John and co-host John Gatins sit down with Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom to discuss the experience of writing the third season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, from breaking story in hot tubs to adjusting genital-related dances in compliance with Broadcast Standards and Practices.
With spoilers aplenty, we discuss the challenges of a TV protagonist’s Act 2 “rocky shoals,” the nuance of exploring mental illness with comedy, the process of writing surprising musical numbers, and the opportunities of turning the rom-com genre on its head.
Recorded live on May 9th.
Links:
* Our next live Scriptnotes with Jonah Nolan & Lisa Joy (Westworld) and Stephen McFeely & Christopher Markus (Avengers: Infinity War) will be Tuesday, May 22nd at the ArcLight in Hollywood. [Tickets are on sale now](https://scriptnotes.brownpapertickets.com) — proceeds benefit [Hollywood HEART](http://www.hollywoodheart.org), which runs special programs and summer camps for at-risk youth.
* Some Crazy Ex-Girlfriend context may be helpful for this episode. You can watch it [here](http://www.cwtv.com/shows/crazy-ex-girlfriend/)! Otherwise, here’s the [Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Ex-Girlfriend_(TV_series)).
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](http://johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_350v2.mp3).
**UPDATE 5-23-18:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/scriptnotes-ep-350-limerence-transcript).