About that balloon from Season 1…

Ok, it’s about time; so, let’s talk about the balloon, shall we?

First of all, I gotta say something that should be obvious by now but apparently it’s not, so here’s a little disclaimer before we start: there are no right answers to this. I truly believe that the balloon can represent many different things and they all work perfectly fine. My role here is to present one of these representations in the way I see it from what I’ve analysed from the show mixed with my personal experiences, and you are free to agree or disagree with me. Actually, I love when people bring me other perspectives. I’m always up for that. What I’m NEVER up for is disrespect. So, again, I’m not imposing anything here, ok? Ok. Let’s do this.

So, the balloon only appears after BoJack gets seriously injured in order to take new pills. It’s weird because #BJs05e10 starts right after the accident in a whole religious mood and, during my binge watching it, I was thinking that it was very cruel of the show to make us think for the whole intro that BoJack had died. NOT COOL. NOT COOL.

But ok, back to the balloon.

I think it’s not by accident that Margo Martindale is the first person to see it (not chronologically, but on the episode), because… here is where my theory begins and there’s actually nothing incredible about this, but I think the balloon represents who BoJack really is. You know the voice inside your head? All the bad and all the good he has inside. Something huge, like his fame, but also unstable. His truly huge personality, but also that light smile… it makes a lot of sense to me as a metaphor. I think that Margo sees it first because she’s been one of the people who has seen BoJack for what he is for a long time. Like, she knows from Season 1 what BoJack is capable of. She was there for the Rock Opera scheme, for Diane’s marriage schemes… She knows balloon-BoJack pretty well, so, of course he/it would run towards her. And she looks terrified because she’s been away from him and I think she was doing pretty well without his schemes until the balloon found her.

Cut to Philbert premiere and there he is in all his glory. Floating above everyone else because he’s the star. And that’s a great interpretation of fame, in my opinion. Because he’s attached. Literally. His personality is there but it can’t go anywhere. It can’t move or change, it just stays there, being this huge presence during the night. And everything seems fine because of those restrains, barely visible compared to everything around.

But then, we know what happens, right? The night ends up being a mess. At least for BoJack after he gets confronted by Diane, who happens to be the person who does what? Yes, releases BoJack balloon from his strings. It was an accident. Pretty much like the confrontation they had. She didn’t plan that. And Diane is such a huge influence on BoJack’s life that she’s also the one capable of setting him free. In this case, I think she freed him from all the bullshit he’s been through. Remember when he confronted her by saying that she was too good to write tweets for celebrities? Well, I think this was her come back. Like “Hey BoJack, I think you’re too smart to keep fetishizing your own sadness over the lives of these women you ruined.” And he knows that. The sad truth is that he knows that. And the balloon gets closer.

So close that he does what next? Oh yeah, he kisses Gina. Because that’s what he does when he feels lonely. He runs to the closest emotional rollercoaster he can find. I think it’s the equivalent of getting high? But this time he has the pills + Gina. A disastrous combination. And hey, I think Diane did that to Mr. Peanutbutter too, because of course, something from that confrontation bounced off on her, after all, she’s been covering for BoJack for years. But Diane is a whole other topic, so let’s move on.

Episode 11! Such a great one. Truly. The thing with mixing a Philbert episode with a BoJack one is amazing because it shows us how BoJack used that gig to distract himself from all that talk from the premiere. But it was still there, in the back of his mind, lurking in the horizon. And as much as he tried to avoid it, it was always there, getting closer and closer to him. It’s like when you try to avoid something, but it gets bigger and bigger on your mind until it reaches a point where you can no longer sleep because it became such a huge part of who you are. My therapist used this as a metaphor for a closet in your brain. Have something you don’t want to deal with right now? Stuff it in your mental closet. The problem is, there’s a limited space — so eventually you’ll try to fit another ignored problem and everything will fall apart. So it’s pretty much like BoJack had been inflating his balloon inside of his head with everything he didn’t want to deal with because he was too high or too drunk to remember. But it kept getting bigger and bigger until it materialised itself.

Now, to my favorite part: the musical number. During it, the balloon is always floating around, because it’s his consciousness, somehow. But, in the very last second, right before he wakes up from his dream, the balloon ends up killing him. And I had to pause at the very end to make sure I was seeing it correctly and since then, I have been reflecting over what that could mean. Like, what happens when you lose your sense of self? How do you get rid of that? How could BoJack get rid of all of those things stuffed inside his head? Well, attempting suicide is a common answer to that. And by now, we’ve seen BoJack trying to do that, what, twice? At least once in season 3 and again in season 5. Both times he was in his car, and that dream death looks a lot like a car crash. But that might be a stretch. Maybe it’s just a regular “breaking the fourth wall” joke about him being crushed on TV because he thinks that his fame did this to him. There are so many ways to interpret, what, a half second of television? A single frame? Yep. That’s the BoJack Horseman that I love.

Anyway. After that, the worst happens. Yeah, worse than the party. Because Gina trying to take his pills away was the breaking point to shake all of the things inside BoJack’s closet. And with that F-word that breaks ANOTHER relationship in his life, he finally realizes: he HAS to deal with his balloon. He has to deal with all of the shitty things he has done because otherwise he’s gonna ending up killing someone or himself. And I don’t think he wants to kill himself. He just takes the easy road sometimes. And speaking of road, do you know that ladder? It might be literal, but I think it means that BoJack has decided to take “the higher road”; to do the right thing, even if it means going into unexplored territory. See how peaceful that ending is? I think that’s the power of dealing with your shit. And I’ve tried. It’s scary but it kinda feels good. A relief.

So, if you made it through here, you’re a hero. Now let me know what you think of this bible.

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First published on @bojackhiddenjokes. All images are courtesy from Netflix.