Making (Narrative) Sense: Introspection and Retrospection in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Abstract

Making (Narrative) Sense:Introspection and Retrospection in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Florian Zitzelsberger (bio) and Melanie Kreitler (bio) In order to make sense of narrative, we find ourselves drawn to a text's beginning and ending as a way of following or understanding its trajectory. As Brian Richardson notes, there is "conceptual and emotional power in resonant opening lines of works that move us—or even those that no longer move us" (37). Endings seem to instill even more meaning in the narrative because, building on their beginnings, they provide closure, catharsis, or deliberately take unexpected turns and leave recipients hanging. It is the relationality of beginning and ending that facilitates sensemaking: whether endings resolve conflicts, restore equilibrium, or do not fall in line with our expectations, they do not seem to be able to cast away the specter of their beginning; endings make narrative sense (or not) because of that which has come before. This relationality can also help us confront more complex structures and understand how the perception of an ending as the endpoint of a narrative teleology is a rather limiting notion. Rethinking narrative endings as alternate beginnings, as openings for an extended engagement with the narrative, provides us with alternative ways of sense-making. In this light, beginnings and endings figure as transitory rather than finite elements of storytelling. Taking up Richardson's idea that works of fiction move us, we acknowledge that the extent to which we are moved—if at all—will not always be the same. Our reading and viewing experiences in turn influence the potential impact fiction can have on us, which speaks for a co-production [End Page 240] of aesthetic experience (Felski 70). Considering the relationality of beginning and ending, we therefore also reflect retroactively on how endings might make us feel differently about beginnings, or vice versa. Retrospection is not just a powerful storytelling device; it can also figure as an emotional or affective response: going back as a way of making sense by embracing how we felt before. It is perhaps unsurprising that we consider those endings that do not offer neat closure particularly moving, precisely because they invite us to go back and embark on a different journey. Most mainstream shows in U.S.-American television attempt to minimize the gap between their beginnings and endings in a way that adheres to viewers' socialization and acculturation with storytelling conventions. Going back in most cases is not necessary; loose ends are often already tied together by the show. The CW's musical romcom television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019) at first glance appears to follow such a conventional story structure. And yet, protagonist Rebecca Bunch reminds us in the last episode of the show that "life doesn't really make narrative sense," which directs us back to four seasons of a character's life that has appeared to make narrative sense, only for us to find out that, in retrospect, it has not (S4E17). In this article, we analyze the final episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend closely in an effort to understand why the story does not make "narrative sense" and how challenges to sense-making affect both the mediation and representation of subjectivity and the shaping of Rebecca's life story as a whole. We argue that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend presents a non-ending that offers viewers alternative ways of sense-making rather than resolving or closing off the narrative. The non-ending of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend can be understood as an invitation to viewers to revisit moments throughout the show. This is not a circular ending as theorized by Richardson, wherein the ending paradoxically becomes the story's starting point (168). Rather, the non-ending invites a form of engagement that extends beyond the show's running time to mirror the protagonist's own process of sense-making. The non-ending requires our reconsideration of the narrative in acts of introspection and retrospection. The genre of the musical is well equipped for staging moments of introspection in its musical numbers, which are often used to make visible characters' interiority. Musical numbers serve numerous narrative purposes (e.g., giving voice to thoughts and feelings, providing utopian visions...