What Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Season 3 Finale Twist Means for Season 4 and Rebecca Bunch

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creators Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna on Rebecca Bunch's big choice and what's ahead

By Chris Harnick Feb 17, 2018 2:00 AMTags
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rachel BloomCW

Rebecca Bunch is guilty. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend character spent the whole season three finale feeling guilty and apologizing for her past misdeeds, which are numerous. Those misdeeds included lying to her best friend Paula about Trent, Rebecca's stalker, blackmailing Paula. Rebecca Bunch also pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder. Yep, that happened.

In "Nathaniel Is Irrelevant," Rebecca (co-creator Rachel Bloom), went to extreme lengths to stop Trent (Paul Welsh) from harming Nathaniel (Scott Michael Foster). She pushed him off a balcony, y'all.

Nathaniel acted as her lawyer and advised her to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, she has her borderline personality disorder diagnosis, but upon seeing Paula (Donna Lynne Champlin) at her hearing, Rebecca decided once and for all to be held accountable for her actions. She's done hiding.

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"This is the first season that's ended on Rebecca doing something good, as opposed to seasons one and two where it was like, ‘Oh no' and those were so unresolved," Bloom said when asked if she'd be OK with this being how the series ends should there be no renewal. "This is the first season where you see her doing this really, really good productive thing, but no, it's not the end. Even if we…make it on Instagram!"

"It's the end of second act really," co-creator and showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna said.

So…Rebecca Bunch is in prison in season four? If there's a season four? E! News spoke with Bloom and Brosh McKenna about the big twists and what's ahead. Even more spoilers ahead!

Can we expect a "Cell Block Tango" type of musical number in season four?
Brosh McKenna: We're not going to tell you any of that about season four! We're still talking about season three. We don't know yet.
Bloom: We don't know yet. We haven't started…

When season four gets announced, will we see her in prison?
Brosh McKenna: We don't know yet…we don't have any of the stuff worked out for season four. We could do anything, we could start with her on a different planet.

You could do a time jump again.
Bloom: We could do a time jump again.
Brosh McKenna: Yup.
Bloom: We could start with her on a different planet. I mean, we know what we're doing, but we won't share it.
Brosh McKenna: We like to leave things open for ourselves in case we change our mind.
Bloom: Yeah, you never know.

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Will we see Rebecca be a truly good person now? She seems so intent on being a good person.
Brosh McKenna: Well, she's certainly going to try. I think the next season is about recovery, redemption, possibly recidivism, renewal, rebirth, but there will also be retrenchment, retribution—
Bloom: [Laughs.] Wow, all the "r" words, wow those are for some f—king hard words. I think what was interesting to me about next season—[To Brosh McKenna] and anything I say, just be like, ‘Never mind, bitch, that's off the record'—but it's almost like every season…is in some ways, a new show, because it's a new prism. It's a new lens, she's a different person, there's a different kind of arc, and a different kind of focus. And the idea of…you could see the show as the first three seasons being a prequel to like, ‘girl who has nothing restarting her life.'

Brosh McKenna: Yeah.
Bloom: That's many shows out there, right? Someone who was stripped of everything, restarting things and trying to be good. That alone is just the new show.
Brosh McKenna: That's right. And she's in a different mode at the end of this season. This is the first time we've actually ever seen her truly take responsibility. Responsibility will definitely be another "r" word theme going forward.

We've seen Rebecca and Paula on this cycle of making up and falling out. Is this ending kind of putting that to rest?
Bloom: This is different. This time is definitely significantly different. This is such an extreme but earned way for Rebecca to be like—you can't come back from this. You can't come back from what Rebecca did and go back to being season one Rebecca.
Brosh McKenna: And also, don't forget, Paula's got some s—t to work out too. She is by no means a perfect person either. So I think that they're—in that nod to her at the end of this episode, I think she's saying we can do this, we have some ground to cover. She's not putting it all on Rebecca because we don't hold up anybody on the show as sort of the avatar of being sensible.

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On the topic of Paula and Donna Lynne, you guys kind of made her the queen of genital songs this season. She had the childbirth song in the finale and "First Penis."
Brosh McKenna: [Laughs.]
Bloom: Oh my god, you're totally right.
Brosh McKenna: Yeah, penis and vagina! P and the v!
Bloom: Donna Lynne should be the genital queen…She's—I know we say this a lot, but she's amazing and she's an amazing person. We have just the greatest, most fearless, sweetest, most willing cast.
Brosh McKenna: They would do anything.
Bloom: They trust us so much.
Brosh McKenna: They're so excited by the weirder the thing we give them, the more excited they are. And they really are fans of the show too, they really all are fans of the show as well. Donna is, I think, the team captain for being fearless.
Bloom: Yes.

Is there anything else you want to say about the season finale?
Brosh McKenna: I just feel like, for me, as someone who has been working with Rachel for almost five years—and I am also her friend—that very last scene at the end in the courthouse where she does that monologue and we really end on her face, I used every single second of that shot because she was doing something wonderful and amazing for every second of that. It felt in a great way like a culmination of what we thought of as our most challenging and some ways important season. So that's how we feel about it, I think.

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Bloom: The thing that I love about the song [between Rebecca and Nathaniel] in the finale is—all of our characters on the show are tropes that we deconstruct, and Nathaniel is no exception. Part of the reason we created Nathaniel was, ‘OK, what's a trope—oh, the reformed asshole.' And the great thing about that song is it's that trope, but he learns the wrong lesson...So, he does learn from her, but unlike the end of a rom-com where he goes, ‘Oh my god, I'm cured. The fact that you love the rain means I love puppies now'…it justifies his actions. He's only used it to further justify being an asshole, and so that's a really fun way—that's the tragedy in that song to me, that he almost gets it and he just learns the wrong lesson. He has a long way to go.

Bloom: The second thing I'll say is every season finale, they're arguably the best episodes of our season. Those are…everything is Aline's vision, obviously, on this show, she's the showrunner, she's the co-creator, but [finales] especially, she's directing them, she's writing them, they are the most purely Aline episodes…So, the idea that she goes into an edit and then she has to go into prep to direct the season finale and the season finales always come out so pristine, it's really a testament to her work and I just can't—she should just be getting all the awards for the season finales.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will probably return this fall?

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