After so much looking ahead, BoJack Horseman turns its gaze to the ruins left behind
TV Reviews BoJack Horseman
Down your street your crying is a well-known sound
Your street is very well known throughout your town
Your town is very famous for the little girl
Whose crying can be heard all around the world
– The Who, “A Quick One, While He’s Away”
The bifurcated nature of this final season of BoJack Horseman has changed the audience expectations of how a season of BoJack Horseman is supposed to progress. Typically, we start the action by setting the stakes (an Oscar campaign, a gubernatorial race, a new streaming outlet show), introduce a few broadly comic situations and one or two dynamically ambitious episodes, build it all to an emotionally devastating penultimate episode, and then spend the finale picking up the pieces and reassembling it for the next go-around. It’s an emotional roller coaster where the track is predictable, and the only question is how high and low the respective comedic and emotional beats will take you.
Splitting the season in two smaller chunks—albeit with more episodes total—has changed the flow of things, and along with it the tone. In the first part of season six we’ve been without the stylistic experiments of “Free Churro” or “Fish Out Of Water,” and haven’t gone to the devastating extremes of “That’s Too Much, Man!” or “Escape From L.A.” There’s still been plenty of mayhem and emotion, but the tone feels more muted than it was before, less time spent on grand flights of fancy and severing the emotional arteries. On balance though, it’s been satisfying in a different way. It has the feel of a show that’s in its final season and it knows it, bringing in a wide array of familiar guest stars and finding a place of relative closure for its main characters.
But it’s come to the point that they’ve done all of that and there’s still an entire half-season left to play around, and BoJack Horseman doesn’t forget that time’s arrow is still marching forward. And if you told yourself that relative closure was the same thing as a happy ending, don’t act like you don’t know. Never a routine show despite a routine season pattern, BoJack has frequently delivered some of the most surprising moments I’ve ever seen on television, giving me cause to call the show an “evil bastard” on at least one occasion. Just when you’d think it was stepping back from that, “A Quick One, While He’s Away” swings a baseball bat into your gut at the very last minute. It’s a game-changing midseason finale, one that goes from the show building to BoJack’s redemption to asking the question if he even deserves it in the first place.
“A Quick One, While He’s Away” pulls that twist without even featuring BoJack once—another illustration of the “let’s do the show about the Horse, but this time without the Horse” concept. Or even without the entire main ensemble, as this is the first episode of BoJack Horseman where none of its five main characters appear at all. Instead, showrunner Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s script is about the people that BoJack hurt in his decades of self-absorbed self-loathing, a reminder that just because BoJack is forgiving himself for his actions doesn’t mean those actions didn’t happen. “The Face Of Depression” skipped the opportunity for BoJack to make amends to the people he hurt in favor of connecting with the people closest to him, and this midseason finale proves they were saving that for later.
There’s no shortage of people who could fit the category of BoJack victims, and “A Quick One, While He’s Away” picks two perfect examples to illustrate the damage left in BoJack’s wake. First is Kelsey Jennings, the director of Secretariat who was blamed for the Nixon Museum break-in and subsequently fired in “The Shot.” Since then she’s been in director purgatory, unable to find any substantive work beyond filming commercials immersive product placement journeys for streaming service Gronkle. It’s scathing commentary on media saturation, a symbol of how BoJack didn’t have to hurt people intentionally for it to still hurt, and another underlining of the show’s regular pointed observation that it’s always women who bear the worst of what this industry offers.
Kelsey’s appearance is the most clearly constructed plot of the episode, Maria Bamford returning to the role in full force as her agent gets her in line to direct the next big superhero movie, Fireflame. (Her agent is Rutabega Rabbitowitz, Ben Schwartz making another welcome return.) She needs this job to work out for her, but she can’t ignore the bullshit excuses she has to make in the room—or, more pointedly, the misogynistic gaslighting the male executive directs to his female counterpart. When working with BoJack, she wanted to make something that was real, and she can’t subsume that passion, reinventing her original pitch to make the movie more true to the actual frustrating experiences of being a woman with power. It’s carefully calibrated and reasonably presented, but it’s still a primal scream, one that’s deeply satisfying to witness after so many dismissals.
On the other end of the success spectrum is Gina Cazador, BoJack’s Philbert co-star and ex-girlfriend. With the success of Philbert Gina’s been able to accelerate her previously unambitious career path, now headlining her own ballroom dancing action movie Balls To The Wall. It’s a degree of success that’s often denied to women in Hollywoo, and it’s great to see Gina finally clawing out of police procedural purgatory to number one on the call sheet. Yet it’s also uncomfortable to see the change, a recognizably rougher edge to Stephanie Beatriz’s voice as Gina keeps emphasizing that status and using it to insist on no surprises on set.
When one of those surprises pops up in the form of a hand on her neck and an on-set meltdown, it’s clear where that roughness comes from: BoJack’s metaphorical hands still grabbing her by the neck. After the events of “The Showstopper,” Gina buried the truth of the event and kept BoJack from confessing, refusing to let him be the most notable thing that ever happened to her. And while it was kept from happening in the public arena, it’s heartbreakingly clear that it might still be true privately. Not every BoJack Horseman tragedy plays out at the scale of a “D” ripped from the Hollywoo Hills, and not every problem is cured just because you keep it from the headlines.
As hard as it is to see the damage that BoJack wrought on both these women, it’s even harder to witness their unintended consequences. Kelsey’s bold gambit pays off and she gets the Fireflame directing job, and when discussing potential leads for the film, Justin hesitates to recommend his own star. A pairing of Kelsey and Gina would be a triumphant ending for both of those characters after the price they paid for daring to care about BoJack Horseman, and “A Quick One, While He’s Away” yanks it away in excruciating fashion. It’s even more painful because in a series filled with awful men in positions of power, Justin isn’t that at all—he’s looking out for his movie and Kelsey’s big break, and doesn’t have any context for why Gina’s behaving the way she is to explain her behavior. And so Gina gets saddled with the career-killing label of “difficult,” and Kelsey turns to Courtney Portnoy as her potential lead. It’s a lost opportunity in a city littered with them.
While dealing with the damage both of these women have suffered, “A Quick One, While He’s Away” also focuses on the one who suffered damage she can’t come back from. Sarah Lynn’s mother still hasn’t accepted what happened to her daughter, and has been badgering the Hollywoo Reporter to look into it more. Here, BoJack Horseman crosses into full screwball comedy territory, ace reporters Paige Sinclair (Paget Brewster) and Maximillian Banks (Max Greenfield) getting to the bottom of what happened to Sarah Lynn the night she died. It’s room for fantastic wordplay as Brewster and Greenfield zip through wonderfully constructed 1920s transatlantic banter, a vivid humor that obscures how close they’re getting to the truth. The shadow grows over the show with each interview as BoJack backtracks the devastating extremes cited above, tracing Sarah Lynn’s rehab all the way back to New Mexico and a hauntingly familiar water tower.
The dynamic tone of that plot also stands in stark contrast to the other narrative running through the episode, and one that only raises the tension the longer it goes on. Hollyhock’s gone with her roommate Tawnie to New York City for the opportunity to see the city, and also to attend a party where she can potentially have her first drink. “If I’m gonna lose control, I don’t want it to be in front of people I know,” Hollyhock says in what is the most tragically in-character statement she could say. There’s something so innocent about Hollyhock, sheltered by a home life of eight loving dads and a bit of that Horseman gift for self-delusion. Every beat of her time in the city feels like a ticking clock towards something bad happening, some new disaster to shatter the fragile peace BoJack Horseman discovered in its last episode.
When the time comes, it’s surprising when it appears that the show does in fact want to preserve that peace. An anxiety attack in the presence of intoxicants—aftershocks of “lovin that cali lifestyle!!”—could have gone so wrong in this unfamiliar space, but thankfully it’s witnessed by Peter, a decent guy who recognizes the signs and talks her down with simple questions. (Peter: “Last name?” Hollyhock: “No, we’ll be here all night.”) It feels good that she’s met a new friend, one who won’t take advantage of her and just wants to spend some time with her on the fire escape. He admits that he can see where she’s coming from because had a similarly bad experience his first time around intoxicants, when his girlfriend got her stomach pumped after drinking too much bourbon during prom. Bourbon bought for them by this older guy, who also went with them to prom, and was living at the home of another one of his friends.
And that’s where you realize it’s not the first time we’ve met Peter.
Six seasons in, it’s still remarkable that Raphael Bob-Waksberg and his writing team retain their grip on being able to surprise us. All episode and all season long, it’s felt like a reveal related to Sarah Lynn was what the final moments before the break were building to, from the first scene of “A Horse Walks Into A Rehab” when we learned no one knew BoJack was with her the whole time, and he deliberately lied about his involvement. If that reveal hit, it would be devastating, but it would also be in the public scandal context familiar to BoJack Horseman. We’ve seen it enough that you could predict how the beats would drop. Princess Carolyn would go into full damage control mode to manage the story. Todd, Diane, and Mr. Peanutbutter would rally to provide public or personal support. BoJack would release a full statement and formal apology, and it might mean something for his personal journey to embrace the guilt publicly and credit the horror of that night as what led him to get sober. And let’s be honest, as a male celebrity who did something questionable with a former costar, he’d be cleared in the court of public opinion after only a few days. This is still Hollywoo, after all.
Except this isn’t the broad saturation bombing of a media expose. This is a precise tactical strike executed by Bob-Waksberg, taking the deepest-buried shame of BoJack Horseman and aiming it exactly at the person whose love and support he values more than anything in this world. BoJack said as much to Dr. Champ during his breakthrough at Bellican’s, and by taking the job at Wesleyan he’s allowed the protective distance carefully maintained between the two to fade. Now, she’s potentially privy to the sliver that drove itself deepest in BoJack’s brain, the confession he desperately tried to avoid for years and which Diane drew out from him in agonizing detail last season. Is there any context he can tell that story to make Hollyhock look at him the same way ever again?
And should there be?
“How do you make it right when you’ve made it so wrong, you can never go back?” BoJack asked a long time ago. The first half of this season seemed to answer that the only way was forward, for BoJack Horseman to cast off the person he used to be and take responsibility for his actions. “A Quick One, While He’s Away” is a cold dismissal of all that positive work, and a promise that the last half of the season will be a reckoning and not a reconciliation. This final season has upended the traditional format of BoJack Horseman, but in that transformation it does give us one advantage for the final stretch: we have no idea how this is going to end.
We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon be home
We’ll soon, soon, soon be home
Come on, old horse
– The Who, “A Quick One, While He’s Away”
Stray observations:
- Achievement in Voice Acting: It’s a crime that Paget Brewster hasn’t been on BoJack Horseman before this point, and she lands with a splash as ace reporter Paige Sinclair in the fast-talking career gal vein of His Girl Friday and The Hudsucker Proxy. Her collaboration with Paul F. Tompkins as the no-nonsense editor only captures a fraction of their Thrilling Adventure Hour Beyond Belief energy, and I’m hoping for more in the final batch of episodes with one of the umpteen characters he plays. Or at least that she embraces the world she’s found herself in and names a bunch of dogs.
- Les’ Srant (Randy, I swear to God, I will come out from behind this desk): I didn’t complain about this in my premiere review, but I would like to express my unmitigated displeasure that the Emmys nominated BoJack Horseman for Best Animated Series on the back of “Free Churro,” and instead awarded it to The Simpsons. This is your periodic reminder that the industry is as stupid and ill-advised as BoJack Horseman portrays them, they are bad, and they should feel bad.
- CHARACTER ACTRESS MARGO MARTINDALE! I almost hope this is the last time that we see her, because that shot of her making off with the monseigneur’s Alfa Romero is a moment of the purest joy for this agent of chaos. “When you get to heaven, look up Margo Martindale! I won’t be there, but my movies will be!”
- We get the mid-season’s one use of the f-bomb from Gina’s co-star, who appropriates the same line that she threw at BoJack to devastating effect following her strangulation. It doesn’t land with the same impact as prior deployments, but reminding us of its first use makes up for some of that.
- The drinking bird describes BoJack “as a rounder Brad Garrett type, but with a very forgettable face.”
- “You confessed, your sins have been washed clean. This is Day One stuff!”
- “I’ve got an eyeball for a highball.”
- “Did you ever notice this music video takes place in a planetarium? And she died in a planetarium.” If he wasn’t a character in BoJack Horseman, Trey would make the ideal BoJack Horseman fan.
- “Can you wait until you’re out of earshot to make your actual exasperated sighs, please?”
- “I’m famished. Let’s find a place where I can get a glass with an olive in it.”
- “Also in my version she’s gay, okay bye!”
- “Who is he?”
- Thanks for reading, everyone! I’ll see you back in January for the final eight episodes of BoJack Horseman.
- Today in Hollywoo signs:
81 Comments
I loved this episode, undercutting the optimism of the previous one with everyone dancing around same thing. There are now arguably four, uh, horseshoes to drop (Kelsey, Nina, Penny, Sarah Lynn). Disaster could now hit Bojack from any angle.I loved the screwball pastiche, and I also appreciated the slightly obscure Who reference. The level of this programme just does not drop. Well done, everyone.
The one thing I hope for (but don’t hold out much hope for) is that the reporters leave Penny alone!We’ve seen that this hasn’t ruined her life, she’s thriving on her own, she doesn’t need this brought back up, doesn’t need her life upending. And she doesn’t deserve that.
The one thing I hope for (but don’t hold out much hope for) is that the reporters leave Penny alone!They really can’t, though. I get it, for Penny’s sake, but I think this is where Bojack really has to face all his demons, including the collateral damage of what he did with Penny. In part that, yes, she’s doing alright but that what he did (when he tried to sleep with her, and when he drunkenly went on a bender and practically bragged in his confession before driving out to see her at college) and any mention of him is likely to affect those he harmed.
It’s…interesting. Because Bojack has actively worked to take responsibility to affect change in his life. And yet, it also feels like under the scars there’s still an infection and puss that he has not actually dealed with. Like an uncauterized wound he’s tried healing over without actually dealing with the underlying issues.
I’m curious (like everybody else, I suppose) if this will break him, or enable him to deal with his past in a way he previously was not able to do because of how broken he was. At minimal, it seems obvious this will come to light, whether or not they rope Penny or her family into this in any meaningful way.
It raises the question though (and I’m not disagreeing with what you’ve put above, by and by, just expanding on it) of whether Bojack “dealing with” his past is worth dredging it up for other people.As we’ve seen with Gina, his desire to confess did not trump HER needs at the time. So his guilt, and his penance should not, necessarily, be the focus of everyone else’s stories. Penny’s in particular.Although, of course, we now see that the consequences of that decision are still playing out for Gina so… basically, it’s complicated, but it feels like Penny is young enough, and resilient enough, that Bojack shouldn’t be allowed to define her past or her future.But, as you said, it looks unlikely that she’s going to be able to escape being pulled back into his orbit.
It raises the question though (and I’m not disagreeing with what you’ve put above, by and by, just expanding on it) of whether Bojack “dealing with” his past is worth dredging it up for other people.I think if this show is to reflect reality, the unfortunate truth is…victims may not have a choice. Or at least not much of one. If somebody is a habitual abuser, is there a responsibility to hold them accountable? I would argue not, and in this case we have a repentant individual trying to change so there is not the same issue. He’s apparently, legitimately turned over a new leaf.
But that’s a non-point since it’s apparent the reporters have rooted out who Penny is. Is it worth dredging it up for other people? For her or those who would like to put it behind them? Probably not. And yet that’s an enduring horror for victims. It’s incredibly unfair how Monica Lewinsky is forever tied to a blowjob and an incident with a cigar in the White House. And yet…that gets dredged up regularly and is a part of her very public history. Ditto for anybody who may have come forward or been uncovered as a victim for anybody in the #metoo stories involving very public figures.
So it strikes me that’s kind of the point. These victims are victims of the initial incident, as well as any time the perpetrator gets brought up. So it’s not worth dredging up these painful events for Bojack to deal with his past. However, circumstances are conspiring so that they have to. That’s part of the horror of that sort of scenario, right? It’s what makes it so insidious. At this point, Penny’s seemingly moved on, Kelsey is finally getting a second chance after taking the fall and being unfairly fired, Gina is finally first billed, and Hollyhock is finally able to begin getting closer to Bojack while finding a friend to perhaps help her avoid following in Bojack’s footsteps regarding alcohol and addiction. They are to various degrees close to getting what they want, and yet the echoes of sins long since passed are about to torpedo everything.
I want all of these characters to be able to find some peace and happy endings. Hell, I still want that for Bojack. I’m not sure if I should. I will be very interested to see what this show says about redemption and accountability. How far can we go and still be worthy of redemption? How much do we forgive Bojack due to the circumstances of his own personal history? How much should or even can we forgive or allow growth? And what ends up happening? To Bojack, to those he’s harmed, his friends, everybody in his wake? And how culpable are Princess Caroline or even Diane for not holding him accountable earlier?
None of this seems worth it for Bojack to deal with his past. And yet, it’s worth exploring what should he do, if anything, to make amends, and how much can or should we forgive or allow for redemption? I’m not sure there’s an easy answer for any of those, or even a right one, but it’s a discussion that seems incredibly important to have.
This is, at its core, the true horror of generational abuse: while we can connect the chain of cause and effect between Bojack’s upbringing and his various crimes against others and even see how he was to some extent doomed to be the person he is as a result of that abuse and neglect, at the same time, none of this should *absolve* him of any of the terrible things he’s done, regardless of how sympathetic those circumstances make him. The pain inflicted on the people he’s harmed is no less monstrous or horrific for us understanding why he played things the way he did. What happened with Penny and the kids in Tesuque, with Sarah Lynn, with Gina, or even people like Todd; none of this is mitigated or easily forgivable (nor should be) just because Bojack had a shitty upbringing. Sure, we want to see Bojack overcome his struggles, especially since now seems to be the time change might actually stick for him. But it’s my belief that the simplified life of a college professor isn’t one he can deserve now given what he’s done. That implies that all the wrecked lives in his wake were all in the service of his own personal development which just seems like the… worst lesson imaginable, especially in these intersectional times where we see the kind of lives being sacrificed for one horse’s journey of self-actualization. But he does seem to be coming to a place where he can provide genuine atonement for his sins rather than a masturbatory self-flagellation like he’s attempted before in previous fits of histrionics. . What that might look like, though, I have no idea, yet.
But it’s my belief that the simplified life of a college professor isn’t one he can deserve now given what he’s done. That implies that all the wrecked lives in his wake were all in the service of his own personal development which just seems like the… worst lesson imaginable, especially in these intersectional times where we see the kind of lives being sacrificed for one horse’s journey of self-actualization.I struggle with that. When somebody changes, truly changes, should they be deprived of something like a job or a simplified life because they have not yet paid some undefined penance? I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. In this case, BoJack has made some genuine steps to change, including six months in rehab. How long until he can be deserving of picking up the pieces in his life?
And yet, I also think BoJack has gotten off kind of easy in some regards. He’s still independently wealthy and beloved by most, in that semi-washed up TV star sort of way. He clearly beats himself up, and seems to sincerely want to change. And yet…looking at how his actions have affected those people he’s harmed (and will likely continue to affect them in the second half of the season, and beyond), most of the consequences have been self-generated. He hasn’t had to actually confront most of what he’s done in any real way, aside from aforementioned self-flagellation (not sure if I’d call it masturbatory, losing Sarah Lynn in particular felt genuinely devastating and when he tried to confess his role to the police they just brushed it aside). I’m not quite sure what he has to do to truly earn absolution (or if that’s even possible, I suspect the answer varies by person).
This may be a bit of a trap on my part, but I do also look at what he’s done compared to the wanton destruction of people in Hollywood like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey, or the like. BoJack represents a more penitent character who’s trying to be good. Or even comparing him to Louis C.K. who still did horrible stuff, but arguably not quite as serious, and yet seems to have missed why what he did was horrible in the first place despite asking permission. I think the show made a pretty obvious point when it referenced Roman Polanski. There is a spectrum; I don’t think of BoJack as being as vile as Polanski or Weinstein, for instance. And yet, he left a lot of damage in his wake. That’s what makes this compelling. It’s not a clear-cut case of black and white. It’s…black and maybe fading to some shade of grey as he tries to clean up his past doing what he can think of to make amends. And his past certainly sets a stage for a more sympathetic, and frankly more nuanced, protagonist. All of that makes me view BoJack in rather conflicting terms, or at least more complicated ones.
Bojack has done a lot of awful things (including leading Sarah Lynn to her death, which this episode implies will be the thing that will finally destroy his public reputation), but let’s be fair here in regard to Penny — she wanted to sleep with him, and although he was tempted, given her resemblance to her mother, he was was the one who argued her out of it.
She’s a goddamn kid and her cockiness evaporates immediately once it gets closer to the deed itself. The very fact that BoJack even entertained the notion is fucked up. Nothing absolves him and he himself was clear that if the circumstances would allow it, he would probably do this fucked up thing.
She’s a goddamn kid and her cockiness evaporates immediately once it gets closer to the deed itself. The very fact that BoJack even entertained the notion is fucked up. Nothing absolves him and he himself was clear that if the circumstances would allow it, he would probably do this fucked up thing.Agreed, except I think the show kept it more ambiguous whether or not he would have gone through with it or not. Probably, however I like to think there is enough good that he might have stopped before going through with something so egregious.
But BoJack is fucked up. And that’s part of what I love about the show. It doesn’t turn away from that any more than Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Americans, or any other characters centered around deeply flawed characters. I find these stories fascinating in their narrative, and the question of whether or not absolution or redemption is possible for these characters. If so, to what extent? And how will characters like Gina, Kelsey, Penny, Hollyhock, or even Todd, Princess Carolyn, Mr. Peanut Butter, and Diane feel about him once everything is out in the open. In some of those cases, they’ve effectively enabled him, or at least allowed him to feel better about himself. That’s allowed him to change, but may have stunted his growth a bit, particularly in regard to Princess Carolyn. It’s great that this show makes these characters so likable while also making them in some ways culpable and flawed in their own ways.
What will be interesting is how this resolves, and what sort of ending it gives BoJack and those around him.
I am increasingly convinced that BoJack’s biggest hell isn’t going to be that he gets punished, it’s that he’ll get away with it. It’s in line with the show’s very accurate take on Hollywood – and we’re literally moments after Weinstein being defended at a comedy show and Louis fucking CK announcing a big tour, so thematically a propos. And we know that BoJack wanted to atone for what he did to Gina.It would be a mix of tragedy and hope this show generally nails.
Vague spoiler for The Shield (very vague…). However, that sort of reminds me of how Vic Mackey’s end was in a way a happy ending, but in another way…very much the inverse.
So I can see the ending being some variation where BoJack is left in a place that is true rock bottom, looking up, and anywhere from being completely deconstructed and on a path to find true redemption, or at least being able to really live with himself, being in a place where people basically shrug and say “so what” while he feels like maybe he deserves more punishment, or even killing himself or being so broken and alone that he wishes he could. I suspect it will end on at least somewhat of an optimistic note if for no other reason than BoJack actually is repentant in a way that Weinstein isn’t, and aware in a way that Louis CK seems to not be. And he never hit the depths of Roman Polanski, thankfully, so I think the show brought him up as a very deliberate counterpoint (there are a few reasons that resonates, not the least Hollywoo[d]’s ability to forgive even that). But since he does care…maybe that will hit him even harder. It will be fascinating, and probably heartbreaking, to see.
but let’s be fair here in regard to Penny — she wanted to sleep with him, and although he was tempted, given her resemblance to her mother, he was was the one who argued her out of it.I think that only changes how atrocious the situation was. BoJack was a grown man who took advantage of a seventeen year old girl. Legally he was in the right if you want to consider age of consent. Of course, there is the whole aspect of him teaching teenagers how to drink which muddies the water as well.
That said, not even BoJack would argue that case on a moral standpoint. In this situation, the responsibility lies on the fifty-year old to be the adult and shepherd Penny away from what he knows would be a mistake, or more likely a series of mistakes. She was in most jurisdictions still a child. I will admit BoJack was arguing against giving in, half-heartedly it must be said, however it was left ambiguous as to whether or not he would have gone through with an action that even just the possibility of it clearly haunts him. There’s a reason for that. I would say BoJack’s disgust with himself. Charlotte’s justifiable parental reaction. And how it affects the audience. I get being fair, but I also think we should acknowledge just how morally wrong it was. Especially when BoJack (the horseman, and the show for that matter) admits it pretty overtly.
After the feel-good episode of “The Face of Depression” I stopped binge watching because I had this dread that everything was going to fall apart in the mid-season finale. Sure enough, it appears that every covered-up shameful action Bojack committed during the first 5 seasons is about to go public. Hollyhock knows Bojack provided alcohol to a teenage girl who nearly died, Paige and Maximilian will encounter Penny who will tell them Bojack and Sarah Lynn were together not long before Sarah Lynn’s death. If Charlotte didn’t know that Bojack tried to find Penny before, she’s going to know soon enough. Was she serious about her threat from Season 2? It seems likely that Gina’s acting career is shot, she’ll probably reveal Bojack really did strangle her as she has nothing to lose.I can’t see how this will end happily for Bojack. I wonder if him falling into his pool has been his foreshadowed death since episode 1? It’d be too obvious, but who knows?
“I wonder if him falling into his pool has been his foreshadowed death since episode 1? It’d be too obvious, but who knows?”Interesting. They made that “green light at the end of the dock” Gatsby reference in episode 3 I believe. Could Bojack die in his pool? Although, would he still have the LA house if he has the teaching job?
I mean, the intro this season shows him falling into a black abyss this time. I’d say the metaphor is pretty damn obvious.
there’s no way he can keep that job. everything he has done has endangered (and uh, killed) underage girls and women…….which, now that i think about it, is really REALLY gross.
It was a bold choice to not include any of the five main characters in this mid season finale, but Bojack pulled it off as usual and set up a devastating scenario with the news Hollyhock is hearing. Bojack himself is doing so well, so it only makes sense to throw some stumbling blocks his way for the rest of the series – it will be interesting to see how he handles all that’s being dredged up and if he can hold himself together and continue to move forward, or if the knowledge of his past transgressions getting out both publicly and to someone he cares about like Hollyhock, will he find the strength to move forward or will he sink into old habits and truly reach an irredeemable place?
It’s definitely leaning towards the irredeemable place, at least after the end of this half-season. My question is, do they dare push boundaries and go for some sort of suicide event, or is it just a series that ends with him on the skids in a drunken stupor for the rest of his short life?Right now, I’m thinking that Bojack will be confronted with a one-two punch from the bombshell of an article: his professional reputation (and future job as an acting teacher at the university) will be ruined by the revelation that he contributed to Sarah Lynn’s death and subsequent cover-up; his soul will be further crushed by whatever the reporters uncover regarding Penny and Charlotte. Judah, doing more of the grunt work for VIM, will see to it that Bojack is dropped from the agency’s roster. The publicity from the exposé will likely mean there’s nowhere — not even Massachusetts — that he can hide from public scrutiny. He’ll sink into the dark abyss of his soul, probably fall off the wagon, and ultimately decide to take his own life, as that’s the only way to end the cycle of pain he’s caused others. It’d also be one last way he manages to ruin everyone’s relationship with him, one last time.I’m not sure how or where Mr. Peanutbutter or Diane will factor into this, although with the latter’s recent bout with depression herself, maybe that’s a clue that she will be able to step in and stop him from doing something totally catastrophic?
My friend and I have discussed how this show will end since the end of last season. Before watching part 1 of season 6, the two main theories were that Diane would die and this would spur Bojack into become a better horse, or that Bojack would commit suicide to escape the demons of his past.Now, I see a third option. I think that Bojack, in the vein of coming to terms with himself and what he did, Bojack will embrace whatever truths emerge and finally hold himself accountable: by publicly going to jail, both for providing alcohol to underage teens (Penny mentions the age of consent in New Mexico is 17, so even a statutory charge won’t fly) and being complicit in the death of Sarah Lynn (garnering either a manslaughter or, possibly, a third degree- murder charge).
is he really LGEALLY responsible for what happened to sarah lynn? she started the bender she died in. And wasnt a kid anymore, she was like, 34. Last i checked enabling wasnt a crime.
Didn’t she get the heroin from the packet of unauthorized Bojack “branded” heroin that Bojack kept in his car after getting a sample from a drug dealer?
Damn dude, good call.
I disagree. There are other ways for this to end besides suicide. His career will be absolutely over. He’ll sell the house and downsize so he can retire. Bojack was so uncomfortable in his own skin back in season 1 that he had to throw himself into fame’s spotlight to feel anything. Now that he’s sober, he doesn’t need the limelight. He might finally be just barely at peace enough with himself that he can weather being publicly reviled until the next monster comes along and he fades into obscurity. So long as he has Diane, Princess Caroline, Todd, and Mr. Peanutbutter (whom he now treats as true friends, and whose time he no longer monopolizes for his own greedy needs), Bojack will be fine.I’m going to go so far as to say the very, very last scene will show a new character—maybe whoever bought Bojack’s house—going for a jog and having a really rough time of it. They collapse on their back for a break, breathing heavily and closing their eyes. A shadow crosses their face. A voice says, “It gets easier.” The jogger opens their eyes, sees Bojack standing over them. “Huh?” “Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier.” Bojack runs off. Jogger: “…who the hell was that guy?”
no matter how dark the show gets i just cant imagine them killing him. I feel like they just love the character too much, no matter what he does-kind of like some of the people in bojack’s world.
Very similar thoughts to this – I think the crux will be an entirely sober suicidal moment, where Diane talks him down. And it’ll end with him wanting to help others in some way – perhaps he’s leading a group, or publishing a free book. Trying to change the industry in some way, or just help individuals. But those lines will be how it ends – it gets easier every day.
Whoa. that would be one helluva foreshadow. Who do you have next November?
his life in a drunken stupor might not nessecarily be short.
I really, really hope it doesn’t end in suicide. I say that not because I want the character to be redeemed, but because I think that would be a terrible message to send to any viewers (especially younger ones) who have struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts.
They already went for the “suicide event”. They are not going back there.
Really, loved this episode and I’ve thought much of this start of a season has been choppy (with some great gags.) Great to see Pete Repeat again. It says a lot about Bojack that he always focuses on Penny (because that meant losing his friendship/idealized romance with Charlotte) and never wonders if the girl he dropped at the hospital lived. Even when he obsesses over his past bad acts it’s about how his hurting people hurts him. Felt horrible for the traditionally professional and awesome Gina to be suffering after getting her dream career due to her PTSD. And it sucks because Kelsey, of all people, would have been able to understand if they had actually worked together. I think this development is actually a good thing if you want an optimistic ending. I’m not saying the ending will be optimistic or positive (but I do think it is likely given how the show usually ends its seasons.)Honestly, Bojack will never ever improve long-term if he doesn’t face any consequences for his actions. He actually said as much earlier in the season when he pointed out that as a famous person he never has to deal with the consequences of his actions. Yes, last episode looked promising for him but we’ve seen that so many times. He always slides back because he never actually has any long-lasting repercussions for his actions beyond his own self-hate, which he secretly loves.I’m definitely NOT someone who is all about the rock bottom theory of recovery. But Bojack is someone who really has to lose everything (his reputation, his fame, his new job) before it sinks in. He’ll be exposed. He’ll lose a lot. He’ll maybe end up in prison for a brief period of time for his involvement in Sarah Lynn’s death and subsequent covering it up. And he’ll be a better horse-man for it.
but how? who decides what a person need in order to be a better horse-man? do we all need the same “punishment” to change/be forgiven? or should it be customised and if so depending on what? who decides what people HAVE to do in order to be forgiven?
Consequences fall where they may.
“Did you ever notice this music video takes place in a planetarium? And she died in a planetarium.”I know, right? Spooky! You can’t make this stuff up! Except of course they did. But if the script lampshades the “coincidence”, does that make it better? After all, even the Bard himself did it in Twelfth Night, having a character complain “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction!”
meh. I’m bored. You’re boring, Zoidberg.
I wasn’t really surprised at all, this show loves (has always loved) languishing and ruminating and navel gazing, going back and forth on Bojack, because that’s how depression works. Like depression, it gets dull to watch
I keep thinking of this show as a kind of mirror of Breaking Bad, in that physical peril and life-or-death stakes are switched out for emotional peril and interpersonal relationship stakes. But also in that keeping your investment in the show is primarily dependent on your ability to forget that the lead has always been and always will be the man he is, and that the fact of it is the entire premise of the show.
Technically, Breaking Bad was a study of change.
But also in that keeping your investment in the show is primarily dependent on your ability to forget that the lead has always been and always will be the man he is, and that the fact of it is the entire premise of the show.
I feel like that’s the exact opposite of what Bojack’s premise is. Bojack’s premise is that people aren’t one specific thing – it’s like Diane says, there are no “good guys” or “bad guys”, we just do good or bad stuff. The idea that Bojack “has always been and always will be the man he is” is repeatedly called out by the show as a toxic idea, which Bojack uses as an excuse to avoid facing himself and to avoid changing his behavior. The premise of the show is that people can do better, if they work at it consistently.
Fun observation: Paige’s wedding dress is a replica of Katharine Hepburn’s from The Philadelphia Story. Another classic screwball comedy with mid-Atlantic accents.
I thought I recognized something about her design.
if you kept watching this past the first season you definitely should have killed yourself by now
Man, what an episode. There’s so much to say. They foreshadow Gina’s freakout nicely in her trailer, where she keeps idly rubbing her neck as she and the director discuss dangerous stunts. It’s heartbreaking watching her have to justify that she’s not being unreasonable even though that might be how she appears.I actually did figure out that Peter was “Pete Re-Pete” from the start; his voice is fairly distinctive. At first I figured it was just a fun callback in a season that’s had a few of them. And then he started talking to Hollyhock about his prom night and I just went, “Oh no.”It all comes back to Penny for BoJack. There have been a number of times previously where he’s seemed to be making some progress and heading for redemption, and the show will bring up Penny again. ‘BoJack Horseman’ is all about harsh truths, and the central one for our protagonist is that it’s all very nice to be able to move forward, but that doesn’t mean the people you hurt are any less hurt. BoJack is still the guy who was this close to taking advantage of a confused, drunk child. There’s a reason why, for my money, Charlotte’s “If you ever come near my family again, I will fucking kill you!” is the best use of the f-bomb in the show’s whole run: she’s a mother who’s almost witnessed her worst nightmare come true.And on that general topic, dark joke of the night goes to Kelsey’s comment about how Roman Polanski should be in actual jail and the subsequent exchange with Rutabega:“For his last three movies at least, right?”“No … not for his last three movies.”
First, yes to the dark, dark, dark joke about Polanski. And here I thought the Spacey/Singer joke was the darkest. Second, I agree on Charlotte’s f-bomb. Not a single episode or moment in the show’s entire run has captivated me, horrifyingly captivated me, as that sequence. I rewound and watched it, starting from the balloon floating into Charlotte’s line of sight, at least three times. Not because it was a delightful Captain Holt cold open I needed to rewatch because I was laughing so hard. Nor because it was enjoyable. It was horrifying. *I* felt like I was in shock just watching it.It was perfection, horrible perfection. And I felt some of that vomitous unease as Pete came to the capper of his story…
I know we’ll have to deal with the ramifications of that in January, but just for now I’m glad we didn’t see Hollyhock’s reaction.
It’s so weirdly satisfying to hear someone just blatantly call out Polanski. It should be oft-repeated any time his name is even near mention.When the penny dropped about Pete, my jaw nearly hit the floor.
“penny dropped” — nice
Thank god someone spotted it! 😁
I would say that it doesn’t all go back to Penny, but rather, Charlotte, for whom Penny was a stand-in for Bojack. His drug binge in the first season led to our viewing his “ideal life,” which is of course unrealistic and contains characters of his own making – a version of Charlotte that isn’t real, a version of himself that isn’t real, and never could be real. He was trying to reach that with Charlotte – not realizing she has a husband, kids, and a settled life for herself – BASIC shit you cover in any conversation with a friend you haven’t seen for years, I might add, but Bojack is too self-absorbed for that – and so targeted Penny.
Also let’s not forget Herb Kazzaz and Sarah Lynn. What he did to them is featured heavily in this first part, so I think it’s gonna be a combination of the 3: the biggest mistakes of his life
What Bojack did to Penny feels different to me in part because he wasn’t anywhere near as under the influence as he was when Sarah Lynn died or when he choked Gina. He’s responsible for creating the conditions in which those things happened, but it’s not like he intended for Sarah Lynn to die, or decided to choke Gina in sound mind. With Penny, he had a bit to drink, but seemingly had all of his faculties. There was almost nothing taking away his self-control. It feels like it was a real, honest, horrible choice he made.
I love the chutzpah of their extremely specific His Girl Friday pastiche. I might be one of the only people under thirty who can appreciate their dunk on Ralph Bellamy, but I heartily guffawed. Bellamy would absolutely be a dog stuck in a car with rolled up windows in Hollywoo.
He was literally named “Baxter”!
y’know, I read the review before watching the episode. I try not to do that. Even still, I was completely unprepared for just how the episoded wrapped up. fffffffffffffffffffffffffff————
If Hollyhock finds out, which I’m almost certain she will, it’s going to be devastating, for me anyway.
This episode was rough to watch, with the impending feeling of a train about to hit you coursing through the whole thing.But hey, Paget Brewster! She was hilarious! I could listen to her spout witty nonsense bon mots all day.
Was that Thomkins as the editor? I thought it was J.K.Simmons to begin with.
That sounded like PFT. Simmons was on the season as the horse preacher and in his recurring role of Turtletaub, so there was a comparison almost immediately. He also wasn’t in the credits for this episode. And I think they’d probably have leaned more into a J. Jonah vibe if they went with that casting. (On reflection I’m now kind of angry they didn’t.)
I hope the show doesn’t end up rejecting episode 7’s important message of self-forgiveness. I guess we’ll see what happens. Powerful season overall.
It’s really interesting to me, because on the one hand, self-forgiveness is super important in preventing future harm. Bojack does bad things because he has a self-image of himself as a bad person; forgiving himself is a way to break that loop and avoid falling back into harmful old patterns. But on the other hand, forgiveness from other people has to come from their own psychological needs, and for some people, forgiving Bojack isn’t necessary or helpful. So it’s setting up an interesting conflict for the rest of the season.
I have no idea where this is going but… I’m kind of hoping that he both A) sees the consequences of his actions in the first five seasons (which this episode indicates is coming) and B) still remains committed to being a better person and staying sober despite that, even if he winds up in jail or losing everything. To me that would be like, an ideal bittersweet ending, that he still manages to get through and eventually finds some sort of life for himself but doesn’t just get off easy like abusive men usually do.
How in the world was Paget Brewster’s character not named “Nellie Sty”?
Or Hog-dy Johnson from the classic film His Girl Sty-day
Amazing show. If this were a novel, it would be the true “XXI century American novel”. In the end, only our mistakes matter, because those are the most memorable moments of our lives. No one can escape from them (including the Weinstein types), sooner or later they destroy us like a hammer. We tolerate each other because the alternative would be total isolation, but we still do domage to ourselves and others nonstop. We do (and receive) damage indirectly to (and from) people we will never meet personally. But we need to ignore all that and pretend that all is well, because if we all realize this truth, the only subjectively correct decision would be to annhiliate our species and leave evidence that our irrationally selfish existence only led to destruction and suffering of everything we touch.
…you doing okay?
Bojack just needs to get over it. That director made her own decisions. Almost fucking your ex-crushes’ daughter is not the same as actually fucking her. Someone needs to say, “Bojack, you are not responsible for other people’s actions even if they are motivated by you. Get the fuck over yourself.”
And sure, he tried to strangle a woman to death, but he didn’t finish the job, so he shouldn’t blame himself and nor should anyone else.
It is hard for me to see Kelsey as BoJack’s “victim.” He came up with an idea, she agreed to it, and unfortunately, she paid the price. That is on Turtletop, not on BoJack. Kelsey is largely an echo of BoJack’s betrayal of Herb, but he intentionally threw Herb under the bus. His failure to keep in contact with Herb was cruel not just because Herb was fired due to BoJack’s actions, but because they had been friends for years.
Was it only me who couldn’t deal with the screwball reporters? They threw me off too much. I know this show’s thing is oscillating tone very quickly, but this was too much(, man).
No, I felt the same way. I got what they were doing but the bits went on too long and really threw off the tone.
Audra McDonald at the beginning made me so happy!!!……and then the rest of the episode punched me in the gut.One thing’s for sure: this will have an ending truly worthy of prestige tv drama!
My theory/hope: RBW goes for Terry Richardson’s jugular. For those unfamiliar: Terry Richardson is a famous photographer to the stars, now embroiled in his own Me Too scandals – young actresses claiming he sexually assaulted them. Sarah Lynn’s stepdad – whom we see collecting her Oscar – is the spitting image of Richardson, albeit in bear form. The past 6 seasons we’ve had the possibility of the source of Lynn’s trauma being sexual abuse at a young age:- [licks fur] “It’s bear fur. I can tell, my stepdad was a bear.”- “My mom’s boyfriend homeschools me. He’s a photographer.”- “My stepdad’s in my dressing room and he’s being weird…”At the end of 6×1, her stepdad says “it’s no one’s fault” she died, which would be him absolving himself of the abuse he inflicted upon her, abuse that went unaddressed and led no doubt to self-destructive behavior. In this midseason finale episode, we learn Lynn’s mom’s last name is indeed Himmelfarb-Richardson – Meaning RBW is naming names right in his show. I hope his chickens come home to roost too, if my theory is correct.
… Oh, this is a brilliant theory. I am going to shelve this and if they pay it off will definitely call back to this.
However, it seems to me to be in very poor taste to discuss an episode so redolent with references to abuse, particularly of children (Sarah-Lynn’s step-father, Polanski, Gina’s strangulation, Penny) with not one but TWO quotes from The Who. Townshend’s crimes should not be ignored, forgiven or excused, either. Les Chappell couldn’t choose a less appropriate band, short of Gary Glitter.
Paget Brewster is so, so great. I realize Paul F Tompkins already plays another character, but Max Greenfield was pretty out of his depth with the banter, in my opinion, and it really highlighted how good Brewster and Tompkins is in Beyond Belief.
They live in a system that allows one man (horse) to do some damage, and then perpetuates or magnifies that damage.
I find it super interesting that after 5 seasons of “Hey, aren’t you that horse from ‘Horsin Around?’” that the drinking bird from rehab didn’t know who Bojack was, or that Pete knew he was a movie star but had never heard of him. Hmm…
We get the mid-season’s one use of the f-bomb from Gina’s co-star, who appropriates the same line that she threw at BoJack to devastating effect following her strangulation. It doesn’t land with the same impact as prior deployments, but reminding us of its first use makes up for some of that.
I thought this was pretty devastating, because it shows the real effect of Bojack’s shitty actions. He didn’t just hurt Gina – he caused her to act more like him, and hurt other people around her. Which means that he’s hurting people he’s never even met; that he hurt Gina worse than we thought (because now she’s going to feel shitty about hurting people); and he’s hurt himself more than we thought (because there’s a similarity between him and his parents). Bojack didn’t really strangle Gina; he’s more like a cluster bomb, waiting to cause hidden secondary detonations years later.
Also, I really liked the exegesis of the Who lyrics (I hadn’t thought about it from that angle but the song totally fits) but here’s another thing to consider: that song is ultimately about forgiveness (it ends with “you are forgiven” repeated a bunch of times). Is that a signpost to where the show is going? Or an ironic counterpoint to where the show is going?
I can’t help but think it was a missed opportunity to name the superhero “Firefox.” It would be the kind of animal/technology pun that would be right up the writers’ alley.
Ah, I love everything about those journalists. Paige is the best investigate reporter in the city. . .because she’s so committed to cosplaying a period when newspapers could afford investigative reporting. And how has she never killed anyone while talking on her phone?