Crazy Ex-Girlfriend looking to the end
After acclaimed series, Rachel Bloom hopes to concentrate on acting
LOS ANGELES— The fourth and final season of the CW series Cra
zy Ex-Girlfriend will be R-rated. That doesn’t mean more sex, lies and the seedy side of West Covina, but Rebecca will be dealing with redemption, recovery, responsibility, rebirth, renewal and reality.
The critically acclaimed comedy features Rachel Bloom playing Rebecca Bunch, a successful, heartsick young woman who gives up everything in an attempt to find love and happiness in suburban California. In the third-season finale, Bunch opted not to enter a plea of insanity for an attempted second-degree murder charge. The decision was a big step for Bloom.
Most casts and crews would be lamenting the end of their series, which returns Friday on CW and next Wednesday on W in Canada, but from the beginning, there had always been talk that the raucous story would be best told in four seasons.
“I feel like we always conceived of it as a beginning, middle and end,” says executive producer Aline Brosh McKenna. “It always had a shape to it. When I say that, it means we didn’t have every scene and every character turn mapped out, but we knew, generally. And so now it feels like, in a good way, it feels like landing on the aircraft carrier, and that’s nice for us.
“We deal with sort of the recovery and the redemption aspects, but also, it is a romantic comedy. So I think one thing you can expect is, especially the back half of the season, deals a lot with her romantic life once we’ve kind of landed and settled in on more of the issues in her emotional life.”
Bloom adds that every season was put together using a different lens of what it meant to be a crazy ex-anything. Taking the approach made each episode feel like a whole new show for Bloom. The final season is where the recovery starts.
What they have been doing in the previous three seasons has worked. Bloom — who was born in Manhattan Beach, Calif. (about 60 kilometres from West Covina) — won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series — Musical or Comedy, Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actress in a TV Comedy, as well as a Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy.
The R-rating topic comes again as Bloom talks about how different the series would have been if it had been purchased by Showtime. Programming on the premium channel doesn’t have to deal with the same restrictions as network shows.
“I like that we have structure because it has reined us in a bit,” Bloom says. “The sex would have been dirtier. I do miss the ability to make sex funny because there’s only so much we can show on a network. I think sex is hilarious. We hold it on this pedestal, but at the end of the day, it’s just kind of gross and awkward. So, it definitely would have been more awkward graphic-ish sex.
“It is always a challenge because it pushes us in nice directions because I think sex can sometimes be an easy go to for comedians — especially myself — so I think it sometimes makes us not go with the first idea and get a little more creative.”
Whether or not Bloom gets any rest is debatable. Bloom had worked on a long list of shows before Crazy Ex-Girlfriend came along, including Robot Chicken, The Fuzz, Very Mallory and The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. She can be heard and not seen in the animated film The Angry Birds Movie 2, slated to be released in 2019.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is wrapping up with its biggest production schedule to date with 18 episodes in the last season. And not only did Bloom star in the one-hour comedy that features original song-and-dance numbers each week, she was involved with the writing, producing and any other job that needed to be done.
Bloom wants her next series to be one where she can concentrate on acting.
“I have talked to other people like Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling about this kind of schedule and they agree it’s very hard,” Bloom says.
She pauses and then explains how her life after the series really could get R-rated as she wants to release an album full of the dirtiest songs she couldn’t do on the show.
And this is a series that featured the tunes “I Gave You a UTI,” “I Love My Daughter (But Not in a Creepy Way),” “Sex with a Stranger,” “Sexy Getting Ready Song ” and “Heavy Boobs.” She says the title will probably be Smut.