And then I started thinking about it.
It's easy to see how Raphael Bob-Waksberg and his crew may have painted themselves into a corner. Each season has tried to keep finding ways to gutwrench the viewers, confronting them with uncomfortable thoughts and heavy emotion. Scenes where a character ruins everything by making one bad choice, goes through an epiphany that exposes just how bad of a person they are, or sits on a metaphorical train charging into a wall as the audience has to keep watching the ride well aware it’s gonna crash at the end. There is an expectation that watching a season of Bojack Horseman will leave you moved in some way. Knowing this expectation exists, creators had to make a choice - either try to keep delivering up to it, start playing with it in some way, deliberately deny it, or just ignore the need and try to make the show as if it wasn’t a factor.
On top of that, reading interviews with the director reveals another issue he had to deal with. You see, Raph is a pretty thoughtful person, trying to do his part in making the world (or at least Hollywood) a better place. And there’s a lot of work to do if recent years’ plethora of scandals are anything to go by. So he was pretty flustered when he heard that none other than Harvey Weinstein was a fan of the show. He started questioning himself - is there any good in making a story like Bojack Horseman? Does it make the audience think about subjects they would otherwise ignore, or does it reaffirm people flawed in similar ways to show’s titular character, who accept their bad actions as true to their nature? And if it’s both, then does benefit of the former outweigh the harm done by the latter?
Among other things, this season tackles the idea of pop-culture normalization, the concept that media influences what we consider, well, normal. On paper it makes sense, we learn behaviour by observing what people do and how others react. A research by US Surgeon General claims there is a link between prevalence of adolescent smoking and the commonality of it in movies and TV shows, so there is a precedence to this idea. In Bojack it gets introduced through Diane, the show’s resident moral compass. Initially she uses it to explain why it’s wrong to let known abusers back into the industry, as one named Vance Waggoner, your stereotypical drunk asshole and sexist, makes his “apology tour”. He quickly disappears from the scene as he’s unable to last more than a month without another bigoted rant, but what’s left is the startling realisation that Bojack is exactly that - a TV show that presents gritty, hateful rhetoric, cynical detachment and casual sexism in ways that can be appealing to the audience. Oops, I said “Bojack”? Of course I meant “Philbert” - the in-universe True Detective-style online series about hardened cops with traumas and unhealthy coping mechanisms, starring Bojack Horseman. How could I confuse the two?
To drop the act, the entire thing is not-so-subtle meta-commentary on the show itself. As was previously established through the mouth of horse and friends, they can’t just solve their problems or “get better”, because then the show ends. There’s no “Bojack Horseman” without characters dancing in circles as they fail to recognize and address their flaws. Every season needs it’s hallucinatory reflection of trauma. The audience wants tears. They want the show to punch them in the gut and pull the rug from under their feet. They want to feel. And creators seem well aware of it.
At the premiere party, Bojack gives a little speech about “Philbert”, summing its messages in words “Everyone’s messed up, and that’s ok”. For Diane, that’s the confirmation of every fear she had - that she’s been working on a series that will help shitty men justify their shitty behaviour. But moreover, it’s a startling realization that through all her friendship with Bojack - all the attempts to moralize him, all his seeking of guidance, through all the trauma they’ve been through and all the support they gave each other - he came away with the idea that he should just accept himself for what he is, with all the flaws and issues he has. And that’s a tough pill to swallow for someone who’s core belief is that everyone should be striving to be better. How much of Raphael Bob-Waksberg is in Diane at that moment talking to the surrogate audience of Bojack, I can only assume.
Miss Nguyen goes through a crisis this season. A painful divorce, alienation in her parents’ homeland, disillusionment with her job and questioning whether her only friendship is good for either party. Oh and a shitty material situation, just to make sure her life’s not too perfect. When her boss asks her to become the website’s face and voice, she hesitates. How is she supposed to preach “be better” to the world, when every time she had the chance, she didn’t stand up to the task? She bailed on the humanitarian mission in Cordovia, gave up on her investigation of Hank Hippopopalous, failed in her marriage and didn’t bring up the dirt she got on Bojack to public. Perhaps it’s her that needs the message “it’s ok to fail, accept your weaknesses”, because constantly holding everyone to a higher standard and failing to uphold it herself has only been a source of misery. Early in the season, when she is especially depressed about lack of impact on the world, Mr Horseman uplifts her by saying that at the very least, her words and attitude changed him. But then the speech at the “Philbert” party happens and suddenly it’s unclear just how much he changed.
As a matter of fact, this is a very important thing - it’s hard to tell how much Bojack has changed over the last 5 seasons. Is he really hopelessly pushing the boulder uphill, until at the season finale it rolls down leaving him right where he started, confirming the premise that status quo must be restored so that the show can go on? Or perhaps something different is happening and Bojack is actually undergoing change right before our eyes? After all, getting better is a slow and gradual process, and if we’re observing it as it goes then it’s easy to not notice - you need to take a step back and compare a person at the start of their journey to their current self, and only then you can really tell whether any change happened.
And I believe that Bojack was able to do a little bit of progress with every passing season. When we first meet him, it was kinda like seeing Scrooge McDuck at the beginning of “Richest Duck In The World”. He’s old, tired, cranky and passionless. A truly broken man, pretty much just waiting for the end. Until a new presence in his life brings him out of the stagnancy and indolence, as Diane inspires him to revisit some of the doors he thought were already closed and try opening them. Suddenly it turns out that Bojack does care whether he’s a good or a bad person and there are still things he wants to do. Perhaps his greatest work is still ahead of him.
In Season 1, Bojack had no qualm about taking the most selfish choice every time. He sabotages his friend Todd’s career so that he remains an useless bum who has to rely on him, and demands that a man dying of cancer forgives him so that he can have closure. In Season 5 he’s starting to do favors gratuitously, just to see others succeed. He sends off his half-sister at the airport even when she offers to stay and take care of him, as he doesn’t want to drag her into his messed up life. And later when he’s forced to make the best out of a bad situation, it leaves him with an immense sense of guilt. For me it’s easy to imagine that if a scene akin to his interview regarding the choking incident occurred in S1, Bojack would be thrilled to get off scotch free, but that’s not him anymore. He is really trying to be better.
Believing he has made no progress is short-sighted. After first season, he learned that there’s still point in living and trying to be better. Then he learns that change takes effort and he has to keep going, but if he does, it will get easier over time. In season 3 he finally gets that his actions have consequences and he needs to think about it ahead of time. In season 4 he managed to let go of his past which trapped him for so long. And now he battles with the one thing that has been at the center of the show for all its existence, but never really addressed - substance addiction. I mean, talk about normalization. Bojack is constantly drunk or high, I don’t think there’s more than a couple episodes where he doesn’t take a sip of alcohol or a pill. But the way the series shows it, well, this is anecdotal, but it always seemed to me more like a character quirk than an issue. No one cares when he acts dumb at a party or wakes up in the middle of nowhere with a hangover, or when he pours liquor into received beverage, or when he drinks early in the morning, or just takes out a container in the middle of a conversation to pop some drugs. By all accounts, the show portrays him as a functioning addict.
The scene that really spells out what’s going on happens in Season 3 Episode 10, when Bojack starts his usual litany of justifications and Todd has none of it. He cuts him off and tells him to stop making excuses. It’s not the drugs, or alcohol, or his shitty background, but he himself that is the problem. And there’s nothing else to say. But as Bojack has started taking responsibility for his actions and tries to let go of his past, it turns out it’s not as easy to kick an addiction. He devises a system and sets up limits, but the addict’s brain will always trick them into giving in. It’s a special occasion, I can up the limit just a little bit, I actually need those drugs because I’m in pain. The bad things that happen in Season 5 are caused by his inability and unwillingness to fight the addiction and a failed attempt at trying to tame it instead. It ends in the only logical way - he goes to rehab. He wonders if it’ll even work, after all people relapse all the time and statistics show that it’s hardly a certain solution. But if he’s not even willing to try, then how can he say that he’s trying to be a better person?
But enough about Bojack! The world doesn’t revolve around you, you old horse. Let’s talk about about the Internet’s favorite pink cat, Princess Carolyn. This season we get to see her quest to adopt a baby, as she finally comes to terms with her body’s inability to give her a biological offspring and accepts the idea of having family not tied by blood. The search for a mother who doesn’t want a child brings PC back to the small town of Eden in her home state of North Carolina. There she meets Sadie, a teenager way to young to start a family, even less so as a single parent. Carolyn tries to sell herself as a good caretaker for the child - spends the day saying everything Sadie wants to hear, making a good impression and carefully navigating through all the social situations encountered. Essentially, she’s treating her like one of her clients or business partners, trying to strike a deal. What she doesn’t expect is that Sadie is perceptive enough to see what she’s doing - how she puts on a salesman mask while helping her at the market in the exact same way she puts on a caring parent mask when talking with her. She’s the first person PC has met in a long time that is neither stupid nor self-absorbed which allows her to see through the facade and criticize Carolyn for her fakeness. This comment strikes deep because PC actually wants to be a good, caring person, and her saleswoman persona is just a very cynical, Hollywood-influenced extension of her natural willingness to help others. But what Sadie saw was a shallow, uncaring, Californian sociopath who decided she wants a baby on a whim and tries to “trick” a simple country girl into giving her one.
However, as we see in memories brought up by the journey back home, she was always that kind of thoughtful, empathetic person that’s able to identify others’ problems, think of a solution and encourage them to tackle it. Her childhood was painted with her own brand of parental negligence, that of a caretaker who can no longer provide for their family, forcing the child to mature immediately if they want to eat. This further developed her into a hard worker who’s not afraid of nothing and likes to always keep busy. She always had a knack for pep talks and selling people on ideas, which coupled with the love for inspirational movies meant that Hollywood was the only possible direction for her. The thing is, her mother never approved. Of her dreams, of her morals. She was a sad, broken person who believed in a fateful cycle of poverty and classism, with the only way to escape being marrying into a powerful family. Something PC almost lucked herself into before a calamitous miscarriage. Only after that traumatic event her mother realised how much her daughter needed the parental support, aid and guidance. A heartfelt speech encourages Princess Carolyn to leave her home state and go conquer the world… Until the day of her departure, when Mrs Cutie Cutie Cupcake realises she can’t take care of herself and begs her daughter to defer her college education and stay with her a little longer. PC makes the tough decision to abandon her, leaving the addict alone in pursuit of education… Which mirrors how Hollyhock wanted to stay with Bojack, except he was the one to tell her to go to college and not get wrapped in his shitty addict life… Goddammit we’re back to Bojack.
In that case let’s talk about the one thing I haven’t touched on yet - the “Free Churro” episode. It’s another experimentative one like “Fish out of water” that dwelves a little deeper into main character’s psyche in an unusual circumstance with an unusual directing convention. There, a mute episode. Here, a real-time one, set in a single room with a single actor performing a single action, a 20-minute long eulogy. On one hand it’s a brave choice - animation is a medium of endless possibilities, so it takes real confidence to decide that this is the best way to use your screen time. On the other, anyone who ever watched a monodrama, a good wrestling promo, listened to a radio story or an actual speech can tell you there’s an art to monologues and there are really no good reasons not to give one an entire episode.
But I think there’s another reason why it’s an important chapter. You see, between all the shitty things Bojack does or lets happen, I feel like we can sometimes forget what makes him a sympathetic character, and even more so a likeable person. After all, he has no trouble making acquaintances or finding women who want to be with him, but all we see is how selfish, uncaring or pathetic he is most of the time. Even when he’s obliging, it’s with caveats. He finds out it’s nice to extend a helping hand and see that you can do good unprompted, but as soon as people start having expectations of him, the situation is different. Suddenly he doesn’t get points for every time he does something nice, he’s expected to help just because others need him. Bojack always reacts to that kind of relationship by lashing out and turning himself into a victim, launching a tirade about how really he is the sad, sick person that needs help and how everyone around him doesn’t care and is only looking for ways to use him to advance their career. I think the most telling example is how early in the season he had an internal monologue about being happy to see Gina succeed. But later when he has a depressive episode and refuses to go to the film studio, she tries to convince him to get back to work, and she mentions that him abandoning the show would ruin her career, and at that point he immediately strikes back, accusing her of being selfish and not caring about his problems. But a more interesting example occurs during the previously mentioned dialogue with Diane during the “Philbert” premiere. Without getting into specifics, he admits that he has done shitty things to girls in the past. He claims to still have those events on his conscience, but doubts those women even remember them. He truly believes that in the grand scheme of things, he’s the one who suffered the most from them, because of the damage they continue to do on his psyche.
But then the eulogy happens and suddenly we find Bojack in an environment where it’s hard to harp on him since, you know, he just lost his mother, so it’s not really the good time to discuss what makes his approach so ~problematic~. We have no choice but to sit back and listen, as there’s no one to interrupt him. And this cunning horse takes us on a journey through his mind, bouncing between the spite for his less-than-ideal upbringing, the sympathy for his mother who didn’t have an easy life herself, relishing in his own pettiness as he shittalks his mother over her casket (which he left closed despite her wishes), resignedly concluding that his family is cursed and none of them were meant to ever be happy, and finally a little sentimentalism slips in as the realization that nothing matter sinks in deeper and deeper which ironically makes him realize that his grudge is giving him nothing but more weight on his mind. Throughout all this he’s funny, charming and charismatic. He grabs audience’s attention for entire 20 minutes without a break, throwing in some dark humour, deadpan revelations and even some theatrical mannerisms. Not because he seems to care all that much about giving out a good eulogy, it’s just the kind of person he is, talking like that comes naturally to him. I think that kind of segment was necessary to remind us why we ever liked him as a character in the first place. And I see a parallel to the entire series in this. “Bojack Horseman” has become the de facto Depression Fix for thousands (millions?) of people worldwide, as every September we flock towards our Netflix devices to see what kind of dark place it will take us this time. But that perception is so limited compared to everything the show has to offer, between a unique brand of humor, the kind of social commentary that recent South Park seasons would be jealous of, and a look behind Hollywood’s curtain that is so much different from anything we’ve seen in television prior. Some of my favorite things about the show are background gags which make use of the anthropomorphized animals setting, small stories told through props which never get addressed by the cast, clever directing tricks such as jumping through time periods in match cuts and deconstructing the sitcom episode formula, or any of the dozen types of comedy that gets squeezed in. I’m not gonna bother writing the joke that reunites the two popsicle stick comedians because I cannot possibly do it justice, but it was actually my favorite scene from the entire season, not any of the melodramatic dialogues.
So, what does Raphael Bob-Waksberg do about this situation? Does he remove the tragic climax and change the formula to focus on other aspects of the show? Or is he contempt with its reception as long as it allows him to spread his message? But what if the reception of the show brings people to a completely different conclusion, one which director might disagree with? What if you find yourself to be like Sartre (whom Bojack actually mentioned in a dialogue in “Fish out of water”), seeing influential criminals use your work to reaffirm themselves in whatever they’re doing? I believe this consideration is reflected in the dichotomy of Bojack and Diane. One thinks he needs to learn to love himself, accept all the good with the bad and just keep advancing forward with his life, not realizing that you fundamentally cannot move without growth. The other believes that everyone should strive to be better, a dreamer that lacks self-awareness and broader perspective which weakens her argument and makes her words fall on deaf ears most of the time. Both these fallacies can be extremely damaging and perhaps the two need to learn something from each other if they are to grow and improve.
Instead of the expected cathartic gut punch, Raph asks us to do something different - bottle it up. Drug abuse finally catches up with Bojack as he mistakes hallucinations for reality and chokes his co-star on set, an action he specifically advocated against early in the season. He wants to apologize, take blame, get punished, receive that catharsis. But it doesn’t come. Revealing the circumstances around that incident would be catastrophic for everyone involved, especially the victim. Instead he has to pretend it was just really good acting and that he’s still on good terms with her - and get eaten up by guilt from the inside. He asks Diane to write a hit piece on him, but she’s conflicted about whether she has the right to do something like that, and whether it’s even a right thing to do. So instead, it’s the rehab clinic. The least Bojack can do at this point is admit he has a problem and needs help. And then Diane rides away and the season ends, leaving us with all these pent up emotions and various thoughts and no conclusions or release. The director gives us some food for thought and asks to sit on it for a while, a year if that’s how long it takes us to process. After all, there’s a lot to unwrap - if not about the depressive duo, then perhaps about PC, who has finally managed to get a kid, but the road she took to do it may have revealed some uncomfortable truths about her ability to be a mother. I haven’t even touched on Mr Peanutbutter who had a dawning realization that all his marriages failed because unlike his wives, he didn’t grow as a person one bit, each time just accepting the divorce and using the previous relationship to better judge what kind of woman he would be able to build a better life with. At least Todd seems to be happy. I guess that’s the show’s real message - if you want to be happy, then be like Todd. I just hope there’s enough vacant couches and disposable income in the world for all of us.
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