlfriend” centers around the journey of New York lawyer turned suburban California inmate, Rebecca Bunch. In Season One, after a chance reunion with a high school summer camp fling, Rebecca quits her job to move to uneventful West Covina, California (“Only two hours from the beach — four in traffic”).

Of course, as the show’s demonstrated from the beginning, Rebecca’s surface-level “boy craziness” is more than some vacant-ingenue cliché. She’s been using her relationships and hyperactive imagination as a band-aid for the fact that she’s unhappy with her career, family, and relationships since the first episode. But, after finally hitting rock bottom at the end of the previous season, in Season Four she’s determined to come to terms with who she really is. That means, for the first time, not relying on men, or tried-on scripted female narratives, to construct a socially-acceptable identity.

“I Want to Be Here,” the season premiere, sees “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” seamlessly settling into this new paradigm, starting with Rebecca, finally, accepting the consequences of nearly killing someone. It’s the series’ first-ever episode not to include the name of a male romantic interest in the title, and debuts a theme song that is also, for the first time, not about another of Rebecca’s various “stereotypes.” In addition to that amazing “Chicago” homage, the second of its two musical numbers is an on-the-nose group number about the ironic universality of loneliness. In classic “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” style, the number is both tongue-in-cheek, with a 12-person unison chorus of “No one else is singing my song,” and, briefly, poignantly serious. Though each person singing is in a different place, every member of the cast can hear the others by the end of the number — except for Rebecca. It’s a subtle nod to the unique isolation that stems from her struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder, a deeper challenge that can’t be resolved in a neat four minutes.

The musical numbers in “I Am Ashamed” are similarly strong, if not particularly exceptional (they can’t all be “I Go To the Zoo.”) A feature from comedian Patton Oswalt and some great skeleton dresses make “The Cringe” harmless Halloween-themed fun. The second number, “Time To Seize the Day,” while not lyrically outstanding, achieves a rare tonal balance as it turns agoraphobia, self-sabotage, and six hours of Rebecca’s wallowing into two minutes of cheesy, comedic catharsis. In fact, it ends up being an emotional gut-puncher with enough time to simmer.

Unfortunately, the Halloween-inspired ghost storyline in the episode was less successful, and the writers failed to make Rebecca’s sudden obsession with the supernatural feel anything but out of character. Rebecca and her friends summoning a ghost as an exaggerated metaphor for Rebecca’s inability to let go of the past may have filled some kind of CW-witchcraft quota, but it took far too much time away from the otherwise excellent emotional arc of the episode.

All in all, Season Four is off to a promising start, with the wide-ranging musical numbers, spot-on comedy, and witty self-awareness that have always made it so irresistibly fun. The show is a master at balancing entertainment and introspection, with a human core always lying just beneath the extravagant, hare-brained comedy. “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” is taking the risk of leaning in to the full range of its self-destructive protagonist, in all of her morally questionable, even near-fatal decisions. That boldness pays off in dividends, as the show manages to create a woman who’s capable of every hallmark crime of a “crazy” woman, but whose brokenness is so understandable, and so familiar, that she’s all but impossible not to love.