If you've never seen an episode of the recently ended CW series "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend", well it's safe to say you're missing out. I'll admit I was trepidatious at first considering its a musical show, primarily because "Glee" and "Empire" convinced me shows like that get stale after one season, but "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" doesn't follow the traditional musical show model and can sometimes make you forget its more than a killer comedy.
The series main character, Rebecca Bunch, played by the show's creator and all around amazing woman Rachel Bloom, is not your typical lead. She is not only Suffering from a seriously harsh case of Borderline Personality Disorder, the broadway musical obsessed Rebecca is not actually breaking out into songs with her friends and lovers, but imagining full on musical numbers in her incredibly overactive imagination.
This allows the show and its songs to be presented in their most elaborate fashion without feeling forced or out of place. It helps that pretty much the entire cast has killer pipes and the songs are hilarious, relevant and relatable. "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" doesn't just produce love songs in one musical styling, but a plethora of tunes across different genres and topics. The show features songs about embracing bi-sexuality, the painful beauty processes women go through before a first date and even the discomfort and embarrassment associated with a yeast infection. But the buck doesn't stop there.
The writers of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" seem utterly unafraid to write numbers covering a wide variety of taboo subjects without sacrificing the comedy.
What really takes the cake in terms of the progressive nature of the show is its commentary on mental health. The name of the show alone embraces a term like crazy, often used in a derogatory fashion, unapologetically to describe its main character. Nearly every episode of the 4 season series addresses not only what crazy looks like, but the fact that being crazy and unleashing that crazy on the world around you leads to harsh consequences. A show that initially portrays itself as being about a woman going crazy over a man digs deeper over its progression to reveal that a girl acting guy-crazy is more often than not the result of an underlying issue.
A feminist's dream, the show normalizes mental health issues while still holding its characters accountable for their lapses in judgement. It confronts not only what love looks live through the lens of someone living with mental issues but how friendships, work and family life are all impacted by the presence of a serious disorder. Sure, I'm making it sound super serious but the show is genuinely hilarious poking jabs at celebrities, broadway, politics, religion and internet culture.
All of the seasons are currently available to stream on Netflix so get ready to binge the crap out of this on your next day off. "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" is a must watch for any woman struggling with loving herself and accepting that even though life can be traumatizing and beyond-frustrating, it can also be pretty amazing.
