BoJack Horseman, and When You Keep On Living

Series Art for “BoJack Horseman,” on Netflix.

It’s strange, the things you find comfort in. For me, I find falling asleep to the sound of my television incredibly soothing. Perhaps it’s the same compulsion those of us with white noise machines have; the comfort that comes with the lack of silence.

I have no idea why I find complete silence eerie and uncomfortable, but nothing makes it harder for me to fall asleep than unmitigated quiet. We all know unchecked screen time before bed is bad for us, but nevertheless, I can’t seem to resist the solace of canned sitcom laughter, seemingly mocking me as I try to rest my head.

This has, regrettably, given me a Pavlovian complication. Nowadays, much like every single one of our dads, I have a hard time staying awake when watching TV shows at night. I also like red wine, meaning consciousness is a constant uphill battle for me most evenings. In fact, on more than one occasion, I’ve completely missed an entire episode of something because I fell asleep during it. And yet, the following night, I decide to blindly trust HBOMax with abandon (first mistake) when it tells me which episode of Mare of Easttown is next.

Luckily, I’m also someone who deeply values the art of the rewatch, and diving headfirst back into a television show I’ve long since completed. I do this in an attempt to pick up the pieces of my sleep-inducing binges, along the way discovering anything I may have missed the first time around.

BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett) heads back to Los Angeles, after a long, strange trip.

Enter BoJack Horseman, stage right, greeted by uproarious studio applause. I had watched BoJack before, and was pretty much conscious for all of it (please clap)! And yet, upon rewatching the series over the past few weeks, I found myself freshly undone all over again by the show’s untempered, unforgiving, yet ultimately loving view of the world, as well as the people (and animals) that inhabit the show’s fictionalized version of Los Angeles.

Each episode was made new with each rewatch, which yes, is my justification for writing about the show this week, when normally I would discuss something I had previously no exposure to. And besides, BoJack Horseman is a show that is so thoroughly dense, complex, entertaining, and meditative, that I feel it actually demands to be rewatched in order to glean all of its wisdom.

To watch BoJack Horseman the first time is to emulate my evening TV watching habits: it’s 9:30pm, you’ve had half a bottle of wine, and are asleep. To watch it a second time is to be like a normal person, and watch a show with your eyes wide open. The rewatch is the watch.

Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie) and BoJack argue outside the premiere for BoJack’s latest show, “Philbert.”

BoJack Horseman first premiered on Netflix in August of 2014, with its last episode airing at the beginning of 2020. Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, BoJack has been recognized as an unusually singular entry into the adult animation scene, often utilizing a unique blending of genres and motifs, resulting in what can only be called a “tragicomedy.”

The show follows titular protagonist BoJack Horseman (voiced by Will Arnett): the tragically washed up star of formerly beloved sitcom “Horsin’ Around.” With his glory days behind him, BoJack now spends his time day-drinking, womanizing, and beleaguering his friends and family by way of his masturbatory nostalgia for his fading fame, youth, and happiness.

Oh yeah, and he’s also literally a horse.

BoJack is surrounded by a plethora of Hollywood archetypes both human and anthropomorphic animal. There’s a Golden Retriever named Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins), the slightly younger star who followed in BoJack’s footsteps. There’s that Retriever’s wife and BoJack’s biographer Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie), as well as BoJack’s unwanted groupie and permanent houseguest Todd (Aaron Paul). And finally, there’s his agent/on-again-off-again girlfriend Princess Carolyn the Cat (Amy Sedaris).

The likes of actual celebrities voicing themselves mill about these fictionalized Angelenos as well: Zach Braff, Jessica Biel, even acclaimed character actress Margo Martindale; and many, many more fill out the ranks of BoJack’s eclectic cast of characters.

And yet, for all its insider Hollywood humor, absurdist premise, and satirical tone now inextricable from the genre of most adult animation, what actually makes BoJack so unique is not its comedy, but its drama. As the show progresses, the characters tackle issues ranging from alcoholism, addiction, sexual assault, gun violence, misogyny, depression, suicide, and cycles of abuse.

It’s this singular blend of off-the-rails comedy mixed with meditative commentary on some of the most hot-button issues plaguing American society today that keeps BoJack so fresh episode to episode. Throughout the run of the series, the show continuously walks a razor’s edge between tragedy and comedy, never veering too far off course one way or another. This balancing act between comedy and political commentary is also what makes BoJack so thrilling to watch.

Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris) and BoJack at “Pastiches,” a Malibu rehab.

Thrills and all, BoJack Horseman also presents some of the most definitively incisive takes on these issues, despite the show’s prerogative often feeling unassuming rather than overtly preachy. And, while I would never recommend watching BoJack out of order, some of the greatest standalone episodes of the series deal with these issues in full swing.

In no particular order, the show tackles performative feminism in “BoJack the Feminist” (5x04); the risk for women in casting aspersions on powerful men in “Hank After Dark” (2x07); managing life on antidepressants in “Good Damage” (6x10); how “Me Too” culture can also harm women in “The Stopped Show” (5x12); abortion rights in “Brrap Brrap Pew Pew” (3x06); misplaced cultural identity in “The Dog Days are Over” (5x02); and gun violence in “Thoughts and Prayers” (4x05).

Without diving too deep into specifics, I would like to highlight one particularly cutting joke in “Thoughts and Prayers,” in which Princess Carolyn and Diane reclaim the gun rights movement in the name of feminism, citing that women often feel safer carrying a gun around in the presence of sexual aggressors.

After Diane and Princess Carolyn try to introduce open carry laws in Los Angeles, so that women might better protect themselves from sexual assault, the legislative bodies of California (comprised of a majority of white men) speedily pass comprehensive gun control and open carry bans, effectively removing all guns from the state of California.

The powers that be offer up concerns that women carrying firearms would lead to more mass shootings, since women are more prone to hysteria and heightened emotions (obviously). Diane and Princess Carolyn are in shock, though Princess Carolyn is thrilled at the outcome. They may not have gotten open carry rights for women, but they got sensible gun control legislation.

Diane is incredulous. She vents to Princess Carolyn: “I can’t believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.”

To which Princess Carolyn sarcastically replies, “No?”

That’s just one small example of how BoJack marries comedy and commentary. Believe it or not, the above is a devastatingly incomplete list of episodes that focus on specific cultural issues. Not to mention that meditations on issues like addiction and alcoholism run throughout the series as a whole, as they’re the critical flaws that torment our titular anti-hero and boozehound of a horse. Is it fraught and perhaps intentionally confusing to refer to an anthropomorphic horse named BoJack Horseman as a “boozehound?” Yes, but I did it already so let’s move on.

Over time, the show continues to pull back layers on BoJack’s personal history with alcohol and drugs, and how it’s come to not only shape him, but control him. BoJack’s story is a constant struggle for sobriety, and a fight against the crutch of alcohol addiction as an excuse for his often horrible and deeply mal-intended behavior.

BoJack fears sobriety. Once he has it, will his behavior continue to be terrible? Is he the reason he does horrible things to people, or is it the alcohol, or somehow both? And what do you do if you never know the answer? And how do you reconcile with the answer if you do find out?

Diane and BoJack in the series finale “It Was Nice While it Lasted.”

To answer this question, I want to briefly talk about the series finale, without spoiling specifics. The show, in many ways, refuses to answer the question of BoJack’s morality in a strict, definitive way. And, it’s in the show’s final scene, between BoJack and his memoirist-turned-friend Diane, that this ambiguity is finally addressed.

In their final conversation, as BoJack complains about some of the minor inconveniences he’s been dealing with recently, Diane sympathizes with him. BoJack tosses up his hands as she offers her condolences.

He laments, “Well, what are you gonna do? Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

Diane thinks for a moment, and then replies, “Sometimes. Sometimes, life’s a bitch and then you keep living.”

It’s no surprise that a show like BoJack, which found its voice in tackling some of the most controversial and emotionally exhaustive issues that beleaguer our society today, has a somewhat pessimistic view on the world. Though, to call Diane or BoJack’s sentiments purely “pessimistic,” feels like a misnomer to me.

Life is a bitch, and you do eventually die. But, there’s also a whole lot of living to do before then, and there’s no point in ignoring that. In this moment, Diane seems to suggest that while you may never know if you’re a good person or not; if you do bad things because life’s a bitch or because you’re a bad person, you’re still alive right here and right now.

And, you’re going to keep doing things both good and bad while you’re alive, until one day you die. There’s no point in pretending otherwise, or pretending like you’ll ever have just one answer for everything that happens to you in life. All you can do is keep living.

Like I said, it’s strange the things you find comfort in. For me, it’s the sound of a television blaring in my room as I sleep. It’s also the idea that life is hard, and it never stops getting hard, but you keep on living. You keep on living anyway. And, just like a brightly lit, fluorescent screen, I could never even begin to explain why I find this idea comforting.

But, I do. And, I think BoJack Horseman does too.

BoJack Horseman is available to stream on Netflix.