CRAZY EX Is Crazier Than Ever in Season 3

She's back and crazier than ever. Also ex-er than ever.

When we last saw Rebecca Bunch, the title character in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, she had just been dumped at the altar. Her crush of crushes, Josh Chan, decided at the very last minute to become a priest rather than marry her. Ouch. But our crazy girl, played by the show's producer/writer/creator Rachel Bloom, was not going to take that lying down. Well, actually she was, but that comes later.

When we pick up Season 3 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, still on the CW but now moved to Fridays, Rebecca is AWOL in the wake of the wedding that wasn't, and her friends and co-workers are wondering what happened to her. They get together for a musical number where they are dressed like the village folk in a Disney flick like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast and sing, "Where's Rebecca Bunch?" At the end of the number, Rebecca sings, too, from her bed (lying down No. 1), ultimately deciding to "Fight back!" As part of her plan to go from a victim to a "woman scorned," she's buying dark nail polish and hair dye and renting movies like Fatal Attraction.

Her best friend Paula (Donna Lynne Champlin) also has a plan, but hers involves lie detector tests and sign-in sheets to make sure she can trust her husband, who had an affair last season. And Rebecca's sweet but dim boss at the law firm, Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) is trying to convince his boyfriend White Josh (David Hull) that the two should raise a baby together, while White Josh is focused on a new venture with power bars made of ants.

In the meantime, Rebecca does show up at the office, with darker hair and a hot white dress, à la Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. She also gets together with the rest of her friend squad (deadpan neighbor Heather, played by Vella Lovell, and another of Josh's exes, perfect Valencia, played by Gabrielle Ruiz), cluing them in on her plan to get revenge. Since it involves poop cupcakes, they nix it quickly, so she turns to a fake porno/sex tape idea and starts auditioning actors to find a Josh Chan stand-in to have fake-sex with. That also strikes her friends as wrong wrong wrong, but they pretend to go along for awhile, until Rachel finds a perfect Josh replica (also played by Vincent Rodriguez III, presumably to give him something to do in the otherwise Josh-less episode). When Rachel gets naked with every intention to really get it on in front of the cameras, Paula steps up and shuts it down.

And then we get a slam-bang 80s girl-group number called "Let's Generalize About Men," with the Girl Squad in bright-colored power suits, with short skirts, big earrings and giant shoulder pads, as they bash the male half of the population in the catchiest possible way. Except for gay men. They are specifically excepted from the bash. It's pretty nifty all around, with the self-aware, snarky, fizzy-pop edge this show does so well.

By the end of the episode, White Josh and Darryl have sorted out their issues, Paula has reached a rapprochement with her husband, and the Girl Squad has come up with a much better plot for revenge wherein Rebecca takes Josh to court. But Rebecca... Yeah, she's still firmly ensconced in Crazyville, right back in the bathroom with the feces-laced cupcakes.

What's next? "To Josh, With Love" airs next Friday, and since that's what Rebecca wrote on the lid of the container for her meadow muffins, presumably there will be some fallout from her crappy revenge idea.

I admit I pretty much hate scatalogical humor, so I'm hoping there isn't much on that score, and we jump right to what's happening with Josh in his ill-advised attempt to become a priest.

"To Josh, With Love" is set for Friday October 20 at 7 pm Central time on the CW.

She's Baaaaack... Watch out for CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND's Fall Premiere Friday

Rebecca Bunch, the character who brings the crazy to CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, will be back in a new time slot this Friday, October 21, at 9 pm Eastern/8 Central. It's probably not good news for the show that it's been shipped to Fridays, a TV wasteland, but it's good news for people like me who aren't averse to watching something during that wasteland.

Creator Rachel Bloom plays Rebecca in all her off-balance glory, with a boffo musical number or two every episode. My favorite last season was the Fred-and-Ginger inspired "Settle for Me," where one of the men in Rebecca Bunch's life, Greg (played by the amazing Santino Fontana) tried to get her to give him a shot even though they both knew he wasn't her first choice. There was lots to choose from, however, including "A Boy Band Made Up of Four Joshes," which put Rebecca's fantasy man, Josh, as every member of a bouncy boy band and gave Vincent Rodriguez III a great spotlight for his dance talents.

This season, we're getting a new theme song to illustrate that Rebecca's life has changed from moving all the way from New York to West Covina to be near her teen crush Josh to actually thinking he's in love with her and all her dreams are coming true. The AV Club describes the new song this way: "Rebecca, done up like a 1930s showgirl, croons about how she can’t be 'held responsible' for the insane things she does because she's in love." In other words, Rebecca is just as unhinged as ever and hijinks will ensue.

If you want a hint as to what that will mean in the first episode, Rebecca will sing a song spoofing Beyonce and "Lemonade" song about supposedly being satisfied with the tiny droplets of affection (or "Love Kernels") she gets from Josh. As with most of the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend musical numbers, there is something sharp and pointed underneath the zippy lyrics.

I wasn't that happy with Season 1's final episode, where Greg acted stupid at a wedding reception and Rebecca and Josh got together for sexy time, whereafter Rebecca confessed that she only moved to West Covina for him. But it does set up some interesting plot possibilities for Season 2, now that Josh knows the truth, Greg has to deal with Josh and Rebecca as a couple, and Rebecca is no more in touch with reality than she ever was. Plus the musical numbers are worth the DVR space all by themselves.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and its new theme song (plus its "Love Kernels") premiere Friday at 8 Central on the CW.  

You Know You Want to Hook Up With CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND Tonight

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator, writer and star Rachel Bloom is fresh off winning both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy. Isn't it time you watched her show to see what all the fuss is about?

Before she was a Crazy Ex, Bloom was probably best known for her viral video F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury, in which she sang and danced and did some very naughty things with the Bradbury oeuvre. Bloom has kept up the Youtube thing as well as writing for shows like Robot Chicken. But Crazy Ex-Girlfriend takes her to a whole new level, along with a terrific supporting cast that includes Broadway stars (Santino Fontana, Vincent Rodriguez III, Donna Lynne Champlin) and TV vets from drama (Tovah Feldshuh) and comedy (Stephnie Weir, Cedric Yarbrough) alike.

Bloom and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend have gotten a lot of good press and, of course, those two awards (so far). But when it was still on our TVs before the holiday break, Crazy Ex pretty much languished at the bottom of the ratings. But that doesn't take the shine off how good it is or how much you really should watch it, especially if you like Broadway, musicals, fresh comedy and, well, women. It's that rare comedy that is actually directed at women, with a woman creator and star in Bloom and a lot of women behind the scenes as writers, directors and producers.

In Bloom's case, she's going for something that is "ballsy, honest and vulgar," as she tells the New York Times' Susan Dominus in a recent interview, as well as smart and a little geeky. Aside from a musical number about the horror of all the maneuvers women go through to look good ("The Sexy Getting Ready Song") and another about having a creepy girl-crush that sounds more like being a serial killer ("Feeling Kinda Naughty"), Bloom has incorporated an elegant black-and-white Fred-and-Ginger number ("Settle for Me") with Fontana and a big blow-out song about the weirdness of celebrating Christmas in hundred-degree weather ("California Christmastime") that includes both "historically low mountain snow causing staggering drought" and "eggnog fro-yo" in its lyrics. Clever, irreverent, off-balance and strange... All hiding under snazzy pop songs and bouncy dance moves.

If you want to tune in to all the Crazy Ex goodness tonight, you may want to know what's happened so far. Quickly... Rebecca Bunch, Bloom's character, is mostly smart and together when she's at her job -- she's a lawyer at a high-powered firm in New York when it all begins -- but not so much when it comes to her personal life. When she sees Josh Chan, a guy she had a quick thing with at camp when she was a teen, she decides on the spur of the moment to follow him to West Covina, California, to restart her life in the hopes of hooking Josh. That's where the crazy part comes in. Rebecca keeps telling people she didn't uproot her whole life just to pine after Josh, but we knows it isn't true. Girl is more than a little obsessed.

Ignore the whole thing about not taking a bar exam in California and instantly being able to jump into a job in a new (low-rent) West Covina law firm... Yeah, ignore that. Because Rebecca generally being a mess, contending with her own anxiety, trying to make new friends, stubbornly hanging onto the Josh thing even though he has a hot girlfriend, with all kinds of upsetting of your normal TV apple carts, is fun! It's fizzy! It's frequently scatalogical! Wheee!

Tonight, Rebecca rents a party bus to take Josh and his friends to the beach. Kenny Ortega, director and choreographer of High School Musical and choreographer of Dirty Dancing, directs this beachy episode where Rebecca appears to get down and dirty with a stripper pole on the bus. No word on whether my favorites Fontana and Champlin are in this one. I can't see either of them on that stripper pole, but you never know...

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs Monday nights at 7 Central on the CW.

CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND Is the Musical Show You Should Be Watching

Are you watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, created by and starring Rachel Bloom, on the CW? The odds are you're not, because its ratings are quite low. It's up against The Voice and Dancing with the Stars at 7 pm Central on the CW, so that seems like a foregone conclusion, but even so...

It's got Santino Fontana. Yes, that Santino Fontana. Prince Charming from the recent Broadway Cinderella, Moss Hart in Act One and Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest, the voice of Hans (the bad guy) in that boffo Disney movie Frozen, and the original Joseph Douaihy in Stephen Karam's critically acclaimed Sons of the Prophet for New York's Roundabout Theatre. He is versatile, he sings beautifully, his acting chops are major, and he's on this goofy little musical comedy on the CW. He will also be in Jennifer Lopez's new show, Shades of Blue, playing a character named Stuart Sapperstein opposite J-Lo's gritty cop. Gonna guess he isn't a tough guy in that one, either.

Santino Fontana with his Frozen alter-ego

In Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Fontana plays Greg, the nice guy who initially likes the heroine, Rebecca Bunch. She's the crazy ex-girlfriend of the title. She's not his crazy ex-girlfriend, mind you. And that's the plot hook of this show -- that Rebecca, a very good attorney, drops her big-money New York job and moves to West Covina, California, after running into an ex-boyfriend -- sweet and hunky Josh Chan, someone she fell for at summer camp way back when -- and learning that he is now in West Covina. Rebecca moves to West Covina, too, gets a job, and then keeps trying to impress and/or snare Josh, the boy of her dreams.

Rebecca's dreams are a big part of the show, since she keeps conjuring up fantasy musical numbers to showcase what's happening in her life. The best ones so far have been Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III) as all four members of a boy band, and Greg and Rebecca (Fontana and Bloom) in a black-and-white art deco world right out of Astaire-and-Rogers Land where he urges her to "Settle for Me." The video is highly addictive. Also adorable. And twirly!

Which isn't to say I don't have problems with the show. On the good side, Bloom is funny as Rebecca, I get to see Fontana on my television, the cast is top-notch, the cynical, self-deprecating writing can be fun, and the musical interludes are awesome. On the bad side... It's hard to watch shake Rebecca when she's so self-involved and obtuse, the humor has a tendency to get a little gross (which is not my favorite style of comedy, to say the least),  the legal parts are really, really wrong-headed, and I don't think I can handle "Rebecca chases Josh while being an idiot around Greg" as a plot strategy much longer, even if everybody involved is acting the heck out of it.

That's the dilemma, really -- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doesn't strike me as the kind of material than can last more than one season, because there really needs to be some movement on the Rebecca/Greg front, pulling her away from her self-destructive infatuation with Josh, even though that's the whole premise of the show. Meanwhile, the ratings are so bad that I'm concerned it will even make it through a whole season, although personally, I would love to see Rebecca make some progress on the maturity front and get some resolution of the love triangle (or rectangle) before it's gone.

Episodes so far have revolved around Rachel setting up camp in West Covina and interacting with coworkers, meeting Josh's super-cool girlfriend, throwing a party in an attempt to see Josh, going on a date with Greg (when "Settle for Me" happens) and last night, trying to be a good person after the disastrous date with Greg where she made it clear she was anything but. Next week we get Rebecca snagging an invite to Thanksgiving at Josh's house and then "I'm So Happy that Josh Is So Happy!" on November 23rd. Greg will show up in the Thanksgiving episode, and he even gets a father to play off in that one. Since Rebecca has major Daddy issues, I'm guessing Greg's dad will be around for conflict, as well.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs at 8 Eastern/7 Central Monday nights on the CW.  I'm going to need you to put aside your Voice and DWTS issues for a few weeks, just long enough to resolve its plot and show off all those nifty musical interludes.