Your Guide To Getting Onboard With ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’

It’s been a (for lack of a better word) crazy couple of months since we last had a new episode of the CW’s freshman series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The CW ordered five additional episodes, it ended up on some Best-of-2015 lists, and creator and star Rachel Bloom won a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Comedy:

So what better time than right now, with the show returning with new episodes TONIGHT, for you to hop onboard? If you’re looking for some help catching up on who’s who and what’s West Covina, allow us to be your guide.

What’s the Show Called?

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

What’s It About?

Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) gives up her promising but soul-crushing corporate law job in New York City to move out to California on a whim. She settled in the Inland Empire town of West Covina, which is where Josh lives. Who’s Josh? Oh, Josh is the ex-boyfriend from her theater-camp youth who she’s still hung up on, and whose chance encounter with her in New York inspired her to make this big change in her life.

Might There Be a Handy Way of Summing Up That Premise, Perhaps in a Song?

So glad you asked! Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is doing a lot of things right, but one of them is keeping alive the grand tradition of the Big Explainy Theme Song:

Whoa, Singing! Is There a Lot of That?

Sure is! The big hook of Crazy Ex-G is that it’s a musical comedy, right here in our midst every week. Each episode usually has two or three songs of various genres, performed as a kind of reverie either in Rebecca’s fantasies or in another character’s. The styles vary, which is nice. You can go from pure musical theater one minute to dance-pop parody the next. The first-episode song “West Covina” sets up the hopes and dreams (and hangups and hindrances) of Rebecca’s character pretty perfectly …

So She Moved Across the Country for a Guy? Isn’t That Just Like…

…Felicity? Yes. Except Felicity moves from California to New York, and Rebecca did the exact opposite, and instead of “um”s and “hey”s, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has songs. But yes, there’s a good bit of Felicity DNA at play here. Particularly the fact that at the heart of the story is a love triangle.

Ooooh, a Triangle! I Love Those

Right? Yes, they may be a cliché, but there are few ways to get hooked on a TV show that are more enjoyable than getting wrapped up in a love triangle. Felicity had Ben and Noel. Rebecca has Josh and Greg.

Josh: the guy she moved across the country for, the love of her life, the super cute guy with sweet dance moves and a kind (if a bit doofy) demeanor, but who also has a girlfriend and has no idea he’s the reason Rebecca moved there.

Greg: Bartender, friend of Josh, all-around nice and handsome guy with a killer singing voice played by musical theater star Santino Fontana (Frozen, Broadway’s Cinderella).

The deal is that Rebecca is pining for Josh while Greg is sweet on her. Or he is until he gets burned by her one time too many. She makes out with him and then breaks down crying over Josh on their first date. Still, Greg makes the case that, despite being hung up on Josh, she should settle for him:

But Rebecca proceeds to sabotage another date by going home with another guy. So Greg is, let’s say, wary. (And then in the last episode, Josh takes Heather to his family’s house for Christmas, and she kisses to him. More on Heather in a bit!)

Josh’s appeal is somewhat more complicated. It’s tough to want to root for Josh because that seems like approving Rebecca’s most self-destructive instincts. And yet … we’re all happy Rebecca made the move to West Covina, because that’s how we have a show. And Josh is the brass ring, right? He has a kind of teen-idol appeal that is best summed up thusly:

This goes back to why I always rooted for Angela Chase to end up with Jordan Catalano and not Brian Krakow on My So-Called Life. Both were really flawed options, so why not see Angela end up with the guy she really wanted, even if it would ultimately not work? In Rebecca’s case, she has two really GOOD options in Josh and Greg; I’m kind of rooting for her and Josh at the moment, but honestly, the race is close.

Who Are the Other Principal Characters?

Paula: Rebecca’s co-worker and co-conspirator. Paula has a pretty disappointing home life, with a husband who doesn’t give a shit and a couple of frankly awful kids. So it’s not a huge surprise that she dives headlong into the project that is helping Rebecca land Josh. She has been vocally anti-Greg, at least as a romantic prospect. To the show’s credit, they never lose sight of Paula as a person, and she’s a sympathetic character in her own right, apart from being Rebecca’s best friend.

Darryl: Kind of a living, breathing Bob’s Burgers character, Darryl is Rebecca and Paula’s boss. He’s well-meaning but pretty hopeless.

Heather: Rebecca’s stoner neighbor who initially takes an interest in Rebecca because she’s taking an abnormal-psych class and Rebecca seems like a good test case, but eventually she gets as caught up in Rebecca’s schemes as everybody else seems to. In the fall finale, she accompanied Greg to his family holidays, basically because she had nothing better to do, and after nudging Greg to get over his family ish, they started flirting, and she kissed him. Heather’s awesome, I just wish the show would give her a smidge better reason to be connected to the characters and plot of the show. Maybe she’ll be dating Greg now? That’s not totally sufficient, but it’s a start.

Valencia: Josh’s girlfriend. She’s very beautiful and intense and good at yoga. She and Rebecca become friends at first, until Rebecca makes it weird (dance-floor makeout), and now she doesn’t like Josh seeing Rebecca at all.

Mrs. Bunch: Tovah Feldshuh plays Rebecca’s terror of a mom. She’s critical, she’s nagging, she’s judgmental, but she loves Rebecca very much.

I’m Still Singing That ‘West Covina’ Song in My Head. Any Others?

Oh my yes! Some of my favorite musical numbers from the season so far:

• “What’ll It Be?” Greg’s “I have dreams and stuff” song, a killer Santino Fontana performance and a great example of the ways this show can combine heart and comedy.

• “California Christmastime,” a purely goofy and catchy-as-hell alt-Christmas carol that sent the show hurtling into the holiday break. I’m calling it now: this needs to be entered into the holiday-song canon starting next year.

Okay, You Got Me, How Do I Watch It?

It airs Mondays on The CW at 8PM ET, and you can stream the season (including the first eight episodes) on Hulu.

Oh One More Thing: Isn’t That Title a Bit Problematic?

Sigh. Look, TV show titles are allowed to be ironic and hyperbolic without a federal case being made about it. But rest assured that the show makes plenty of references to the sexism of the concept of a “crazy ex-girlfriend” (it’s in the theme song) and the connotations of “crazy” as a pejorative throughout the season. Now go watch the show!