"Time's Arrow" Explained | The Tolls of Trauma

Time Zero is one of the most unique episodes of Bojack Horsemen and gives us some much-needed insight into Beatrice Horseman's life explored through her own dementia-riddled mind. This episode shows all the most important and moving events in Beatrice's life and achieves the most effective twist of the entire series, but beyond making one of the most antagonistic characters in the series somewhat empathetic,

time

zero is a Heartbreaking look at the ways

trauma

can resonate across generations, as I mentioned, this episode is explored through Beatrice's dementia, which is incredibly creative framing device. The events of Beatrice's life occur out of order and Scenes often cut back and forth through

time

one moment Beatrice is with her debutante Paul the next she is back home getting ready Sometimes the reality of the present with her son Bojack creeps into these memories that others were watching Beatriz's battle with scarlet fever as a child, the important pieces of these memories come through clearly, while the less important details are sometimes not present at all almost all of the non-important or background characters literally have no face, some details are altered or changed depending on your perception of those things at the time, like this opening sequence of beatrice's childhood, the last slide beatrice goes up seems incredibly high with dangerous thieves on the bars, this must have been how The latter felt before Beatrice at that age and that is why she staggered.

The mind is adjusting its own memories to the reality of those emotions and fears, but while this is an incredibly interesting way to tell the story, it technically makes Beatrice an unreliable narrator, we can't be sure that what she remembers is really accurate because your memory can't. They can be fully trusted, and while I think they seem to tell an accurate story, the important thing about these moments, even if they are altered or exaggerated in Beatriz's mind, is that this is how she herself feels about them, this is how the affected and are how they have shaped Beatriz as a person and her worldview, so while we can't be 100% sure that these events necessarily played out exactly this way or not, we can be sure that Beatriz remembers them clearly. this way and that can tell us a lot.

About Beatrice as a character, Time Zero is in many ways a sequel to Season 4's other masterpiece, The Old Sugarman Place, and to fully understand Beatrice's journey it's important to remember the events of that episode, the devastating events of Beatrice's childhood in the 1940s had lasting effects on her development and relationships. By 1944, Beatrice had a complete and loving family, although Joseph was always abusive and troublesome. Beatrice's mother and Cracker Jack shared a special bond with her and truly cared for each other the following summer. She had lost both relationships and was left only with the death of her father, Crackerjack, in World War II, devastated Honey, who was then lobotomized in her grief.

There are some obvious ways in which these events change the course of Beatriz's development. Promise me you'll never love anyone. As much as I loved Crackerjack, but there are some less obvious ones and it's understandable that these events completely changed her views on her father Joseph and her relationship with him in her teenage years, after Beatrice returned from college, we see how Their relationship has become more antagonistic, but instead. as a bachelor, you returned home with a bachelor's degree and a morsel of sass, what a waste, while Beatriz complies with many of her father's wishes, such as participating in her own debutante ball, she clearly does not respect his views or his style of life, ugh, I'm just doing it.

This for my father, who has very old-fashioned ideas about how a woman should live. The

trauma

of watching her mother become a lifeless husk clearly had something to do with driving Beatrice to this attitude that she was not willing to accept. her father's ways because she had already seen where she could lead, which is why someone like Candy Rider ended up being so attractive to Beatrice and the Enchanted Candy Riders. I'm sure this was a man who represented a completely opposite lifestyle to José, he didn't live a luxurious life, in fact, he had only crashed her debutante ball to get free drinks, he had big dreams of being a writer. famous and creativity was clearly not something Joseph Sugarman understood or valued, have your morning coffee or tea with sugar men and cream men, but save something for these guys candy was attractive to Beatrice as a person, yes, but it also appealed to Beatrice's wishes to defy her father.

You want me to leave my own party with you, yes, but I guess Dad wouldn't like that Woody. This led to Beatrice's disappearance from her senior dance, of course, only angering Joseph further, who demanded that Beatrice give her wealthy suitor Corbin Creamerman another chance. This is an important event that changes Beatrice's perspective a bit. I have ideas. too and I feel that I will never become anything other than what he previously expected me to be. Corbin Creamerman represented his father's lifestyle and therefore Corbin would have felt like a substitute for his own father. She falsely hoped for someone Joseph would want her to be with. an extension of her own beliefs, but when she actually got to know Corbin a little more, she realized that he experienced many of the same insecurities as her and this was attractive to Beatrice, of course, at this point it was hardly too late. for me that maybe you and I are not so loved after getting pregnant beatrice and butterscotch elope with big dreams of success on the west coast he wrote his great american novel while his wife took care of the baby but of course nothing goes as planned Butterscotch was not prepared to follow his writing dreams, and his failures slowly led Beatrice to resort to some of the tendencies instilled in her by her father.

She eventually shamed Butterscotch into taking a job at Sugarman West, giving them the more luxurious lifestyle Beatrice was accustomed to. This led to Butterscotch resenting Beatriz and forming a relationship with her young maid Henrietta, who eventually became pregnant with her child. Of course, we would later learn that this is hollyhock. This leads to another heartbreaking event after Butterscotch begs Beatriz to help him. She manipulates Henrietta. giving the baby up for adoption, this initially seems like Beatriz's way of helping Caramel, but ultimately ends up being portrayed as Beatriz feeling like she is actually helping Henrietta, don't waste your dreams for this child, don't let that man poison you. your life like he made mine here's an interesting side note have you ever noticed that butterscotch bojack and hollyhock have the same nervous tic very interesting detail beatrice clearly blames butterscotch and bojack for the unhappiness in her life and she really believes that she is saving henrietta from a life of her own unhappiness and this attitude goes back to beatrice's childhood the final sequence of these flashbacks is wonderfully disturbing and it all goes back to the moment when the last of beatrice's innocence was taken away from her obviously the events surrounding Crackerjack's death Honey's lobotomy death played a major role, but after these events, Beatrice contracts scarlet fever at Sugarman's old place, we see three things that bring comfort to Beatrice, Cracker Jack, Honey, and her doll. horse, two of these three things are taken away in the events of that one. episode and in this one the ending burns in front of her, this is obviously a play on the old story of the velveteen rabbit, but in Beatriz's case, her father's lack of empathy in an incredibly difficult period of her life It was really traumatic, yes, especially.

Her baby sees that she is not feeling better later in life, when Beatrice is faced with the idea of ​​aborting Bojack, she remembers taking her doll on fire and decides that she couldn't do it; Essentially, this childhood trauma is what led Beatrice to the life she would later regret and is why this final sequence is so impressive. Each of the three events shown on the screen represents three different times in Beatriz's life and each event can be followed directly to the decision made in the subsequent event: Beatriz's baby. Her doll is taken and burned in front of her.

This trauma leads Beatrice to feel the need to stay with Bojack, which in turn leads to her overwhelming resentment of her life with her husband and son and forcing Henrietta to reject the life she owns. Beatrice had given him. Malvarrosa up for adoption and this is just one example of the many ways generational trauma spread from Joseph to the characters we know and love in Bojack Horsemen. Following the aforementioned generational trauma is honestly quite depressing, but the ways in which these traumas can leave something lasting. It's important to explore impacts that span decades, so let's take a look at this family tree of generational trauma caused by the Sugarman family.

One thing we saw during Beatrice's childhood was an excessive amount of importance placed on her appearance and weight when she was a child, she was not allowed to. To eat pancakes or ice cream like her father or her brother, she can sprinkle some sugar on a lemon, which is a good healthy snack for girls. This was clearly a social problem, but people like Joseph echoed and reinforced his wife and daughter and it clearly affected. Beatrice comes into his life in many ways as we see her in her teens, asking her maid for a pretty pill, probably a weight-loss supplement, in her dementia-ridden memory of the late '90s, bringing Bojack a painting that It belonged to Joseph, we can see that.

Her refrigerator is full of sugar and lemons, which was the only treat she was allowed when she was a child. This shows that these ideas were internalized so deeply that they permeated her mind even into her old age, but the way this trauma filtered down generationally was with hollyhock. in season 4, when beatrice and malvarrosa live with bojack, beatrice picos malvarrosa's coffee with chubb is gone, another weight loss supplement, in addition to constantly making bad comments about her weight during the time they were together, you are so beautiful that you could also be thin, not just psychologically. he attacked hollyhock using similar tactics that were used against her throughout her childhood, but he literally drugged hollyhock to the point of overdosing, which were, of course, the events that led to this episode.

Another issue of this ongoing trauma is motherhood and there are many ways. that this trauma was shown, the most obvious being Honey Sugarman's lobotomy and Joseph Sugarman's general treatment of his wife. One of the most disturbing moments is when Joseph scolds Honey after Beatrice contracts scarlet fever. It is a mother's duty to keep her children alive and you are continually failing. Joseph tells Honey that she continually fails to keep her children alive, which is horrible for many reasons, but he even implies that it was Honey's fault that Cracker Jack died in the war. He lobotomized her, but Joseph's actions left Beatrice motherless for the vast majority of her childhood and also led to Honey giving Beatrice this horrible advice.

Promise me you'll never love anyone as much as I loved Crackerjack. This led to her general disdain for Bojack. all his life, which led him to seek that validation in other places, such as in comedy, but Beatriz also pushed that disdain for her own motherhood to poor Henrietta and, in turn, malvarrosa, cornered Henrietta in a situation in the one who was forced to give up her own son. Beatriz acted. as if she was doing this out of kindness, but it is clear that this was a manifestation of her own traumas that continued to affect her decision making deep in her life and, although Hollyhock was eventually raised by eight great parents, she still began with his mother in his later stage. teenagers and based on the fact that henrietta had also searched for hollyhock, it was clear that she was never at peace with the arrangement that beatrice forced her into, in addition to beatrice's general disdain for bojack, she instilled in him an unhealthy need to act, to Nobody cares.

Damn what you feel, you have an audience out there and they want to hear you sing. This was passed down from Beatriz to Bojack and then from Bojack to Sarah Lynn. You don't stop dancing and you don't stop smiling and giving. what those people want, the scope of generational trauma extends even beyond the family, sometimes to other people close to us and unfortunately we know how much sarah saralyn internalized this, she did not stop dancing despite her true desires to become an architect and The unhealthy coping mechanisms that Bojack and Saralyn engaged in ultimately ended his life and while we can't blame everything Bojack did wrong on generational trauma because ultimately Bojack is a personthat he made his own decisions, it's interesting to think about how Bojack could have done it. he treated people differently if he had been raised differently throughout the series.

Bojack has a general disregard for the feelings of the people he cares about. The events of the escape from Los Angeles were absolutely traumatizing for both Charlotte and especially Penny and we see that they have lasting effects on Penny's psyche, even years later, we cannot know for sure, but it is possible that this trauma could also be passed down generationally. I tried to rule it out but couldn't. In the end, there is truth in the phrase repeated by Joseph and Beatrice. time zero doesn't stop or go back, it just moves forward time doesn't stop for any of us, no matter what kind of trauma or adversity we face, no matter how much we want to go back, but Joseph and Beatrice used this as an excuse not to.

To properly deal with her trauma, Beatriz moved forward her entire life enduring trauma after trauma and then inflicting something of her own and the only way time zero stopped was through her own dementia and despite the righteous anger that Bojack directs towards Beatrice when leaves her at the nursing home, he decides to help her reverse time zero one last time. try the ice cream mom oh bojack how delicious this would be the last time we will see beatrice horseman alive in the series one of the most incredible things about her story is that she makes the audience understand and empathize with even the most detestable characters in her story. it's absolutely tragic, it doesn't justify her vitriolic and toxic attitude throughout the show, but it makes us understand it and it also makes the story even more tragic, but I think it represents a broader lesson that we can all appreciate.

The events in her lives The traumatic events in Beatriz's life were not her fault, but they shaped who she would become. While we may hate who and what she represents, it's important to recognize the complexities and nuances of life itself, and Beatriz led one of the most complicated. everyone's lives why do I have half a minute everyone loves you at home but no one you too could be thin it's going well your illness has infected everything everything everything difficult is, although friends, thank you very much for tuning in to another episode of Bojack Horseman. breakdown if you like this video definitely check out my other episode breakdowns and of course tell me what episode you want me to cover next in the comments below please do that whole liking and subscribing thing because it seriously helps the channel and it I will catch you next time peace