Still Crazy, if only for one ‘self-imposed’ final year
Music-driven dramedy’s fans looking forward to some ‘Cell Block Tango’
USA TODAY
SAN DIEGO— Rachel Bloom is not in the habit of taking song requests for her CW musical dramedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The fourth and final season is upon her, though, so she’s making an exception.
In a Comic-Con presentation Thursday moderated by co-star Michael McMillian, Bloom and fellow Crazy Ex co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna previewed the final batch of 18 episodes — premiering Oct.12 — and reiterated that the show wasn’t can- celled. “It’s self-imposed,” Bloom said, though McMillian countered with some comedic guilt: “I have two dogs to feed.”
The Season 3 cliffhanger for the show, which also airs on Global, left Rebecca Bunch (Bloom) headed for prison after pleading guilty to second-degree attempted murder — her way of taking responsibility for continually hurting those around her. The Chicago show tune “Cell Block Tango” is one fans bring up often, Bloom said, and the series is using it “in a cool way I’m excited for you guys to see.”
Crazy Ex fans can expect a return appearance — and a song — from Patton Oswalt, reprising his role as security guard Castleman in the second episode of the new season. Bloom debuted a new theme song during Comic-Con, a tune she called a mash-up of a 1990s TV theme and “the jingle for Doublemint gum.”
Each season was tailored to fit the show’s title, and while details and saucy songs changed, “generally we knew what every chapter of the four would be,” McKenna said. “The very end and the last scene have always been the same.”
Much has happened to Rebecca — romantically and in dealing with her borderline personality disorder — and Season 4 “is the time for putting together the pieces,” Bloom said.
“It’s about taking some of the lessons she’s learned, and she starts to put them into practice: I’m in therapy, I know lots about myself, how do I marry the internal me with the external? The show’s about inner happiness, and how you can externalize that in your actions.”
McMillian asked if there might be “life after death,” or if this is really the end, and Bloom confirmed “it’s a finite story we’re telling. It’s meant be a very specific journey in a young woman’s life.” McKenna said Bloom’s knowledge of musical theatre — which has been useful in creating signature Crazy Ex songs — is “truly prodigious.” But she did call out Bloom’s more mainstream tastes.
“Rachel pretends that she likes popular music but she really doesn’t,” McKenna said. “She came in one time describing a new song she had discovered about fireflies: ‘10,000 fireflies. Have you heard it?’ And the writer’s room was like, ‘You mean the Owl City song that’s been out for seven years?’ ”