Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

I have a confession. I read the comments sections on Youtube. And often I write things too. And that probably sounds like a pretty weird way of starting what you might call a review of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but hopefully it’ll start to make sense.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a television show that I’m watching on Netflix after years of hearing things about it. Now, when I say “hearing” what I actually mean is reading. In all sorts of places. Including some comments on Youtube… presumably for this video, as an example. And most of these internet takes say the same things. Consider some comments from that video, like:

Yeah you haven’t watched enough of the show to understand it isn’t just a typical rom-com. She literally is mentally ill and the show depicts her coming to terms with it and working through her issues and the consequences it has.

or

“Rebecca has to work through some issues” That’s it. That’s the entire show.

or

I don’t think Rachel (EDIT: Rebecca) being creepy is portrayed as being okay in this show. I mean, the show is called “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” They’re playing on that trope — but with consequences. The more of the show you watch, the more you realize that Rachel (REBECCA) has the most problems of anyone on the show.

And if I’m being honest, I don’t know if I’ve always found these ideas attractive. I can’t remember why I decided to “finally” watch it because I just don’t remember that kind of stuff. Maybe it was this video and these comments. More likely, I wanted to have breakfast/lunch/dinner and now that I’m a drop out I basically don’t eat without watching something, which has the side effect of making meals really stressful (because I have to choose something to watch and when I start looking I’m already hungry). The point though is that the above stuff is interesting (now, at the very least).

Which is where we get to the problem. I have forced myself through most of the episodes I’ve seen. Or, with a couple of them, half watched while playing Cities Skylines (and I never half watch… I’m an “all in” kind of person). Why? Because up until episode seven (the one with the Dr Phil… actually, it’s more than a cameo… guest spot?) Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is not that interesting show. For its first five episodes, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend works mostly like so:

• Rebecca Bunch wants to date Josh but
• Josh has a girlfriend, although it’s not a good relationship and he seems open to dating Rebecca although
• Josh’s friend Greg is definitely into Rebecca and, also, he’s obviously much better suited to her except
• Rebecca’s really not dating Greg even when they do go out together and he’s not an idiot so
• We get one of the frequent musical numbers entitled “Settle for Me”.

If I’m being honest, I don’t really like musicals. Variety shows, sure, but musicals? Not really. They’re just okay. And trust me… I’ve seen quite a lot of them (some live). You see, I find them very confusing. Are the musical numbers actually happening? Is this one “real” but that one’s “metaphorical”? It’s basically the problem with subtitles for English language programming… I can’t focus on what I should be doing because I’m always being distracted (whether by the subtitles or the question of fictional reality). And I think this goes for most people, actually. Musicals are horribly old fashioned as mainstream.

Similarly, those early five episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are pretty much based in the single worst romance trope in existence… the love triangle (although, given the number of videos I’ve watched about stuff like this one’s I should clarify I mean “worse” as in “most annoying” as opposed to “horrific”). So… that’s not great, either.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend may be about all that interesting deconstructionism and nuance that its fans remember but if you ask me… it has pretty much none of that until Doctor Phil shows up. Which would be one thing if this programme was 20-ish minutes long. But it’s not. You’ve got to watch six forty odd minute episodes of frequently cringey (becauses of Rebecca’s shenanigans) content with the tiniest hints of that interesting stuff (and, in that context, mocking theme song). That’s a big ask. Especially if you’re not watching on Netflix so have to wait a week to get the next episode.

Let me be clear… if you follow those comments into those first six episodes, I think you’re getting a fundamentally misleading impression of what the show is. This is not a contemporary an Agents of SHIELD situation. When people say AoS doesn’t become a fully realised concept until towards the end of S1, what they mean is more, “I don’t want to watch A Plots about SHIELD agents and B Plots about Coulson”. But even if they did mean that, no-one, literally no-one, tells you to watch AoS without acknowledging that the show evolves. In terms of AoS, this is millions of people thinking it was a superhero show because of misleading marketing.

What’s worse is that one of those six episodes is a God damned Thanksgiving episode. yuck

But then you get to episode seven and suddenly it’s all “now this is what they told me about”. Hell, I was even comparing Episode Nine to The Beach, my all time favourite episode of Avatar.

So… what to do?

Honestly? I’ve only seen the nine episodes so far, but it’s now a “so far”. I was on the verge of giving up on the show… even as a “something I’ll watch while I eat” option. Er, the point is… I’m not sure. I think (hope?) the Greg stuff in there is going to be important later on (and E9 definitely requires knowing about it) so it might just be a case of “you have to slog through it”. But in my personal experience… knowing what seems like a big future spoiler might help. That is… this song is about Josh.

I told you reading Youtube comments was important.

But, er, I don’t want to find the quote again because I think I just saw a spoiler now that I care about spoilers again. But I’m sure I read it!

(Also, that is definitely way more Fame or I’m So Excited than it is It’s Raining Men… the only real similarity is the last of those says “men” just as often.)