100 Favorite Shows: #14 — BoJack Horseman
“Every day, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day: that’s the hard part.”
BoJack Horseman was an animated Netflix tragicomedy/cultural satire that took place in a universe parallel to ours where humans and anthropomorphic animals coexisted in society. At the head of the series was its titular protagonist, BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett), a has-been Hollywood (later: Hollywoo, when the D on the iconic sign is stolen) actor/talking horse, who made millions on the fictional 1990s sitcom, “Horsin’ Around” (a Full House send-up with BoJack as “The Horse,” the Danny Tanner/Uncle Phil-type figure on the show). In his world, human Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie) serves as the ghostwriter of his autobiography, pink cat Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris) works as his agent, human Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul) sleeps on his couch, and yellow lab Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) is the one-sided, optimistic rival of BoJack’s, who starred on the sitcom, “Mr. Peanutbutter’s House” (BoJack feels it ripped off “Horsin’ Around”). It’s an absurd enough premise for a series as is, but BoJack Horseman used the wacky humor as a Trojan horse for a character study on a toxic individual tearing through the world before finally reckoning with it. It was a masterclass of its genre, building to unprecedented heights of television in each of its six seasons. Running from 2014 to 2020 with creation from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, design from Lisa Hanawalt, and music from Jesse Novak, The Black Keys, and Grouplove, BoJack Horseman was a unicorn of a show, even if its main character was just your standard horse-turned-television star.
(This essay contains spoilers for BoJack Horseman, The Leftovers, The Good Place, and Horsin’ Around.)
At the end of the first season of BoJack Horseman, Bob-Waksberg released a one-off bonus episode for the holiday season, BoJack Horseman Christmas Special: Sabrina’s Christmas Wish. The special revolves around Todd and BoJack watching an old Christmas episode of “Horsin’ Around,” complete with kitschy humor, emotionally cloying music, and a morality tale revolving around Sabrina (played by Kristen Schaal’s Sarah Lynn character) wishing Santa would bring her deceased parents back to life. Most importantly, the episode within an episode features a responsive studio audience, including one member who frequently shouts out the episode’s obvious jokes, catchphrases, and heckling opportunities. In one subversive moment, BoJack states, “[Santa Claus] isn’t real. He’s a lie that grownups made up because we like to believe that there’s an order to the universe and that good behavior will lead to happiness, but the fact is that just isn’t true.” The audience member calls out simply, “What?”
It’s a moment from a special I’ve seen one time, but have thought about every day of my life. I think about it as frequently as I think about Zac Efron saying, “Sick,” in response to seeing an Icelandic geothermal plant in Down to Earth. It’s just such a stupid joke with a simple punchline that built and built throughout the episode. It makes me laugh harder than practically anything because even if it’s stupid humor, it’s stupid for entertainment’s sake.
This brand of comedy was present throughout most BoJack episodes, as the series’ incredibly quick, layered comedy could come at viewers so quick that even the jokes that didn’t land were still amusing. Sharp dialogue and tight construction over twenty-five minutes for each episode helped BoJack become one of the funniest shows ever made, let alone in recent memory.
One of the best examples of BoJack’s particular brand of comedy comes in season two’s “Let’s Find Out,” which sees BoJack competing on the Mr. Peanutbutter-hosted game show, “Hollwoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let’s Find Out!” (generously abbreviated to HSACWDTKDTKTLFO). Firstly, this episode is one of BoJack’s many satires of Hollywood, pop culture, and celebrities. Competing against him is Daniel Radcliffe (voicing himself), who is oblivious to the fairness disparity between him and BoJack (for prizes, Radcliffe is allowed to sit in a car and grab money while BoJack must write an essay on European feudalism). Radcliffe hams up the role of an audience idol, creating Banksy-infused origin stories about his relationship with the color green out of nowhere and swallowing every decibel of applause given to him as a result. It’s a moment of obvious bullshittery on Radcliffe’s part (especially considering how fake-nice Radcliffe is portrayed, even to the point of ignoring his own personal recollection of meeting BoJack), but the audience is depicted so slavishly to Radcliffe that BoJack would automatically become the bad guy if he called him on it — and he knows that.
Elsewhere in this episode, BoJack’s producer girlfriend, owl Wanda (Lisa Kudrow), who just came out of a thirty-year coma, continues to learn about modern culture on the Internet (she’s exposed to comment sections, lag, and a breast cancer awareness website with the message, “I’m losing my tits,” which she confuses for reactions to the game show).
Todd, on the other hand, competes with Mia (Tatiana Maslany) for what she believes to be J.D. Salinger’s (Alan Arkin, portraying, yes, the author, who faked his death in the BoJack world) respect. In actuality, Todd only wants his pen. When this infuriates Mia, Todd only leans back and replies, “Suck a dick, dumb shit.” The episode also cuts to Todd as an old man, telling the story of how he got the pen. It’s probably a fifteen second gag, but in it, we think Todd is telling the story of how he fell in love with Mia, only to have the rug pulled out from underneath us. Then, the rug starts to smack us in the face when the camera pans out further and Todd is revealed to be in old man makeup at the wardrobe and hair department of the game show. It’s subversive three times over.
Yet, this still isn’t even the funniest moment of “Let’s Find Out.” The honor is bestowed upon the ending, which sees BoJack with the chance to win money for charity if he can answer the simple question, “Who starred in Harry Potter?” Radcliffe looks on eagerly and Wanda, who requested BoJack throw the match for better ratings, nervously clutches her feathers. Seeing an opportunity for petty superiority over Radcliffe, BoJack hems, haws, neighs, and answers, “Elijah Wood.” The crowd gasps and the charity money plummets into a pit of fire. Cut to credits.
The humor on BoJack Horseman was like eggs and navigation devices: wide-ranging and all-encompassing. (That one’s for the Chicken Run fans.) There were visual Easter eggs (“Me Meow Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris is on Princess Carolyn’s shelf), tongue twisting wordplay endeavors for Amy Sedaris to utter (“You know Courtney Portnoy. You probably recall when she soared as the thorny horticulturist in One Sordid Fortnight with the short-skirted Sorceress”), and recurring background banner gags (“Happy Birthday Diane and Use a Pretty Font”).
BoJack consisted of screwball duos and absurd realities, sincere Oscar opinions (despite projected detachment) and plays on pop culture tropes (the sound cues on HSACWDTKDTKTLFO are blood-curdling screams of existential anguish). Characters like an anxious editor at Penguin Publishing, Pinky Penguin (Patton Oswalt), and a glamorous Excess Hollywoo host, A Ryan Seacrest Type (Adam Conover), frequently skewered their respective industries. Even Margo Martindale turned up as a recurring, globetrotting wanted criminal. (Typically referred to as an “underutilized character actress,” Martindale represented BoJack’s mocking of Internet regurgitation of many people’s hot takes that they think are wholly original. Like how Brad Pitt (Bread Poot) is a character actor in a leading man’s body or that Tobey Maguire was a better Spider-Man, but Andrew Garfield (who hates Mondays) was a better Peter Parker.)
My favorite humor of BoJack Horseman always came in the form of its animal plays, though. Names like Princess Carolyn and Mr. Peanutbutter are evocative of the types of names people give to their pets of respective species. However, many of the jokes pointed at animals have more layers than an onion playing hide and seek in The Gap. “You can lead me to water,” BoJack begins, before being cut off in “Fish Out of Water.” This episode also features a play on CNN and Anthony Anderson simultaneously with a poster for “Blackfish-ish”). And, of course, “Underground” depicts a parrot, facing imminent death, worried that she’s never had an original thought. A panicked party-goer nearby laments, “I’ve never been in love!” The parrot observes and repeats, “I’ve never been in love!”
The density on BoJack Horseman is probably comparable solely to Arrested Development and The Simpsons; I picked up on probably one-tenth of the gags within the show. After all, I am only ever so stupid and am trying my best to keep up. But I’ll admit it: I only understood half of Diane’s NPR ringtones! I mean, Pop Culture Happy Hour has a rotating panel now. What’s up with that, right? (My friend from Melbourne tells me Australian television has never produced a single good show, but for some reason, I associate BoJack more with Australia than even The Leftovers. They also call Mr. Burns “Burnsies” down there, so what do I know? Again, I’m a big dumb baby boy who likes when the parrot parrots things because I’m simple. Just doing what I can for the homies, baby!)
Speaking of “Underground,” though, it’s yet another installment of BoJack Horseman that proves, for the emotional depths the series could mine with relative ease (the writers worked hard, I know! They just made it look so easy! I don’t like the memes that reduce it to the “sad horse show,” but I can also take a joke, unlike people who reacted to Mulan by either unsubscribing from Disney Plooos, demanding sauce from tired hourly workers, or writing a peculiar diatribe that’s on the Internet forever and then becoming vice president). It’s an installment that proves the series was always capable of whipping out an episode that was wall-to-wall hysterical with all the main characters in one location (I think also of season six’s “Surprise!,” which generated approximately 240,000 belly laughs out of me — shoutout to Jason Mraz).
“Underground” takes a pseudo-cue from This Is the End by pinning a number of BoJack-universe celebrities into Mr. Peanutbutter’s home, where they end up trapped after an earthquake (it’s no one’s fault, except for San Andreas). The kicker is that the mansion collapses underground after Mr. Peanutbutter’s fracks the ground his home stands on, in a political “strategy” against his opponent for California governorship, Woodchuck Coodchuck-Berkowitz (Andre Braugher).
I was always into these sorts of arcs from BoJack. Each narrative across the seasons was compelling, whether it was Mr. Peanutbutter running for office or Todd constructing his own theme park or even BoJack campaigning for an Academy Award. In “Underground,” the political narrative is used for versatility’s sake, as Woodchuck ends up being the only one to dig in an effort to rescue the fallen house partiers. Relieved that they’re being rescued, the attendees, including Mr. Peanutbutter, Jessica Biel (herself), Zach Braff (himself), and Pinky Penguin regale Woodchuck. Mr. Peanutbutter even suggests three cheers for his heroism, which the candidate immediately warns against as the volume of their celebration begins to jostle rocks lose, threatening to fill Woodchuck’s trail in and bury them all alive in the mansion.
Fortunately, the three cheers don’t result in catastrophe, but Mr. Peanutbutter can’t help but suggest, “Let’s cheer one more time. Just for fun!” The hilarity of the moment is punctuated by the perfect length of the pause before his endearing punchline and, of course, they’re all stuck in the mansion once again. Quickly, they turn on Woodchuck, blaming him for their own stupidity to the point where he gives up trying to protect them from themselves and winds up tied to a ceiling fan because of Mr. Peanutbutter’s populist rhetoric that renders Woodchuck’s pleas for sanity ineffectual. (There’s even a relatably specific joke when Diane recalls that she thought a woodchuck was more of a beaver-type creature.)
On the one hand, there’s an obvious parallel to be drawn — three years later — with the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in the United States, as complete idiots worked against their own interests and then scapegoated the people who tried to warn them. There is also a parallel in how the actors and celebrities utterly collapse into a Shirley Jackson dystopia (“Fire is my new god!” Pinky exclaims.) when trying to govern themselves; chaos ensues when they crave validation. (Biel and Braff, who winds up burned and eaten alive, are always game to poke fun at themselves with pointed insults (Biel is a discount Michelle Monaghan, for example). Even Paul McCartney appears on BoJack at one point.) “Underground” is an endlessly, densely funny example of how BoJack could unleash a perfect barrage of jokes in an installment that they built up to over time, complete with foreshadowing of fracking and destructive narcissism.
My favorite BoJack build-up comes in season three’s finale, “That Went Well,” which orchestrates a masterfully plotted B-story that ties in all of the schemes concocted by Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter over the course of that season. Margo Martindale is making a getaway via speedboat across the Pacific Ocean when a reflective glass blimp (because of BoJack’s “Secretariat” Oscar campaign, which was just a series of mirrors) and a papier-mâché construction of Todd’s head cause her to crash into a transport vessel carrying an obscene amount of spaghetti. The spaghetti begins to cook in the ocean, as a result, and begins to descend upon the underwater Pacific Ocean City, previously introduced to us in “Fish Out of Water.”
Reporting this, Tom Jumbo-Grumbo (Keith Olbermann) of MSNBSea states, “The only hope for rescue would be if someone had an enormous quantity of spaghetti strainers just sitting around the house, but that person would also need access to a fleet of drivers to transport said spaghetti strainers.” He observes that the drivers would need to be extremely speedy deliverers and strong swimmers, like, perhaps, “hot, sexy killer whales.” Throughout season three, Mr. Peanutbutter’s schemes led to him acquiring the services of these killer whales for a Lyft-type business and massive quantities of spaghetti strainers for, well, no plausible reason. “Is there such a savior who could possibly fit that ridiculously specific set of criteria?” Tom asks, seemingly to no avail. But the joke is so stupidly, obviously, specifically referring to Mr. Peanutbutter that it’s impossible not to giggle at the sheer silliness of an entire season building to one dumb, delirious punchline.
Furthermore, this subplot of “That Went Well,” also serves as a precious antidote to the previous episode, “That’s Too Much, Man!” which saw BoJack reunite with former child star-turned-pop star Sarah Lynn, his costar on “Horsin’ Around” for a drug bender and a relapse for both of them. Famously, this installment ended with Sarah Lynn’s overdose in a planetarium and a haunting BoJack asking, “Sarah Lynn?” Up to this point, it was the series’ heaviest moment and we needed the levity of Mr. Peanutbutter’s spaghetti antics just to bring us some reprieve from the trauma of the previous episode.
“That Went Well” doesn’t shy away from the aftermath of Sarah Lynn’s death, of course. It flashes back to when she was previously happier (performing moving tributes to “gays in the military,” for example), but never forgets that she is a product of what pop culture demanded she become. If she wasn’t a dazzling entertainer who appealed to both children who idolized her and men who leered after her, then Sarah Lynn would’ve been discarded by the Hollywoo elites, in favor of the next pop star they could mold and torment. From Judy Garland to Britney Spears, it’s a recurring, misogynistic motif among the executives who call the shots and demand their puppets dance to earn their keep in the spotlight. As Sarah Lynn remarks, she’s always smiling, but she feels like the light inside her is dying. All that results from her death, however, is a brief report on the news and a tweet from Adam Levine, who plugged The Voice after paying tribute to her life.
On a more personal level, Sarah Lynn’s death does resonate for BoJack, as he is forced to reckon with the interiority that posits him, rightfully, as a toxic influence who indulged Sarah Lynn’s addictive personality for personal gain. He didn’t want her to die, of course, but it’s also hard to see any way that it’s not actually his fault. This is a seminal moment for BoJack’s downward progression as a character and the weight of Sarah Lynn’s passing is felt throughout the series, never once allowing BoJack to forget it.
The arcs always had consequences on BoJack Horseman in a way that many cartoons tended to eschew in favor of a mixed continuity. If a character died on BoJack, they were really dead. Not like Peter snapping his neck on Family Guy or Dr. Nick getting impaled by glass on The Simpsons. BoJack’s hair grays, characters’ weights shift, Hollywoo stays Hollywoo until it becomes Hollywoob. Continuity in animation helped set BoJack apart across the season arcs that spiraled BoJack further and further into the state of feeling that he’s a lost cause.
In an interview with Alan Sepinwall for Rolling Stone, Bob-Waksberg stated that The Simpsons, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Animaniacs, Daria, WALL-E, and Don Hertzfeldt animation, among other such examples, were inspirations he drew on for BoJack. Of course, it’s clear that BoJack exists within the lineage of the animated medium pushing television forward (perhaps to its peak), but I also see influence from the realm of Community. Obviously both are shows about broken people trying to find a way forward through life together, but there’s also a palpable silliness shared between the series. Many of Community’s end tags (like Troy and Abed dressing as furniture in Buzz Hickey’s office to prank him or Jeff Winger krumping) are fun one-off jokes. BoJack Horseman seems to draw on this trope-modeling sense of goofiness for entire character arcs, though, rather than just quick gags.
Yes, there’s the aforementioned example of spaghetti strainer stories, but there’s also the character of Vincent Adultman (Brie), who seems to be three kids standing on each other’s shoulders under a trenchcoat (but this is never confirmed). Furthermore, most of the Todd antics are based around having as much fun in a writers’ room as possible. Occasionally, Todd’s subplots are dealt with in a meta, winking sense (like season four’s “Hooray! Todd Episode!”) and the most prominent example of this is when Todd becomes a multimillionaire, which be believes will “lead to some interesting stories.” (He states this immediately before screeching his gleeful sprint to a Flintstones-sounding halt.)
While this moment in “That Went Well” seems to promise more Todd antics for season four, BoJack actually subverts the notion when Todd accidentally tips his waitress eight million dollars, depleting his fortune instantly. On the one hand, Todd with money would be a recipe for more delightful comedy. On the other, BoJack was half over by this point; it was time to start moving characters along the emotional arcs that were rightfully tied to them. In that same diner where Todd spends his fortune, he also comes out as asexual for the first time. No wacky B-story would be as compelling as Todd’s grappling with his own identity and BoJack Horseman understood that.
Each of the characters was written with the empathy and attention they deserved, never becoming side-characters or simply comic relief in the larger narrative of BoJack. After the first few seasons, Princess Carolyn largely breaks away from BoJack’s orbit and begins spending a reduced amount of time with him. However, her story is not dependent on BoJack; there are many paths it can follow. Many of these are tragic, like PC losing her agency start-up with rabbit Rutabaga Rabbitowitz (Ben Schwartz) and stubbornly refusing to adopt a baby with mouse Ralph (Raúl Esparza) after their attempts to conceive together produce countless miscarriages. In “Ruthie,” Ralph and PC break up when she provides an ultimatum for him and he can no longer stand by the cyclical heartbreak they face. However, the Ruthie in question, the one telling the story, is not actually PC’s great-great-great-granddaughter; she’s just a figment of Princess Carolyn’s fading desire to raise a child. The episode (and PC’s entire arc, to be honest) are an epic storytelling endeavor of empathy in BoJack and, without BoJack in her life, she manages to break towards happiness, marrying her assistant, Judah (Diedrich Bader), and adopting a baby porcupine. Named Ruthie.
Likewise, Diane often seems bound for a depressing ending to her character arc. In “Underground,” she confesses an epiphany (over “sad booze,” as opposed to “happy booze”) about being unsatisfied with her life and cursing herself for not being able to find the joy in any aspect of it. Her writing talents are used for penning celebrity Instagram captions and clickbait journalism, instead of following the actual stories she wants to tell. Ultimately, Diane is burdened by her own youth, worried that she’s wasting it because — when she steps back and evaluates the totality of her life — she can’t believe it’s actually here and waiting for her to take advantage of it. Ultimately, Diane finds happiness, just like Princess Carolyn manages, but we know how rocky her path to arrive there was and how she will always have to work at it.
Mr. Peanutbutter, lastly, is the character who best encapsulates the two poles of BoJack’s silly and sorrowful sides. At first, Mr. Peanutbutter seems to possess as little emotional depth as an actual yellow lab, preferring to be a happy-go-lucky beacon of hope in the world. However, Mr. Peanutbutter develops to nuance, as well, when he reconciles the fact that, sometimes, people don’t want him to tell them about the bright side. Sometimes, even he doesn’t want to look at the bright side. BoJack often dismisses him as an annoying yuppie, feeling that his “let’s have fun” career is meaningless in favor of the artsy heights BoJack seeks.
In “Let’s Find Out” the chasm between their two personalities bubbles to the surface as Mr. Peanutbutter finally confronts BoJack’s persistent pessimism and hatred for him. “What more do you want?” Mr. Peanutbutter asks, evoking BoJack’s intelligent girlfriend, Wanda, and his dream movie role, Secretariat. Over the course of the show, Mr. Peanutbutter has frequently made an effort to be BoJack’s friend, despite the horse’s immense flaws and the fact that no one else would ever try so hard to win the affection of someone who harbors disdain for them. But steadily, this loyalty was chipped away until Mr. Peanutbutter could no longer swallow his pain and we see his fury in a rare moment. In a turn, BoJack states that he just wants to feel as good as Mr. Peanutbutter does — and he worries that he can’t. For Mr. Peanutbutter, it would’ve been enough if BoJack had just been honest about that. But not everyone is as forthright with their feelings as Mr. Peanutbutter, who winds up being the one — the only one — to meet BoJack after his stint in prison.
Just as the characters possessed immense depth, so too did the storylines of BoJack Horseman. Innocuous Hollywood satire was always at the forefront of the show’s silliness, but the density was also evident in the aforementioned fracking, a meditation on abortion, and allegations of sexual assault levied against Hank Hippopopalous (Philip Baker Hall), the untouchable talk show host host/hippo. Throughout each of these arcs, BoJack revealed itself as a profound and melancholic series with streaks of characters doing their best and some moving on better than others. Yes, they were frequently thrust into absurdity, but the writers truly cared for each of the figures they crafted.
The character arc of BoJack, though, was certainly the most paramount. After all, he was the titular subject of the series and much of the antics are viewed through his own perspective. We spend enough time with BoJack to understand that, at his core, he doesn’t want to be a bad horse. But after enough fuck-ups that jeopardize the lives and the safety of others, that stops seeming like enough to justify his behavior. We can’t help but root for him when he begins an exercising regimen or joins a rehab facility or watches a parade of horses jogging in the desert. We can’t help but feel like there’s a chance he might actually be able to redeem himself, in spite of the challenges of his mental illness that weigh on him at every turn (his own mind demands that he admit to being “a stupid piece of shit”). Even if he doesn’t necessarily deserve our respect, there’s an argument to be made that he deserves rehabilitation. That’s why we always held onto the most hopeful moments of BoJack’s character arc.
In season four, BoJack’s emotional development steers into the past, evaluating the history of his family tree and unpacking the transfer of trauma that affected his parents and, in turn, affected him. Realizing that BoJack struggled through a tumultuous, unfeeling childhood doesn’t excuse his shitty behavior as an adult (Todd scolds him, “You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay; you need to better!”), but it at least helps us understand where people might be coming from, in unknowable arcs and wrestling with their own shortcomings.
At the outset of season four, “The Old Sugarman Place,” reveals the childhood of BoJack’s mother, Beatrice (Wendie Malick), to be an impossible one. Her brother, Crackerjack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), dies in World War II and her mother, Honey (Jane Krakowski), is forced to suffer a lobotomy from the despair. The lobotomy, however, was ordered by Beatrice’s father, Joseph (Matthew Broderick), leaving both of her parents as unfeeling as she’d end up being. Coupling the expectations of living up to Crackerjack’s reputation and her own immense sadness, Beatrice was never able to pass on the love and affection (along with her reluctant husband, Butterscotch (Arnett)) BoJack required as a child.
This all comes to a head in the eleventh episode of season four (the eleventh of each season was always the game-changing, chilling installment of BoJack’s respective arcs), the nonlinear “Time’s Arrow.” Following the denouncement from a pseudo-relative BoJack thought might have been his daughter, Hollyhock (Aparna Nancherla), BoJack finally snaps with his mother, whom he’d reluctantly agreed to care for during her suffering with dementia. BoJack blames Beatrice for his inability to show love for the people he cares about, but just as we’ve learned about his past trauma, so too do we learn about hers in this trippy, Dr. Manhattan-esque episode about all the worst moments of Beatrice’s life at once.
It works as a sweeping historical epic, blended with a character study of someone we’d previously thought to be unforgivable. It’s a learning moment for a woman who had a life removed from her child and could never quite figure out a way to integrate that child into the plans she once held for herself. We finally learn the true parentage behind Hollyhock in the form of the family maid, Henrietta (Majanda Delfino), who is remembered solely through the static memory lapses and scribbled face association of Beatrice’s own dementia.
However, we also see the steady wearing-down of Beatrice’s own lust for living, in the form of Joseph burning her toys and telling her it was stupid to cry and dewey-eyed liberalism squashed by the romance with Butterscotch, which she quickly regretted and could do nothing to avoid. We also see that Beatrice passed on every ounce or resentment and bitterness for her own lost dreams to the other people she met in life, specifically BoJack. And yet, despite the mutual detest between them, BoJack still takes a moment to stop by his mother’s side before leaving the nursing home forever. He kneels beside her and paints an idyllic mental picture of the Sugarman family lake house and the ice cream she once tasted there. It’s an act of mercy in a moment that would have otherwise left it unrequited between mother and son. Neither are perfect beings; neither are all that good. But the next generation is slightly more empathetic, slightly more attuned than the previous one and we’re left to hold onto the incremental steps towards goodness.
Eventually, Beatrice does die and the resulting episode is season five’s brilliant “Free Churro,” in which BoJack spends the entire episode delivering a eulogy for his mother and subtly working through his own feelings for their relationship. (The most stunning moment comes when BoJack realizes that his mother telling him, “I see you,” was actually just her reading, “I.C.U.” from her hospital room. No hidden meaning to unpack there, BoJack.) It’s an episode that features an all-time vocal performance from Arnett in one spiritually tied to “Time’s Arrow,” featuring a moving turn from Malick herself. (The vocal talents on BoJack were always masterful, even when they doubled up on actors in a Brock Holt-esque utility capacity. Brie, for example, played waitresses, shrimps, pilots, and even Dean Squooshyface, in addition to Diane.)
Throughout BoJack Horseman’s BoJack’s own reckoning with who he is (he believes he’s “poison” and will have no legacy outside of pain and trauma) frequently comes in juxtaposition with flashback clips to “Horsin’ Around.” The fictional series was always corny, but as Diane espouses to BoJack, it was a corny show that was also a form of escapism from her when she grew up in a Boston-area family that she felt never understood her. With The Horse, though, she felt like she found a home and, in a world of cynicism and high-brow entertainment, Diane advocates for the world needing more shows like “Horsin’ Around,” even if BoJack was decidedly nothing of the sort.
While the dynamics in each pairing and grouping of BoJack characters were authentic and perfectly realized depictions of how they would interact without ever compromising their most innate traits, the most crucial bond in the series’ heart was the one between BoJack and Diane. Only with Diane does BoJack ever directly strive to be a better horse. Each of the characters deserved better than what BoJack’s flawed humanity could provide them, but with Diane, he was inspired to be the best he could be. By the end of the series, though, it’s clear that his best wasn’t enough for Diane, who recognizes that, to move forward, she must cut him out of her life despite her gratitude for the time they shared on their respective journeys, which intertwined for a brief moment in their lives.
“I think there are people that help you become the person that you end up being,” Diane tells BoJack before they sit in silence on a starry rooftop at Princess Carolyn’s wedding before the contemplative “Mr. Blue” by Catherine Feeny takes over the scene. “And you can be grateful for them even if they were never meant to be in your life forever.” It’s true of the friendship between BoJack and Diane, but also in how we were carried a little closer to our truest selves by the characters on BoJack, even if it was time for them to depart from the world of television and become a part of the medium’s ages.
Of all the episodes that challenged the traditional norms of animated comedies, none was as dark or as terrifying as the series’ penultimate installment, “The View from Halfway Down.” (The title alone is full of fright, as it refers to Secretariat/Butterscotch’s poem about not regretting the choice to commit suicide until seeing the “view from halfway down.”) The episode gathers all the characters who died throughout BoJack for a dinner party and a variety show meant to mark the end of BoJack’s life in particular. Braff, Beatrice, Crackerjack, and Sarah Lynn all turn up, as do BoJack’s “Secretariat” co-star Corduroy (Brandon T. Jackson), who died from auto-erotic asphyxiation, and BoJack’s former best friend and “Horsin’ Around” creator, Herb Kazzaz (Stanley Tucci). It’s a pre-death celebration like All That Jazz, coupled with a meditation on mortality akin to The Seventh Seal and a reunion party out of a Mitch Albom novel. It’s an episode that’s near impossible to rewatch.
One merit you’ll find upon a second viewing, though, is the menagerie of symbolism throughout the episode. Sarah Lynn, who arrives at the death party with BoJack as her escort, ages throughout the episode, representing the various stages of her life. As a waiter, Braff (providing the much-needed life raft of lightness to the episode) serves the characters their final meals from their mortal lives, which include plates of drugs. A humanistic bird wordlessly infiltrates the party as a bad omen. Even BoJack’s persistent annoyance from dripping water and tar comes because he’s in the middle of drowning in his own luxurious pool. The Hollywoo enormity of the pool (and his ego, consequences, inciting actions, etc.) is his undoing, yes, but it’s also a method of death foreshadowed in the opening intro to every episode, which sees BoJack fall to the bottom of his swimming pool after a weary bender.
As the characters dine, they begin to ponder the meaning of both death and their lives. Herb confesses that the only reason he didn’t commit suicide was because the New York Knicks were having a good season and he wanted to see how it turned out. Sarah Lynn insists that the entertainment she brought to millions meant something because it allows her to be remembered. The topics are endlessly morose and the consistent reminder that none of these sentiments and ideas actually get to be uttered is deeply morbid. They’re all dead, but in BoJack’s mind (he’s hallucinating all of this, of course), they still have the tenacity to top death still.
“The View from Halfway Down” then transitions to the variety show back-half where characters experience their “series wraps” by performing an act and then vaulting through a door to oblivion. Herb explains to BoJack that there’s nothing on the other side of the door before he’s consumed by black sludge (an object that serves as a testament to what BoJack’s animation could conjure up for imagery) and taken to the realm of nothingness.
A similar idea of a door to the ether was presented on the series finale of The Good Place, which aired the night before BoJack’s final season dropped (underscoring the crucial tether between shows about being a good person), but on BoJack it was much more terrifying. Oblivion was something to fear, to run away from. And so BoJack does, until there’s nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but call Diane and ask how her day was. It’s a question BoJack should have always been asking.
In his mind, BoJack’s phone call was an act of peace and resolution, but in real life, it was a voicemail he left for Diane (she’s in Chicago, while he’s in Los Angeles) that actually blamed her for his latest bout with depression and attempted suicide. That does result in Diane finally cutting BoJack out of her life in the epilogue finale episode, “Nice While It Lasted,” which reveals (through a classic BoJackian bait and switch) that BoJack did, in fact, survive his near-death experience in the pool. But just because he survived, that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook. He still has to deal with his shit and reckon for the lives he ruined along the way.
In “The Face of Depression” at the midway point of season six, we think BoJack might find a happy ending after all, as he finds serenity in a college town and finds it within him to extend kindness to Mr. Peanutbutter. This was always a misdirect, though, because the immediately subsequent episode, “A Quick One, While He’s Away” unleashes the chain reaction of BoJack’s previously predatory and irresponsible behavior with high school students. From this point on, there’s no real path forward with Diane, but he still has a chance to “turn himself around” in the eyes of Todd and Princess Carolyn. We don’t know if the show ends with BoJack finally turning a corner towards improvement. But we know that the show decided to give him a shot. Is it more than he deserves? Probably, but there’s still a chance for him to put good into the world. “Horsin’ Around” still holds clout for people.
If these themes seem heavy for an animated show about talking animals and spaghetti strainers, you’re absolutely right. But that’s what made BoJack such a specially crystallized program; there was nothing like it (I also appreciated that the great Jonny Sun joined the writing staff to strike that silly-sweet balance even deeper). BoJack Horseman was often a show that was so bursting with emotion that it didn’t always know what to say (Diane and BoJack are wordless on the roof, an entire episode takes place muted underwater, and the self-loathing in BoJack’s mind is more of an incoherent rant than anything). Occasionally, the series did have the perfect words, though, because the writing could be exceptionally pointed, as if it came directly from a book of “greatest quotes” (I’ve read one and it’s pretty shocking), like the “View from Halfway Down” poem and Wanda’s devastating reflection, “When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”
When the series began, I was so used to the main characters of animated shows being such slovenly, abrasive assholes (who never received comeuppance) and I initially pegged BoJack as more of the same. I stuck with it, though, and saw it through to the end of a poignant first season that knocked me breathless when I saw it for the first time. Having only started watching it because I enjoyed all five of the main actors, I never anticipated that the bizarrely titled series with bizarre animation would eventually become an all-time favorite program of mine. Part of me misses stumbling on pre-acclaimed television like that, but mostly, I was just happy to share the series with so many.
I first realized BoJack was entering into the greater zeitgeist with its season three detour episode, “Fish Out of Water.” If “Let’s Find Out,” with all its backstage scenery and rat-a-tat dialogue, was an homage to Aaron Sorkin shows, then “Fish Out of Water,” with all of its themes of loneliness and isolation in a foreign landscape, was a clear emulation of Lost in Translation. This episode relied solely on visual storytelling, as BoJack traveled to Pacific Ocean City for their film festival, which was hosting a screening of “Secretariat.” To travel underwater, BoJack wears a bubble helmet, which he believes prevents him from speaking clearly with anyone (sort of like SpongeBob’s “Rock Bottom,” which also contained an illogical bus schedule), except he just missed the audio button on the outer collar of his suit.
The mistake does allow the creative team to flex its muscles with minimal dialogue and an explosion of expression for the series’ creative meditation on human connection that it’d been building to for two and a half seasons by this point. With a new setting serving as the episode’s playground, “Fish Out of Water” relied on muted gibberish and an instrumental score that wouldn’t be out of place on a Walt Disney World monorail loop. Yet, it might just be BoJack’s finest half-hour as it distills the loneliness and need for bonding within him better than any other episode — and it does so by saying so little.
Of course, the episode is accompanied with the classically dense gags (physical gags pay homage to Lucille Ball and Buster Keaton with a poorly-timed taffy press and silent point-and-laughs, respectively) that define BoJack. One has to know behind-the-scenes trivia of Jaws, Robert Redford’s hobbies, and the anatomy of a male seahorse to fully understand three of the episode’s jokes and, even then, I’m sure there’s plenty more I missed.
Ultimately, though, “Fish Out of Water” is most concerned with the connection between one person (horse) and another (seahorse). At first, when BoJack winds up in possession of a stranger’s infant seahorse, he tries (like, eight or nine times) to leave it behind, but finally, his morality gets the better of him and he makes sure to transport the seahorse back to its father. When he finally reunites the two, he watches as the baby forgets about him and the father demands to know what he wants, if not a seat at their dinner table or reward money. BoJack can’t articulate why he feels so saddened by the loss of his moment-in-time companion. Considering how the episode also follows BoJack trying and failing to apologize to his former director (whom he got fired), Kelsey (Maria Bamford), even if he knew his helmet had an audio button, he wouldn’t be able to. It’s just too much for him to voice his need for bonding with others.
Instead, he leaves silently and solemnly from the seahorse home and decides to pen Kelsey a letter to make amends. “In this terrifying world, all we have are the connections that we make,” he scrawls and it seems like BoJack is about to unlock a core tenet of what’s always held him back. Instead, when he hands the letter to Kelsey, she tosses it back and drives away without another word. The saltwater turned his ink and his thoughts to nothing. Just smudges on a piece of paper.
We wish he would vent these feelings to the people he cares about, to tell them how he feels while he still can. But connection has always evaded BoJack; we didn’t need a foreign environment to tell us that. The world’s going to terrify him anyway and it’s going to turn his apology to what many rightfully feel its worth: smudges on a piece of paper. “Fish Out of Water” is just a microcosm of how BoJack feels every day of his life as a horse, a star both overseas and underseas — and in Pacific Ocean City, he was briefly human.
