With the third season of BoJack Horseman airing on Netflix in less than 24 hours (I’m not aware of the exact time, only that I’m probably going to start binge-watching as soon as I get off work), now seems as good a time as any to get my thoughts down about the show. Also, all my friends are sick of hearing me rave about how amazing this show is, so I thought it would be best to spare them the trouble and let a bunch of strangers on the internet read it instead.
Please take note: this… essay? Thinkpiece? Article? Whatever you want to call it, this thing I’m writing does contain spoilers, so if you’re just getting into it and want to avoid that sort of that sort of thing, now is the time to turn away and watch the first two seasons.
- I love how human the animals are.
Anthropomorphism, the assigning of human characteristics to animals, is nothing new: the Kama Sutra describes the size of people’s sexual organs using comparisons to animals (interestingly, horses are hyper-sexualized, being the only animal to which both male and female are compared, and yes, BoJack does have sex numerous times throughout the series); Aesop’s Fables regularly depict animals interacting with each other through speech; and thousands of children’s books feature such animals.
What makes BoJack Horseman’s anthropomorphism unique, is that the animal characteristics are retained and used to accentuate human characteristics. For instance, one scene in the very first episode, “BoJack Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Story, Chapter One”, takes place in a restaurant. Having the typical large appetite of a horse, BoJack unknowingly eats nine baskets of bread, and then feels insecure about his weight. In a later episode, Princess Caroline, a pink cat, is shown running on a treadmill with a toy mouse dangling in front of her head as motivation. In still another episode, an unnamed slug discovers that he lost his job, and commits suicide on-screen by pouring salt on himself. These small details add a lot of depth to the characters, and to the show as a whole.
2. I love the way it flips the predator/prey relationship on its head.
Typically, in works where animals are given human characteristics, prey animals such as rabbits, mice, and small birds are centered as the protagonist, while larger predatory animals, such as wolves and eagles, are usually portrayed as a villain. (Think nature documentaries, Looney Tunes Cartoons, Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit books, etc.) Since humans are at the top of the food chain, we typically default to the role of the antagonist. Yet in BoJack Horseman, Todd, the human who sleeps on BoJack’s couch, is regularly put in extreme danger: in “BoJack Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Story, Chapter One” he has a violent encounter with the lord of a drug cartel. In “Our Story is a “D” Story,” he is in prison, with two rival gangs attempting to recruit him. Finally, in “Yes And”, Todd joins an improvised comedy group, later revealed to be a cult.
3. I think Season 3 will be more optimistic than the previous seasons.
(Bear with me here; this part may seem disjointed, but makes a coherent (I hope) point if you read it through.)
In the first episode of Season 1, BoJack is sent to the hospital after a panic attack, and a brief clip from an episode of Horsin’ Around, the popular 90s sitcom in which he starred, is played. This clip, from the last episode of Horsin’ Around, also takes place in a hospital, and depicts the death of BoJack’s character, simply named “The Horse.” When the doctor sees The Horse die, he turns to the nurse, dejectedly saying that “It doesn’t get easier. It never gets easier.”
The two seasons that follow contain some of the heartrending dialogue I’ve ever seen. For example, this exchange between BoJack and Vincent Adultman from “Horse Majeure”, immediately following the wedding of Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter:
BOJACK: You know, sometimes I think I was born with a leak, and any goodness I started with just slowly spilled out of me and now it’s all gone. And I’ll never get it back in me. It’s too late. Life is a series of closing doors, isn’t it?
VINCENT [stroking BoJack’s mane with broom]: Don’t be sad. Good horsey.
BOJACK: That actually feels kinda nice.
The show is rife with many other jokes that use an emphasis on BoJack’s depression as part of the setup, and many of them also lack a real resolution.
Throughout the series, running is a very important motif for BoJack. One of his childhood heroes was a professional runner, a horse called Secretariat. During a flashback at the beginning of the last episode in Season 1, “Later”, Secretariat is shown in an interview on the Dick Cavett Show. Cavett reads a letter for Secretariat from BoJack, in which BoJack asks him “What do you do when you get sad? How do you not be sad?”
Secretariat’s response:
“BoJack, when I was your age, I got sad. A lot. I didn’t come from such a great home. But one day I started running and that seemed to make sense, so then I just kept running. BoJack, when you get sad, you run. Straight ahead. And you keep running forward no matter what. There are people in your life who are gonna try to hold you back, slow you down, but you don’t let them. Don’t you stop running, and don’t you ever look behind you. There’s nothing for you behind you; all that exists is what’s ahead.”
Finally, in the last few minutes of “Out to Sea,” at the conclusion of Season 2, BoJack begins running again. He struggles to the top of the steep hill outside his home, promptly collapsing when he reaches the top.
A nameless monkey, who is seen running several times throughout the show, runs up to the winded BoJack, and they have a brief exchange:
MONKEY: It gets easier.
BOJACK [panting]: Huh?
MONKEY: Every day it gets a little easier.
BOJACK [panting less]: Yeah?
MONKEY: But you gotta do it every day. That’s the hard part. But it does get easier.
BOJACK [regaining his breath]: Okay.
Because this antithesis of the Doctor’s proclamation in the first episode, is placed at the end of the second season, I believe the third season will have a more optimistic, forward-thinking tone, and Secretariat’s equating of running with moving forward strengthens my conviction.
So, those are my thoughts on BoJack Horseman. Some of them. I have a lot more, and I’m eager to discuss them with other people who love the show. Comments, questions, queries, quips, concerns, and complaints are all congenial, and you can leave them on this article, or you can tweet them to me @omically and we can geek out about cartoon horses.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading the disheveled thoughts of a sad person who loves comedy.
