So Let's Talk About That Last Season of BoJack...

So let’s talk about that last season of BoJack Horseman. Perhaps the most remarkable television series of the past ten years ended rather inconspicuously, both in its style and in the fact that not many seem to have acknowledged it. Indeed, Netflix chose a poor time to put it out -on the same day as Brexit finally happened and the platform was working more to push another acclaimed product that just arrived there, Uncut Gems (it’s fantastic, watch it!). And yet, it’s not much a surprise, especially in light of how little respect Netflix seemed to pay BoJacks’ sister show Tuca and Bertie. But in a way, the move makes sense on a metatextual level. There is no big fanfare, the finale is out there now for us to make of it what we will and life moves on, which is the core theme of that finale.

That said, it still doesn’t make me happy that such an intrepid, astoundingly good, and genuinely culturally important show has to end this way with little note or appropriate promotion; and only the appraisal its been getting from folks like Les Chappell at the AV Club or Emily VanDerWerff of Vox, both of whom ranked it high on their lists of the best shows of the decade and had only positive things to say about this last batch of episodes, to make an imprint in the public consciousness about it. Nevertheless I’m confident history will be extraordinarily kind to this hilarious yet harrowing series about a depressed, toxic, former T.V. star addict (who just happens to be a horse-man), and the lives of the people around him; that had the courage to tackle weighty subject matter in intensely honest ways, and the conviction to not be entirely insular and hold its’ title character and even itself accountable for the actions and themes espoused. It represented what I feel T.V. ought to be in the twenty-first century so flawlessly that I still can’t quite believe it exists. And now that it’s gone I wish more than ever that that same spark allowed to make its way into Tuca and Bertie wasn’t entirely extinguished.

Season six of BoJack Horseman was clearly two seasons meshed together, which is why a number of the middle episodes on both ends (the season was released in two parts in late October and the end of January) feel a bit rushed and materially crowded in spite of the extended length of the season as a whole. Certainly the timeline was much greater, moving from BoJacks’ treatment in rehab and therapy to coming out sober, leaving Hollywoo behind to become an acting teacher at Wesleyan then returning in light of a scandal, blundering a major public appearance leading to a relapse into his old vices and a subsequent near-death experience. In all, the season covers a period of maybe two years, evident in the developments of the characters around BoJack as well, most notably Diane, who begins the season on the road still working for Girl Croosh and ends it as a modestly successful YA novelist married and living in Houston.

But if the pacing of these developments could have been better, the developments themselves were wonderful. Each character got one final arc that seemed absolutely fitting. Mr. Peanutbutter’s latest relationship ends when his fiancé falls for a pop star as part of a mutual infidelity arrangement made after he confessed to cheating. At the same time he’s the headliner of a new hit show Birthday Dad; and while Mr. Peanutbutter has underwent the smallest amount of change since the series began, his self-awareness regarding his relationships with women and his own fame, is still noteworthy.

Todd Chavez, who has spent the whole series in a strange limbo of failing upwards as he tries to find a calling, gets to realize he’s a good nanny for Princess Carolyn’s adorable daughter Ruthie, and with his asexual girlfriend Maude pivots this into starting a daycare. We also finally get to see his backstory and the circumstances by which he wound up on BoJacks’ couch all those years ago: a fractured relationship with his mother that both awkwardly want to amend now that she needs a kidney transplant. Through a few Todd schemes it ends rather bittersweet, with a healthy reunion, but one in which Todd has grown so much in her absence, no longer the irresponsible slacker she once kicked out, and a wholly different person.

Princess Carolyn after a bit of a bumpy start, manages to find a stable balance between running her agency and being a mum. She gains renewed confidence, the character around whom all the others come to work for in some capacity, as the producer of Birthday Dad and Diane’s literary agent. Most surprisingly though she also finds a new romance with her loyal and exceptionally good assistant Judah. This upward swing is incredibly satisfying given everything she’s been through, that she can have her cake and eat it too as a successful and influential woman in the industry where she was once just BoJack’s lifeline to it, is utterly inspiring.

As are the fruits of Diane’s journey. Diane Nguyen, forever the soul of the show, spent much of the season struggling with either writers’ block or the repercussions of her own bouts of depression. The season sees her deal with relocating to Chicago with her boyfriend Guy, start taking antidepressants, and embark on a memoir/book of personal essays project. The key moment for her comes in the fantastic “Good Damage”, where her inability to fully articulate and find meaning in her traumas, thus preventing her from writing the book she feels she’s supposed to write, gives way to a different kind of literary project and more healthy way of healing through a teen mystery story called Ivy Tran, Food Court Detective -and her realization there’s more than one way of reaching out and inspiring people. Diane’s ultimate journey is beautiful, and especially in the context of where she started the series, it’s such a dramatic transformation (she even boasts a new character design), and by the end of the show she’s exactly where she deserves to be physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

Indeed everybody ends the show in a good place, except perhaps its’ title character, which depending on how you look at it is either the shows’ biggest surprise or its greatest inevitability. Aside from just the convenience of spreading out more episodes, there’s a tactical reason this last season was split into two parts. BoJack has two character arcs one after the other, each corresponding to an idea of where the washed up star would end up. I had a theory around the end of season four that BoJack would run six seasons and that the first three having chronicled his downward spiral, ending at his lowest point in the death of Sarah Lynn, the subsequent three would be about his climb back up, his redemption to a degree -surely that seemed the implied route after he ended season four in personal triumph over any big disaster. To a degree I was right, BoJack’s concerted efforts to be better were more pronounced these last couple seasons. But as Raphael Bob-Waksberg and his tremendous staff of writers showed, it’s not as easy as that. BoJack’s growth is tenuous, that toxicity, psychological damage and self-loathing too deeply ingrained to be completely snuffed out. And he’s hurt too many people to let his past actions completely slide. Consequences remain a big theme after season five, the show emphasizing that BoJack’s personal growth doesn’t amount to much if he can’t atone for what he did to people like Penny and Charlotte, Herb, Sarah Lynn, Gina, and even Hollyhock -the most important person in his life.

“The Face of Depression” was the finale another show might have given BoJack, and it would have been a good one. BoJack has left rehab, kicked his addiction, is attending AA, and is doing everything right. He’s making up with his friends and loved ones, looking out for others and what’s best for them over his own interests, sincerely pursuing change by letting his gray hair show and adopting a new look, and maturely decides to leave Hollywoo for a more humble vocation. The episode even ends with him connecting profoundly with his cultural roots. It’s one of the series’ best and most searingly optimistic outings, and for that I can see why some wouldn’t like what came next.

While the second half of the season begins in the same earnestness, it doesn’t take long for the old demons to resurface. BoJack does so well handling the controversy that breaks over the Sarah Lynn incident in a televised interview, accepting his culpability, opening up about his emotions and mistakes, and truly apologizing in a way that makes him the rare example of a good guy in a system and circumstances without any. But then he impulsively agrees to a follow-up interview, perhaps allured by the limelight, and it’s much more pointed, severe, and interrogative, connecting the dots between Sarah Lynn and a pattern of behaviour that reveals a (horse)man naive or in denial about his power over women. And BoJack’s defence mechanism kicks in. All this time he has parsed out each of his failures as isolated incidents, remorseful over them, but on a case by case basis. He was not prepared to be shown the insidious way they’re linked.

From there everything goes south, from becoming a pariah and aligning himself with the shows’ Mel Gibson analogue and the anti-PC brigade to losing the one ounce of family he had left to learning the choice that was one of the first dominoes in all of this was rooted in a lie, culminating in the end of his sobriety and one of the most important and best episodes of the series.

Eight episodes from when he was on the path to a good life, BoJack is on deaths’ door, the deepest, darkest place the show has gone and yet exactly where it has been going, forecast in the opening titles since the beginning. It’s devastating seeing him lose so much of what he fought to gain in such a short span of episodes, and in “The View From Halfway Down” the series indulges in the second option for where the series would ultimately lead -the direct opposite of “The Face of Depression”. There’s a lot to say about this episode that numerous other critics have said better (among them the aforementioned Chappell), one of the series’ most ominous, tragic, heartbreaking, darkest, and provocative episodes, that includes more than a couple of the shows’ greatest emotional gut-punches (Stanley Tucci’s casual yet haunting delivery of the line “oh no, BoJack, there is no other side; this is it” is especially brutal). But what’s important is it’s role as the ultimate pessimistic end to this show: BoJack is dying and none of the deceased figures of his past have any words of comfort. Given the tone the show has maintained, the level of BoJack’s self-destructiveness, this was always a plausible end; and as many people who would prefer “The Face of Depression” as the series finale would prefer this be the shows’ swansong.

But… both are wrong. To end at “The Face of Depression” would be to ignore part of the series’ commitment to exploring consequences and the never-ending nature of personal growth. To end at “The View From Halfway Down” would be nihilistic, irresponsible to the shows’ dialogue on mental illness, too clean and too easy -after all, how many of the antihero dramas the series is satirizing ended with the death of the protagonist?

Which is why “Nice While it Lasted is the best ending to BoJack Horseman. It’s a minimalist episode, only featuring the shows’ main cast in speaking parts, reaffirming the resolutions for Diane, Princess Carolyn, Todd, and Mr. Peanutbutter, while emphasizing the lack of one for BoJack himself. It’s split into four final conversations BoJack has with each of his co-stars, each yielding something interesting. Mr. Peanutbutter in making a stronger effort for his show (which has now won a Nobel prize) and understanding better his relationship issues, yet still communicating a lot through pop culture analogies to BoJack’s half-hearted annoyance, is the perfect demonstration of “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. With Todd, there’s an interesting epiphany he’s gained while working with children about the real meaning of “The Hokey-Pokey”, which he brings up in one last attempt to instill some change in BoJack: he has to turn himself around, that’s what it’s all about. 

BoJack’s oldest relationship now is with Princess Carolyn and it might be the most hopeful, even with that fleeting glimpse of old fame-seeming BoJack coming back. It’s her wedding that’s the centrepiece, what BoJack has been temporarily brought out of a fourteen month imprisonment for breaking-and-entering for, and the two share a dance, as well as what might be the most moving conversation between them -providing one last opportunity for BoJack to say and do right thing as he encourages her happiness in the face of a lingering doubt.

But of course it must all end with BoJack and Diane, at this point arguably co-protagonists of a show bearing one of their names. They’ve been through a lot together, suffered so much together, and have had profound impacts on each others’ lives, both positive and negative …and they have no future together, with Diane and Aaron Long’s direction strongly implying this is the last time they’ll ever see each other. It makes sense, not only because Diane has firmly moved on from her “LA years”, and BoJack’s apparent aggressive drunken voicemail just before his suicide attempt left her with enormous guilt, but because they are no longer compatible. And a part of both of them knows, they can only move forward in each others’ absence with the tether cut. 

“I think there are people that help you become the person you end up being,” Diane says. “And you can be grateful for them, even if they were never meant to be in your life forever.” It’s a tender moment, made more so by Alison Bries’ amazing delivery of just the words “thank you”. BoJack is clearly nervous about continuing his journey without her, but as “Mr. Blue” by Catherine Feeny (the last of a sensational series of music choices on this show) plays over the two of them one last time sitting on the roof in their uncertainty staring at the beautiful night sky, there’s hope -in the song, the animation, the atmosphere. In the days, weeks, months, years to come after this wedding, BoJack will continue to screw up, but thanks to people like Diane and mark they’ve forever left on him, he will likewise continue to work to be better, because he knows he can be.

That’s the ultimate ethos of the show and why in this ambiguity and lack of conventional closure, “Nice While it Lasted” is the perfect finale for it. No failure is too great that you can’t get back up. Everyone makes mistakes and hurts people, and does the wrong thing. But while you can always fall farther, you can always keep climbing, and so long as you do, there is hope. Life’s a bitch, so keep on living.

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