With its fourth season, ‘Bojack Horseman’ is more confident — and subversive — than ever
Episodes viewed: 1–4 | Now on Netflix
Two or three years ago, it was considered highly contrarian and somewhat silly to declare Bojack Horseman one of the best shows on TV. Four seasons in, it’s almost a cliché. It suits the Opposite Day times we live in that an animated comedy about a sitcom horse, which sounds like the worst idea for a show imaginable, is in fact a richly evocative black comedy exploring the darkest recesses of middle-aged hopelessness, the cruelty of celebrity and every social topic the show’s writers can think of. In its first two seasons, the show straddled the line between postmodern meta-comedy and character drama; in year 3 it evolved in something significantly darker, losing some of its earlier frivolity in the name of depicting the very real psychological struggles of its title character.
In the just-released fourth batch of 13 episodes, the first since July 2016, Bojack has found a near-perfect balance of its two threads, and this is no clearer than in the dual brilliance of Episodes 1 and 2. The season premiere, “See Mr. Peanutbutter Run”, is entirely Bojack-free, and introduces an arc about the perky dog (Paul F. Tompkins) launching a campaign for Governor of California. It’s a gleeful 30 minutes of colourful cameos, wicked wordplay and razor-sharp cultural criticism, and on any lesser show it’d be the episode. But on Bojack, it’s almost forgotten immediately, succeeded by “The Old Sugarman House”, which rivals “Fish Out of Water” as Bojack’s best episode to date.
After the death of a young protege in season 3, Bojack (Will Arnett) seeks solitude in his grandparents’ abandoned home. The next half hour seamlessly weaves between Bojack’s strife and blossoming friendship with a widower dragonfly and flashbacks to wartime tragedy in the lives of his Sugerman ancestors. It’s emotionally draining in the best possible ways, it wouldn’t feel out of place on The Leftovers or a similarly powerful ‘drama of the human spirit’. We witness Bojack’s grandmother lose her son and her mind, providing both an origin and a breath of relativity for his own situation.
He returns home to Hollywoo and his friend Todd (Aaron Paul) — who’s currently coming to terms with his asexuality (don’t say Bojack isn’t doing its bit for minority representation!) — introduces him to a teenage girl who may be his daughter. Cue two episodes of revisiting one-night stands and being grouchy to the girl — this is classic Bojack, classic Bojack, a working formula at its best. There’s a whole plot about fracking that concludes with some uncomfortably-passionate sex between Mr. Peanutbutter and his human wife Diane (Alison Brie). But we’re still treated, wonderfully-often, to gems like Episode 2. I’m sure this season hasn’t even peaked yet.
