Crazy Ex Girlfriend Season 3 Never See Josh Again Review
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Third Season Broke New Footing
Too bad its strides were outnumbered past its stumbles.
The third flavour of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, similar the two before it, inspired a spate of think pieces—and understandably and so. The CW musical-comedy series, which wraps upwards (perhaps, given its perennially low ratings, for good) Friday, went dark and diagnostic this flavour, taking its antiheroine, Rebecca, through a suicide attempt, a rocky recovery, and a new psychiatric diagnosis. It's made for periodically bracing television—but also a season that's felt more than admirable than enjoyable. Not all the remember slice–able cloth worked as dramatic fiction, while plenty of the remainder illustrated the show'south now-glaring weaknesses.
Information technology'south a truism in TV criticism that many series peak in Flavour 3: The cast has had time to gel, the writers know how to write to the performers' strengths, and the characters have developed plenty of a history to satisfyingly challenge their preordained types. But the creative team backside Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has in large part thrown its actor-singers into new challenges—to the show's detriment. Longtime scene partnerships have been rent in twain. Attempts at musical novelty have sunk similar stones. Creative misfires abound, from Rachel Bloom's acting faltering in more dramatic scenes to the flavor's utterly forgettable crop of new songs. The less said nearly Vincent Rodriguez Iii's British emphasis, the better.
Naturally, I blame Josh Chan. Or rather, the fault seems to stem from the writers' decision to have Rebecca move on from Josh, the teenage crush she moved to West Covina, California, to pursue. Information technology was an inevitable evolution, but the storylines take felt repetitive and unmoored since, especially when it came to the sudden bloat of wacky secondary characters and the volition-they-or-won't-they pairing of Rebecca and Nathaniel. The try to fashion compelling scenes from therapy workbooks and sharp revelations about their childhoods was an ambitious gambit, but i that ultimately added to the season'southward dried sitcomminess.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I'd debate, has iii fantastic characters in Rebecca, Paula, and Josh—only eight serial regulars, as of this year. With Josh exiled from Rebecca's life after their aborted wedding ceremony in the Season 2 finale, the serial has visibly struggled to make its ballooning cast relevant. That strained exertion led to the season's worst storyline by far: Rebecca donating an egg to Darryl, the fertilized version of which got implanted in Heather'southward uterus, because volunteering one's unused womb is but a thing women straight out of college do sometimes! The plot was rushed by an 8-month jump, leaving no time for the show's protagonist to consider what it might hateful for her to get a biological mother, let alone to the child of her former boss and current employee.
There are a lot of other character developments I could employ to exemplify this season's inflation, in which Crazy Ex-Girlfriend seemed to compensate for the waning quality of its characters past increasing their quantity. Valencia'southward bisexuality was introduced with zero explanation, the trio of quirky irritants at Whitefeather & Assembly never stopped grating, and Rebecca's girl gang came off every bit a paean to female friendship that never explained why Rebecca, Paula, Valencia, and Heather would exist friends. Only the character virtually mangled by the writers was Josh, who'south barely afforded a moment of rage in the flavour finale upon learning that Rebecca and Nathaniel had plotted to have his father deported(!) and his granddad murdered(!!) as payback for leaving Bunch at the altar. That Rebecca too convinced a blogger to publish a series of lies virtually him, alienating him from his friends, seemed to have been totally forgotten. Instead, the affable bro thanks Rebecca for making him desire more from life. Josh Chan, consider yourself destroyed. As a character.
Josh was replaced by Nathaniel as Rebecca'south love interest this season, despite the fact that the high-powered WASP represents everything she fled Manhattan to become away from. Like Josh and the unhinged, obsessive Trent, neurotic Nathaniel was a cracking male foil to Rebecca, with his own daddy issues and chimera of privilege. Aye, he went to the zoo, simply different Josh, Nathaniel never became a character who resonated beyond his co-dependent relationship with Rebecca. We never actually learned why he became and then devoted to her, which made the approximately 267 times that he and Rebecca broke up and got back together over 13 episodes feel more than similar whiplash than a romance. Information technology doesn't assistance that Nathaniel got stuck with the flavour's musical nadirs, the above ode to menageries equally medication and (ugh) "Fit Hot Guys Have Problems Too."
Some of the obstacles between Rebecca and Nathaniel getting together felt natural, like Nathaniel being put off by Rebecca during her downwardly spiral or Rebecca ending their secret affair after meeting his girlfriend and feeling guilty well-nigh being the other woman. But some of the other gaps in their courtship felt more like illustrations of a checklist in a clinical textbook: Is the patient gear up for physical intimacy? Is the patient prepared for emotionally volatile situations? I have no dubiousness that these are very real quandaries that psychiatric patients face. Information technology's important, I'm sure, that viewers struggling with mental illness have a series that they can recognize themselves in.
Only many of the mail–suicide-attempt chapters take felt like Very Special Episodes, with Rebecca explaining to Valencia why she tin can't hope that she won't impale herself over again, or why posting inspirational posts on social media isn't helpful to the recovering. The therapy scenes between Rebecca and the administrative Dr. Shin have the overeager air of those hoary conversations between a sitcom protagonist and a wise elderberry. The attempts to mimic therapeutic breakthroughs, too, have simply felt like bad writing, as when Nathaniel suddenly realizes that his female parent tried to kill herself when he was a kid or when Rebecca reveals out of nowhere that she'south afraid that her newly diagnosed borderline personality disorder dooms her to a premature death. This being a evidence based in musical theater, I'm used to characters blurting out how they feel. Still, spontaneously unearthed childhood traumas and unthinkably horrifying existential fears presented at such abrupt rates feel like the flashbacks at the terminate of a bad movie that explain everything yet appease no one.
That Crazy Ex-Girlfriend takes its responsibility to portray recovery so fastidiously is noble. Just as this season exemplifies, that honorableness doesn't always translate to narrative satisfaction, peculiarly when coupled with other storytelling deficits. I'1000 glad the show has given us and then much to talk about. I but wish it gave me as well a few songs—or a supporting character whose arc made sense—while being so damn smart and considerate.
Source: https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/crazy-ex-girlfriend-season-3-reviewed.html
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