Rachel Bloom as Rebecca Bunch, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”
By
Staff
The CW, 2015-2019As the co-creator, star and co-songwriter of the CW series “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” Bloom delivered on all creative fronts. But her performance as lawyer Rebecca Bunch, who abandoned her high-strung New York life to pursue a childhood crush in the exurbs of L.A., is worth singling out on its own. Bloom’s manic portrait of a woman cloaking her mental health struggles in cultural myths around love and romance was a high-wire act sustained for four seasons. In her pursuit of sweet-natured himbo Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III), Rebecca was clearly troubled, but not a cautionary tale, which allows the show to comment on various tropes without succumbing to them. Fantastical song sequences helped “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” make its point, highlighting Bloom’s musical and comedy chops in equal measure. One could pick a track at random and stay humming it for the rest of the day.
