The Wife and I completed Season 6, the final season, of Bojack Horseman last night. It remains the most emotionally intelligent situation-comedy ever shown on television, if we can call Netflix television. Slate.com has been excellent throughout the series in describing and analyzing the show, as one may see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Salon has also gotten in on the action, as seen here, here, here, and here. For those wishing to devolve for a moment into biography, here is an interview with the show's creator, Raphael Bob-Waskberg in Slate, and a longer interview in the New York Times Magazine, which shows the show had the lucky star to be pitched through a production company Michael Eisner had invested in.
I was first turned on to Bojack because The Son said, Dad, you need to watch this. It was during the show's first season. The Wife and I started watching, and I was intrigued, but wondered, where is this show going? I got the point that it was a brilliant send-up of Hollywood culture in a way that was not quite done before. The usual attack on Hollywood culture is people are rich and don't know what to do with their money. The usual attack on Hollywood culture "from the inside" is artists and people in the industry set upon by crazed fans, people who want something from you (whether that is All About Eve to the women who wanted something to help their careers from Bill Cosby, and it was not enough for Cosby to seduce them in a straight forward way, but, instead, drug them), or the grotesque and rip-off producers and studio executives, who grab every dime from creative people they can. With Bojack, there was, at first, something more penetrating, which was how fast the people in the industry speak, and how they never listen to each other. In the first season's first five or so episodes, one sees this pattern again and again, as characters essentially say, "Enough about you, how about more about me?" and how literally two people appear to be talking to each other, but are only engaged in monologues--and if there is any interaction, it is "um-hum," or "yeah," or "too bad," and then each are off to the races, talking about themselves again.
But then, around the first season, episode seven, the show begins to pivot to what it would be about fro the rest of the series. The show would be about how traumatized people are from their successes as well as failures, about these highly successful people having impostor syndrome, about mentally abusive parents, about the lure of drugs and alcohol from having so much money, and using those substances to numb pain or feelings of inadequacy, and the sense that everything can be taken away if there is not a new hit. As I watched the remaining episodes of the first season, I spoke with The Son and said, This show is more like an animated comic novel. It has deep pathos amidst dark humor. It is also the most emotionally intelligent show I have ever seen. The Son nodded in mild agreement, but, then again, he doesn't like to credit his father with too much insight, and did not there I don't know why, but you can ask Turgenev, I suppose. :) I think I am deeply insightful, of course. Modesty, ya know?
Anyway, when reading through the various Slate and Salon articles (they are worth it), and this article from a psychology online magazine, one sees I am correct in that summation, and I am thankful others saw this, too--unlike my analysis about, say, the first Kingsman film or Marvel/DC films of the past 20 years, where I appear to be essentially alone.
But I'd like to talk about something missed in the articles about the final season episodes. Yes, Season 6 descends into cancel culture, as Bojack is held accountable for his primary role in the death of Sarah Lynn, his former, and troubled child co-star of his 1990s television show, Horsin' Around, who is very much based upon Disney Girls like Lindsay Lohan and especially Britney Spears. But Bojack is not Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein. He was spinning out of control again himself at the time, and was able to drag Sarah Lynn, who had finally become sober and was thinking of becoming an architect, with him that fateful night, which ended with Bojack passing out from booze and heroin, and Sarah Lynn dying beside him. Bojack did not know Sarah Lynn was dead until he came to, and, not wanting to take any responsibility, had left the place they were--the Griffith Observatory overlooking downtown Los Angeles--returned and then called police. There was a hint in Season 6 that maybe she was actually alive at the time--shades of Chappaquiddick--but that was not even close to being proven. What the series of episodes in Season 6 reveals is how easy it is for everyone online, in traffic passing the perpetrator, or at a drive-through window, to cast that first stone. This is especially so as we, the audience, know Bojack is a broken horse, er, man, starting with his terrible and mentally abusive upbringing, and the way in which he himself had been introduced to alcohol to numb his insecurities and trauma. And what audiences should wonder about, but I am afraid in our culture we don't, is whether anyone else could easily have led Sarah Lynn astray again, and where her agency as a woman in her mid 30s is located, too. It is not blaming the victim, but it is part of asking who is casting that first stone here.
What is never remarked upon in any discussion about Season 6 is what we learn about Bojack's first adult betrayal as a Hollywood television star: His agreeing to fire his best friend, Herb Kazazz, the co-creator of Horsin' Around, when Herb had been outed as gay. In Bojack's history, Horsin' Around was a family show popular in conservative America, and this was the 1990s, when being gay was still a "bad" thing. In the penultimate and harrowing Episode 15, Season 6, we learn, in his late night meeting with the former television executive, a woman, now old, and walking with a cane, that she lied to Bojack about whether he had the power to keep Herb on as producer of the show. Bojack was stunned to learn it was not the "network's" decision and he, Bojack, had to take it or leave the show--and, instead, he was so popular that he had the power to keep Herb on. Thus, we learn Bojack's original sin was based upon a television executive's fraud. We already know this television exec is bad because the reason the television exec has asked Bojack over to her mansion is to make Bojack sign away his rights, for a large sum of money, to Horsin' Around so the show may be reedited to remove Bojack in soon to be released DVDs. Bojack, desperate for money now that he has been canceled, and having paid $5 million to Sarah Lynn's parents (who we are not reminded are typically greedy show biz parents of child stars), signs the agreement. However, when he learns about her fraudulent based betrayal, he says he wants to tear up that contract. To placate Bojack, the television exec purrs and pushes a drink on Bojack, and, after an initial denial, Bojack succumbs. As Bojack drinks, he reminds himself he is a piece of shit, anyway (which was the title of an amazing episode of self-loathing from a couple of seasons before, by the way), and does not tear up the contract. He gets drunk, and returns to his now former home, forgetting he had to sell it to pay Sarah Lynn's parents, where he takes pills from a medicine cabinet, and decides to go for a swim in the pool, and almost dies.
Now what is significant there? How about this: The television exec is as much at fault, maybe even more so, for Bojack almost dying, and literally Bojack is dying at the bottom of that pool before the family who bought the home comes back from an outing to find him nearly dead. She has done essentially and exactly what Bojack did with Sarah Lynn, except her motivations were totally fraudulent, callous, and commercially based, while Bojack was drowning his sorrows and dragged Sarah Lynn down with him. He had no intent to hurt Sarah Lynn, certainly not in the way the television exec was doing. Yet, the show has no perspective as to whether this television exec should be "canceled," charged with recklessness approaching murder, as Bojack had been in the civil suit, or any other consequence. And, had the television exec not been an old woman who was in physical pain, and, instead, had been the young woman, she would likely have seduced Bojack into accepting that contract. For that is how these callous television execs are, aren't they? But, wait. This is a woman. Cancel the cancel culture then for most women, at least.*
There is also something most viewers may have missed, but bears illumination. As Bojack is recuperating in the hospital after his near-death experience, the family sues Bojack for intentional infliction of emotional distress (the tort only requires a standard of "recklessness," not actual intent), and the supposedly young and therefore impressionable son is the lead plaintiff, for having to see and then save Bojack from himself. The show is not clear, but it appears the family receives millions of dollars in a settlement, so that the money Bojack received from signing the contract is transferred to that family, essentially. The show then does a quick take to a headline showing how the supposedly traumatized son lands a show or endorsement deal, which shows us how post-traumatic distress syndrome is manipulated in the US tort system. I mean, really, this child is so traumatized from seeing Bojack lying deep in the pool, and yet miraculously recovers and maneuvers himself into a lucrative deal on top of the millions gained from a civil lawsuit--while Bojack remains the bad guy. Again, it is not as if Bojack is a good guy, or only a victim. What the show tells us is, more of us are broken than we can ever imagine, and maybe some humility is necessary.
In addition, there is a loose end, which is what will happen when people learn, in a manipulative way, what happened in New Mexico--yes, I know, ironic that we live here now--when, in Season 3, I believe, the then 17 year old daughter of a former waitress Bojack knew in Los Angeles, was seducing Bojack and the mother-waitress stops it when she walks in on them. The show is great in showing, as a 17 year old, the daughter has no agency under the law to be able to seduce Bojack, and it was up to him, as the adult, to simply demand she stop and kick her out of the room they were in. In Season 6, the daughter is now grown up, and she has decided she was the victim, without any sense of irony at her own agency in fact, if not under the law. It is a stroke of luck Bojack is not exposed again to the stones of the stone-casters, and the show leaves open the potential that an enterprising gossip reporter will push that story into the open. The episodes in Season 6 which deal with the mother and daughter arguing over whether to go public, with the mother wisely telling the daughter how she, the daughter, will be dragged through the mud regardless of her daughter being a victim, are outstanding. But I think the audience recognizes, intuitively, the cynicism lurking within the daughter for justice years later.
The show's last episode shows Bojack returning to his path we have seen starting in Season 5, and, at the end, we hear a new rendition of a sorta sappy song, Mr. Blue, originally released in 1959, but given a modern, ironic and upbeat poignancy by Catherine Feeney. And a word should be said about the music used periodically throughout the series. The music was always used in ironic, dramedy ways, and, original songs, right up through the song from Princess Carolyn's brilliant, Asberger's assistant, Judah Mannowdog, were brilliant. It was funny because, as I have always said, Princess Carolyn was the character I loved the most, and found the most kind amidst the other self-centered characters. It is not that she was not capable of selfish cruelty for her career, far from it. It is just, when all is said and done, she had the best moral center among the other main characters. People usually say Mr. Peanutbutter, but he is simply too emotionally callous and lacks too much self-awareness as to be of use in a jam, though he does redeem himself by never forsaking Bojack even after Bojack is canceled, as in cancel-culture.
Bojack also had great social commentary that was spot on and up to date, including Season 6's subplot about how television and film assistants are poorly paid and usually abused in one form or another. There were other social comments throughout the series, starting with great attacks on cable news, complete with ridiculous and horrid crawlers, where one had to rewind to see and appreciate.
Overall, Bojack Horseman is one of the greatest shows ever to be seen on a television screen and deserves to be analyzed the way one would analyze Flaubert or Hardy. It is a powerful meditation on human emotional trauma in an otherwise civilized society, and its interplay between power relations, sexual relations, and familial relations are the stuff of a great psychology course. Yet, most people missed it because, too often, we think, Oh, it's a cartoon, as if it is for children, or if it is only about lampooning. Instead, those people missed a thoughtful, profound experience.
*We know, too, how plenty of men in the Hollywood and political industries continue to get away with bad behavior, and how Trump has, too. But it is telling how the show doesn't even push to question whether there is any legal consequence for that woman tv exec's conduct. And the audience is not invited to even think of consequences for her conduct.
*We know, too, how plenty of men in the Hollywood and political industries continue to get away with bad behavior, and how Trump has, too. But it is telling how the show doesn't even push to question whether there is any legal consequence for that woman tv exec's conduct. And the audience is not invited to even think of consequences for her conduct.
