BOJACK HORSEMAN on CHANGE – Wisecrack Edition

What's wrong everyone, Helen? It's a pretty good time to be an adult cartoon, from happy-go-lucky South Park to the constant family guy flashbacks and those factory guys can suck it up. I'll leave this place someday for The liquor-fueled antics of Archer & Co. Many adult animated shows have become enduring classics of the 21st century, but we'd argue that possibly the most adult cartoon of all is a

horseman

. from Bojack, is neither as profane as South Park nor as sexually charged. like Archer because I can take you crazy, but in terms of catapulting its audience into a confusing cloud of anguished depression, the simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking world of Hollywood never fails to offer look, I have to go, I'm sorry you didn't really finish the talk in the mood I know, but I have a movie to put together very lucky, part of what makes Bojack so beloved is the way he defies convention and not just when it comes to the ethics of interspecies romantic love, the show features frequently depressed and screwed up characters. frequently does some pretty depressing and screwed up things, especially in its later seasons, the show is less about the adorable antics of your favorite on-screen friends than it is an emotionally challenging look at the lives of unhappy and seriously flawed people.

The most recent midseason looks to depict an evolving version of Bojack battling his addictions and becoming a better horse along with some promising smaller character arcs for his friends, but now that the show is coming to a conclusion, has to struggle with its fundamental foundation despite its many attempts by the characters. doesn't really

change

, understanding why Bojack's characters are so static requires examining the broader conversation the show is having with the family form of entertainment that the sitcom will explain in this witty

edition

on the

change

in Bojack Horseman, and spoilers that are coming up for the program.

So far, let's dive into a recap of season 6 so far, which finds Bojack hanging on and even thriving in rehab, where he waters the plants, accidentally gets his sober horse doctor drunk, and tells unnecessary truths to the non-powerful addicts in recovery around you. Really everyone is being honest. Doug over here, still wearing a suit and tie even though he'll never get his job in finance back, is finally forced to return to real life. Bojack is tormented by memories of the morally bankrupt horse he used to be and embarks on a cross-country trip. to make peace and figure out what to do with himself to finally decide to, it seems, teach acting at the hipster-filled Wesleyan liberal arts college where his hollyhock half-sister is studying, however, just when it seems Bojack is really becoming in a better version of that vodka. - soaked, self-obsessed celebrity we've come to know and scream in our heads, something else happens specifically, the eponymous character does not appear at all in the final episode of this half-season, instead the show focuses entirely on the victims of its poison.

The behavior of Sarah Lynn, who is super dead under mysterious circumstances, is currently being investigated by two tough reporters (Gina, who still has PTSD from the time budget cut), in character and directly strangled her, Kelsey, whose career is still suffering thanks to Bojack. antics if you told me when we started the day you'd be doing chicken commercials, not a commercial, worst of all, this half of the season ends with hollyhock right on the verge of discovering a horrible truth, who is he when Bojack was? in New Mexico he took his ex's daughter, Penny, to the prom, got her friends drunk, and almost hooked up with his wolf, so what is the series building up to in the final eight episodes and what trouble should you expect?

What does the program face? We have an idea. but first we have to talk about the big bang theory, it's relevant, we swear now, when the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus said that change is the only constant in life, he clearly couldn't have predicted the television comedy, the comedy or a typically family television comedy. The show is fundamentally rooted in its characters and those characters are generally rooted in predictability, as academic Jason Mattel argues in his book Complex TV, although it may seem that one joy of serial narratives is watching the characters grow and develop over time.

Over time, most television characters are more stable and consistent entities rather than changing, notes that even in the face of life-altering events, characters are more likely to accumulate experiences rather than learn and change from them, so the way his life coach suggests we should see this throughout sitcom history. self-absorbed Major Frank Burns in the 70 show mixes the dumb antics of Kramer and the even dumber antics of Michael Scott Michael, did you fall into a koi pond? Ah, I really can't hear you. I think we're kind of bad. As much as we love The Sopranos and Mad Men for their psychological complexity and deep, ever-evolving characters—we love many shows precisely for their lack of these qualities—it's because Friends isn't The Sopranos that we want to watch it at 2:00. p.m. when we are hungover or at 2:00 a. m., well, we can't sleep, my life is a shame.

I should go live under someone's stairs. Minor changes may occur in episode 2, as the overarching plots progress, the show itself remains fundamentally static. Marriage promotions and other developments are only superficial. The relationships between the central cast don't really change nor do the characters themselves. This structure makes them easy to consume. You can dive in at any point and know exactly what to expect, but most importantly. he blesses them with the promise that, no matter what happens, everything will be back to normal by the end of the episode. comfortable, familiar, always the same, usually set in cozy houses, cafes or bars, these shows keep us huddled in a comfortable status quo that makes the bitter difficulties of life feel distant for at least 20 minutes or so.

Imagine if Homer Simpson suddenly didn't want to buy that jelly-filled donut, he'd probably, understandably, go into a spiral. What makes Bojack Horseman so heartbreaking to watch is that while the show maintains the comedy format. keeping its characters on a perpetual emotional hamster wheel, those characters actually seem to want to change and their inability to do so is the crux of the show's painful resonance, the perfect foil for Showboat Rider is a delightful meta show that moves around a better described series. by Bow Jack himself, look up a lot of people, life is just one long hard kick in the urethra and sometimes when you come home after a long day of getting kicked in the urethra you just want to see a program about good and nice people who love each other. another where you know that no matter what happens at the end of 30 minutes, everything will be okay, Kate;

The part about coming out right is that, like most sitcoms, nothing really changes, the characters are monolithic, they're just drawn and reliably themselves in this '90s comedy reminiscent of The Cosby Show Bojack played the bubbly, golden-hearted father figure: three adorable orphans who recite a corny platitude at the end of each episode now we're a family no matter what and I'll always be there for you the show's sugary tone broad, family-friendly humor The beats made Bojack rich and famous, but even 30 years later, he's still haunted by the question of whether it was any good. Throughout the series, Bojack has sought solace and solace and has been teasing reruns that he consumes with an enthusiasm he normally reserves only for horse tranquilizers. reciting lines, remembering bad jokes, and generally reflecting on what seems to be the best time of his life, he seems to long for the simple, easy emotional connections that the force he sees on television experiences, even attempting to take on a kind fatherly role with saralyn.

When she briefly moves in with him in Season 1 with metaphorically incestuous disastrous results, almost all of us can relate to Bojack's sentiment, life would be easier if we lived on a static, happy family TV show where everything is relatively predictable, but For him, since it was literally in one, the contrast becomes even more heartbreaking. The silliness is often explicitly contrasted with Bojack's real life and that's where things get really interesting having lived out the most significant years of his existence on a comedy set. Bojack has come to understand the absolute happiness of this. Inert sitcom world, the most important thing is that you have to give the people what they want, even if it kills you, even if it empties you until there is nothing left to empty, no matter how much he longs to return endlessly to the place. in which nothing changes.

He is tormented by the fact that this is ironically and tragically exactly what his life has become, it has become a part of which he never changes or perhaps more precisely, Bojack is living in a terrible existential shadow of a sitcom that we can distinguish both from the show's opening credits, which through season 6 show Bojack getting out of his bed in the middle of a drug case while floating, a series of background images slowly flashing behind him. The backgrounds change from season to season, but the unreal spaced quality keeps hinting that it could continue on this carousel until the end, that's what the characters in Bojack Horseman do, they go round and round on the same inner tracks and always end up where they are. started, much like the characters on Full House or the Brady Bunch, they will never truly fade away. change despite trying very hard, the main example is Bojack, who, with a nature typical of an addict who suffers, wants to transform into his life, but never achieves it in the second season.

Bojack makes a conscious attempt to reform his personality by plugging into a series of light-hearted metaphors that mash up self-help tapes; they don't work because his attempts at instant change only serve to play on the surface of a person, a smile carelessly painted on the outermost layer. of the self he assumes as part of his quest for self-improvement, but rarely gets far at the end of that season's final episode, he goes to the hill outside his house once again, grunts, complains, and almost immediately collapses alone to be woken up by a voice above him, it's the macaque who's been quietly Running through each episode every day gets a little easier, yes, but you have to do it every day, that's the hard part, but It gets easy here.

The primate seems to express the show's perspective on change: it's hard and life will kick your butt. I tried to change his ingrained behaviors, but even the smallest change can be super rewarding. Lesson learned, not so quickly. Season 3 returns only to see Bojack behaving selfishly, namely sleeping with Todd's ex. Emily succumbed to his addictions, meaning she had a pre-AAA bender with Saralyn. and feels depressed and isolated Lisa V in this incredible underwater episode with no dialogue His inability to change is perhaps satirized in the episode stop the presses in which Bojack has to jump through hoops in an attempt to cancel a newspaper subscription, as if I would like to make the point that in This Universe, even in the slightest, my new bureaucratic alteration is impossible with the capital that I am, but arguably the biggest joke in quotes comes at the end of the season.

Bojack attempts suicide by forcing his car to crash only to change his mind at the last minute and is quickly rewarded with the majestic sight of a herd of horses running wild and free, that's right, he's exactly where he was at the end of season 2, wishing he could run, this continues for the next few seasons as Bojack indulges in his vices and hurts people. loves to eventually contribute to saralyn's death at the planetarium after spending a day of epic bender with her right saralyn saralyn after her funeral Bojack reflects on his toxicity and in a fairly direct moment seems to lay out the show's apparent thesis that no No I know how to be Diane it doesn't get better and it doesn't get easier I can't keep lying to myself that I'm going to change I'm self-improvement poison even when you think Bojack might be. improving a bit, let's just say that thanks to the influence of his half-sister mauve, he will return with the fifth season focused on his new tv show filbert and that it will completely become an opiate fueled horror, the other characters are not doing much. better at least in terms of personal development Princess Carolyne struggles with her work addiction, difficulty maintaining arelationship and then with her desire to have a child and then with her ambivalence about having a child, regardless of the scenario, she feels overwhelmed and doesn't feel like it.

She's doing enough, going from agent to manager, from girlfriend to single mom, from ruthless to empathetic, but she never really changes, all the while Diane agonizes over her integrity, whether it's the social impact of her girl-crush videos or her role in enabling Bojack's bad behavior, the feeling that her work and her life should mean more always haunts her, she seeks to express herself creatively with integrity in a refugee camp or in Vietnam or writing a memoir, and yet every season the characters end up pretty much where they started. Todd is still a man. child mr. peanut butter still lives in mostly blissful ignorance and Bojack, even 30 years later, is still the abandoned horse hanging around unlike your cheers or I love Lucy's, although there's no comfort in this static state, no There is peace in Bojack's tragic flaws because Bojack's Horseman shines. a light on the dark crevices of humanity or the horse manatee that comedies ignore its characters are simultaneously deeper and more tragic than the typical fare of Frasier the repetitive nature of each character's story is less like everyone's funny antics family members and more to the real nightmare of a human being who tries to change in real life the immutable nature of things in Hollywood becomes a tortuous existential trap, a bitter and continuous reminder of the fact that real life It's more or less the same, no matter what happens today, don't wake up tomorrow the same person, no promotions, no marriage, no big symbolic change will take you away from who you are, so

bojack

is effectively stuck, not entirely.

The show isn't content to simply teach us that people can't change, no matter how hard they try. Season six so far feels more devastating than that, rather than a dark comedy rehash. The eight episodes witness Bojack really seem to evolve in a significant way. Now, as slowly and painfully imperfect as he is, he allows teenage rehab president Jamison to misbehave and behave like he did with Sarah Lynn, but even when he messes up, he tries, yes, he keeps the vodka on hand because he believes that its special ink will resist your addiction. and yes, that vodka accidentally reaches dr. drunk horse, but stays with said horse doctor and repeatedly tries to get him back on the bandwagon, you know, progress, plus he urges Diane to take medication, tries to find Todd an asexual partner, and even brings him a gift Princess Carolyn's baby, although naturally it is a portrait of himself as Daffodil Halle even gives it to Mr.

Peanut Butter is a crossover episode and at the end of the eighth episode other characters seem to make small changes in Diane continues on antidepressants Princess Carolyn seems to reset her priorities Todd realizes that his perpetual childlike nature makes him an excellent Manny and the Mr. peanut butter's attempts to atone for his infidelity these changes are small, maybe even microscopic, but they are there, every inch of change is hard earned, maybe something significant is happening and it feels deeper in episode 7, when boyfriend Jack travels around the country visiting some. from the people he has hurt and/or alienated he apologizes he tries to make things right and really seems to atone for who he is he seems to get rid of some of the superficial trappings of his persona by allowing his hair to turn gray while he reconciles with his ex groomer who got fired from playing even tries to overcome his lifelong aversion to other horses and then episode 8 is very depressing because it reminds us of the Bojack we used to know before the extensive horse therapy and the apology before the even vague sense of decency or desire to be a role model for hollyhock, we are forced to remember every mistake he made and the long list of victims left in the wake of his pathological selfishness and wonder if the changes Bojack has made will still be craziest Is there a plan for your life when you've listened to enough people that your own personal evolution becomes irrelevant?

Bojack's journey has been one of the most emotional of all animated television protagonists, and yet it is paved entirely with the wounded and damaged souls of people, mostly women. he's hurt along the way, well the show may be indicating that Bojack has finally changed, it's also suggesting that he may have caused more damage than even the most complete evolution could excuse, so what does it all mean? Well, we think the writers of Bojack Horseman have always jokingly positioned themselves as the imperfect mirror image of the actual show they're creating, perhaps comforting in these tropes, but also disingenuous, no one gets horribly hurt and no one is particularly honest with Bojack. , it's the opposite, everyone is often suffering horribly and the characters are deep and often quite honest about their pain.

I mean, yes, they secretly drugged me for months to the point of living a nightmare where I couldn't recognize my own body or understand what was happening to my brain, but to others. That was a pretty calm experience. I should have protected you. I really wanted to be a good father to you, hollyhock, well it turns out you're not my father at all. Yes, he is good. I guess the stasis that makes spectacles like running comforting. Bojack is brilliant and at times almost intolerable to watch and we literally have no idea what will happen next, sorry, but what do you think Bojack beyond redemption is changing oneself essentially impossible?

If so, should any of us really bother to be better? Let us know what you think in the comments