BoJack Breakdowns: Season 1, Episodes 11-12
Do we have a deep down? Or are we just what we do?
CW: Suicide
“Oh, you think what you do is soooo hard. ‘Oh, I’m a writer. I go to coffee shops with my laptop and my notebook and my dumb glasses that I have to wear because I’m sooo important I need to see clearly.’” ~BoJack to Diane (and me, I’m pretty sure)
Something folks who watch BoJack Horseman will tell you is that you need to watch out for the penultimate episode of each season. Generally speaking, you save a lot of big gut punches for the season finale, but in this show, the episode that ties the whole season together and also devastates you is episode 11 (or episode 15, if you’re watching the final season). Which isn’t to say that there aren’t impressive moments prior to those episodes, but there is something really tough in episode 11 of the first five seasons.
When we left BoJack and Diane at the end of episode 10, BoJack fired her and she leaked the first few chapters of the book she wrote. At the top of episode 11, “Downer Ending,” BoJack is trying to convince his publisher to let him try to write a new version of the book in 5 days. He gives it a try, but after spending hours trying to choose a font, he decides to call in Sarah Lynn and Todd to help him write it.
One of the things that is incredible about this show is the way it uses animation. It takes a while to get used to the way the show includes animals and people and a slightly messy style, but once you do, you can start to see how the animators illustrate what the writers are saying. This is the first episode where we see that on display.
Sarah Lynn, Todd, and BoJack take a lot of drugs and begin writing. The longer they go, the more manic their ideas become, until they decide that the only way they can finish the book is to murder BoJack so they know how it ends. Eventually BoJack gets by himself and the episode takes a turn from some of the most absurd to the heart of what BoJack has been running from. First, we see a flashback to a time when his mother is demanding that he perform for her supper club. When young BoJack says that he doesn’t want to sing, she tells him that it doesn’t matter what he wants. She says that if he wants her to love him, he needs to sing.
We then cut to him talking to Diane where he confesses that he just wants everyone to love him. Diane tells him that it’s never too late to be the person he wants to be, he just has to choose the life he wants.
He then imagines a life with Charlotte (voiced by Olivia Wilde), a woman who tended bar at the comedy club where Herb and BoJack got their start. He sees them living a normal existence with a daughter and the chance to grow old together. At which point he is awakened from his drug fueled dream to Princess Carolyn telling him that the pages he sent her were gibberish and that they needed to go ahead and publish what Diane wrote. BoJack acquiesces and the book is published.
At the end of the episode, Diane is on a panel of ghostwriters and BoJack asks her if it’s too late for him and then asks her to tell him that he’s a good person, deep down. The show ends with her failing to answer.
In the season 1 finale, “Later,” the episode begins with a flashback to a 70’s talk show where Secretariat (voiced by John Krasinski) is being interviewed about some potential cheating scandal. Then the interviewer reads a letter from a young BoJack Horseman, telling Secretariat that he is BoJack’s hero, and that he sometimes is sad. He ends by asking Secretariat how he keeps from being sad. Secretariat says, “One day I started running and that seemed to make sense, so then I just kept running. BoJack, when you get sad, you run straight ahead, and you keep running forward, no matter what. There are people in your life who are gonna try to hold you back, slow you down, but you don’t let them. Don’t you stop running and don’t you ever look behind you. There’s nothing for you behind you. All that exists is what’s ahead.”
Smash cut to Secretariat jumping off a bridge.
We then show up in the present, three months after the release of his book where BoJack is winning a Best Comedy or Musical Golden Globe for the book.. Despite his success, he is still struggling to figure out what he wants to do. He meets with Princess Carolyn and suggests that this is the time for him to go after the role of Secretariat, something he has wanted to do his whole life. She is concerned that he is too old, but secures him an audition.
Diane is also finding success following the release of the book and is invited by Sebastian St. Clair (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) to write about his philanthropic work. But when she tells Mr. Peanutbutter, he tries to convince her not to go. This is the first time we see how shaky things are with them post-marriage.
When BoJack goes in for his audition, he channels all of his regret and his fear of being irrelevant. He is about to be given the part when they hear from Andrew Garfield saying that he will take the role.
Through an unfortunate, hilarious accident, Andrew Garfield is unable to play the role, and the director Kelsey Jannings (voiced by Maria Bamford) suggests that BoJack is who she really wants to play the role.
BoJack then has the first conversation he has had with Diane since he grilled her at the ghostwriting panel. He tells her that he was cast in the role that he’d always wanted, but he didn’t know how to feel. Diane shares that she has taken a job on the movie as a character consultant, since she wrote a book on Secretariat.
They talk and then Diane brings up the confrontation at the panel. BoJack asks her again if she thinks he could be a person deep down and Diane replies, “I don’t think I believe in ‘deep down.’ I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do.” BoJack then says that he just wanted her to like him, to which Diane replies, “I know.”
The episode ends with BoJack at the Griffith Park Observatory, signing a copy of his book for someone who calls him his hero.
These two episodes are the first time we really have a better understanding of what motivates BoJack. As I said last week, I do think there are elements of these episodes that could have been explored a little bit earlier in the season to help people understand how this show differs from others like it, but the emotional punch of seeing a lot of BoJack’s trauma come up while he’s experience hallucinations has its own rewards. I have watched “Downer Ending” I don’t know how many times and I cry every single time.
But the “deep down” line is one that is going to define a lot of the show going forward. BoJack doesn’t really have a deep down, he just acts. BoJack is an interesting character because even when we feel bad for him, he’s never someone that we really root for.
I am a huge fan of Breaking Bad. Walter White is clearly a bad guy and we shouldn’t want to be him, but I’ll be honest, when he blows up Ken’s car early in the show, I’m rooting for him. When he kills Crazy Eight, I get it – that guy was going to kill his whole family. When he sets off a bomb and kills Hector and Gus, it’s exciting. He’s a bad guy and I know that, but he’s also kind of rad and in the context of the show, I want to see just how far he can fall. I’m invested in seeing what awful thing he will do next.
BoJack is another bad man who hurts the people around him. But in this show, I somehow never root for him one way or the other. I want him to get better, but I never expect him to get better. And any time he does make an improvement in his life, I just wait for him to sabotage it.
The truth is, BoJack only cares if people like him, not about actually being good. This will be a theme that is explored over and over through the show, but Diane’s comment cuts to the heart of it. All we can do is judge somebody by what they do, not by what they aspire to do or intend to do. I think it’s something to keep in mind for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is because if I do something that hurts someone, my intentions don’t matter. My “deep down” feelings aren’t what the person experienced. They just know what I did. Recognizing my intentions can be good for my own self-reflection later, but it doesn’t matter in the moment. All that matters is how the other person feels because of my actions.
The other reason this resonates is because I have a tendency to be a people pleaser. I don’t like it when people don’t like me. So sometimes I’ll try to think about ways to make people like me. But the truth is, not everyone is going to like me and that’s okay. If I try to twist myself into something that people like or not, I’m more likely to fail and do something that hurts the people who care about me already. Trying to make everyone happy almost always will result in no one being truly happy.
Season 1 of BoJack Horseman just begins to scratch the surface of the difference between “deep down” and what we actually do. Next week we’ll get into the second season and see where things go. Thanks for joining me!