Wednesday, May 04, 2016

7 Posts: Growth and Change in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

One of the things I like a lot about "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" is that the characters grow and/or change.  Not drastically.  Not at their core.  But they learn from the things they experience which is definitely getting more common in comedies these days, but is still not always the norm.  There are comedies where you have to pretend that character X didn't say they always loved a thing that they now are teasing another character for doing six episodes later.
This isn't to say that all the characters always make the best choices for themselves or don't regress, because they do.  And that's real too.  But Rebecca, Josh, Greg, Darryl, Paula, and Valencia have all learned things this first season.  They haven't always made the best choices with what they've learned.
But, and now's the point where I can't talk about how they've grown without getting a little spoilery, but after years of shows where characters kept secrets that really everyone should have known, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" has moved pretty quickly in season one through the revelation that Rebecca is in love with Josh (which she was actually hiding from herself sort of).  Through the revelation that Darryl might also like guys.  (And special kudos for recognizing that bisexuality exists, which in this day and age should not be such a surprise, but so many shows don't even seem to consider that an option.)  Through the revelation that Greg liked Rebecca and that Rebecca might also like him.  And here's the thing.  Many many things have happened to these characters and they have grown and/or changed based on that information in - I hesitate to say reasonable way, let's say in ways that seem reasonable based on what we know about the characters.  This isn't to say I think these characters shouldn't continue to grow and change.  But it gives me a lot of hope for season 2 that they were willing to move through so much of this in season one and not try and drag out some secrets or revelations artificially.