BoJack Horseman comes to a bittersweet end, with the promise of new beginnings
TV Reviews BoJack Horseman
“Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? Life’s a bitch and then you die, right?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep living.”
“Yeah.”
“But it’s a nice night, huh?”
“Yeah. This is nice.”
Like many comedy pilots, the pilot of BoJack Horseman is a shaky affair that’s still a few episodes away from figuring out exactly what the show would be. But one hint of the dark comedy and the personal darkness that would grow to distinguish the show is there early on, when BoJack’s watching his Horsin’ Around DVDs post-anxiety attack and gets to the series finale. In that show’s finale, the Horse dies of a broken heart because the children didn’t appreciate him, he’s gone forever, and after nine years the kids are getting handed over to Child Protective Services. “We might have gone a little dark on that series finale,” BoJack says, in an understatement for the ages.
That series finale is visible one more time in BoJack Horseman’s own series finale, blaring on the TV as the family who purchased BoJack’s home returns to find that same horse face-down in the pool. Not as a consequence of a broken heart, but a consequence of being born broken and never truly learning how to put himself back together. And the darkness of Horsin’ Around’s finale is a darkness that feels bright in comparison to BoJack Horseman, a show that spent the last six seasons transcending its first impressions to make its case as the best show on television.
But to make that case, you also have to make your closing argument. A series finale is always subjected to the heaviest scrutiny, and I predict “Nice While It Lasted” won’t put a neat bow on this tragicomedy for all the fans. I can see a vocal group of people who think that “The View From Halfway Down” should have been the series finale, leaving BoJack’s survival and remaining hopes for redemption an unanswered question. I can also see a camp of people who were turned off by the dark depths of this last batch of episodes (even by BoJack standards) and would rather treat “The Face of Depression” as their series finale, BoJack and everyone around him in a place where they figured out the things that screwed up their lives the most. And there’s plenty of things still on the table that were left unresolved: plot threads like what Hollyhock said in her letter, unresolved fan theories like whether or not Sarah Lynn’s stepdad abused her, the lost hope of one last Vincent Adultman appearance.
But a finale being imperfect is arguably perfect for BoJack Horseman, and “Nice While It Lasted” is the right bittersweet close for this bittersweet series. This final batch of episodes wasn’t BoJack Horseman in its prime, too much packed into the early offerings and some stories that didn’t get enough room to breathe. But the last two episodes were at the emotional and experimental peaks of the series, and “Nice While It Lasted” is a comedown that manages to level things out to a sense of melancholic peace. It’s an ending but it’s also an ending that gives a sense of new beginnings and something different, that even while the show won’t continue the lives it’s followed will.
Showrunner and finale writer Raphael Bob-Waksberg hits the ground running in “Nice While It Lasted,” giving you a fast-forward explanation of what happened in the wake of “The View From Halfway Down” and confirming that BoJack didn’t drown after all. Unfortunately, not dying does means he has to answer for the fact that he was in a house where both he and David Boreanaz have the same level of ownership. Which is to say, none at all. He’s charged with breaking and entering, convicted by the court as much as the public opinion, and sentenced to 14 months in prison. And through it all, he’s playing second fiddle to the young boy who becomes a national sensation for getting the “BoJeebies” at seeing this washed-up actor washed up in his swimming pool. That’s the unkindest cut of all: that even in his most public fall from grace, there’s still someone there to overshadow him.
It would be simple to end the series with BoJack getting out of prison and trying to adjust to a new life, but Bob-Waksberg finds a better twist to give BoJack a weekend release for a wedding. With only one day out of prison, it gives you the sense of being a fish out of water (no, not that one) as BoJack gets thrown into an unfamiliar setting and has to absorb everything with the full knowledge he’s going right back in after he does. And by setting it at a wedding—more specifically the wedding of Princess Carolyn and Judah Mannowdog (holy shit, I just got that)—it produces the perfect environment for a reunion with the rest of the main cast who frankly don’t have any reason to see him ever again.
Bob-Waksberg knows which bases he has to cover, and paces the finale so the resolutions happen in escalating level of importance. First off, there’s BoJack’s ride to the wedding courtesy of Mr. Peanutbutter, who is simultaneously the best and worst person to see when you’re getting out of jail. (Mr. Peanutbutter: “I sentence you to life… filled with my friendship!” BoJack: “If this is my only other option, I choose prison.”) Always the silliest and most cheerful of BoJack Horseman’s main cast, there’s no real resolution that needs to happen in this dog and pony show, any resentment over the other’s success far in the past. And as much as BoJack might be annoyed by Mr. Peanutbutter’s constant enthusiasm, that annoyance feels half-hearted by now, BoJack quietly glad to be back in an old routine.
While there’s no big resolution that needs to happen between BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter, their conversations do show that Mr. Peanutbutter’s found himself in a good place. Birthday Dad continues to be a success—evidently winning a Nobel Prize for Television that was created just for it—and he’s taking the show seriously instead of forcing another relationship. He’s going to therapy and realizing some truths about himself, ones couched in his usual pop culture analogies but also ones that feel right for the character. (“Is my problem with women any movie directed by Christopher Nolan? Because, yes, women are involved, but it’s really never about the women. It’s about me.”) If never in a bad place, he wasn’t always in a good one, and it feels like he’s found a comfortable niche at last.
And the episode keeps him in the realm of the thoroughly ridiculous with one last grand gesture. Deciding to use his Birthday Dad fame to give something back to the city, he rights the wrong that he took credit for all the way back in season one’s “Our A-Story Is A ‘D’-Story” by replacing the D in the Hollywoo sign. Only once again he chooses the sign company that’s never not taken his banner directions literally, and they follow his directions “Give this whole town the ‘D’! ‘D’ for Dad. Birthday Dad, that is!” to the letter—the wrong letter. Everyone starts referring to it as Hollywoob without batting an eye, Mr. Peanutbutter threatens to “strongly consider” hiring a new sign company in the future, and the circle of life continues.
One last running gag is our goodbye to Mr. Peanutbutter when he promises he won’t be distracted by Erica’s latest noteworthy aspect of character or presentation, and we then cut to BoJack alone on the wedding party floor. (An interesting addition to the finale, cuts to black between scenes as if it’s marking space for commercials.) But he’s not alone for long, as Todd grabs him quickly and demands they go out onto the beach for the fireworks. It’s a sweet gesture for Todd to make, so attuned to BoJack’s moods after years of cohabitation that he can see the crowded room might not be the best place for his old friend. And it’s surprising because it’s Todd who makes the move to reach out, given that the last time he saw BoJack it was turning him away from his housewarming party because he didn’t want anything to go wrong. It wasn’t exactly a “Get the fuck out of here and never come back,” but it felt implied.
It’s an odd place for the two to find each other, both aware of how much space there is between them and how much there always was. As Todd told Maude, they were best friends for years, but not out of any sort of connection, just because Todd showed up at BoJack’s house one night and BoJack told him he could stay as long as he wanted. But that first gesture meant that Todd always wanted to believe that BoJack secretly had a good heart and was capable of being the “new BoJack” that was promised after rehab, and he’s fast to encourage BoJack through all his self-doubts over what happens when he gets out of prison for real. Todd’s no longer the innocent and trusting sort he was all the way back in season one, but he remains the most fundamentally decent person of the series, always happy to help those who need it.
And Todd even manages to give BoJack some good advice, smartly driven by the final season arc that led him to find his calling and reconnect with his mother. From spending all his time with kids he’s able to reinterpret the lyrics of the Hokey Pokey into a motivational speech, and from the awkwardness of trying to find some common ground with his mother he acknowledges the way that people and relationships change. It’s taken every crazy adventure under the sun, but through the course of BoJack Horseman, we’ve gotten to watch Todd Chavez grow up and become his own man. And one last time, he gets to be the goofy foil to his former (question mark?) friend, proving that old adage about the mouths of babes.
With those interactions wrapped up, it’s time for BoJack to meet the woman of the hour. After a rough go of it in seasons four and five, Princess Carolyn had arguably the smoothest storyline of anyone in season six, rebounding early from the complete exhaustion of “The New Client” to do what she does best and get her shit together. And the bride is glowing on her special day—or rather, the hyper-produced industry version of her special day designed as a meet-and-greet—as her adorable toddler daughter runs around and her new husband prepares the contracts for their newest women-centric film, 11 Angry Women. (BoJack: “Not twelve?” Princess Carolyn: “You gotta leave room for a sequel.”) We the audience were always convinced of Princess Carolyn’s awesomeness, and now it’s clear she believes it at a level even deeper than the way she believes everything she tells her clients.
She also has some surprising news to deliver to BoJack, as Horny Unicorn is approaching release and is getting some positive buzz. With the paparazzi and the public no longer shunning him, it’s laying the groundwork for a comeback story. Wrong thing to say, as BoJack starts to think about the opportunities that Horny Unicorn could give him once he gets out of prison, and how he’d be an idiot not to take advantage of that chance—and Princess Carolyn’s eyes widen as she remembers the last time he had that train of thought. It’s the one ominous note of the finale, even more so that BoJack admitting to Todd how afraid he is of relapsing. His first addiction will always be the spotlight, and it’s all the more dangerous for the way he’s never acknowledged it.
Thankfully Princess Carolyn is able to hit pause on that development for now, as the music shifts and we get a quiet moment on the dance floor between the two. At the start of the day, BoJack admitted he was terrified that the wedding would be a disaster, and now he sublimates that fear into telling Princess Carolyn that it would be more of a “sitcom disaster,” going through the tropes and beats he’s so intimately familiar with it. And by remaining in the realm of the hypothetical, it gets to the place of vulnerability that they’ve only let each other see so rarely. Princess Carolyn admits that some doubts still existed, and BoJack gets to give his blessing in a way that’s truly perfect:
Princess Carolyn: “Well, I guess I’m afraid of losing some part of myself. I’m afraid that if I let someone else take care of me that I’m not really me anymore. I’m afraid of getting too comfortable, you know, going soft. I’m afraid that this could be the best thing that ever happened to me and if it doesn’t make me as happy as I’m supposed to be, that means I’m a lost cause.”
BoJack: “Yes, all those things could be true, but on the other hand, what if you deserve to be happy and this is a thing that will make you happy? And maybe don’t worry about whether you’ll be happy later and just focus on how you’re happy right now?”
Princess Carolyn: “Oh, is it that easy?”
BoJack: “No. But you’re here because, at some point, Princess Carolyn thought this was a good idea. And I think we oughta listen to her. Because she’s the smartest woman I know.”
Everything about that interaction is beautiful: the direction by Aaron Long, the dialogue by Bob-Waksberg, and the delivery by Will Arnett and Amy Sedaris. It achieves all the symbolism of the grand gesture without the need for that gesture, a moment of acceptance and finality that’s free of any bitterness or regret. It is, quite simply, closure. BoJack and Princess Carolyn truly were the great loves of each others’ lives, and in the end, letting each other go is exactly the happy ending they needed.
If that resolves the love story of BoJack Horseman, the final act of “Nice While It Lasted” goes to what could have been that story in another world. BoJack finds Diane on a roof reminiscent of the one where they had so many heavy conversations all those years ago, and they have what will likely be their last conversation, one that starts out jagged and gets even rougher. Everyone else is able to see BoJack and feel like they’ve gotten some peaceful closure, but the closure Diane is after is anything but. Remember how defeated BoJack looked back in “The View From Halfway Down” when he realized that he’d called Diane and it went to voicemail? Well, it turned out that he ignored the advice he’s been giving himself since the pilot to stop leaving voicemails while drunk, and he left one for Diane. A voicemail that blamed her for not picking up, and for indirectly blaming her for whatever he was going to do after he hung up.
Looking at the way his face twists at this reveal, you know exactly what his internal monologue is in that moment, because you’re likely whispering it to him too: “You goddamned stupid piece of shit asshole.” Alison Brie wrings so much emotion out of this reveal, the clear feeling Diane’s listened to that voicemail a hundred times and rehearsed what she’d say when she finally saw him again a thousand times. No one in the series has born the weight of BoJack trying and failing to be better than Diane, and the scars are as visible as the bruises on Gina Cazador’s neck. It’s one more instance of BoJack not understanding the power he has over women, and one more thing you can’t forgive him.
But if Diane doesn’t forgive BoJack, she doesn’t let him end her either, and where once she’d run away she tries to make a better decision instead. Living in Chicago and trying to be long-distance with Guy as a short-term fix didn’t work, so she wound up moving to Houston and marrying him instead. Both the audience and BoJack are clearly expecting the opposite news, so the moment Diane flashes her ring comes across as an unexpected joy. She’s cities and careers removed from the woman BoJack reluctantly hired to write his memoir, a Texan author, wife, and stepmother. That Diane is now relocated to the memory of her “LA years,” a character design and a character that bears little resemblance to the woman we see before us.
It’s remarkable personal growth to witness, and it has one more component: growing apart. “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if this night was the last time we ever talked to each other?” BoJack says half-seriously. Diane doesn’t respond for a moment, and you can see the weight of that silence. That moment is the true finale of BoJack Horseman, the knowledge that this friendship that has stretched throughout the series, powered so many heartfelt discussions and ugly fights, is finally drawing to an end. BoJack Horseman and Diane Nguyen aren’t the people they were when they first met, and they’ve both grown so much as a result of each other. But they both know that if that growth is to continue, it has to be apart. So for one last time they can sit on a roof, share a kind of story of something stupid that happened in prison—seriously, whose favorite movie is The Family Stone?—look up at the stars, and remember all the moments that led us to here.
And in that moment, all the moments that could come next are there as well, Catherine Feeny’s “Mr. Blue” playing as BoJack and Diane look up and around but never at each other at the same time. Maybe BoJack will talk to Diane after this night, and maybe he won’t. Maybe Princess Carolyn will agree to represent him again once he gets out of prison, and maybe she’ll refer him to Gekko Rabbitowitz. Maybe Mr. Peanutbutter will pick him up the next time he gets out of prison, and maybe he’ll have to call a Cabracadabra and ask to crash on Todd’s couch. Maybe Horny Unicorn will be a hit, maybe it’ll be a flop. Maybe he’ll wind up at Bellican’s within 30 minutes of leaving jail. Maybe he’ll be sober for the next 30 years. Maybe he’ll panic upon being confronted with freedom, try to rob a Chicken 4 Dayz, and be back in his cell in 30 seconds.
In the end, we don’t know the answer to any of those questions. And that’s ultimately the answer that we need. Life isn’t something that we can carve into 30-minute portions and expect a resolution at the end of that run time—or even at the end of 77 of those portions. Life isn’t something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end easily sorted into three acts. Life is funny and tragic and unpredictable all at the same time, life is a series of choices and consequences that pay off or come back on us in ways that we’d never expect. Life is a series of meaningless distractions and important developments, and we have to figure out the difference. Life is a series of closing doors, but it’s also a series of opening doors: opportunities we can take advantage of, feel good about passing up, or come to regret years down the road. Life is complicated, it is messy, it goes in every direction possible. You can always screw it up, and you can always make it better.
No show on television understood that better than BoJack Horseman.
And it was, indeed, nice while it lasted.
Series Grade: A
Stray observations:
- Lifetime Achievement in Voice Acting: In a rather brilliant move, no one beyond the five main characters says a line in the finale, which allows me to grant this category’s Lifetime Achievement Award to Will Arnett, Amy Sedaris, Alison Brie, Paul F. Tompkins, and Aaron Paul. All of them have done such tremendous work over the last six seasons, taking these characters who could have been so ridiculous (and were on many occasions) and turning them into real people whose hopes, dreams, and decisions mattered. I’ll go to the mat with anyone arguing this show is the best work they’ve ever done in their respective careers.
- Not that limiting the main cast keeps the episode thin, as Princess Carolyn wasn’t kidding about her industry wedding being the social event of the season. Attendees I spotted include Quentin Tarantulino, Henry Winkler, Amanda Hannity, Vanessa Gekko, Naomi Watts, Sextina Aquafina, Charley Witherspoon, Pinky Penguin, Jurj Clooners (fresh out of prank rehab), Lernernener DiCapricorn, Mitt Dermon, Bread Poot, Jake and Maggot Gyllenhaal, Mila Kunis (eating a sandwich), Abe Ziegler, and Ziggy Abler. It’s a wonderful way to pay off this show’s history of bizarre characters and brilliant guest stars.
- Talk about a fair trial: BoJack’s jury of his peers include Beyonce, Daniel Radcliffe, Wallace Shawn, Tilda Madison, Sandro, Neal McBeal the Navy SEAL, a dancer from the Philbert pilot, his one-night stand from “BoJack Hates The Troops,” Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s original avatar, and a mantis shrimp.
- Not one mention of Hollyhock all episode. Whatever her letter said to BoJack, that’s alongside Jesse’s letter to Brock in El Camino (speaking of other work by this insanely good cast) as a message we in the audience aren’t privy to. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but BoJack had to pay a price for his behavior, and that feels like the proper exchange rate.
- Interestingly, no use of the word “fuck” in this half-season after Gina’s coworker used it in “A Quick One, While He’s Away.” Check out my colleague William Hughes’ essay on why that turned out to mean so much more for its absence.
- Hollywoob has some other happy endings scattered throughout. A billboard for FireFlame is visible from the diner window, revealing Gina did get to play the lead in that film after all, and Courtney Portnoy’s appearance a couple of episodes ago was foreshadowing her as the villain of the film. (The ostensible love interest too, if that detail of Kelsey’s survived the studio notes.) And one of the beginning papers indicates that Wanda was in a second coma—a nice explanation for why we haven’t seen her since season two—woke up a second time, and went on to become the president of Gronkle.
- BoJack is putting on a production of Hedda Gabler in prison. “It’s not Strindberg, but, you know, we’re having a good time.”
- Mr. Peanutbutter is right, you should always pack a spare suit when you go to prison.
- Cabracadabra drivers riding drone thrones to unveil the B! I hope Todd got some residuals.
- Best recurring joke payoff of the finale? BoJack tries honeydew at the wedding buffet and it turns out he likes it. Prison changes a horseman.
- “Schlesinger, if you have time to fashion a shiv and organize a jump on the rats in Block C, you have time to learn your lines, okay? Priorities.”
- “Honestly, I thought it would be with nobody because I wasted all her best years.” “Turns out her best years are now!” “Well, joke’s on me. I couldn’t even waste the right years.”
- “Are all of your breakthroughs phrased like that?” “Um, are all of my breakthroughs a British prog-rock band from the ‘70s? Because yes.”
- “Hey, Jennifer Jason Leigh! Have you met regular Jason Lee? You’re my two favorite Jason Lees. Discuss.”
- “People have short memories. It’s the best and worst thing about people.”
- “You sounded happy. Or lightly sardonic, or glibly nihilistic, or however you’d describe that thing you get that’s the closest to the emotion normal people call happy.”
- “I dunno. Maybe it’s everyone’s job to save each other.”
- “I think there are people that help you become the person that you end up being, and you can be grateful for them, even if they were never meant to be in your life forever.”
- “I don’t want to lie to you. It’s only kind of funny.”
- “You kind of made your own bed on that one.” “Story of my life.”
- There’s always more show, until there isn’t. Thank you to everyone who’s read and commented over the last few years, everyone who’s followed this marvelous diamond of a show from beginning to end, and who took the time to weigh in with your thoughts. It has been an honor and a pleasure to cover BoJack Horseman more than anything else I’ve done here at The A.V. Club, to write far too many words about it and still be reminded of the hundred background jokes I missed. I’ll see you in syndication.
- Today in Hollywoob signs:
206 Comments
I can’t exactly say I’m unsatisfied with this ending, but I do wish they had gone for something less predictable than “Bojack hits rock bottom in the penultimate episode of the season, things are still fucked in the finale, but also sort of getting better too” thing they did every single season.
They did. This entire season was his rock bottom, and this time he faced the consequences. Not just emotionally either. He really did lose everything this time-his reputation, almost all of his relationships, his house, and his freedom. Nor did he do something shocking (TM) in the penultimate. And whether or not things get better is irrelevant. As Les (and Todd) pointed out, if he reaches rock bottom again, he’ll get sober again. If he gets cancelled again, he’ll eventually be ok-that’s unfortunately how Hollywoo/d/b work. He’ll go on living.
Idk about that. He was forced to go to rehab after S5. He lost Sarah Lynn after S3. In this one, he is said to be primed for a comeback where he can get things back. He’s still a part of most of their lives, if smaller. Nothing about this convinces me I shouldn’t have done what the characters did and stopped watching after S3. This is the downfall of a show about not putting all your emphasis on tv being on a platform where getting people to keep watching is prized.
I kind of see this as a perfect tragic finale. Bojack lost everyone he cared about. Todd’s done with him. Diane’s done with him. PC is done with him (the little hitch when she tells him she knows a good agent – not her). All he’s got is Peanutbutter, another lonely middle aged man. The former three are kind to him, but they make it very clear that he’s not welcome in their lives any more. Bojack’s saving grace was always the people around him and he doesn’t have them now.
That’s a super cynical way of reading the ending. He’ll never see Diane again, but he’ll definitely be in some part of the other three’s lives, just not the same way as it was before. He cannot rely on them to save him anymore. He has to save himself.
But why should we believe he’ll have to save himself when he very explicitly doubled down on self-destruction, “going back in the pool” when there was no one there for him, and he still came away pretty well off.
I saw the PC thing as “We’ll be friends (in some capacity) but I don’t want to have a professional relationship with you” cause being his agent entangled her with his bullshit for way too long.That being said, I can totally see her throwing stuff into Bojack’s future agents way every now and again, or helping him network or something. Just not being responsible for him.
The thing with Mr. Peanutbutter is that he’s sort of like Ned Flanders — they are nothing but friendly to Bojack or Homer, but it isn’t reciprocated and they don’t hide that. Especially in the more emotionally realistic BH universe, I can’t see that working for long.
Where is everyone getting that they’re all done with him? Or at least anymore than they said they’ve been many times before. PB is very explicitly not done with him. Todd still approaches him and he said he had given up on Bojack like seasons ago. PC still invites him to the wedding. I’m not convinced Diane’s marriage is anymore sure to be where she goes than the humanitarian trip to Europe she went on before she ran back to Bojack and her toxicity helped to screw up one of the best periods of stability in his life.
So, umm, is Bojack dead?The episode opens with it’s final scene, then a flatline, so is that meant to imply the flatline follows from the end?Maybe the Bojack crew wanted to leave that open, for people who found the last episode more profound.
Maybe this is just the sort of contrived plotting and subtext Bojack would’ve hated.
I only started watching this show a few months ago, but now you can call me John McClane because I’m a diehard fan!
Same. I discovered the show around the time Season 5 came out, binged the first season and thought “Wow, that was… something.” I thought for a few days about quitting there, but decided that maybe it had more to say. I worked my way through the rest of the seasons, and Season 6 Part 1 came out right about when I finished Season 5. I watched that, then waited anxiously a few weeks for the conclusion.I think BoJack Horseman will go down in history as one of the defining TV shows of the 2010s – perhaps the defining show of the 2010s. It truly goes where no television series has gone before. (That said, my two favorite jokes from the whole show are still “Happy birthday Diane and use a pretty font” and “Todd, but like a toddler! A Toddler!”)
It took me a couple tries before the show got its hooks into me. At first I was like:”Meh. Depressing angsty cartoon. WHAT ever”. Kind of the second time, too…but then I sort of left it on, and it pulled me in.
All in all, I’m glad I did. As a past-his-prime guy living in Hollywood, there were times where I was like:”STOP LOOKING AT ME”, but then I’d realize I wasn’t a fish or whatever.
I’ll see your “Happy Birthday Diane and use a pretty font” and raise you one “It’s a Boy!rtion!”.
For me it’s “Jerb Kazzaz- that sound’s like something you’d get at a Mediterranean restaurant and wouldn’t finish. The waiter would say, ‘you want to box up this Jerb Kazzaz?’ And you’d say…. naw.”
Didn’t work for me. Bojack should have died for real at the end of the penultimate episode, finale should have been the rest of the cast looking back at his life.
I can see that point of view. I liked this ending a lot, though. Him dying would be a fitting conclusion to his story, but it would also be less messy and complicated than this show has been. That would be giving BoJack a way out, and one last opportunity to make his friends’ lives all about him. Him living with the consequences of what he did ultimately makes for a more fitting conclusion.
Yeah, plus it would’ve been a terrible message to the audience (ie, damaged people are just fundamentally broken, cannot be helped, and will eventually destroy themselves). Nah, man. That would have been horribly cynical and hopeless. I loved this ending. I can definitely see why it’s going to irk some, but it worked extremely well for me. Life continues. We can change if we put in the work, but will always have to answer for the things we’ve done. So it goes.
The writers have always had a large amount of empathy for BoJack while vigorously condemning his failings and his often deplorable actions at the same time. As I said above, his road to recovery certainly won’t be easy, and there are so many things he’s done that he can’t take back. He’ll never see Hollyhock again, which in retrospect makes Season 4 that much more heartbreaking. But it’s not quite impossible, I think. He just has to do it every day.
If a place of recovery really is possible though, I feel it’d be more beneficial to actually show it.
He just has to do it every day.
Never say never; Hollyhock might, when she has some more years behind her (and if Bojack manages to go that time without doing anything else horrifyingly awful), decide that they can have some kind of relationship and be willing to talk to him.
I would’ve agreed with you before episode 15. The entire theme of that ep was how inevitable the result was given Bojack’s self-destructive tendencies. Doing that episode that reinforced the whole misery porn aesthetic of the show that made me come close to leaving the show halfway through, then doing the incredibly hacky thing of teasing his death, then changing it at the last minute left a bad taste in my mouth. This felt like trying to have it both ways, and maybe leaving the door open for a tacked-on feeling Season 7 down the road.
I can see both perspectives. I echo what you say. Death gives Bojack a way out. An “easy” way out. Living with the consequences is much harder.
The View From Halfway Down is a better, more powerful episode, but it’s very deliberately *not* the ending. Nice While it Lasted is a finale, that, while low-key, better encapsulates what this show was trying to accomplish.
But he has lived with the consequences, and relapsed into bad behavior numerous times before. It’s fine that the show wants to be about these cycles repeating, but I really felt like this show after S3, they knew they couldn’t keep viewership on a show like that, then teased some overarching point to keep people around before pulling the rug out from under us again. I know I would’ve been done after S3 if not for that, for one.
I’d adjust it to the other people not really thinking that much about him at all. It was nice seeing them all move on, largely free of him.
People keep saying that, but I don’t get that. Mr. PB picked him up. Todd still engaged with him. PC still invited him. Only Diane implied she was done with him but that doesn’t seem set in stone either. IMO, they went the easy/lazy way out and to the question of, “what is the ending?”, said “Life doesn’t really have nice endings man”. They basically implied that with the ending dialogue.I felt this was an easy way to keep the door open to make a S7 if everyone involved feels like it in like 5 years, and make it so everyone feels they can’t get mad at them for going back on this being the last season because “We even said it in the show”. Which again is fine, if they hadn’t blatantly implied an overall arc for Bojack’s character and outright said this was the last season.
Well obviously even Dianne isn’t set in stone. She could change her mind. But the show ends with all of the characters, except PB, implying one way or another that their close relationship with BoJack was over. PC doesn’t invite him to her “friends and family” wedding and puts him off when he implies that he’d want a professional relationship with her. Todd notes that it was fun “while it lasted.” Hollyhock writes him the letter.
I guess.
Can’t agree with any of that for a second. This was a very definitive, messy conclusion-and perfect for this show. Mr. Peanutbutter and BoJack are the same as they ever were, which makes perfect sense (Peanutbutter forgave BoJack for trying to sleep with Diane in about 5 minutes back in Season 2). Todd’s friendly with Bojack, but he has no real reason to see him again after this-they’re not close, and they haven’t been since Season 3. Diane is finished with him, and she was pretty clear about it. PC might throw BoJack a few calls and get him a few parts, but she’s done devoting her life to him as well. That *all* makes perfect sense, and it all makes for such a bittersweet, poignant, conclusion.
I still find him redeemable and having hope. Don’t think he deserves being ostracized by eneryone in his life, amd I don’t think it ended that way at all. Mr PB will alsays be his friend save something truly, deeply disgusting. And I think Todd’s back to being a friend, at least from a distance. I think the ones who do move away, it’s more a case of them just drifting apart as people and their lives change.
That would have been the most predictable ending and I can’t imagine it doing anything else than feeling cheap and obligatory. I think this ending was considerably more heartfelt and meaningful and, in many ways, just as heartbreaking as ending with his suicide. Death is a cheap way out; living is something much more challenging and rewarding.
To me him dying would be less of a “way out” and more of a statement like “no, you don’t get to just keep doing self destructive things and then get to walk away to fuck up again the next day, sometimes you don’t get saved from the pool you drunkenly stumble into.”
But the show never shied away from such statements: Sarah Lynn is a living embodiment of it..BoJack not dying dramatically is much more consistent with the persistent lesson he had failed to learn until the finale: life is sometimes very mundane and you have to live with it. You don’t get a grand exit, you don’t get a spotlight. The show is filled with anti-climaxes like that and it’s notable that at the end of it, the happiest characters are Diane, Todd and Princess Carolyn who all accepted that life isn’t defined by a series of magical moments. BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter – two massive attention whores – aren’t quite there yet, but they’re trying.
But I thought the whole “Life is not a story” thing was pretty present in View From Halfway Down. In it, Bojack isn’t happy to be going, he’s desperately trying to get out of the situation he created for himself, before realizing he had made sure he couldn’t get out of it. When he grasps at the straw of some greater purpose to his death, “See you on the other side”, he is told there is none. He’s just going to die as was inevitable.Which is a terrible message but the one they clearly implied. So they can’t have it both ways.
Doesn’t seem like PC of PB are at much different places or much different than they ever were IMO.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. So much of the praise of this show has been how it more closely encapsulates real life than a typical show like “Horsin’ Around”. In that case, I feel like continued self-destructive behavior will in the end come back to bite you. I thought the symbolism of the fact that he got out then got back in couldn’t have been more clear. And I think teasing his death then pulling a “gotcha” was beyond hacky.
That would have been the most predictable ending and I can’t imagine it doing anything else than feeling cheap and obligatory.
For it to be “predictable” and even “obligatory”, I think it would have to be a common type of ending. But what TV shows have you seen with that type of ending?
“That would have been the most predictable ending and I can’t imagine it doing anything else than feeling cheap and obligatory.”Concluding with his suicide would’ve felt predictable and obligatory? What precedent would it even have? You must have watched a lot of extremely dark TV sitcoms that I’ve never even heard of.
Not sitcoms as such, but there have been dozens of movies where the messed up protagonist either takes their own life or dies accidentally and then all the people who were getting fed up with them in life suddenly remember all the good things about the protagonist at their funeral. Having somebody like Diane basically imply “I’m glad you’re okay, but we’re through” is less predictable and harsher.
Well, of course a sappy funeral scene would have been a bad ending, but I never suggested that. I thought the end of the penultimate episode was so powerful it would’ve been a very ballsy conclusion to the whole series.
1. It’s what Bojack wants. We know this because he attempts it in the previous episode. It’s pretty obvious that he didn’t end up in the pool by accident.2. Not predictable for a normal show, but definitely for this one. Hell, Secretariat committed suicide, it would have surprised no one if Bojack had eventually followed suit, and that’s exactly why they couldn’t do it.
Agreed. Him dying would have run counter to one of the themes of the show I think; that being that you can work on being a better person as much as you want, and that’s great, but doing so doesn’t really resolve the damage you’ve done to others previous to that and you are owed neither their forgiveness or easy resolutions.
>I can’t imagine it doing anything else than feeling cheap and obligatory. Sounds like a you problem.
Life’s a bitch and then you keep living. That’s the point.
That’s a really dumb point but I knew people would use it to dismiss the shoddy writing the last few episodes. And you still will when they decide to pull another “Gotcha, that ‘ending’ wasn’t really the ending. Come watch S7!” in five years.
When it comes to living, dying is the easy part. Bojack doesn’t deserve the peace of death. He deserves to live a long life. Both because he has earned some of it, and because he needs to fully pay for everything he did.
From my perspective there’s basically nothing “peaceful” about drunkenly drowning in someone else’s pool. Personally, I’d much rather be disliked than dead, but maybe I’m alone in that. IDK
You’re not alone in that, but your priorities don’t align with Bojack’s. Knowing Bojack, that’s a good thing.
Yes…..but *after* that, there is eternal peace.
No offence intended but I’m glad you didn’t write the finale.
For me, the show has always been about a single question, which is when is it too late? Too late for salvation, too late to fix your mistakes, too late to be the person you want.The last two episodes give an answer to that. It’s never too late, until it’s too late for everything. But you’re always on borrowed time. I’m happy with that answer.
“It’s never too late until it’s too late for everything”Which is why he should’ve died, as is what would’ve been the result in real life.
Agreed.
BoJack dying would have been a nice neat ending, though, and this show isn’t about that. The horse dies at the end of Horsin’ Around, but Horsin’ Around isn’t real life. Things aren’t that easy.I think the choice for him to go on living was perfect. It’s just a tad anticlimactic, but that’s the whole point.
I don’t know that he should have died, but yeah I don’t think happy endings for everyone was the way to go. I thought for sure there was going to be a suicide and/or a murder by the end. And if Bojack didn’t die, he’d have to live with the consequences.Still enjoyed it though.
Eh, I like it. He hasn’t earned tragedy, hasn’t earned a way out, and thus a stint in jail on something ridiculous fits pretty well. It’s punishingly banal.
If I’d read this immediately I finished watching the last episode I might have agreed with you, but with some reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that this stopped being that kind of show after season 4. Killing him would have undermined the ethos of the story.
In the end, BoJack Horseman has revealed itself to be a show about working out where the lines of forgiveness and self-improvement can be drawn. I think giving BoJack a harrowing death would have allowed him to be forgiven to some degree, maybe even to be romanticised and remembered as someone who “Yeah, made mistakes, but was ultimately just trying to do the right thing”. That wouldn’t be a true picture of him as a person. He has far too many skeletons in his closet to deserve a legacy.
Sometimes living is the hardest thing to do, and BoJack has been forced to do just that. Only, while he’s been given a second chance after seeing “the view from halfway down,” he now has to work on himself entirely on his own. There’s nobody for him to rely on. Diane and Todd are gone having moved onto new lives, Princess Carolyn won’t work with him anymore, and Hollyhock clearly told him she had no interest in knowing him. His only remaining friend is Mr. Peanutbutter.
Hell, he’s even been edited out of Horsin’ Around, the only piece of media he’s properly, genuinely, actually remembered for.
This way, by being made to live out his life quietly, BoJack doesn’t get to be the centre of attention, which he absolutely would have been in death. He’s going to go back to prison, he’s going to complete the rest of his sentence, and then he’s going to set about fixing himself in the real world. Out of the spotlight, away from the media, mostly alone. An ordinary citizen. He hasn’t gotten off scot-free here, but there’s a degree of hope that he might do something useful now. That’s what the show has been working towards ever since BoJack was told it would get easier but that it would only do so if he worked at himself every day.
I initially thought that, but then I realized that dying would have been the easy, lazy way out, for both the show and the and character. He shouldn’t get to die, he should remain in the fucked-up messes he created. The finale existed for the people in his orbit to get the closure from him that his dying would have prevented. He doesn’t deserve his own personal closure, and he doesn’t get it, but they do.
I can’t say it worked for me, but it wasn’t supposed to. It worked for the show because it was messy and unsatisfying, which is how life is, especially for BoJack.
I hate that “main character should have died”. Maybe in this case it’s even true (I don’t agree), but so many people lack the imagination to go beyond “when the shows done, so should his life be”.
But in this case they spend an entire episode setting up his death only to say backpedal in the finale.
They never intended to kill him, so it’s not really backpedaling. There was no way it was going to end that simply.
He did die, it’s just the his afterlife is the exact same as his life was.
And that’s the ending everyone expected. That show doesn’t do that, because life never goes as expected.
What a shit message to send to people struggling with mental health, trauma, alcoholism and addiction though. “You’re unfixable. Just die. It’s the best way.”
A
much darker and, I believe, unsatisfying ending would have been Bojack
getting rescued from the pool, but not before the drug cocktail and
oxygen deprivation from near-drowning resulted in brain damage. He’s unable to stand trial and lives the rest of his days as a shadow/echo of his lobotomized grandmother, and an object of pity and mild contempt for his erstwhile friends and Hollywoob society at large. He’s sent to prison, but it’s an existential one, where he can neither hurt nor create. He remains a parasite, a burden, until the end of his days. THE END.
I think that ending would have made everyone else’s endings unsatisfactory, or just impossible. Diane would be left with a voicemail to deal with in a much different way, and the others would have to rationalize all of his actions at a funeral instead of processing them with space and time. It’s also just way too easy for Bojack. Killing him off moves the “punishment” of his actions from him to everyone around him, which would kind of suck for a show that’s focused so much on recovering from and learning from your own mistakes.
He wanted A Big Gesture but he becomes the forgettable meme-of-the-day and then just obscurity.I feel this ‘…and than you just keep on living’ message is harsh but also very realistic: the world is full of old people who kept on living after tragedy and know the old glory days will never come back. Their friends and romantic interests have moved on with their own lives.
I initially was for that, but I think it also would’ve somewhat rewarded Bojack’s narcissism more than him surviving and most of his friends just….kind of moving on without him.
These reviews have been great, thanks.Also fuck netflix for trying to show me the witcher trailer instead of the rest of the credits. They really are the worst.
I just did a retrospective series ranking for The Good Place, so I figured I’d try one for Bojack:Season 1: BSeason 2: B+Season 3: ASeason 4: ASeason 5: B+Season 6: A-Series Grade: A-Favorite episodes: The Telescope, Downer Ending, Brand New Couch, Escape from L.A., Out to Sea, The Bojack Horseman Show, Fish Out of Water, Best Thing That Ever Happened, It’s You, That’s Too Much Man!, That Went Well, The Old Sugarman Place, Stupid Piece of Shit, Time’s Arrow, Free Churro, The Showstopper, The Stopped Show, A Horse Walks into a Rehab, A Quick One While He’s Away, Angela, The View from Halfway Down, Nice While It Lasted
I cried so hard. Visually, this was so beautiful and stunning. There were a million wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes back to the other seasons that should’ve made me roll my eyes but instead I just laughed. This was a special show and I’m sad to see it go.
“Series Grade: A”You’re ******* right. This show has done so many things well so consistently for 6 years. The background humor, the rich characterization, the wordplay, the jokes, the drama, the experimental episodes, the animation. All of it came together for such one of the most memorable pieces of art I’ve consumed in a long time. I thought the finale was a very fitting conclusion to the series. It’s not the best episode of BoJack Horseman, but the more I think about it, the more I love it. It’s great to see BoJack interact with everybody one last time. Maybe he’ll see Mr. Peanutbutter again, and I think he’ll keep in touch with PC. I think this was his final goodbye to Todd and Diane though. Todd’s such a lovely guy, but he’ll probably never truly forgive BoJack for his betrayals. Diane is simply tired of the emotional baggage that comes from being close to someone as damaged as BoJack Horseman. BoJack certainly isn’t forgiven for much, and his mistakes will always be there at the back of his mind. He’ll never make things right with Charlotte, Gina, and of course Herb. But he’ll keep living. Maybe he’ll get better- If he does his best to do so each and every day.
Diane is definitely the last he’s seeing of her, but I didn’t get a sense of finality from his conversation with Todd. If anything, I think these two guys can finally just be buddies – not close friends, which they haven’t been in ages, but two dudes who can just hang out. I think it’s poignant that their talk ends with the two joking around that Todd is kinda dumb. BoJack always belittled Todd and Todd went along with it, but this time around it’s more like two dudes who figured out the boundaries of their friendship.And he’s definitely seeing Mr. Peanutbutter again.
If BoJack decides to stay in the entertainment industry then I can almost guarantee he’ll be seeing Mr. Peanutbutter again but honestly, Todd and Diane have grown. They have their own lives now and, as many people do in life, move on.
Diane I’m not disputing at all, she practically tells him they are done.
Yeah, I think BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter’s relationship will be the same as it always was. BoJack and Diane are finished. BoJack and Todd will be friendly, but not truly close. Same with BoJack and PC, I think.
Yeah I took PB’s disappearing at the party to be more PB (this is literally the behavior that ended his 3 actual marriages) than him not wanting to see Bojack- he was even friendly and helpful to Bojack right after the interview debacle. I could see Todd still be occasionally friendly- he went out of his way to help him and spend time with him even though he obviously knows how to keep boundaries now. This is definitely the last time Diane is going to talk with him though- her silence with the “wouldn’t it be funny if this was the last time we talked?” spoke volumes and she was pretty firm that new Diane had very little in common with the woman he knew. Which is sad for Bojack, but good for her
The ending with Diane sort of reminded me of the final shot of the Graduate in that you’re not quite sure what you’re supposed to make of it. It could be that they’re done or it could be that they’re slowly realizing that they’re too much a part of each’s others lives for Diane to freeze him out.
BoJack keeping in touch with Princess Carolyn, but not Todd and Diana, tracks with how when they’re writing all the bad stuff he did on the whiteboard and PC is the only one who doesn’t list all the stuff done to her, personally.
It definitely seems like Mr. Peanutbutter and PC are more willing to forgive him than Diane and Todd.
Damn it, noticed 4 months later that I wrote Diana instead of Diane.
This has been my favorite show since the moment it appeared. I’m heartbroken to see it end.I wish they’d found another route to take with Hollyhock. Or even gone the same route, but spent more time with her. The way this season played out, she essentially gets refrigerator’d and becomes a prop for Bojack’s story. I can see the structural reasons it happened, but I’ll always maintain that character deserved better.I liked the ending. Bojack and Diane have always been two sides of the same coin. They have the long meaningful talk, but at the same time, they’re both famous for saying all kinds of heartfelt stuff they absolutely mean in the moment, but then renege on later, so you get closure, but zero answers, because no matter what either of them say on the roof, you know either one of them will pick up the phone to call the other the moment they have a day no one else could understand or interpret.I will miss Diane the most of all. For six seasons she’s been the best written character on television, and the tv landscape, as vast as it has become, is going to be a little bit emptier with her gone.
That’s not what ‘fridged’ means, and Hollyhock’s arc in the back half was her refusal to be BoJack’s prop any longer. He trampled over her boundaries without asking her, and he showed himself to be exactly as bad as she’d feared after hearing about what happened with Penny. She understood he wasn’t going to change in a way that she needed him to change for her to feel comfortable being around him. She made the best possible decision for herself. That’s the opposite of getting fridged.
He gets ‘ghosted’. Which he thoroughly deserved.
You’re wrong. Hollyhock’s removal from the story served no purpose other than to motivate Bojack. What she was going through ceased to be important in any way, other than the effect it had on her brother. That is the very definition of fridging a character, even if they technically did not kill her.Now, if she’d done all the same things, in terms of distancing herself from Bojack, but remained a pov character on the show, you would be correct. But they didn’t do that. They just deleted her so that Bojack could have a reaction to her absence.
No. Fridging is a specific term used to describe a specific, recurring problem in popular media. It refers to taking a female character, ignoring anything about her that could possibly make her interesting in her own right, and killing her off solely as a means to motivate a male character. Hollyhock’s break from BoJack was an active choice on her part, signaled by her discomfort with him in earlier episodes this season (she was glad to see him but still uncomfortable with him in “The Face of Depression” even before he inserted himself into her daily life without asking). The writers didn’t decide she was boring and get rid of her to motivate BoJack into losing his sobriety. She made a direct decision, based on her personality as we’ve seen and her history with him as well as the things she learned about him regarding Penny, and made a choice she felt was best for her well-being. Fridging is something that happens to a female character, making her a passive player in her own story, and indicating her life is useless except as it impacts someone else’s. Fridging tells women who are consuming that canon they only matter as much as they matter to the men they leave behind when they die. Hollyhock walked out. Her sense of safety and stability were more important than BoJack’s feelings. That’s empowering.
I wish they’d found another route to take with Hollyhock. Or even gone the same route, but spent more time with her. The way this season played out, she essentially gets refrigerator’d and becomes a prop for Bojack’s story.I would have liked more time with her, so I get that aspect. But I love how it played out, because it was so…decisive. I wouldn’t say she got refrigerator’d, I thought she just made the most definitive decision of anybody in the series. In a weird way, to me it seemed empowering to her. Princess Carolyn basically enabled BoJack. Diane kept coming back to him. Todd took a long time to cut ties with BoJack whenever he was self-destructive. Hollyhock was there for him until she couldn’t be, then decisively just ended it. Which for a college-aged student seems more mature and perhaps wise than anybody else in the series.
I also think the reason I don’t mind her ending being so abrupt was she wasn’t in the show as long. So intellectually I think you have a point, and I still wish there were more from her. However, it seems like she was a bit less critical to BoJack’s arc than, say, Diane, Princess Carolyn, Todd, and Mr. Peanutbutter, at least to me from a storytelling standpoint. That said, I think had they done more with her the last season or two (there was a solid amount last season, but her being at college made her a bit ancillary) they could have leaned a bit more on the impact of their relationship and the result its dissolution was likely to have on BoJack.
Agreed about BoJack and Diane. They almost seem like the inverse, but perhaps not. By that I mean it depends how their trajectories go. Diane seems to have resolved her issues enough to actually find happiness. BoJack self-destructed and hit about as rock bottom as you can go without actually dying. Where he ends up after this would color how much BoJack and Diane remain two sides of the same coin vs. having achieved differing fates (hopefully both in some positive trajectory, but who knows?).
Her arrival on the show was the only thing that kept it interesting though. Until then, it was just watching a person endlessly screw up whatever was going for him, making me and I suspect others think I was done with the show. So I don’t love that the ending is “And he screws even his relationship with her up. Bet you feel stupid for believing, you POSs! Guess what, that’s how life is!”
Her arrival on the show was the only thing that kept it interesting though.To you, perhaps. To me, watching BoJack’s evolution was still interesting. Perhaps even moreso, the evolution of those around him kept things very interesting. I found Diane, PC, and Todd’s personal developments very interesting. Hollyhock was great, but she was not around enough to feel as crucial to me.
To me, BoJack is a tragedy, and a fairly true-to-life story of how much you can lose when addiction and selfish decisions rule your life. Is a possible reconciliation between Bojack and Hollyhock possible? Maybe, maybe not. But given BoJack’s actions, he kind of deserved to lose her from his life, at least for now. He may eventually rebuild those burnt bridges. But…he isn’t dead, and yet things are still messed up. That just fits in my opinion.
I get not everybody’s going to love this ending, but it’s reminiscent of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, perhaps The Shield. This is a show that feels like it’s earned its bitter-sweet ending and all the ugliness inherent in this sort of finale. I can respect you feeling differently about it, though.
I enjoyed the ending, it had consequences without being too outlandish, despite the premise of the show. If he had died it might have been a bit too on the nose for karma. But I think he does lose Hollyhock forever, and Diane for the most part beyond bumping into each other on occasion.
+1 on Diane. She’s always been the voice of reason in a messed-up world, and if I had to pick anyone on the show who was, deep down, a good person, it would be her. Ironic, since she’s the one who doesn’t believe in “deep down”. (I guess Todd is pretty unequivocally good too, although a bit more clueless.) I identified a lot with her, especially in the later seasons, and my biggest fear toward the end was that she wouldn’t get a happy ending. I’m so glad she did.
We’ll miss you, Blarn.
What makes Diane interesting is that while she started as the “voice of reason” character and seems like a better person than the celebrities she dealt with in LA, she also has issues of depression and a crappy childhood. She just deals with them better than, say, Bojack.
No really. She comes across as the most self, narcissistic character out of all of them. She doesn’t have the capability of reflection at all and thinks she’s perfect. She perfectly acts like a white woman but her character was a buzzkill throughout. Great character development for her.. but she was unnecessary. Princess Caroline should have been the primary female protagonist as she was self-made and strong. Not weak and living off the men in her life every chance she got.
I think, to me, that’s why Diane came out the best and had the most positive character development. She had a lot of the same marks as Bojack; bad childhood, lack of respect, annoyance at Mr. Peanutbutter (but for different reasons). There were times she easily could have fallen down the pit Bojack did, and almost did (look at their drinking binges).
But Diane dealt with her shit. She got medicated, found a man who loved her for who she was, found success in a way she hadn’t considered, and ultimately left Hollywoob. She zigged where Bojack zagged.
Diane has always been just as self involved as Bojack, but she’s a much less toxic person, so she doesn’t do anywhere near as much damage. They’re far more alike than they are different.
Just to be specific, someone being “fridged” refers to a female character being killed off to further a male character’s plot/emotional arc — it comes from comic books originally, where a hero comes home to find his girlfriend’s dead body stuffed in his refrigerator. Hollyhock was not fridged, quite the opposite, she took control of her own narrative after her boundaries were disregarded.
No, she was not “fridged” and every story about a men does not have to turn around and all the sudden be about a woman. That’s not fair and that’s not how life truly works.
They didn’t go anywhere with the threads that were laid out. And I know any subversion of traditional storytelling is glorified with this show, in part because much of it is a critique of traditional tv, or it as a lens for real life. But this specifically is just lazy and manipulative.
I am glad that Hollyhock finally did express something in the letter. What drove me nuts about the character is that she did not directly say anything. She finally told Bojack some of what was bothering her, but she seems old enough and well parented and supported enough to have the confidence to actually say what is on her mind.
Absolutely perfect finale. Spotlight was on the main five, no gimmicks.I love how the finale is essentially finally about BoJack figuring out the boundaries of these relationship. The idea of boundaries and limitations was a recurring theme throughout the season and it tied it out nicely. BoJack is never going to be a complete person – he’s still an attention whore at heart – and he may as well never stop being kind of an asshole, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a place in all of his friends’ lives. That’s why Todd’s scene hit me the most: he’s there for a friend, but willing to set his own “demands” by requesting a piggyback ride. It’s beautiful that the scene ends on a jab at Todd – because sometimes it’s okay to make a dig at a friend. Both know it.Perfect finale of an almost perfect show. The final stretch produced 8 GOAT episodes and that’s absolutely amazing. I will miss this so, so fucking much.
Nice detail: Todd & Bojack’s footprints get washed away by the tide while they’re standing there.
Plus there was the stretch where Bojack carried Todd.
Also their shadows align so that Todd’s looks like he’s standing on his shoulders, not in his shadow. It’s one other reason I didn’t get a sense of finality from this talk.
Yeah, I like to think that Todd will give him another chance, but this time it’ll be on Todd’s terms. Hooray!
I was pretty pissed off to realize that I thinking of the “just one set of footprints” thing, but I cannot lie — I was.
I can see why some people hoped for a happy ending. I can see why some people expected the dark ending of the penultimate episode and would have wanted it that way. But I think I am satisfied with this ending in the fact it doesn’t end. Bojack’s life continues, even if we don’t get to see it, and, as with any addict, so do its struggles and temptations. Will he overcome them, will he succumb to them, I don’t think that, in itself, was ever the question the show was trying to pose so I am fine with it not being answered.
He will succumb to them. We’ve seen it a million times now. And I honestly think it’s a bad message to even suggest he as a character might not. This reminds me of the Rose Armitage actress in “Get Out” having to deal with all the people who still are convinced she was secretly not a villain.
I actually lost track of which episode count I was on and didn’t realize I was on the series finale until the credits and…that was it.
I love the ending because it’s more interesting to ponder what comes next than for him to have died, or even for him to have resolution. This is the type of ending that lets my mind explore the infinite “what if’s.” There was resolution, and yet a lot of threads left dangling (intentionally so).
I’m a big fan of redemption. Robert Downey Jr. is a prime example of how people can be redeemed and learn from mistakes, even after hitting rock bottom. Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, in a very different way Amy Winehouse, River Phoenix, and many others never do. I think Mel Gibson has gone from Hollywood pariah to…whatever he is now. And to be honest, I have mixed feelings. I think he’s done things to try and redeem himself, largely out of the spotlight, and RDJ rather famously called for him to get a second chance. But he’s also done things that are deplorable, and his announced casting as a Jewish banker in Rothchild seems to be a rather poor and tone deaf decision (and I’m putting that rather lightly).
My point is, I love a redemption story. And people suffering from addiction and abuse, and have a long history of substance abuse or other addictive personality traits are going to have a rough time at it. I think BoJack is lovable and yet deplorable. He has left so much damage in his wake. I’m not sure he deserves redemption, and yet I don’t want to believe people are irredeemable. I think he can change, and yet BoJack has kept repeating the same patterns. I’m not sure if he’s salvageable or if he can pull himself out. Some have, many do not.
That’s why I love this ending. He’s at a pivotal point. If this isn’t rock bottom, I’m not sure what is. Maybe one of several. It would be a very simple thing to turn things around. It seems significant that he’s lost the veneer of BoJack as a victim of his addiction. He has lost Diane; even if they talk again, that relationship is forever changed. Princess Carolyn seems like she is not going to just support his career while turning a blind spot to his self-destructive behavior. He lost Hollyhock. So he has to take accountability. And yet, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter are still there as friends. I do not think they will support him relapsing to his old ways, but they still love him.
Put it this way. I think BoJack finally has to face who and what he is and has been, without worrying about everybody finding out his secrets. There’s nothing left to hide or protect. He and Carolyn both caught themselves when he started planning his return to fame. I think at minimum, this gives him a chance to create something from scratch. What he does with it is as uncertain as it is interesting. But everybody seems to be moving on. I think everybody will be o.k. Maybe even BoJack, although his future seems the most uncertain. But everybody seems wiser, and changed for the better, despite (or more likely, because of) the tragedies endured.
It’s messy, and uncertain, but that’s kind of how life works sometimes. It seems to represent an interesting chapter of these characters lives, how they intersected, and now how they must move forward, largely apart from BoJack. Certainly how they will move on without him as the center, without that gravity that drew them all together. It was an unexpectedly emotional and heartbreaking show for me as often as it was witty and sharply funny. I’m happy with the ambiguity and the bittersweet optimism inherent in the ending.
Yeah, the Hollyhock stuff was the loss that stung the most, I think. When she was trying really hard to connect with him in Seasons 4 and 5, he was distant. Just when their relationship took a positive turn, it came crashing down. On the other hand, Gina, Penny, and Charlotte are irreparably damaged, so this is the biggest price BoJack pays for his behavior (honestly doesn’t seem like he minds prison that much).
I have a threefold question, or series of questions/observations.
First off, are Gina, Penny, and Charlotte irreparably damaged? Kelsey Jannings also deserves mention in this discussion. Penny and Charlotte seem…disturbed, but like they may actually at least be able to move on. Like BoJack is some disturbing side note to their lives. Gina seems more damaged. I’d love an epilogue about her journey and (hopefully) recovery from what happened between her and BoJack. However, look at any victims if similar situations in real life, and there are no doubt countless victims who don’t make full recoveries. That’s one reason I dread and love how they played that very true to real life. Not every victim makes a miraculous full recovery, hence the gravity of the situation. Kelsey Jannings seems to be clawing herself out of being thrown under the bus into obsolescence, so that’s perhaps a partial win. Which is important, I think, for showing the range of possibilities for these sorts of things.
Second, and not really a question, but I think part of prison being positive is BoJack doesn’t have to be proactive to make positive strides in his lot in life. I’m not sure he likes it so much as it takes away the temptations that he succumbed to because he’s damaged and they made him feel good.
Finally…I guess I like, or at least appreciate, how this ending was messy. I’m not quite sure what to make of BoJack’s story. He was sympathetic, flawed, yet damaging to everybody who knew him.That’s what made every ending sting in its own way. Hollyhock may have stung the most. But Todd’s was painful for how much Todd forgave that BoJack took for granted, arguably until the finale episode. Princess Carolyn moved on, and yet how much collateral damage is there from BoJack wasting so much of her life? She came out happy, but there are lots of doubts, and wasted years. Diane is finally happy, and in a healthy place. But how much did she sacrifice and suffer by being a friend of Bojack’s? Not to mention Gina, Penny, Charlotte, Sarah Lynn, Herb, and the list goes on and on and on and…
I sort of think that’s the point, the thesis. BoJack caused a lot of damage. He’s flawed and damaged in his own right. I find him sympathetic, even likable, hopefully redeemable. And yet, maybe the point is he hurt a lot of people, so his losses should sting. Hopefully he’s redeemable, but when you cause that much collateral damage in the lives of those around you, even if redemption is possible, it’s likely to require some effort. At this point, BoJack is close to have repaid his debt to society and being exposed for who he was. What he does next is up to him. Nobody owes him anything, especially not the beloved celebrity status he has grown accustomed to. What he does next is up to him. It’s nicely ambiguous what happens next. A cycle of relapses and rehabilitations is as likely as anything. A complete recovery followed by something truly enriching and meaningful is also possible. Halt and Catch Fire’s “Ten of Swords” is as good a template as any. Perhaps this leads BoJack in some positive direction. It was hard earned regardless. I hope he makes the most of this opportunity. but as a viewer, it seems an interestingly ambiguous moral parable of sorts. It’s equally as important to me to look at the main story as it is to be aware of the lessons this might be trying to instill in us. It’s a testament to the writing that I may be processing this for a while yet to come.
If you look in the background, you can see that Gina got that Fireflame movie.
Thanks! That makes me incredibly happy for the character.
As much as I acknowledge BoJack is the protagonist of the series, and I think like many I’m primed to feel some sympathy for him given the time spent largely viewing the world through his eyes, I really feel for the victims of his substance abuse and mistakes he’s made. So seeing Gina, and Kelsey, Diane, Todd, PC, Mr. Peanutbutter, and others, at least able to have some measure of recovery is rewarding. I’m really happy to see that Gina got that break despite how we last saw her.
But thanks again. That’s a nice little nugget I missed entirely.
I really loved this show when it came out and as it evolved I realized staring into the abyss just doesn’t interest me. So I’ve only half paid attention to it for the last couple seasons. But Alison Brie is phenomenal in this episode; that much I picked up.
Held it together until that last minute. Perfect finale.
Just for fun:Season 1: B+Season 2: A-Season 3: ASeason 4: ASeason 5: ASeason 6: A-Series Grade: AFavorite episodes: The Telescope, Downer Ending, After the Party, Hank After Dark, Let’s Find Out, Escape From LA, Fish Out of Water, Stop the Presses, Best Thing That Ever Happened, It’s You, That’s Too Much Man!, That Went Well, The Old Sugarman Place, Stupid Piece of Sh*t, Underground, Ruthie, Time’s Arrow, What Time Is It Right Now, The Amelia Earheart Story, Free Churro, INT SUB, Head in the Clouds, The Showstopper, The Stopped Show, Surprise!, The Face of Depression, Good Damage, Xerox of a Xerox, The View From Halfway Down, Nice While it Lasted. Season rankings: 3>5>4>6>2>1
I’m totally going to fire up Premiere Pro and make a version where that final song is Obla-di, Obla-da….and another where it is the Larry Sanders theme….and another where it is Don’t Stop Beleivin’….and one where its metal. Not sure if I’m going Iron Man, For whom the bell Tolls or Raining Blood, but it is gonna be a HOOOT.
I’d love to see the Don’t Stop Believin’ version!
Perfect candidate for the Walk of Life project actually.
I still think “Under the Pressure” is my favorite season finale music but this is a close second.I’m going to miss this series, but I think it ended at a good spot.
Under The Pressure was so perfect it’s like they wrote the episode having heard the song
I liked the Tegan and Sara song that closed out season 1. It had a transformative vibe to it that really matched the observatory kid autograph moment that ended that season.
Overall, I think it was a fitting end and Princess Carolyne deserved a win more than anyone.As much as I wanted to know what Hollyhock’s letter to BoJack said, her disconnecting her phone number is probably all we really needed to know.I miss her and was really invested in Hollyhock. I wished, above anyone else in/out of BoJack’s life, that they could remain friends but maybe leaving BoJack a blank slate when he gets out of prison, with the closure between BoJack and the main cast they sorely needed, is probably the best we could realistically hope for BoJack moving forward to a better life.
See, I don’t get this. PC self-sabotaged as much as anyone, throwing away her relationship with the mouse and going back to the work that made her do bad things and impacted her badly. And now she’s still doing it and marrying a person she’s had very little of a romantic relationship with spur of the moment. I feel if this wasn’t the finale, everything the show has taught us is that this is a non-healthy decision for her and Judah that would end badly.
Although I thought Princess Carolyne and Ralph made a cute couple, I could see that she was just too high energy for him and, while Ralph was patient and understanding with her work schedule, ultimately, PC knew that her way of life was incompatible with Ralph’s and she would eventually, out of guilt or sense of obligation, that she’d probably give up on her dreams of being her own producer and it wasn’t fair to either of them.PC and Judah’s romantic revelation did feel a bit rushed in the finale, Judah and PC both had a professional and, to a degree, a personal understanding having worked together for so long. They were both hard-working and dedicated and PC also reached a new sense of herself that she was ready to take on another project in her life, one she felt more confident in and learn to quiet that voice in her head that would second-guess any new venture outside of work.Princess Carolyne always managed, against impossibly soul-crushing odds, to Get Her Shit Together .
This touches on why PC and Judah make sense to me: theirs is a relationship built on profound respect and understanding. Judah is empathetic and attuned to PC’s needs, PC knows that she can trust him and doesn’t have to worry about compromising her other priorities for the sake of their relationship – something she did have to do with Ralph. Theirs isn’t a bright burning passion; like PC said, that sort of love only happens when you’re in your 20s. But that isn’t what she wants or needs anymore.
She was already dating Judah when Bojack went to prison and he’s been in there a year, so they’ve had time. And Judah isn’t indecisive.
It was a beautiful way to end the series by just slicing the cast down to the core five. No big tv moments (Pc’s wedding not only happened off-screen, it happened properly weeks ago), no big goodbyes or deaths. Just a man looking for redemption and not entirely sure if he even deserves it.In one episode we get comedy and drama and absurdity and profound stupidity like Todd gaining insight about the Hokey Pokey.Bojack has been sensational television ever since The Telescope in season 1. But it’s particularly remarkable how the show refused to let the anti-hero off the hook. He’s not the worst person ever, but he has done awful things and he has to pay for that.This series deserves to stand head and shoulders with the likes of Mad Men and The Sopranos.
My favourite show ended and all I got was this free churro:(
Is my reaction a hydroelectric power plant built by beavers? Because dam…
Unlike Becker, it put the pieces together.
This has perhaps been my favorite TV show of all time and the AV Club recaps were a big part of the whole experience. Thanks Les.
I still don’t get how anyone could think that the Bojack Horseman pilot was shaky. It was hilarious. I have no idea how you guys gave such mediocre grades to the first few episodes. It’s just overall a ridiculously terrible opinion.
Meh, this doesn’t really tell me anything I didn’t know/hadn’t already gleaned after S3, before S4 teased something bigger. Life keeps going without a clean ending? Well no shit, that just reinforces I should’ve stopped watching while knowing the show was still going on without me.
It really hurt that we couldn’t see what Hollyhock had written (although it’s pretty obvious). That stuck with me as the Season 4 finale was as memorable in its purity as the Season 2 penultimate episode was memorable in its shock. Hollyhock sought him out, but after hearing about the prom in New Mexico, plus all the news that came out at once, it was sensible for the story yet sad that she slowly pushed him away and changed her number. It really gutted me and now casts the Season 4 finale in a different light.But despite feel gutted about that, it’s gutted in a good way. It means a lot that the show made me feel like this and hope somehow, some way, BoJack could keep his relationship with Hollyhock intact.
When we first started watching this show, I didn’t know what to make of it and wasn’t sure I liked it. Now? Oof. I don’t know if I love it, because Bojack isn’t really likeable, but I sure as hell respect it. I like Diane a lot, I love the Chicago jokes, Todd turned into a real sweet guy… but mostly I love the messages. Keep trying. If you fuck up, fix it and do better. Be accountable.Life is complicated, it is messy, it goes in every direction possible. You can always screw it up, and you can always make it better.yep. This.
The next time BoJack and Diane will be in the same room will be at BoJack’s funeral.
Unless one of the others dies first. She’ll show up to PC’s funeral for example.
One thing: We don’t know what Hollyhock said in her letter . . . but we don’t need to. Because we don’t “know,” but we know. We know exactly what it said, and the fact the show didn’t feel like it needed to spell it out was brilliant
Very few shows have been able to articulate mental illness and addiction the way this show has. It addressed a ton of other issues as well, sometimes clunky but it never felt condescending. And not many shows have ever delivered the amount of puns and running gags so completely silly yet not betraying the messages of the show. And I don’t know many other shows that could pull off an episode like Free Churro. Sad to see it go but glad it didn’t go on too long.
Yep, I think it ended at the perfect time. Shows that go on too long end up either becoming repetitive and boring, or jumping the shark and losing their path completely. Bojack did neither, and while Season 6 arguably should have been stretched into two, it’s about as close to perfect as it can be.
I’m super late, but I think I would have got sick of Bojack if there were another season? I like him and want him to get better, but I’ve known Bojacks in real life (Diane’s speech in the finale broke me, cos I’ve had partners who threatened to kill themselves if I didn’t do something) and there’s only so many sighs of disappointment in a fictional character that I can muster.
Honestly, I enjoyed the quiet ending. This finale felt like time to rest and reflect while seeing these characters one last time. I cried my eyes out at the end of “The View from Halway Down”, and I had all the emotional and existential catharsis I needed from it. Instead of ending on that terrifying note, having an episode like this, with no giant revelations about death or depression or inner peace, was perfect. It was simply time, time to realize that sometimes, life’s a bitch and then you keep living.
For me the one most profound sentence of the episode or the series as a whole is when Bojack asks Diane something like “When did you start trusting the happiness?”. When things went well for the characters they became afraid of it all going away which resulted in them sabotaging everything and making their situation worse than before.
There’s a former Nottingham Forest striker named Jason Lee. I can only assume that he feels very personally slighted by Princess Carolyn.
BoJack ends up in prison for the least damaging mistake he’s made. There’s no redemption arc.
I wish BoJack hadn’t relapsed and crashed. They have done that so many times already, and I would have preferred a final eight episodes that were just about the struggle of staying better even after realizing that sobriety didn’t fix everything. But there was nothing wrong with this ending*, and it was done as well as it could have been and was very satisfying in its own way. It just wasn’t my ideal ending.*Except Diane and Guy. They never sold me on that relationship.
Replace Diane and Guy with PC and Judah and I totally agree with you. Diane and Guy isn’t perfect, but seems healthy and good in the moment, which seems to fit the show’s message. PC and Judah seems to be the polar opposite, where two people transfer their obsession with work which we have already seen be unhealthy with PC be turned towards one another just because they spend a lot of time together. And this is expressed through a cheesy “proclamation of love” from Judah upon which they get married mere months after starting a romantic relationship. It is basically like a checklist of everything the show has shown us is headed towards disaster and is a flaw in sitcom portrayals of romance.
Guy is the definition of “good enough” and paradoxically, that’s what Diane needs, because she’s always sabotaged herself before by striving for just slightly more than what she already had. She’s learned to settle just a tiny bit, and it works.
Watched all eight episodes in one night. Equally hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful. Well done, show!
Where was it hopeful?
Bojack’s life isn’t over. He has a chance at being happy. Plus, the other characters have all advanced in their lives. Basically, positive change is possible.
He’s alive. He’s currently sober. His friends aren’t angry at him anymore, even if they aren’t really his friends. He might fall off the wagon and he might not. He might go back to be a famous jerk and he might not. That’s life.
Eh, people keep saying that, but you can kinda see where a trend is going oftentimes, and there really seems to be one with Bojack that this final batch of episodes cemented.
Both Bojack and Good Place had finales that felt, more or less, like a condensed version of what one more season would’ve looked like.And I appreciated that. You got a chance to get a nice conclusion without a network or service trying to force them to stretch it out across X episodes.
I guess I want to understand the people who say episode 15 should have been the finale. I get it from a narrative standpoint. Certainly, with all the foreshadowing, it would have made tremendous sense. But when I think about the creators of this show and how so much of the audience relates to it because of its realistic depiction of mental illness, trauma, abuse, addiction, etc., ending it there would have sent far too cynical of a message, even for a show as bleak as this one is. Is that really the message you all wanted from this show? Basically Ana Spanikopita’s lifeguard story?“Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep on living” I think is a much more satisfying message. It’s still bleak, but with a tinge of hope at the end, much like this episode itself.
Also, “Hollywoob” is freaking hilarious. I wanna know if the writers actually planned some of these long-term payoffs in advance, or if they were really clever enough to just make it up on the spot, because this is just one example of so so many of them.
But in that case, the ending should’ve been Bojack actually changing/taking responsibility for his behavior. This still cemented that Bojack’s self-destruction is inevitable.
You think so? This episode actually reminds me of what Cuddlywhiskers said to Diane and Bojack, paraphrasing “It’s only when you give up everything can you truly start to be happy.” So many of BoJack’s selfish, destructive behavior stemmed from his need to be loved and adored and hide all of the unsavory and terrible things about himself. But now…it’s all out there. Everyone knows all the shitty things he’s done, there’s nothing left to hide. He paid a huge price for his actions, but it doesn’t mean his future is gone.
That’d make more sense if there wasn’t the whole dialogue about how Bojack is primed for a comeback. What’s to show us the next young reporter who does a profile piece on that “comeback”, won’t become the new Diane even if Diane really is done with him? What’s to tell us some kid who crashes at his place after crashing a “Horny Unicorn” celebration party at his new place doesn’t become the new Todd? If they wanted to send the message Bojack is capable of change, they should’ve showed it.
So much of the show is about Bojack trying to make his life what TV and movies taught him that life should be they couldn’t tip the hat one direction or the other. I think they felt that, in a show that tries to be emotionally true no matter how bizarre the setup, it would have been a disservice to the show and the fans to do anything other than put all the options on the table and let us decide what could happen next.They had to end the show eventually whether at Netflix’s behest or for the quality of their work and I think they decided to take, in a quote from Dune that Frank Herbert should have listened to, “the attitude of the knife – chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: ‘Now, it’s complete because it’s ended here.’”
I kind of thought Cuddlywhiskers’ line was undercut by being delivered in a million dollar plus personal Zen monastery. Just because something is spoken hypocritically doesn’t make it a lie, I suppose.
I don’t think this cements BoJack’s destruction as inevitable, it just informs us that it is possible, and his redemption is possible, too.
There’s no grand finale to recovery. You gotta do it every day.
I’m not sure if Episode 15 should’ve been the finale, but he definitely should have died.Maybe that’s selfish. But my single least favorite trope is to watch a character’s meaningful, poignant, affecting death, to come to grips with it, process it, and then be told NO FOOLED YOU HE’S NOT REALLY DEAD YOU IDIOT. I hate it. It tarnishes the meaning of what you’ve just watched, and tarnishes everything that happens after it.And for what? To wrap everything up in a neat little bow like this? The more I think about it, the more I hate it. This episode gets a D, and it moves the series down from an A to like a B-.
Nothing was wrapped up in a neat little bow. Fair enough if you don’t like the finale, but c’mon. “NO FOOLED YOU HE’S NOT REALLY DEAD YOU IDIOT”Did it feel like the writers said that to you? Not sure how you got that out of it, or how it tarnishes anything really–the series has always emphasized that living with your mistakes is harder than dying.
He got to have one last meaningful conversation with every other major character. It was very “contrived finale.”And yes, that’s exactly what I feel the writers said to me. They showed him dying, they showed the moment of his actual death, they had him be dead for half of the credits, and then they yanked the rug out from under us. The person with me was actually crying when he died, and then was kind of dumbfounded at the end. It’s taking pains to build our emotions, and then toying with them.Living with your mistakes is harder than dying, sure. They could’ve expressed that without teasing his death like they did.
That’s just called good storytelling. You felt exactly what the show wanted to you feel. You don’t want your emotions to be toyed with? The entire goal of art is to feel.And you didn’t say it was contrived. You said everything was wrapped up in a neat little bow despite nothing in the finale actually supporting that.
Our opinions of good storytelling differ.I used the word contrived to explain how I thought everything was wrapped up neatly. I’m not sure what kind of gotcha game you’re trying to play, but it’s stupid.
Not playing games. Just trying to understand your position, and it still doesn’t make any sense. ‘Contrived’ and ‘wrapped up in a neat little bow’ are very different things (and the finale is neither of those things). Which is it? And yes, I guess our views differ. Never thought feeling things could ever be construed as bad storytelling, but ya learn something new every day.
I loved the opening to this, after how devastating the episode before it felt, I needed some sight gags like that one awful photo they use for Bojack or the saga of the bojeebies kid. Plus it was nice to have some animation callbacks like the obvious Bojack waking up intro style and that low shot from the ocean episode. I’d be curious to see what this crew could do with a straight up full goof comedy show. While obviously the emotional depth of Bojack is vital, it’d be interesting to see what a show just of the great doofy comedy would be like.I assume this season had the plotline ideas they had lined up for the next few seasons before Netflix said it was over (Rehab, Professor Horseman, Bojack’s reckoning, Bojail Horseprisoner, etc.) so it did feel a bit speedy, but I thought they pulled everything together nicely.
Man, I remember ages ago when the first trailers for the series dropped and I thought this was going to be a dumb show with dumb animal jokes. And boy have things come a long way from then.
I finished over the weekend, and I just want to write a couple of quick points:-This show is brilliant and the final two episodes are brilliant (and devastating in the way this show always is). I thought the ending was pretty perfect.-The reasons why it was all so good have been covered by the review and the comments here far better than I could. Instead, I want to point out a couple of finale moments that were really funny in the midst of all the serious things. Part of this show’s greatness is how hilarious it was while dealing with serious issues, and the end was no exception. First, the last Mr. PB/Erica joke was one of the funniest jokes of the entire series for me. The fantastic delivery of the lines followed by the abrupt cut to Bojack alone at the party really got me.Second, if I am not mistaken Bojack’s prison roomate is a skunk., which I also found to be a very funny touch. Not many animals would be worse to share a small cell with…….Everyone involved with Bojack Horseman did such a fantastic job, and I am going to miss the show very much.
A skunk on the top bunk
Thanks for catching what happened to Gina
“No one in the series has born the weight of BoJack trying and failing to be better than Diane.”::Gestures wildly at Sarah-Lynn::
Nope. Bojack rarely “tried” with Sarah Lynn. She was the one he hung out with when he wasn’t interested in trying.
This
Sarah Lynn bore the consequences of BoJack on his lows but they never spent any significant or meaningful time together. She was just someone to get high out of his gourde with.
It had to end with Diane and Bojack, because that was always the emotional core of the series. And when the two (god bless Brie and Arnett) were together, there were so many great moments, until there wasn’t – and the two were the worst enablers for one another. I’m not going to put this at the top of the Best Finales ever. I would have liked the writers and creators to have the time to give the ending that they wanted, even if that would have meant another season, or just two sorter seasons. But this was a show that resonated like few other shows have or ever will. “Stupid Piece of Shit” was like a goddamn damn burst of a revelation of what other people struggle with on a sometimes daily basis. Todd’s final goodwill gesture was one of the most touching moments in the entire series. For two-plus seasons, he has routinely pushed back against Bojack. Most likely, the two will continue to drift apart, but at least it appears Todd is gradually allowing himself to forgive Bojack. Selfish note – I’m glad they didn’t reveal everything, but I would love to know the contents of Hollyhock’s letter.
Some prison guard got a line in the first two or three minutes.
Not quite; the prison guard who alerts BoJack to the fact that it’s time to go doesn’t actually say anything, he merely clears his throat. (Just went back and rewatched it.)
Doggy doggy… What now?
It’s odd to me that they had a whole dialogue about power imbalances in relationships with Bojack, then ends the show with PC marrying her assistant.
Too many seams were showing in the last episodes of where they had to stitch things up because of that additional season Netflix didn’t give them. This ended up feeling rushed and unsatisfying.
If the show were launched now, it probably wouldn’t have continued past 1 or 2 seasons. Bad Netflix. But I don’t agree at all that it felt unsatisfying.
That endgame was sublime. The best part, by far, was the jump from Angela to A View from Halfway Down. For the entire run of the show, Bojack had developed an internal view of his life as follows:
1. He had a horrible childhood marked by terrible people. (When he’s thoughtful, he realizes that those terrible parents also had terrible childhoods.)
2. He was still good and talented, but Hollywood manipulated him into being bad. It all started when he was forced to betray Herb.
3. Everything after followed from this and he can’t make sense of it.
But Angela showed this was all a lie – he always had a choice. With Herb. And as a result with every step after. There may not have been machinations or schemes (as he puts it), but he accepted these changes. And he needed to know it was a lie. Angela showed him. She broke him.
So, in A View from Halfway Down, Bojack is stripped down. All he can be is apologetic to everyone, to see his failings. And so he is now changed. He can see his failures to his friends, his peers, and the people he crossed who weren’t on that list. He can maybe live a life again. A smaller life, but maybe one that he can control more. There’s hope. He likes honeydew melons finally.
Years ago, Mara Wilson talked about her experience as a child actor, and she mentioned people asked her often what she’d tell someone like Lindsay Lohan if given the chance. She felt Lindsay clearly didn’t enjoy acting anymore and recommended she leave Hollywood to help maintain her sanity and sobriety. Problem is Lindsay has been acting since childhood. It was all she knew.
Drugs and alcohol weren’t her main addiction; Fame was. Bojack, as a character, is the same way. He’s proven he can give up drugs and alcohol went prompted. But here he is, the most infamous man in America thanks to his scandals and prison sentence, and he perks up at the chance of a new project once he gets released. It’s telling that Princess Carolyn recognized that and quickly realized the mistake she made indulging him.
Diane, I think, ended up the best because she realized what an awful cycle this was. Maybe it’s not surprising Bojack still tries to revive his career in Hollywoob in spite of everything. But Diane did what was best for her by getting out of dodge completely and finding a new way of being happy she hadn’t considered before.
Diane’s arc parallels Charlotte’s, who just realized a lot earlier that Hollywood wasn’t going to do anything good for her.
The Mantis Shrimp worked in the factory in “Fish Out of Water”
So I guess I had a different read on it to basically all of you. I didn’t feel anyone was done with BoJack by the end, but that they had all grown enough for him to not have power over them anymore. None of them feel like they need him, but all understand him and to an extent enjoy his company.Regarding Diane, I feel it was her intention to say goodbye but that long pause at the end is them finding themselves in a place of comfortable existence. Those 2 are connected, they are different sides of the same coin, bonded and as that song plays out, I don’t think either want to leave but they’re finally ok to move on.
I think he’s realized the choice is in his hands:Is he more horse than a man?Or’s he more man than a horse?
I don’t know, it was a good ending, and the last episode was amazing, but fuck Netflix for this half season bullshit. I would have loved to see an episode with the immediate aftermath of the interview, and even a prison episode where we see him come to the place where teaching inmates to act gives him the same sort of joy Herb experienced from his philanthropy. Something to establish that after the attempted suicide, he might have started a new chapter.This episode was all about the death of the old one. Diane, Todd and Caroline aren’t going to be in his life anymore, and while PB’s door is always open, he’s not someone you can rely on for emotional heavy-lifting. I understand this ending is more challenging, but I wanted something to show that this is different from all the other times Bo had an epiphany about himself, tried to enact some sort of positive change in his life, only for his self-loathing to sabotage it all over again. If we had gotten that in a prior episode, I feel his uncertainty about his sobriety and getting out of jail would have more weight.
unresolved fan theories like whether or not Sarah Lynn’s stepdad abused herDo people really see this as an “unresolved fan theory”? To me it’s a straightforward interpretation of the subtext—of course we’re meant to think that Sarah Lynn’s stepdad abused her.
I was in for the penny and the pound on this one and was not dissatisfied with the ending. My only complaints were that they didn’t do these two things:
Show us Erica (they even tease us with a reference to her in the last episode only to leave it unansweredGive us some follow-up/resolution to Vincent AdultmanOtherwise, I was content with the ‘closure’ that Bojack did finally have to suffer some real consequence for something and accepted it, and also content with the fact that no one really had closure because that’s how real life works.
One of the worst shows I’ve ever kept watching. Seasons 1-2: B+Seasons 3-6: F-
I would love to watch the live-action of the actors recording these scenes, especially Princess Carolyn’s and Diane’s. Assuming the actors were actually together, which I hope is the case just because.
I’d like to think they’d do it for a show like this. Some animated shows don’t, but others like the Simpsons insist on having at least the characters in a scene together record together. I think it does help improve the acting quality.
this show reminds me a bit like Buffy in that the name, genre, and conceit of the show immediately tuned out people off and completely missed one of the great shows in television history as a result. This was a great TV show. Among other things, it was one of the best depictions of depression I’ve seen in any media. I kind of wonder what the reception of this show would be if it was a regular tv show, filmed in reality with human non-horse actors.
I think it took full advantage of animation as a medium—it might have not have worked as well in live action.
He probably should have died, because whoever wrote the previous episode was pretty sure they killed him off, but this was a great series.
This finale definitely spoke to me, having just gotten married and having those fears, while also removing a narcissistic friend who overdosed years ago from my life, as I realized he is who he is and he can’t have that control over my emotions. I don’t hate him, there’s just too many good times, but had to make a break from it all. We’re both vastly different people than we were when we became friends as kids. I was worried for a second they were going to have Diane and Bojack kiss, which would’ve ruined everything.
Nobody’s mentioned my favorite joke of the episode, when the newspaper text saying “Horseman Dead” zooms out to say “Headless Horseman Cinematic Universe Dead at Sony” with the smaller side headline being “BoJack Horseman Not Dead”. It’s the perfect mix of reality and the ridiculous that makes the humor in this show so great.A lot of people say that the first episode, or first season were subpar and an issue of growing pains, but honestly I never quite agreed with that sentiment. I think BoJack, even from the start, was one of the funniest and most clever adult comedies ever made, and while it took a bit to ALSO become one of the most insightful and emotionally complex dramas ever made, I think it’s comedy standings are too often overlooked by just how good the dramatic work is. Personally I find it difficult for me to get into or not be exhausted by nuber-intense character drama shows like Mad Men or Breaking Bad, but BoJack’s comedic brilliance always kept me engaged with a story that otherwise might have held me off with it’s darkness and emotional depth. To be able to give it’s audience both extremes at once, and have them compliment each other so well, is what makes BoJack Horseman the best show out there.
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Bojack Horseman Quotes will make you realize that someone may have everything in this universe and still be unhappy. Some of the best quotes are arranged here so that you can be inspired that you need a little to become happy. Bojack horseman quotes about life are relevant as the situation is set upon an alternate universe where human and anthropomorphic animals live side by side. If you have everything and you are destined to be sad, you will be sad. You can’t bypass it. Some of the sad Bojack horseman quotes have also been added to make you realize destiny. Enjoy the quotes: https://quoteskarma.com/bojack-horseman-quotes/