4 reasons why 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' is the best show you're not watching

The nominations for the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards—the tipsy, oversharing aunt of awards shows—were announced on Thursday morning. We were genuinely thrilled to learn that Rachel Bloom, The CW’s titular Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, has earned a nod for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy.

Bloom is nominated alongside comedy legend Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Veep and fellow insanely delightful CW star Gina Rodriguez, who won the Globe for Jane the Virgin in this category last year.

Though the network recently ordered five more episodes of the series, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has remained criminally underwatched since its October premiere. I’m afraid that this is no longer acceptable. Here are four irrefutable reasons why it’s time for you to board the Crazy train.

1. Rachel Bloom is a national treasure and should probably be housed in the Library of Congress

There’s something about Bloom that makes me want to brandish an invisible cane in the air and shout, “Going to be a big star! Huge! Top of the world!” like a old-timey theater impresario. She stars as Rebecca Bunch, a high-powered Manhattan attorney who moves across the country on a whim to pursue her high school ex-boyfriend, Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III).

A razor-sharp comic actress, Bloom—who co-created the show with The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna—brings exactly the right amount of unhinged energy to the part, creating a character who’s both deeply twisted and deeply relatable.

Bloom is also a former writer for Robot Chicken and a voice actress heard on shows like BoJack Horseman, but she’s perhaps best known on the internet for writing and performing “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury,” which went deservedly viral in 2010. Girlfriend can sing.

2. Did we mention it’s a musical?

…and did we mention that the songs are really, really good? Like, not just funny, but actually, truly enjoyable to listen to? An hour-long musical may not be the most intuitive format for TV, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which features about two numbers an episode, delivers.

One of my favorites to date is “Settle for Me,” a half-hearted romantic appeal to Rebecca from Josh’s best friend Greg (Tony nominee Santino Fontana, who voiced Prince Hans in Frozen):

Another good starting point is our heroine’s surreal, glitzy tribute to her adopted hometown of “West Covina.” It’s only two hours from the beach!

3. It’s feminist as hell

Before it debuted, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was widely criticized for its title, which seemingly played on the demeaning trope of hysterical women. We’re unstable! We’re irrational! We have an entire shed out back stocked with emergency tampons! Ack!

Fortunately, in the proud tradition of Cougar Town and Selfie (RIP), it’s proven to be a good show that happens to have a bad name. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend even satirizes its own title in the opening theme song. When a cheerful animated chorus sings, “She’s the crazy ex-girlfriend,” Rebecca takes offense: “What? No, I’m not. That’s a sexist term. The situation’s a lot more nuanced than that!”

In fact, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which, in case you’ve forgotten over the course of the last few paragraphs, was created by two women), is uniquely and hysterically (see what I did there?) attuned to a female point of view. Take, for example, “The Sexy Getting Ready Song,” which not only revels in the double standards and surprisingly gory details of pre-date beauty rituals—and I do mean gory: this is the first time I’ve seen “ass blood” on TV—but also acknowledges that women without flat stomachs exist, right here on Earth. Who knew?

Best of all, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t have just one weird, wonderful, complex female character to offer. I’m more than a little bit in love with Paula (Donna Lynne Champlin), Rebecca’s coworker and best friend.

4. And refreshingly diverse

The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend cast features hilarious performers of color in prominent roles, including Rodriguez, Vella Lovell as Bunch’s offbeat neighbor Heather, and Gabrielle Ruiz as Valencia, Josh’s yoga instructor girlfriend. This show is also noteworthy for depicting the first Filipino-American family Thanksgiving dinner in television history, and for showcasing an all-too-rare leading man of Asian descent.

Oh, hi, Josh.

Molly Fitzpatrick is senior editor of Fusion’s Pop & Culture section. Her interests include movies about movies, TV shows about TV shows, and movies about TV shows, but not so much TV shows about movies.