“I have no underlying issues to address.”
Wow… After a wildly uneven run that started to find its voice again in the final few episodes, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has delivered a season finale for the ages. I have complained for months about how this season hasn’t embraced the darkness that made this show so unique. Rebecca’s mental illness started to get pushed aside in favor of her being just a little kooky. It felt as though Rachel Bloom was starting to curve the show to become more appealing to a wider demographic. Nope. As it turns out, she was just winding up for what might be the most heartbreaking gut-punch I’ve ever seen in a comedy series.
We’ve known from the start that Rebecca’s life before West Covina was less than happy. Between an unhealthy obsession with her deadbeat father and a constant tension with her loving but overbearing mother, she threw her life into a spiral in order to please her. She went to Harvard and Yale and became a high-powered lawyer. However, there’s one major piece we’ve been missing. Robert. As Rebecca finally started to see her wedding dreams come true, repressed memories of a man named Robert who we at first think she was engaged to start to come back. Throughout the episode, we find out that Robert was actually a professor of hers at Harvard several years earlier. He told Rebecca that he would leave his wife and marry her but ended up abandoning her point blank.
Already dealing with severe issues with men forsaking her, Rebecca snapped, almost burning down his house. We see her in court with Naomi being given a restraining order from Robert. We hear Naomi say “she’s just a girl in love, who can’t be held responsible for her actions.” Yes, that’s right. This season’s silly little Busby Berkeley theme song has actually been a representation of this horrific memory all along. Rebecca is sentenced to a mental health facility, where the orderlies say that she is constantly singing to herself.
There was a lot of pressure riding on this wedding. Both Josh and Rebecca’s father had to come through, especially the latter. Desperate to impress her dearly departed daddy, Rebecca went into full-on manic mode. The wedding started to fade to the background in favor of the daddy-daughter dance. I nearly fell out of my skin during the scene where she had a long laugh over the dance instructor thinking they were a couple. We’ve gone past the point of daddy issues into straight-up psychosis. Of course, Papa Bunch isn’t actually interested in making up, revealing that he is mostly at the wedding to wring some money out of Rebecca for his son’s medical bills.
Meanwhile, as Josh started to unravel this twisted mystery, he started to key into his own issues. The main one being his habit of running to the nearest pretty girl the minute things start to get complicated. He catches himself about to cheat on Rebecca with a coach he’s been working with and makes an insane decision. He’s not getting married at all. Instead, he’s going to be a priest and give up women entirely.
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Rebecca almost ran off of a cliff upon finding this out. Whatever was holding her together has completely broken. Every man who she’s ever cared about has left. She’s quick to blame herself but then, miraculously, Paula gets through to her. This isn’t her fault at all, it is solely on the men. Rebecca accepts this truth hook, line and sinker and shuns her father away for life. As for Josh, Rebecca has only one thing to say. He must be destroyed. End of season.
All of this time, we haven’t been watching a musical comedy. This has been a super-villain origin story all along, and next season, we’re going to see Rebecca give into her madness. I’m in love with the idea of episodes that are no longer beating around the bush. We can finally evolve beyond parody songs and love triangles. It’s time to really dig deep into Rebecca’s head. Going into this episode, the prospect of getting a long break from the world Bloom has created was rather appealing. Now, I’m desperate to see where this is all going. After all, this show is no longer “Crazy” Ex-Girlfriend. Now, she’s straight-up certifiable.
See you all next season!
Rating: 10/10
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