BoJack BoJacks up his public apology in the most BoJack Horseman way possible
TV Reviews BoJack Horseman
“Okay, when you put it all together, it looks bad.”
It’s a testament to the storytelling powers of Raphael Bob-Waksberg and the BoJack Horseman writers’ room of just how much dread has been running through this final season. With so many sins left unanswered for in BoJack’s torrid history and so many examples of the show pulling out the rug at the most agonizing moment, it felt like BoJack’s road to redemption in the first half of the season was built on the shakiest ground possible. Every episode is another chance for BoJack to fall off that wagon it took him so long to climb onto, to make one bad decision that would prove the show right on its regularly stated ethos that broken things tend to stay broken.
“Xerox Of A Xerox” the relapse that we’ve been dreading, but in yet another testament to Bob-Waksberg and company, it’s not the expected bender. No, instead of drugs or alcohol, it’s something even more insidious, with “It feels good to be part of the conversation again” replacing the “Well, I guess one drink wouldn’t hurt.” It’s a cruel episode that teases you with the prospect of a way out for our antihero, a chance that BoJack might get that last chance of last chances and still manage to be okay. And then it not only sees BoJack botch that chance, it connects all the dots to once again make the argument he’s never deserved any of those chances in the first place.
Back in “A Quick One, While He’s Away” I predicted that if the Sarah Lynn story made its way to the front page, BoJack had an obvious pathway to damage control in the time-honored tradition of the penitent interview. That theory proves true as in the wake of the Hollywoo Reporter’s story, Princess Carolyn gets an interview scheduled with Biscuits Braxby, who previously helped managed the fallout of BoJack’s attack on Gina in “The Stopped Show.” (She makes news fun!) It’s your standard boilerplate Hollywoo interview, one that a frustrated Diane can pick out the beats of, a sad sack routine that gets to being sorry without getting to anything important.
But remarkably, the whole thing does feel real—even to the BoJack Horseman audience, who’s seen much more of BoJack and knows far more than the MBN audience. There’s some early wobbling as he fumbles the heroin explanation and almost breaks a big rule to not get defensive early on, but it transitions to something genuine. His apology for being involved with Sarah Lynn’s death matches all the genuine guilt we’ve seen him express, and admitting publicly to his broken raised-by-television perspective of life is borne out by five seasons worth of mistakes. It’s the most encouraging thing to happen to BoJack in the last few episodes, a sigh of relief that they’ve managed this crisis.
Unfortunately, it feels like it may have been managed too well, and the Philbert set may not have been the only fake part of the stage. In line with Todd’s worry last episode about “old BoJack” not being far from the surface, BoJack’s excitement at nailing that interview is of a piece with Jimmy McGill’s excitement in the Better Call Saul season four finale, right down to both of them claiming they could see the Matrix in the heat of the moment. It was disingenuous for the future Saul Goodman, and it feels disingenuous here too, less about being genuinely contrite than it was playing the game. And that feeling continues in the wake of the interview’s success: it doesn’t take long before BoJack goes from relief at getting to keep his teaching job to being pleased it did better than the Birthday Dad finale.
So of course BoJack agrees to Pinky’s frantic request to do a second interview, but the tone quickly turns. Rather than asking for some Hollywoo party anecdotes, Biscuits turns the conversation to ask some more pointed questions about BoJack’s personal life. The jovial expression fades quickly as she rattles off a list of things he did that weren’t illegal per se, but were decidedly problematic: He slept with the president of his fan club. He took teenage girls to their prom. He accompainied a teen mom out of rehab to a high school party. He dated a woman who woke up from a 30-year coma. He was in a relationship with his agent’s assistant. It’s an awful list of details, all of it served up behind the scenes by a vengeful Dr. Champ and Paige Sinclair determined not to have PR undermine her journalism.
And witnessing what those reveals do to BoJack is even more worrisome than his earlier egotistical rebound. Aaron Long’s direction perfectly captures the vibe of the uncomfortable interview, with Biscuits fully in control and BoJack’s slipping away the longer he talks. When confronted, his first reaction is to lash out in an ugly diatribe about how human beings are “stupid, hungry, horny little goons” and there’s nothing to the idea he has power to abuse. When Sarah Lynn comes back up in conversation, he doesn’t hesitate to stick the knife in Sharona on national TV, burning whatever bridges he rebuilt in “The Face Of Depression.” There’s an ugliness to Will Arnett’s voice here that we haven’t heard for a while and sounds even worse for its absence, an ugly conviction that because everything around him sucks it means that he has to fight back. If he compared himself to a Xerox of a Xerox before, this is looking a lot like a copy of old BoJack—lines a little more blurred, but you don’t have to squint to make out the original.
Biscuits draws up an ugly pattern when she pulls these together, and it’s a pattern that’s necessary to acknowledge. The creative team of BoJack Horseman is fully aware of the flaws of its central character and has gone to great lengths to hold up his behavior as deplorable, and spent a considerable part of season five holding themselves responsible for telling such a character’s story. The first half of this season was about a potential redemption for BoJack, purging the drugs from his system and leading to a place where he could forgive himself for who he was. And what these two interviews make incredibly clear is that while what he’s done is commendable, it didn’t repair or excuse everything. He treated his addictions and not his personality, admitted his powerlessness but kept from looking at his shortcomings.
Princess Carolyn, so attuned to the rhythms of Hollywoo, knows that there’s no real coming back from this, and advises BoJack to think carefully about how he’s going to spend his last hours in a good spotlight. The decision he makes is a surprising one, drifting back to the Laugh Shack where he and Herb were struggling stand-up comedians all those years ago—and where Herb sketched an outline of BoJack with liquid paper on the back of the wall. It’s an odd choice at first glance given that for someone so consumed with his past, BoJack almost never talks about his comedy career or treats it as days that he’s particularly nostalgic for. We’ve never seen him pitch a special or even try out new material, his comedic beats reserved for chewing out the foibles of those around them.
“Xerox of a Xerox” finally dwells on that for a bit, and it gets back to an idea not hinted at since the flashbacks of season one. Those 80s standup days may have been the happiest days of BoJack’s life. Free of the emotional gulag of growing up with Beatrice and Butterscotch Horseman, and still removed from the expectations and consequences of Horsin’ Around celebrity. Any of his dreams of celebrity were still just dreams, and he didn’t have to even think about having power over anyone because power was just a green light at the end of the dock. It was possible to have a moment of quiet, away from all the doubts and fears, and you just had to get on stage and see if you could make a crowd laugh.
So it makes sense that even despite all of that, he’ll take one last shot at getting up on the stage, using the five minutes before the interview airs to workshop a tight five. And in all the dread for what’s coming, it’s possible to see there is at least one way that BoJack has grown, as he spins his sobriety for laughs and talks about not knowing what to drink at a restaurant. For once, when he’s telling jokes to a crowd, he’s not pausing after every punchline to ask them “Do you get it?” He knows that in the morning, he’s the one who’s going to get it.
Stray observations:
- Achievement in Voice Acting: I hate to repeat myself in this category, but Daniele Gaither follows her work in “The Stopped Show” with a second award for her portrayal of Biscuits Braxby. So much of this episode is driven by the context of those two interviews, and Gaither keeps the real and fictional audiences riveted, a tone that goes from warm and understanding to full inquisitor.
- Shoutout to the exterior of The Laugh Shack,which sports the signatures of not comedians but the majority of the BoJack Horseman creative team. How many can you identify?
- Mr. Pickles gets an offscreen text from Pickles saying that they have broken up forever. My dismissal of that relationship is validated.
- Diane’s trying to hold to her position of keeping BoJack’s troubles as far away as possible, but that opens up a potential rift with Guy when she asks to meet his son. Sonny turns out to be a sullen teen who dismisses her outright, confidently claims his parents are getting back together, and immediately starts crying when she says they won’t. (More ominous, Sonny’s observation that Guy has a thing for damaged women and things end once they get better.)
- We also get an adorable scene of Todd and Maude’s date night as they come to the decision to move in together, albeit a decision that takes a long time to reach since subtlety and Todd aren’t the best of friends. (And neither are Todd and BoJack anymore, given his desire to avoid the interview.) They also weigh starting Treme together. Maude: “It’s really smart. It’s about New Orleans and jazz and Hurricane Katrina and drugs and John Goodman.” Todd: “Sounds exciting.” Maude: “It’s not!”
- Poor Dr. Champ, still far off the wagon despite his stay at Partridges. That joke about his being a therapy horse and not a therapist (“a subtle but very important legal distinction”) wound up having some real teeth to it. Also poor Roxy, who gets the short end of the stick in her friendship with Diane until the very end. (Diane’s explanation: “I don’t understand what her job is and it’s too late for me to ask.”)
- Judah wears a baking sheet vest and wraps Ruthie in bubble wrap. Best babysitter ever.
- “Why do you talk like that? We’re from Fresno.”
- “And this will keep you from talking with your hands, which can be construed as aggressive.”
- “No, you’re right. It was mostly the heroin.”
- “And that’s why the band Chicago is not one of the top ten Chicago bands of all time.”
- “That’s nothing. And possibly anti-Semitic.”
- “Malibu is for pretentious, rich douchebags.” “That’s Beverly Hills. Malibu is for pretentious, famous douchebags.”
- “A person who doesn’t think about others, a person who puts his own needs first. And over and over, other people get hurt, not necessarily because he means to hurt them, but be cause he just doesn’t care. This person I’m describing, is it a different person, or is it you?”
- “…Yeah. It’s me.”
- Today in Hollywoo signs:
38 Comments
watching this show always makes me revisit dostoevsky’s ‘notes from underground’
every episode of this season leaves me silently screaming
They really outdid themselves with this back 8. This is the best the show has ever been, which given what came before it is almost unbelievable.
I binged this half season in a single night. Normally I never do that, but every episode just left me desperate to see what happened next.
I can’t tell if “Mr Pickles” is a typo or a sarcastic joke.
Having finished the season I’m really annoyed at Netflix for cancelling it. There was enough plot for a seventh season. This one feels a bit…compressed. Loved it though.
A common thing among Netflix shows. Maybe their brass should meet with the brass at Showtime who run shows way to long, and together they can figure out the proper length before cancellation.
This half-season does feel absurdly rushed, but then again at least they got an official final season. A lot of shows just get cancelled and don’t even get the luxury of a proper wrap up.
One of the hardest episodes by far. Those truths in the interview hit me like a brick, it’s was hard to wish Bojack to win this one.
Paige’s sister being a completely normal, modern person was my favorite little thing in this batch.
Kristen Schaal is a horse! It’s fun looking for their little Easter eggs.
Old A.V. Club had a connection with comedy, and would not have overlooked that joke.
This episode killed me. It’s almost like a horror movie or a Greek tragedy- you know it’s coming and it’s horrible to watch it all unfold. And like typical Bojack Horseman style, on the one hand you feel bad for Bojack and want him to come out alright but on the other hand, you also know he deserves it and in the larger context that is modern day society, people like Bojack should pay for their transgressions. Still, he tried. I also love that it’s not the alcohol that did him in or a relationship that did him- which would have been the lazy way of telling the story, but his constant desire for love and attention.Another great thing is that the interviewer decided to nail Bojack only because Paige called her out for being a typical celebrity interviewer who only throws softballs. The interviewer even say she has to or else nobody else would come on her show, but Paige talked her out of it. I’m also feeling sad that Bojack’s pretty much now lost all of his “friends” as Todd, Diane, and now PC want to put up with his crap anymore. Watching Todd turn cold whenever something involving Bojack comes up is kind of sad even if he’s totally justified
Makes me wonder if at the end Diane is the inly one left standing as his friend because things will probably blow up with Guy based on what his son said. Then BoJack and Diane can be miserable together. Life will go on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Rock on.
Bojack doesn’t “deserve” what’s happening to him. This is pretty random and it is just a way for the journalist to get better ratings. What ensue is basically a mindless mob hate and the actual cause for this hate have been removed from the equation. It will offer no consolation to the people he hurted; and it will offer no redemption path for him; but in the contrary push him back to his bad behaviors; when in fact he actually had started on this “redemption” path. There’s a lot here that has been talked about in the last contrapoints video “Canceling”; even if the situation is vastly different. This is a hard conversation but however wrong; despicable; or “problematic” the thing you did was; you have to consider these are still human beings we’re talking about; that this kind of thing has a potentially tragic psychological impact (there have been a few suicides these last few years over “canceling” campaign; wether the cause is justified or not). There also needs to be some kind of nuance regarding what the cause of the backlash is; so it doesn’t ends up being “X is just an evil monster; who just lost their status as a human being an this is ok to harrass and abuse them to whatever extent; they DESERVE it”. In other words; “trust the victims”; “trust the opressed”; “don’t trust the judiciary system” are very legitimate political tools in the context of sexual assault for exemple; but these tools can be abused and weaponized maliciously for profit; social benefits; and you need to be careful of the very human tendancy to just make this into a crual spectacle where everybody feels morally entitled to spit on the asshole of the day just for the fun of it.
I can see that and getting most of your information from a rehabbing rehab therapist is completely unethical. What I meant is that Bojack did a lot of horrible things and never got called on all of the horrible things he’s done and now he’s being called on them. Especially since he managed to skate away from the first interview by leaning in to the addiction story line and managed to get people’s sympathy.The show’s been pretty clear about the idea that problematic men (and it is about problematic men) always seem to get away with what they’ve done and even when they do, it’s never a true accounting of their actions and it’s never really about the victims. Bojack is repentant and is in a much better place but he’s never really had to answer to all the damage and all the lives he’s ruined because of his actions.
Bojack is repentant and is in a much better place but he’s never really
had to answer to all the damage and all the lives he’s ruined because of
his actions.you’re right but the show also portrays the way it goes from one extreme to the other to be pretty arbitrary; and exclusively a question of optics. You know it’s going to be a horrible car crash when he accepts a second interview; and here he’s kind of digging his own grave because of his vanity; but the show paints a nuanced picture (and the whole things is resolved through the last two episodes; but this situation does push him back to literal self-destruction).
Todd is totally justified and totally undeserving of his moral high-ground at the same time; it’s such a complicated and interesting dynamic. I applaud Todd’s ability to disengage from Bojack’s BS the way other characters have not, but I also am frustrated that he is never shown any contrition or self-awareness for the ways he used Bojack for many years. Yes, Bojack ultimately liked having him around (enough to ultimately sabotage his means of leaving), but that doesn’t wash away Todd’s freeloading ways. Todd knew exactly what kind of person Bojack was the whole time. He accepted his shittiness for years – was complicit in it – until it started affecting him directly. He’s never had the self-awareness to identify his own selfishness, and so I find his superiority a little off-putting, even if I also admire how healthy the actual actions he takes are in regards to divesting himself of the Bojack circus.
The long-form conversations this season are really remarkable – I mean episode 3 is essentially a long conversation between Diane, PC and Bojack, and then this episode the second interview with Brixby and Bojack feels like it lasts for fucking ever – I had to doublecheck the episode wasn’t over after that because I thought it had gone for at least 10 minutes alone. It’s a great style for a show that usually revels in quips or background jokes so quick you barely notice them, but after that absolutely gutting argument in Head in the Clouds last season the creative team seems to be leaning this direction as a way to really dig into the characters before it all ends. The comments about the feeling of dread this episode created are apt – at times the direction and performances made it feel like a horror movie.
I’ll just add that I love the fact that they have a rabbit as an asexual character. Way to play against type.
thank you I actually didn’t get that until now and I appreciate.also I love that her mother is paranoid about her having the sex… I guess rabbits must be particularly hard to handle as (not asexual) teens.
I can’t think of any other show with an anti-hero that’s so thoroughly called him out on their shit. I love Bojack the character, but to see him at his absolutely worst in these interviews was powerful. Even Princess Caroline completely loses the will to help him any further.
17 minutes.
I think Crazy Ex-Girlfriend somewhat did this, where the first season is a romp (from what I remember at least) and makes her incredibly sympathetic regardless of what she does, but as she becomes more self-aware and engages with her mental health then even the show itself seems a little exasperated when she backslides.
I initially predicted that BoJack’s apology would make him sympathetic and that would do him in because he’d be a glutton for punishment and Hollywoo just wouldn’t give it to him. But his attention whore ways popping up was way better and more consistent – even at his best, this is all about him, always.I love the angle that it wasn’t just one thing that messed everything up, just the grand sum of it all, filtered through a man who just won’t accept he fucked up.
I just want to point out that Kristen Schaal is a horse. And that now that stupid bit of hers is stuck in my head again.
I love that wall of celebrity pictures at the comedy club! Obviously having Ali Wong as a cobra is great…but another Easter Egg idea would be to have her as her Tuca & Bertie character! Like a crossover episode!
I just love that Kristen Schaal is a horse, Kristen Schaal is a horse, look at her dance, look at her run, look at her dance like a horse.
I noticed most of the celebrities when I watched, but I just noticed Kristen Schaal in the screenshot. And I was delighted!
i am still in denial that Netflix so unceremoniously dumped Tuca & Bertie.
“Remorse horse” had me losing my goddamn mind. This show can give us some of the most intricately crafted jokes on TV, and then just kill it with a simple funny rhyme.The show puts BoJack’s crimes front and centre here, but I think it takes aim, in a more subtle way, at the entertainment consuming public. People are willing to swallow a few sad words from BoJack about how he gave an addict the heroin that killed her and he becomes a national hero. Once the magnitude of his crimes are revealed that praise turns to disgust, but why was the praise there to begin with? People love a simple narrative they can use to absolve their heroes, and ‘BoJack Horseman’ sees that.
Kristen Schaal being a horse is a pretty great background gag.
I have to say, as a therapist, Doctor Champ’s heel turn absolutely infuriated me. You don’t have to be a therapist, or still working in the field, to be responsible for federal privacy laws. BoJack could have and should have sued him into nonexistence for that, and he would have been totally justified in doing so.Of course, BoJack undoubtedly would believe he deserved to be treated that way by Doctor Champ because he got the erstwhile therapy horse blitzed, but that could have been an interesting thing to examine.
The constant digs on how up it’s own ass Chicago is make me happy. I’m disappointed we never got to see the writers truly rip into NYC.
The idea that someone who inadvertently hurts people in the ways Bojack which get brought up in the interview would get so destroyed is a very strange one to me. As the interviewer says, Bojack doesn’t mean to do a lot of these things which are less than great, so…there it is. Obviously it’s not a good thing, but it’s not, say, Harvey Weinstein, or even James Franco. It’s more Aziz Ansari; someone whose transgressions are more personal and less outright malicious and thus relatively easy to bounce back from in the context of the conversations that surrounds these types of discussions.
It’s like an extreme version of “nailing someone” for being a neglectful significant other; outside of some truly miserable things (essentially everything to do with Sarah Lynn, buying alcohol for minors), some of this stuff is a real reach as relevant to the wider pop culture landscape. Dating someone out of a coma is bad? Yeah, when framed as an obviously cruel naivety play with some leading questions, but come *on*. Nothing besides the Sarah Lynn stuff or the Penny stuff would land at all for anything longer than maybe like 2 weeks in reality. The interviewer outright saying he doesn’t mean to do these things is an obvious out.
Kristen Schaal is on the comedy wall! I wonder if she asked to be a horse.
how could you not even mention the point the interviewer made about how BoJack abused his power over women throughout his life, Mr. Chapell?that’s a HUGE overlook, considering the whole narrative spine of this episode.