BoJack's Inner Demons | "Stupid Piece of $!#%" Explained

Stupid is one of Bojack Horseman's fan favorite episodes and for good reason it's an episode that brings all of Bojack's

inner

most insecurities to the forefront of the story and the way those insecurities sabotage his own hopes for happiness and relationships. healthy as Bojack adjusts to having his mother live with him along with his long-lost daughter Holly Hawk, those insecurities are accentuated shown by this incredible chaotic, more sketch-like animation of his

inner

thoughts, these insecurities Overwhelmed, they spill over into Bojack's day-to-day actions in an unhealthy way. In this way and as Bojack deals with his own fears and feelings about his own self-worth, he harms those closest to him, the episode begins with Bojack reciting the title of the episode deliberately directed at himself,

piece

of

stupid

ity while Bojack's own mind Bojack devours he criticizes and judges every decision he makes, even something as small as the food he eats, he can't help but hate himself for it, put down that cookie, don't eat that cookie, I can't believe you ate that cookie. the inner monologue even begins to criticize himself piling insecurity upon insecurity when malvarrosa asks him if she can take his car he thinks he doesn't want her to put her dirty hands on his tesla which he then punishes himself for even thinking that she is not in a bad mood. she's your daughter your

piece

of trash you're a piece of trash a real fucking piece of trash what

bojack

starts doing here is catastrophizing every aspect of his own life catastrophizing is when you think of the worst possible outcome of a scenario and then you wait If it happens, it's a trap that many people, including myself, have fallen into and it's not healthy and we see Bojack do it countless times over the course of this episode when Hollyhock asks Bojack if he can use his car to go look milk.

He weighs his options and finds the worst outcome for each of them if Aliyah goes, he has to spend time alone with his mother, something he refuses to do due to the trauma she inflicted on him while raising him, if he goes to get milk , he hopes Beatrice will poison him. Hollyhock against him Over the course of the episode we see Bojack relive and relitigate the worst things he's done by setting his expectations to match worst-case scenarios, but the reality is that his own expectations don't always match other people's perceptions. , this is quite illustrated. straight up when

bojack

is with mr peanut butter this is where he catastrophizes what pb might think of him he knows you're terrible he's the biggest idiot in the world and even he knows you're terrible but when bojack whines that he's going to bojack hollyhock stuff mr peanut butter describes exactly how he feels about bojack bojack stuff you mean showing up somewhere and being the life of the party one of the things in this episode that further exacerbates bojack's insecurities is the constant presence of his mother, who is actually the source of so many of these insecurities throughout his life.

Beatrice has been abusive and neglectful, hypercritical of every aspect of Bojack's life. We see this over and over again through flashbacks that force him to perform the Popsicle song for his friends, telling her that he ruined her when he was incredibly young and showed absolutely no interest or pride in his success as an actor. . Beatriz generally did not show much real interest in Bojack as a person and this severely affected Bojack's sense of worth. There are countless examples of how Beatrice. mistreated bojack and some of them are directly referenced through a new development in this episode as beatrice battles the early stages of dementia, she begins to believe this horse doll is real and treats him like a real baby, but for bojack, this really treats him.

This doll with genuine care and love and some of the ways this care and love is expressed act as a trigger for Bojack, isn't this baby the well behaved one, Harley, does he ever cry? This has meaning in two ways for Beatrice, we see it in time zero as a baby Bojack was struggling to sleep through the night and the crying made her angry, but Bojack back in 1972, Beatrice caught him trying to smoke one of her cigarettes and she enraged that bojack forced him to continue smoking the cigarette when he started crying, she says this Don't you dare cry, never cry, you wanted this and while it may be irrational to be jealous of a doll, this pierces Bojack so deeply because comes from her very real traumatic experiences at the hands of Beatriz herself, she continues.

In ways that hurt Bojack even more, all he needs is a mother's love. It must be hard to listen to someone who refused to show you love your entire life. Oh I know what would happen if for 18 years straight I told you how worthless every The day Bojack literally starts comparing himself to this doll and those unresolved feelings of resentment towards Beatrice start to come out and even though they all come from very real emotions , they overcome the reality of the situation in which Bojack is making fun of an old woman with dementia who at that moment does not really understand everything that is happening and despite this he throws the doll off his balcony, devastating Beatrice, who does not care in the world how he does it A recurring aspect of bojack's tendency to catastrophize every aspect of his life is how almost every time he does this, he actually damages a relationship or another aspect of his life, he becomes so obsessed with one small aspect of his life who catastrophizes that detail and then fails to see the bigger picture while doing so.

The cold start to the episode. is a prime example of this, bojack decides to go get Beatrice's milk because he doesn't want to spend time with her on the way there, he catastrophizes the things they are talking about at home, decides he needs a drink, and ends up drinking the whole thing. . day and he goes home without milk, he ruins the only thing he said he would do that day while he stresses over worst case scenarios. This is also shown quite directly when he goes to Felicity Huffman's house to retrieve the doll that she is clearly angry with. him and he tries to figure out why his mind then takes him to worst case scenarios, you cut her off in traffic, you got her fired from a project, you talk about her at an age benefit and you didn't realize your microphone was on, but as it turns out, Felicity Huffman just lived down the hill from Bojack for 15 years and has dealt with the countless frustrations that come with living near him, including cotton candy vomit.

Bojack lacks awareness in his everyday life because he is so obsessed with catastrophizing small details, but the biggest example of this is with Hollyhock at this point in the show. Bojack still thinks she is his long-lost daughter throughout the episode. Hollyhock tries to connect with Bojack even more and spend time with him, but Bojack often, while avoiding her mother, continues to ignore her. don't you want to stay have breakfast together great tone i love your energy is a pass and while bojack's inner

demons

force him to focus on these worst case scenarios with his mother, they distract him from how this hollyhock must feel In perspective, it really seems as if he was avoiding, so many of Bojack's insecurities come from Beatrice's complete lack of attention and interest in Bojack as a human being throughout his life, as she deals with the consequences of this pattern.

Bojack actually ends up repeating this mistake. with his long lost daughter and that also negatively affects malvarrosa sometimes I go to a bar sometimes I stop on the side of the road and you would rather do that than spend time with me everyone deserves to be loved curiously among all people Mr. butter Peanut is the one who communicates with Bojack and helps him see the fallacies in his way of thinking. Bojack reflects on his own fears about forming a relationship with Hollyhock every time she looks at me with those big innocent eyes. All I can think about is every shit I've ever done and I don't think I deserve that kind of love.

The important thing here is that it illustrates once again that Bojack's behavior stems from his own history and insecurities. It's not hollyhock, but he still can't do it. look at how he's letting her down at the beginning of the episode, when he drops her off at home again he recognizes how he's screwing up, you're ruining it, you're making your daughter hate you, but he's actually wrong, he's making the problem about itself become a reality again as we have done before. The illustrated thing is that he is not making hollyhock hate him, he is making hollyhock hate herself by showing disinterest and avoiding hollyhock in their limited time together, he is making her believe that something might be wrong with her, but Mr.

Butter de maní says something important that makes him see the error of his way of thinking, everyone deserves to be loved at the end of the episode, bojack sees malvarrosa sitting by the pool and it is clear that she is going through a difficult time, he considers talking with her when her internal monologue returns and she starts self-sabotaging once. again through catastrophizing he tells her to drink he tells her that he has already poisoned her that wherever he goes his actions destroy the people he cares about and that hollyhock is next, but this time it is different because he forces himself to stop catastrophizing and face his fears In this final scene of the episode, Bojack begins to show Hollyhock the kind of support he never received.

Hollyhock shows that she also has this tendency to catastrophize as she laments the way she is disrupting Bojack's life. I know you didn't ask for this 17 year old fool. old man for showing up at your door, so I'm sorry if I'm annoying, but no, I'm glad you're here. Bojack actually does something here that shows growth and an attempt to break the cycle that he and his mother have perpetuated. While we as an audience know the reasons why Beatrice turned out the way she did, she would never admit to gawking at the ways she is broken, would never tell her that it's not your fault, it's mine, in fact, in season 2. , the last thing we did. have i ever seen beatrice tell bojack before his dementia sets in basically reaffirms bojack's deep-seated fears about himself instead of alleviating those insecurities your bojack rider there's no cure for that, but bojack breaks the cycle here by telling hollyhock that what she perceives as accusations against her My own sense of self-worth are actually reflections of Bojack's insecurities.

If I'm shit, it's only because I'm shit and you can be mad at me, but know that whatever I do, it's not your fault, this is an important moment for Bojack and shows that he is capable of breaking the cycles of abuse and trauma. in which he has been rooted in hollyhock, she then asks Bojack about that annoying voice and reveals that she experiences this too, she wants to know if it ever goes away and even though we spent the entire episode deep in Bojack's subconscious, he she tells him that she actually disappears, and although she lies to him, she does so in an attempt to alleviate her own fears and insecurities about herself, something we know Beatrice was never willing to do. do for bojack and while he might not believe what he said to malvarrosa maybe just maybe this different approach will actually help malvarrosa get over the nagging of her own insecurities maybe this could break the cycle

stupid

piece of you are stupid piece of johnny you I know this is the worst Bojack episode you've ever done.

You've lost your touch. Nobody cares about this. It's not like the view from the middle. Is not too much. Friends, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Bojack. You do me a favor. I've been making Bojack timelines and recently posted one on Mr. Butter Butter. I would really appreciate it if you watched it and also let me know which Bojack episodes you want to hear more of broken down below and of course, stay tuned for more peace.