Paula. Is she a genuine friend who is trying to help Rebecca find happiness by winning over her Love Interest, or is she simply an enabler who is encouraging Rebecca's unhealthy behavior because of her own general boredom and unhappiness with her own life? It seems to zig-zag particularly around the season finales. At the end of season 1, she and Rebecca fall out because Rebecca gives up on Josh and Paula takes this as a personal insult. Then they reconcile and Paula shows herself to be a true friend, admitting her past selfishness and even going so far as dissuading Rebecca from pursuing Josh again. Then, when Josh leaves Rebecca at the altar and Rebecca announces that he "must be destroyed", Paula looks all too eager to help — but then, when Rebecca really goes off the handle, Paula realizes she needs to be stopped before she hurts herself or someone else.
Rebecca herself. Does she actually love Josh Chan or is she merely projecting her own wants and desires onto an old ex-boyfriend and using him to escape a life where she was immensely unhappy? "Josh Has No Idea Where I Am!" lends credence to the latter. Later in "Will Scarsdale Like Josh's Shanya Punim?" even Rebecca herself admits it, if only for a moment — before Josh bursts in and proposes to her.
Greg - a self-sacrificing Snark Knight and Only Sane Man, or a nasty, bitter underachiever who makes bad choices and takes out his frustration on his family and friends? The show seems to settle on a mix of both — while he is a self-sabotaging, bitter alcoholic, he genuinely cares about those close to him.
Is Valencia a controlling Alpha Bitch like Greg sees her, or just a frustrated small town yoga instructor who's been dating the same ambitionless boyfriend for 15 years and now has to deal with an emotionally unstable woman trying to take him away? She and Josh actually fight over this and she breaks up with him. The show takes the latter interpretation, making Valencia friends with Rebecca and having them bond over the way Josh treated them.
In-universe, Rebecca sees her mother as a spiteful, controlling woman who drove away Rebecca's beloved father. "Dream Ghost Dr. Akopian" demonstrates that while controlling, Rebecca's mother loves and cares for her deeply, protecting her from the fact that her father simply had no interest in maintaining a relationship with his child.
Is Josh Chan genuinely the sweet, charismatic optimist Rebecca pines for, or a narcissistic Manchild perpetually living his high school Glory Days? Supporting characters like White Josh and Father Brah are increasingly seen treating him as the latter as the show goes on, and even Rebecca acknowledges it somewhat.
In general with this show, if you wonder 'is Character X A or B?', the answer is 'they're both'. Most of the characters eventually come to acknowledge their less flattering traits, but that doesn't make them act perfectly all the time.
Award Snub: The show's first season failed to earn an Emmy nomination for Comedy Series, and Rachel Bloom (despite winning the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and TCA awards earlier that year) was omitted from the Lead Actress line-up as wellnote this may be due to a snafu that the Academy created to better distinguish dramas and comedies, where half-hour shows were classified as comedies and hour long shows (of which Girlfriend was one) were classified as dramas. However, producers can petition to the Academy to have their shows considered for the alternative category; as of this a handful of these were successful, such as Glee, Jane the Virgin and Shameless (US), all of which were nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series. On the positive side, Bloom's musical contributions were recognized in the Main Title Theme and Music & Lyrics categories, and the show won for Choreography and Single-Camera Editing in a Comedy Series.
Base-Breaking Character: Josh's detractors find him an obnoxious manchild who gets in the way of Rebecca's chances with other characters. He is not universally disliked, however, as many people do support him and Rebecca as a couple, while others like him as a character despite not wanting him to be with Rebecca.
Greg Serrano and whether or not he should be with Rebecca. There are a lot of Greg/Rebecca (or Grebecca) shippers, but there are also a lot of fans who can see that Greg has a lot of problems and think that neither of them should be in a relationship at the moment.
Shipping as a whole, considering that the show is a deconstruction of romantic comedies. Though there are fans on Team Josh and Team Greg (and Team Nathaniel, post-season 2), Rachel Bloom herself has said that she is Team Rebecca and also Rebecca needs more therapy and to come to the realization that being with a guy won't make her happy.
The quality of Season 2 and whether it lives up to Season 1. There's a fair few fans who think the show just isn't the same without Greg, that Rebecca has gone from being a complex but ultimately sympathetic character to an unlikable and self-centered jerkass, and that the plot has become increasingly weak and meandering whilst going in no particular direction. Then there's a similar-sized portion of fans who enjoy the season just fine, praising the character development of minor characters who are being well fleshed out with storylines independent of Rebecca and are glad to see the phasing out of the love triangle. Then there's a third, smaller group who think Season 2 is even better than Season 1.
Season 3 follows suit, with there being a pretty even divide between people who find its more hands-on discussion of mental illness than in previous seasons to be well-done and people who find it to be clunky.
And Season 4 also has some mixed responses, with some finding the entertainment value and musical numbers underwhelming compared to previous seasons and finding that Rebecca's redemption arc takes away some of the comedy and drama that came from her insanity, while others find her journey none the less compelling and still enjoy the musical numbers. Part of the point of the show was to show Rebecca's journey from serious mental health issues to... whatever she ends up with at the end of Season 4. For this to work, her character had to develop, and her lovable kookiness in Season 1 had to be shown up as seriously destructive behavior. For this reason alone, people who didn't want her to develop, but wanted more of the same, were doomed to be disappointed.
The decision in Season 4 to bring Greg back, but have him be played by a new actor. While many are just glad to see him return at all, and think the recasting works well for its intended symbolism, many are skeptical and think the new actor won't quite recapture Santino Fontana's charm or Greg's chemistry with Rebecca.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The musical sequences are already somewhat removed from the reality of the show, but in the middle of "Textmergency", the ghost of Steve Jobs suddenly appears and comments on how technology has affected modern social interactions. He is dismissed and the song resumes as normal.
One of the weirdest examples is "Our Twisted Fate" from season four, where two pretzels get a musical number about how they hate being reduced to a symbol of Rebecca's desires.
Character Rerailment: Josh starts the series as a sweet-natured guy with occasional hints of selfishness and immaturity, who was pretty naive but still moderately intelligent. Over the course of season 2 and especially season 3, his negative traits take over to the point where he becomes almost ridiculously childish and moronic. Season 4, where he gets some therapy and works on himself, sees him return to something very close to his original characterization - still a bit immature but essentially nice, and still a bit dumb but capable of doing and saying just the right thing on occasion.
Creepy Awesome: Trent can make you feel unclean just by looking at you, but there's no denying that he's scarily good at being a Stalker with a Crush, always being one step ahead of everyone else and getting hold of just the right bits of incriminating material to destroy anyone he wants to. He also seems to be effortlessly good at everything (well, except for not being creepy), from cooking to sex. Rebecca never gets the better of him - each time he goes away, it's because his weird Blue-and-Orange Morality tells him to, not because she outwitted him. Okay, so she did push him off a rooftop that one time, but even that must be considered a draw, since it got her arrested for attempted murder, all the evidence of his own stalking and threats having mysteriously disappeared.
Critical Dissonance: Far from an extreme case, but Hollywood journalists apparently have mixed feelings about the "Santa Ana Winds" numbers. One review on AV Club, for instance, describes them as catchy and enjoyable; however, the author believes they quickly lose effectiveness. Reception on websites like YouTube and Tumblr, on the other hand, appears uniformly quite positive. Aforementioned fans praise Eric Michael Roy's performance as "Mr. Wind", the songs' humor, execution, and their subtle (highly!) dark brilliance.
The "Feeling Kinda Naughty" song does this when it goes from Rebecca wanting to kill Valencia and wear her skin as a dress...to wanting Valencia to be there and see her in that dress and go "OMG you look so cute in my skin!"
The rapper from "Sexy Getting Ready Song" suddenly embracing progressive gender politics, and calling up the women he objectified in his previous rap videos, all while still referring to them as "bitches".
Hector's double entendre monologue about parking. It starts out as funny one-liner, then goes a little long, and then the sheer length of the running gag circles around and makes it epic.
Hector: I think it's a nice thing you're doing. Nicest thing I ever did for a girl was pull out. Greg: Hector... Hector: She has tandem parking, so after I'm there for a while, I have to pull out, which is such a pain 'cause it feels so great just to leave it in there. The worst is when it's all side of the street parking, 'cause then I have to park in the back. I don't get why there's a spot back there. It's so tight. It feels more like an exit. So then I'm going front, back, front, back... and it's all dirty in the back, so when I move it to the front, then that gets all dirty. I'm just happy I have a spot at all... 'cause I used to have to pay.
"Let's Generalize About Men" ends with the other ladies gleefully telling Paula that her sons will most likely become rapists.
"I Want to Be a Child Star" sees Tucker singing a funky pop song about all the various horrible things a Former Child Star has to go through, including waking up in Van Nuys with some sketchy guys he doesn't recognize, who appear in the number.
At the end of "I Need Some Balance", the cats who've appeared to Rebecca throughout the episode (all representing her vagina) are sitting at a bar having a drink and relaxing.
Itchy Cat: I really liked that Jason guy.
Hungry Cat: You kidding me? Have you seen Josh? Meow.
Funky Cat: Josh? Honey, Nathaniel. That's where it's at.
What particularly sells it are the appreciative noises and murmur of "That's nasty!" from the other cats.
Draco in Leather Pants: Discussed in relation to Nathaniel. In "He's the New Guy" (which is a song that leans heavily on the fourth wall in the first place), Rebecca asks her coworkers if seeing him exhibit some vulnerability has made them forget that he's still very much a Jerkass. Sure enough, there's a big chunk of fans who focus so hard on him being a sexy tsundere with daddy issues for Rebecca to bond with that people forget he was willing to do such underhanded things as kill Josh's grandfather.
Darryl Whitefeather, partly because he is one of the only positive examples of male bisexuality on TV, and partly because of his lovably bumbling and ridiculous personality.
White Josh had already begun developing quite the fanbase as soon as he was introduced, and that fanbase has only grown since he began dating Darryl.
Maya also gets a lot of love, mainly for her friendly, Adorkable personality and her actress being very cute.
Dr. Akopian is pretty popular, mainly for being the resident Only Sane Man, and her actress' fabulous singing voice. Many fans have voiced a desire for her to get more songs; "Dream Ghosts" and "This Session is Going to Be Different", have both been received with absolute praise, and "Antidepressants Are So Not A Big Deal," where she has the most vocal time, is likely the most popular song to come out of the final season.
Father Brah for his brutal honesty and the fact that he gives pretty solid advice to Josh that he sometimes takes.
The other Rebecca from the Season 4 opening credits, who starts out looking like a perfectly put-together Always Someone Better for our Rebecca, but then develops a Couch Gag of a final quip that gradually gets more and more insane.
As far as props go, broom!Darryl from "Love Kernels" really has stuck with the fanbase, as has Rebecca's stuffed alligator Ruth Gator Ginsberg.
Friendly Fandoms: Fans of this series tend to get along very well with fans of Jane the Virgin as both are considered the best and most acclaimed shows on the CW. It helps that Rachel Bloom and Gina Rodriguez are friends and have openly praised each other's work.
Genius Bonus: The "JAP Battle" is filled with references to Judaism, from the Yiddish "shande" (which is translated as "disgrace") to references to sheket bavakasha, the "A. E. Pi guys" (Alpha Epsilon Pi is a famous Jewish fraternity), "tripping like Birthright" (Birthright is an organization that arranges for heritage trips to Israel), and being "egged on like seder plates." There are also references to two areas in New York, Golden's Bridge and North Castle, both towns in Westchester where Rebecca and Audra grew up.
Growing the Beard: Or possibly growing the feminist bikini area? Either way, the first four or five episodes are notably more mean-spirited than what comes after, coming across as a Sadist Show with a host of Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists. After that, the show settles into a more charitable tone wherein all the characters are sympathetic, just deeply flawed and in need of working on themselves - a tone it sticks to even as things get extremely dark later on.
In "I Hope Josh Comes To My Party", there's a Running Gag about Rebecca's invitations for her house-warming party making it look like she's going to burn the house down. And then comes "When Will Josh and his Friend Leave Me Alone?", when she ends up doing exactly that. See also below for why it gets even harsher in the Season 2 finale.
The season 2 finale puts quite a few scenes in this territory.
In "Josh's Girlfriend is Really Cool", Valencia tells Rebecca that she used to do "hand stuff" with one of her teachers. Rebecca is genuinely concerned for the repercussions. It turns out that she had a serious affair with one of her (married!) teachers at Harvard. When he ended it that she was given a restraining order and spent time at a mental institution.
In "When Will Josh and his Friend Leave Me Alone?", Rebecca is devastated by her "double breakup" with Josh and Greg that she attempts a Breakup Bonfire that ends up burning her apartment. That restraining order? It was because she did the same thing when said professor ended their relationship, and was charged with arson.
Rebecca's musical numbers. It was already heavily implied that most of the songs are in the characters' heads, but patients at the mental institution mention that Rebecca's frequently out of it and always singing to herself, implying that it's a symptom of a much more serious disorder.
Season 2's theme song. The lyrics of what was initially just a fun Busby Berkeley Number parodying the Love Makes You Crazy trope are much darker than they seemed, as it turns out they're dialogues from the court hearing after Rebecca was charged with arson.
Naomi: She's just a girl in love! She can't be held responsible for her actions!
In the season 3 opener "Where's Rebecca Bunch?"
George: If I were her, I'd kill myself!
Immediately after George sings that, Nathaniel says he's fired again, which makes a lot more sense after we see Nathaniel struggle to address Rebecca's suicide attempt due to his mom nearly killing herself when he was ten.
A similar example comes up in "The Math of Love Triangles"
Will this help me choose? If not, I'll be swinging from a hypote-noose.
Towards the End of "Josh Has No Idea Where I Am", Dr. Akopian asks Rebecca how many sleeping pills she took. Rebecca's response is "So many", which becomes cringe-worthy after Rebecca's suicide attempt with pills.
In an attempt to defame Josh in “Josh Is A Liar,” Rebecca claims that he’s an anti-vaxxer (among other lies). This becomes far darker when the series co-writer Adam Schlesinger died shortly after the series ended due to Covid negligence in the New York area and Rachel Bloom vowed to never work with an anti-vaxxer after that.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: Rebecca singing "Hello, Nice To Meet You (Reprise)" to Darryl's infant daughter (who was conceived with Rebecca's eggs) is already a lovely moment, but it's about ten times more heartwarming to watch following the birth of Rachel Bloom's first daughter a year after the show ended.
Hilarious in Hindsight: "I Need Some Balance" is a long Take That! to the musical Cats, with Rebecca pointing some problems she has with the show. This is more fun after the absolutely panned movie adaptation of the musical, released in December of 2019.
Hollywood Pudgy: There have been a few comments on the show about Rebecca looking fat (her mother claims she's "chunky" and Audra Levine calls her "heavily weighted"), but Rachel Bloom is pretty average-sized. Most of these comments, however, are dismissed by Rebecca, although at one point during "You Stupid Bitch," she tells herself to lose weight (the entire song was about self-hatred). It's clear we're not supposed to agree with the sentiments given who is saying them.
Iron Woobie: Rebecca. So many bad things have happened to, including her father leaving during a party she was throwing, but after moving to West Covina, she keeps putting herself out there, no matter how scared. Just listen to "I Have Friends" and try not to feel sorry for her. And then, in "I'm Going to the Beach with Josh and His Friends!" she gets a sad reprise of "I Have Friends."
Rebecca. She's pretty self-centered and does a lot of bad things, especially once Season 3 hits, but she's also been and is still going through a lot of terrible struggles, and she has horrible, harrowing mental health issues (not helped by both her parents treating her and her problems as either totally insignificant or a personal annoyance).
Valencia is mean and generally horrible to Josh, but when she finds out Josh kissed Rebecca, it's almost impossible not to feel sorry for her. In season 2, it emerges that the only time Josh ever gave her flowers was on prom night, and he got them from a gas station; in return for which "I gave him my virginity." It's also outright stated several times that she has an eating disorder and suffers from body dysmorphic disorder, something she casually acknowledges as a problem she's been dealing with for years, along with the implication she is tormented by never-ending hunger due to never eating enough. Despite this, Rebecca is the only one who ever seems concerned by it.
Greg is a pretty big jerk, but he does genuinely care about his friends, and his hopeless pining for Rebecca garners some sympathy — even if he did totally blow it at the end of season one. He brought it on himself, yes, but it's hard not to feel sorry for him. Season two also reveals that he's an alcoholic, and is taking steps to improve his life.
Nathaniel is introduced as being the rage-inducing, smug, elitist who bought Daryl's business and began cracking the whip on everyone in sight. After seeing him get chewed out by his father, become infatuated with Rebecca, and soil himself at a meeting it's pretty clear he's as flawed and vulnerable as everyone else.
LGBT Fanbase: Given it's a musical, it's not too surprising the show had one from the start, but after Darryl came out as bisexual, tons of LGBT fans (the bi community in particular) flocked for the show.
The "Sexy Getting Ready Song" is this for the rapper who appears in it and is then freaked out by the ridiculous amount of pain and suffering women put themselves through in the interests of looking good, specifically calling it "like a scary movie or something"; also works for viewers (especially men) who didn't have any idea about that stuff. Particularly when Rebecca has an accident while waxing a sensitive area, and blood hits the bathtub...
Rebecca's Sanity Slippage in Season 3 is rather uncomfortable to watch.
Patton Oswalt guest stars as a cemetery guard who blackmails Paula into going on a date with him to the aquarium.
Patrick, for being funny and telling Paula that Rebecca needed help with her wedding.
"Weird Al" Yankovic in the second-to-last episode. No one pulls out an accordion and sings a song about not pooping in a hot-air balloon like Weird Al.
Periphery Demographic: While not exclusively aimed at women, a female-led musical isn't exactly the kind of show you'd expect to have a lot of male fans. Despite this, the excellent writing (of both male and female characters) and abundance of attractive women has drawn in plenty of them. It's reached a point where several women have gotten into the show through their male partners, rather than the other way around.
Portmanteau Couple Name: When Rebecca pretends to have a boyfriend named Trent, she attempts to add authenticity by saying they have "the best couple name ever: Trebecca". The fandom also have their own names for the various ships:
Ron the Death Eater: Josh gets this treatment in some parts of the fandom, mostly notably on Tumblr. While he's far from a perfect guy, some fans are perfectly comfortable with sweeping Rebecca's stalking, cheating, and harassment of him under the rug whilst vilifying Josh for his mistakes. Some even go as far as arguing that he deserves the harassment he receives in season 3, and hold him responsible for Rebecca's suicide attempt despite the fact that Rebecca herself concedes that it wasn't his fault.
Ships That Pass in the Night: Hector/Heather as a sizable amount of shippers despite their first significant onscreen interaction being at the end of season 2. As of "Josh's Ex-Girlfriend is Crazy" it becomes canon.
Similarly all the store's products in "The First Penis I Saw" go from regular grocery store items to two-dimensional cardboard cutouts all labeled "JEFF!" when the song starts, and regardless of product.
Take That, Scrappy!: While not a full on Scrappy, Josh has certainly amassed haters through season 2 and 3, so when his mom sings to him "Get Your Ass Out of My House", which she calls him out for being a Manchild and tells him to grown up and leave her house is quite satisfactory to his haters.
Audra Levine. She is introduced as an Arch-Nemesis and Foil for Rebecca, their final interaction in season one seems to imply that Audra is more or less on the same place that Rebecca was when she left New York, but her character isn't explored to see whether she is or not happy with this arrangement and later appearances don't give her any depth to debate about it.
Jarl. This isn't so much about the character himself (unless you buy into the theory that he wasn't real and made up by Rebecca's unstable psyche at the time, which could have been interesting). Rather, it's because his actor, Rory O'Malley, is an acclaimed Broadway performer, having had large roles in musicals like The Book of Mormon and Hamilton - but here, in a show that has songs in every episode and that takes a significant amount of inspiration from musical theatre, he doesn't sing so much as a note.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Paula's reaction to Scott's one-night-stand with Tanya can come across as rather harsh and disproportionate. The cheating itself was spontaneous on Scott's end, and his immediate reaction was to own up to his mistake and apologize to Paula. Without a moment's hesitation, Paula kicks him out of the house, and when she finally relents, it's only to make him jump through more hoops than a fraternity hazing. Not once does anyone acknowledge that her response might have been on the excessive side. It gets even worse when you remember that she'd been actively considering cheating on Scott with Calvin back in season 1 and likely would have gone through with it had Rebecca not stopped her (though in her defense, Scott did admit to having done the same thing when she brought it up later in the season).
Josh Chan in the episode "Josh is a Liar". He's come back from Seminary School only for Rebecca to put out a slanderous hit piece calling him a racist, homophobic, tithe-stealing Holocaust denier. When he meets his friends they all turn against him and don't believe him when he states he has been stalked for months.
is filled with references to Judaism, from the Yiddish "shande" (which is translated as "disgrace") to references to sheket bavakasha, the "A. E. Pi guys" (Alpha Epsilon Pi