BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Eleven: "That's Too Much, Man!"

My least-favorite episode of the series' run was the penultimate episode of Season One, "Downer Ending". The episode featured BoJack and Sarah Lynn going on an epic bender as they tried to complete BoJack's memoir after BoJack had fired Diane. Aside from a brief scene involving Charlotte, that episode missed the mark because it seemed like it was going for "let's see how messed up these people can get" rather than making any sort of point or advancing the plot. It was...well...a downer.

So as you might imagine, when I discovered in the cold open that the penultimate episode of Season Three was going to feature the same premise of BoJack and Sarah Lynn wrecking themselves with drugs, you can only imagine my disappointment.

I should've known by now just how far this show has come.

While it's true that "That's Too Much, Man!" has the two characters tripping on various drugs during the course of the episode, there's some dark undertones beneath the craziness that we can glean just from the cold open. Sarah Lynn wakes up with angelic music playing and hums a fairy tale-esque upbeat tune. She's 90 days sober and appears to be doing great until BoJack calls and asks her if she wants to party, to which she replies, "Oh thank God...YES!" and immediately begins pounding hard alcohol.

The pair go on a series of misadventures told with intermittent blackout periods, including crashing an AA meeting at which BoJack tries to top all the sob stories and "making amends" with all the people BoJack has wronged. Unlike previous iterations, no one is having any of it. Princess Carolyn simply walks back inside after seeing BoJack, Sarah Lynn and BoJack are completely unaware of Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane's presence at their house (in a particularly hilarious scene), and BoJack is too messed up to realize he's apologizing to a small child at the park instead of Todd. He's hurt all of these people many times (well, except Diane really) over the course of the series and it's a fresh turn to see that an easy return to normalcy isn't in the cards.

The only person that BoJack gets a real explanation from is Ana, who likens him to a drowning person that can't be saved and will only take you down with them if you try. Without the allure of a potential Oscar win, Ana has no desire to be around BoJack. She sees him for what he really is, a cancer to everyone else in his life.

But wait, the BoJack Horseman apology tour gets even more pathetic as he and Sarah Lynn drive all the way to Ohio to see how Penny's doing in college. There's few things creepier than a 50+ year old (horse)man attempting to sleep with a 17-year-old girl, but one of the things on that list is driving cross-country to stalk her at her college after said attempt. After they're mostly convinced that she's doing fine, BoJack accidentally stumbles into her view and she's immediately scarred by seeing him again. It was a horrible idea and the aftermath might extend just beyond re-damaging Penny. What if Charlotte finds out? She said that she'd "fucking kill" BoJack if he ever went near her family again, and she certainly sounded like she meant it. There were a LOT of pictures of BoJack taken at the scene.  I have a feeling this isn't over.

On the way home, Sarah Lynn discovers a packet of "BoJack" heroin and this is where things start to get really dark.  Wasn't there an image of some kind associated with that drug? Ahh...yes...here it is.

After they inevitably take the BoJack drug, BoJack starts to ponder just how much Sarah Lynn means to him. They're both broken, despicable people who can't stop getting in their own way and because each has sunk so low, they not only have a mutual understanding of one another, but also can't judge one another. They're each other's safe space. Armed with that feeling, BoJack's finally ready to drop the L-bomb on someone.

"I love you, Sarah Lynn."

Sarah Lynn probably doesn't even hear that line, she's lying still on a crappy motel bed with BoJack. For a second you think she's dead from overdose, but she shortly comes to and they flip on the Oscars, where we get the twist of a lifetime. Apparently, Sarah Lynn wrote a song for The Nazi Who Played Yahtzee and won an award. It hadn't been mentioned beforehand; Sarah Lynn forgot she had even been nominated because she'd been on the month-plus-long bender with BoJack. She's thrilled for a hot minute, but then demonstrates to BoJack the horrible aftermath he'd been dreading since the first episode of the season, had he won the Oscar:

BoJack, I don't like anything about me. None of this is me. These boobs aren't me. This house isn't me. The only reason I wear this shirt is because some company paid me $8,000 to wear it. And I don't even need the money. I just liked that someone still wanted me to wear their shirt. What am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do. Am I doomed? Are you doomed? Are we all doomed? 

After hearing this, BoJack tries to comfort her by taking Sarah Lynn to the planetarium, the place she's been begging to visit the whole time. It's a genuinely peaceful scene as the two of them feel small looking at the beauty of all the stars in the galaxy. Making everything they do feel insignificant is probably the only thing that can lessen the pain of the shitty choices each one has made in their lives. For a moment, they feel great.

And then Sarah Lynn is dead.

Despite the heavy foreshadowing, I admit that I didn't see this coming at all the first time I watched the episode. It hit me hard as BoJack said her name several times after the show cut to black. The title of the episode, "That's Too Much, Man!" -- Sarah Lynn's playful Horsin' Around catch phrase -- suddenly takes on a dark meaning in of itself. Her overdose makes her the latest collateral damage of BoJack's neverending quest to feel good about himself, killed not only by his encouragement to accompany him on his substance abuse rampage, but also by a drug that bears BoJack's name.

It makes the idea of BoJack trying to sleep with a 17-year-old girl look pretty damn far from the rock bottom it seemed like a year ago.

Episode Grade: A

Bullet Points

• How did Sarah Lynn stay sober for so long if that's all it took to get her to take drugs?

• As expected, Todd and Diane no longer appear in BoJack's house during the opening credits.

• BoJack destroys a child's playhouse with his car. It belongs to none other than the son of Mr. Peanutbutter's accountant. Man, when is that guy gonna catch a break?

• "What's Diane's deal again? She's like an Asian Daria?" -- hands down my favorite line of the episode.

• BoJack and Sarah Lynn steal a box of spaghetti strainers from Mr. Peanutbutter's house. They keep alluding to a "payoff" regarding the strainers. The strainers simply have to figure into the season finale.

• "There's that old saying, 'Liquor before beer, never fear. Don't do heroin."

• The Cuddlywhiskers flashback with all the meta jokes made me laugh a little bit. It was weird, though.

• BoJack and Sarah Lynn sit on the same bench they sat on in "Prickly Muffin", the third episode of the series.

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Ten: "It's You"

While watching this season of BoJack Horseman, I never once felt it was a possibility that BoJack wouldn't at least be nominated for the Oscar he and Ana have been chasing since the opening bell. I sorta thought it was a given -- hell, the opening credits even show a red-carpet-ish scene. But this episode flipped the script on that plot line as everything in BoJack's life takes a deep turn south. When he spurned Princess Carolyn in the previous episode, it felt like a decision that might haunt him, but severing ties with his former lover-agent turned out to just be the tip of the iceberg.

Mr. Peanutbutter hosted the nominations show (which: is that really a thing? It's not, right?) and announced BoJack as one of the nominees for best actor. BoJack feels basically nothing upon receiving the nomination and panics, but after a pep talk from Ana, he throws a gigantic party mostly filled with strangers. Of his actual friends, only Diane shows up and it isn't long before BoJack starts to dig at the recent emptiness of her life. He's right, after all. Diane used to take up causes and try to make a difference in the world and her job running Vim's social media is completely not her. She's tired of all the backlash and sadness her past crusades brought her. But still, it's a sensitive note, and she walks out on BoJack, getting extremely dark in the process:

You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna win that Oscar, and you're gonna go up on that stage and give your little speech, and then you're gonna go home. And you're gonna be so miserable, you'll want to kill yourself. And you're gonna have nobody left to stop you.

Cold.

Depressed and drugged, BoJack shortly drives his car into his pool and Mr. Peanutbutter (who was around, I guess?) has to save his life.

It's then revealed through a fairly hilarious flashback that Mr. Peanutbutter lost the envelope with the real nominees and just made everything up with Todd before the show. They tried to come up with a last person to nominate for Best Supporting Actor and Mr. Peanutbutter suggested BoJack, because he's their friend, to which Todd replied, "Is he?" This is the third time and as many seasons Todd's been pissed with BoJack (sabotage of his rock opera, missing his improv recital, ruining things with Emily), and he's rightfully fed up that BoJack just does whatever he wants and gets whatever he wants, regardless of who he tramples on en route.

Everyone at BoJack's party overhears the revelation and leaves immediately. BoJack's left alone in his wrecked house and tries to reach Ana, who's no longer answering his calls -- not all that surprising. Then, Todd comes home and after an argument, BoJack lets slip that he slept with Emily. I was a bit shocked that Todd hadn't already deduced this even though Emily didn't explicitly say it. It seemed like she didn't have to. Obviously, Todd flips out.

Todd: "You can't keep doing this! You can't keep doing shitty things, and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay! You need to be better!" 

BoJack: "I know.  And I'm sorry, okay? I was drunk, and there was all this pressure with the Oscar campaign. But now...now that it's over, I - "

Todd: "No! No, BoJack, just stop. You are all the things that are wrong with you. It's not the alcohol, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened to you in your career, or when you were a kid. It's you. All right? It's you. Fuck, man. What else is there to say?"

The AV Club had an interesting observation that this was only the third F-bomb of the entire series and that the other two came in big fights other characters had with Bojack -- first Herb Kazzaz in Season One and then Charlotte in the arguably the best episode of the series, Season Two's "Escape from L.A.". Appropriately, Todd's speech hits pretty hard. BoJack's pushed away Princess Carolyn, Diane, and Todd over the course of two episodes. He also treated Mr. Peanutbutter like shit after the latter saved BoJack's life, but Mr. Peanutbutter just shrugged it off. BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter haven't interacted much after their big on-stage fight in "Let's Find Out", and Mr. Peanutbutter was a pretty damn good friend to BoJack in this episode. Will BoJack finally appreciate what's in front of him with everyone else tossed out of his life? I have to imagine the final two episodes will feature a long look at that relationship.

Meanwhile, Princess Carolyn feels she's wasting her life running Vim. Judah convinces her that maybe it's time she gives up that life, and she seems to accept his advice. Feeling a burden lifted from her shoulders, she calls Ralph for another date. But what's on Judah's mind here? His secret meeting with Charley Witherspoon about a potential merger from a few episodes back hasn't re-surfaced, but you have to figure that's still in play, right?

Episode Grade: B+

Bullet Points

• Princess Carolyn no longer appears in BoJack's kitchen in the opening credits, though she's still there on the red carpet.

• That beret-wearing cotton candy doofus guy is in the background of a lot of scenes during the show's run. He was eating at Elefante in the previous episode, "Best Thing That Ever Happened". I wonder what his deal is.

• "Someone sent a...nerd?" ~ A Whale World girl upon seeing Diane at the door to BoJack's party.

• "Well, it started as a safe space for women. Then, it became a safe space for women and men. Now, it's more of a safe-ish space for women, and a really safe space for men to look at women."

• "I'm promoting you to a position of finding a job somewhere else."

• Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter made up all the nominees for all the categories in 36 minutes minus the time it took for them to chase Mr. Peanutbutter's phone and take the "everything's OK" call from Captain Peanutbutter.

• Some jokes I liked from Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter's whiteboard: "Black People" being crossed out under the choices for Best Actor, the category for "Best Best Boy" (which surprisingly consists of actual best boys from famous 2015 films -- but how did Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter know their names?), "The Hateful BB-8", "A Rivers Runs Through It: The Weezer Story", "Connect Four - The Movie", and Jennifer Lawrence's name appearing as over half the nominees for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress -- and once for sound editing,

• "I found it to be an above-average experience. Please forgive me for getting emotional."

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Nine: "Best Thing that Ever Happened"

Holy shit.

What did I just watch?

When I try to sell BoJack Horseman on people who don't watch it and don't get what it's about, the first thing I use to try to sell them is that it has really, really strong characters.  When my friend Dan turned me onto this show originally, that's the pitch I got. It feels so dorky and weird to actually feel feelings towards cartoon characters, but that's been a growing reality ever since Matt Groening subtly taught us to do that with The Simpsons. Then, Pixar came along and gave us gems like Up, The Good Dinosaur, and Inside Out. Voice acting and animation has become so strong that having a real person on screen has become less critical to giving the viewer a powerful experience.

"Best Thing that Ever Happened" represents some of BoJack Horseman's best character work to date as it draws on nearly three seasons worth of developing its leading horse and kitty. BoJack invites Princess Carolyn to Elefante with the intent to fire her for botching his potential acting gig with Kelsey Jannings. After Princess Carolyn tries to defend her actions and point out just how long their working relationship has been, he flatly tells her, "you're fired". The restaurant manager, who apparently has been doing a GREAT job keeping Elefante afloat with little guidance from BoJack, misunderstands and thinks he is the one who's been fired. So now a budding argument between BoJack and Carolyn is set to take place in a restaurant that's about to completely lose function.

Princess Carolyn goes straight to the Denial stage, thinking BoJack will get over this in a couple days, but pretty soon, she moves straight into Anger. She's indignant that she stuck with BoJack through his relentless screw-ups and against the advice of her bosses and peers. BoJack is pretty justified in being mad about Princess Carolyn's mistake, but if we're keeping score, his history of wasting her career and relative youth trumps this one transgression.

What follows is a series of below-the-belt punches that land particularly well because of just how intimately these two characters know each other. From BoJack's consistent self-sabotage to Princess Carolyn's love (compulsion?) of bailing BoJack out of his self-created issues, it all comes out. And eventually, BoJack drops a bomb on Princess Carolyn while mocking the way that she verbally abuses him:

"BoJack, you're such a big stupid asshole."
"BoJack, why were you even in the bounce house, dummy?"
"BoJack, you wasted my thirties."

That last bit is something we've felt ever since Season One's "Say Anything", in which Princess Carolyn turns 40 on a night of yet another love-and-loss experience with BoJack. The flashbacks from earlier this season, not to mention the cold open, show us just how long BoJack's jerked her heart around. This has been a long time coming and when it's finally put out there, BoJack's the one to call it out.

What REALLY sets off Princess Carolyn, though, is the fact that BoJack consulted Ana about the firing decision. I guess I'd like to think what made her the most pissed off is that she slept with him for years and was never able to exert that same level of influence over him. She's losing BoJack from both a professional and personal standpoint and as much as he's been a piece of shit to her, she's really angry that the (perceived?) underlying cause is the woman BoJack's now sleeping with.

Meanwhile, while the restaurant falls apart, the food critic has ordered mushroom risotto. No one knows how to make it but Princess Carolyn and she volunteers to do it. BoJack sees this as another one of her attempts to "put out a fire" for him at her own expense and calls it out. She agrees and leaves the restaurant, but only gets so far before she wheels around and feeds her weird, self-destructive craving to help BoJack out of a jam.

BoJack's touched by her return and they talk amicably for a time until BoJack asks her why she's an agent if it makes her so miserable. Princess Carolyn replies that it's because she's good at it (which, have we really seen much evidence of that?), but then wonders, "What else would I do? Who else would I be?" She's realized her dream job kind of sucks, but has mentally trapped herself there. Saddened by hearing that, BoJack offers her the best comfort he possibly can:

"I do love you, by the way. I mean, as much as I'm capable of loving anyone. Which is never enough. I'm sorry."

It's a bittersweet moment that we've come to know all too well from this show. Princess Carolyn's touched by the vulnerability and starts to say genuinely nice things to BoJack, particularly understanding that his rough-around-the-edges nature is understandable because of his terrible parents. She appreciates that he let her help him out, knowing what it meant to her, and BoJack tells her she's a good friend. Princess Carolyn then tries to spin the encounter into asking BoJack for an extra six months with her as his agent to try to turn it around.

BoJack's answer is a crushing, flat "no".

But why?

We were led by this episode to believe that these are two people who need each other. It's clear that each fills a significant void in the other's life. Does BoJack really still think after the events of the evening that a clean break is still the best course of action? Is this just another act of self-sabotage? Was BoJack just pushing away someone who's getting close to him as he so often does? Was that "no" really Ana talking?

Rarely does such a clear and concise answer leave so many questions.

Episode Grade: A

Bullet Points

• "I ordered a few feel-better pizzas to feel better. It did not work."

• The way Amy Sedaris reads, "Okay BoJack" in bed during the cold open was really, really sad.

• "Now let us bow our heads and bray. HEE HAWWW HEE HAWW!!!"

• "You, sir, have just cut off your nose and thrown Sprite in your face!

• My favorite laugh-out loud moment of the episode was with the random guy sitting at the bar between BoJack and Princess Carolyn during their argument.
• "Hey, listen, man. I don't wanna get in the middle of this, it's none of my business, but I just have to say I love that sweater.  Can you give it to me?" 
• "What? No."
• "I held my mouth open a really long time."
• "What does that have to do..."
• "You're not being fair, to me or Princess Katniss."
• "Who?"
• "Your friend. You've forgotten her already? Typical BoSchwack."

• "Is there a single woman you've worked with that you haven't tried to groggily thrust yourself into?" Kelsey immediately came to mind as a counterexample, albeit not a heterosexual one.

• "Who threw my cocaine in the champagne fountain?"

• The "critic" gives the restaurant 412 stars out of a possible one billion. The realization that she writes for "SamanthaGoesToRestaurants.tumblr.com" was amazing -- it felt like a slight nod to South Park's "You're Not Yelping" episode from last season in that everyone at the restaurant was freaking out about what some random online food blogger might say. The voice work on "Samantha" was also outstanding.

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Eight: Old Acquaintance

The thing that's going to stick with me about this episode is that everyone probably sees themselves as "the good guy" in conflicts in their own life, regardless of whether they're good people or people like Rutabaga Rabbitowitz and Vanessa Gekko. We see that duo celebrating the great success of their day at the end of the episode, as they team up to make sure that Rutabaga can be there for his wife during the birth of their children and Vanessa can cover the business side in his absence. Rutabaga's a bit of a sleaze; he cheated on his wife last season and turned out to kinda be a jerk after a season of flirting with Princess Carolyn. Vanessa hasn't done anything truly horrible over the series' run outside of lording her success over Princess Carolyn; most of the rest of her actions could be viewed as simply being competitive in her job. In any case, after witnessing these two since the series' inception, they're villain characters to the viewer. It's clear after today's episode that they don't see themselves that way.

And to the credit of BoJack Horseman's writing, we get a better side of both people in this episode. Rutabaga seems to have committed to make things work with his wife and after some counseling, they seem to be doing better than ever. Vanessa encourages Rutabaga to leave to attend to his wife when she goes into labor, assuring him that family comes first and that she can hold down the fort in his absence. She's still a schemer, but Princess Carolyn's doing the same and that just seems to be part of the gig.

Vim and Gekko-Rabbitowitz are both struggling agencies and they see an opportunity to land a starring role in David Pincher's (obviously going to be a lobster of some kind when we actually see him) film for one of their clients. Princess Carolyn puts BoJack up for the role despite the fact that he seems way too damn old for it.  Meanwhile, BoJack also gets clued in by Sarah Lynn that Bradley Hitler-Smith is trying to do a Horsin' Around reboot called "Ethan Around" centered around Bradley's wildly unpopular character. It's a really dumb idea, but BoJack's weak ego gets the better of him and he gets semi-invested in the proposal simply because Bradley didn't tell him about it in the first place. That causes Bradley to overestimate BoJack's interest level and he immediately books a flight to L.A. to work on it with BoJack. He even buys a house and takes his kids out of school. Yeesh.

Princess Carolyn realizes that Laura, her former assistant, is working for Pincher and might be able to influence him into choosing BoJack, she gives Laura a speech about how great she is and how women need to stick together.

Realizing the connection with Laura, Vanessa and Rutabaga decide to try to convince BoJack he doesn't want the role by suggesting he get involved with one of Kelsey Jannings' (who happens to be one of Vanessa's clients, apparently!) projects. The pitch Kelsey gives to BoJack is genuinely moving. On her surface, she's kind of a bitch, but she also has more faith in BoJack's acting ability than literally everyone else on the show. She tells him that the role isn't sexy, but it's real. Plus, it gives him the opportunity to work with the person who "gets" him. BoJack decides to go along with it, and it definitely feels like the right decision.

Everything becomes unraveled, however, when Rutabaga discovers an old e-mail from Princess Carolyn to Mr. Witherspoon encouraging him to not promote Laura because she was too good as Carolyn's assistant. It's a crushing moment because for the first time, we witness Princess Carolyn doing something selfish that actively hurts another person, and it comes on the heels of us seeing her encourage BoJack to take the Pincher role instead of the more meaningful one offered by Kelsey because it will make her more money. It's even worse when we remember Carolyn's years stuck as a secretary, as this is her showing absolutely no sympathy to a person she could completely identify with. To this point, Princess Carolyn's been drawn as someone who lets other people step on her and often acts against her own self-interest. As horrible as it is to watch, these events really add another dimension to her character.

The failure with Laura jacks up the price Princess Carolyn demands from Kelsey for BoJack to do her more artistic film. Kelsey calls BoJack and accuses him of not being transparent in his desire to do her movie and BoJack is genuinely confused. He does want to do the movie and Princess Carolyn's attempts to keep her agency afloat sent Kelsey the wrong message. It's a brutal moment, as this is an episode in which BoJack does pretty much nothing wrong (over-encouragement of Bradley aside) and he winds up looking like the bad guy. BoJack does enough shitty things that we really want things to work out when he makes the right choices, particularly when Kelsey is involved.

Meanwhile, Todd and Diane are vacationing to the too-perfect Labrador Peninsula to visit his brother, Captain Peanutbutter (voiced by Weird Al Yankovic, of all people). It's pretty easy to see why Mr. Peanutbutter is so upbeat and positive all the time coming from a place where the radio weather updates say, "Nothing bad ever happens on the Labrador Peninsula."

However, not all seems well with Captain Peanutbutter, as he asks Diane when they're alone if she believes in the soul and tells her that life is the most precious resource that they have. It's set up to make the viewer think that Captain Peanutbutter's going to find out about Diane's abortion and have a serious problem with it. We instead get a twist that the poor Captain is suffering from a twisted spleen. He insists it's not fatal to Mr. Peanutbutter, but there's a concerning undertone here.

Captain's revelation could have been much more powerful if we had more time to spend on this storyline. A ton happens in this episode and it's often too much of a speed rap to fully absorb. Between the Captain's health condition, yet another BoJack-Kelsey falling out, the first inter-firm war between Princess Carolyn and Gekko-Rabbitowitz, the potential merger, and Princess Carolyn's misdeeds, there's already too much to think about, and that's ignoring Todd's entertaining side-plot in which he misdirects Cabracadabra in the absence of Emily.

Episode Grade: B-

Bullet Points

• Everything about Bradley's life is a B-plus, except his children, which are a B-minus

• "Mr. Peanutbutter and Captain Peanutbutter in the same room? What is this, a flashback episode?"

• "I've heard of overloaded motherboards, but this is ridiculous!"

• "I'm like a father figure to him. By that I mean I slept with his mother."

• "He's a good dog. All bark, no bite. Sorry, that's a Labrador expression. I guess in human terms it would be: 'He's all talk, and no shooting you with an assault rifle.'"

• Charley Witherspoon is one of my favorite running jokes on the show (he's so nonsensical that the very character is a joke) and seeing him in that admiral outfit while thunder crashed when Judah met with him about a potential merger with Vim was just A+ sight gag work.

• Rutabaga suggests a laser pointer to distract Princess Carolyn.

• "So...it turns out that men love safe spaces for women even more than women do."

• Todd reads an online feedback comment from "queefburglar69". In Season Two's "Let's Find Out", Wanda also read live feedback from "queefburglar69" on the iPad during the debut episode of Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out!"

• Todd gets the Whale World girls to drive for Cabracadabra when he lets men share rides and they rate women drivers on looks. This was a pretty amusing sub-plot, but there was too much else going on in the episode for me to drill into it.

• Ana Spanakopita's crushing monologue to Bradley: "BoJack is about to win an Oscar. Why do you think he would want to do your soon-to-fail sitcom about the further adventures of a carb-faced nobody? You are not a television star. You have no talent and I am forgetting your face even as I'm looking at it. Pack your bags. Go back to Nowheresville. Thank you for the champagne. Best regards, Ana Spanakopita."

• "What is this, a very special episode?"

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Seven: "Stop the Presses"

I can't remember the last time I've had to cancel something over the phone.  Typically, whenever I'm in a phone call like the ones BoJack was involved in during tonight's episode, I'm fake-calling Comcast pretending I'm going to cancel my service when all I'm trying to do is extract the competitive "new customer" rate. Rarely am I actually wanting to cancel something. But I can say that I pretty much hate the boilerplate customer service experience. Few things frustrate me more than amount of time it takes to navigate the sea of teleprompter options, hold music, and useless people before you actually get to someone who can help. So when BoJack is desperately trying to cancel the L.A. Gazette over the phone and gets re-directed to "The Closer" and she says....

"Hello, good morning, and I say this with 100% sincerity, how can I help you." 

....let's just say that my interest was piqued.

What follows is a brilliant pseudo-psychotherapy between BoJack and The Closer in which the latter intermixes good, deep advice with repeated plugs for BoJack to keep his newspaper subscription. It's an extremely well-done setup and it makes for one of the top couple episodes in an already pretty strong season of BoJack Horseman.

BoJack eventually goes off on a slight tangent to The Closer about Todd in his complaints about continued receipt of the newspaper and much to his surprise, The Closer pursues the ability to dig deeper into what's going on in BoJack's life. From there, BoJack begins to dig deep into his friendship with Todd, his mistake one-night stand with Emily (which was very clearly hinted at the end of Episode Five), and a surprisingly intimate plot line between BoJack and Ana.

Todd and Emily pitch their idea for a women-only ride-share service to Mr. Peanutbutter and he winds up very enthusiastic about the idea (which says absolutely nothing about the quality of the idea). They wind up using BoJack's house to build the business because BoJack feels guilty about sleeping with Emily. The situation is really awkward, but Mr. Peanutbutter's obliviousness saves the day...temporarily.

Flash forward to the next day, and BoJack's in a marketing meeting for Secretariat. They're trying to come up with an ad billboard design and Lenny Turtletaub presents one that tested the best. However, BoJack's smitten with one that's just a mirror that says "You Are Secretariat". He explains to The Closer why he likes it:

When I looked at the mirror ad, I was seeing me as I see myself and I thought there was something beautiful about that. Intimate, almost.

For the second time, Lenny (who's really a pretty serious asshole, more so than he let on in earlier seasons, pre-Kelsey firing) shuts down BoJack's attempt to find meaning in Secretariat by flatly saying, "The point of the movie is to make a lot of money and win awards" and asks why BoJack should win the Oscar if the underlying message is that anyone can be Secretariat? Ana more gently suggests that BoJack leaves this decision to the professionals and then we get a complete surprise that somehow still registers as a shock despite how BoJack generally interacts with women.

Despite Ana's betrayal in "Brrap Brrap Pew Pew", it seems that BoJack has been having regular sex with his publicist.  During one of their rendezvous, BoJack observes that she controls every part of his life and he doesn't know a thing about her. Ana's been drawn as a pretty mysterious character from the get-go. It's obvious that she's really good at what she does, but we don't often get to see just how she does it (think back to Episode One's quick resolution of BoJack telling the journalist that he was replaced with a CGI in the movie).

BoJack's curious as to what she's really like, so he follows her home. What follows is a scene showing Ana trying to make a simple meal of macaroni and cheese. When the cheese packet explodes onto her shirt, it's the first time we see Ana as even the least bit vulnerable. It's a simple, powerful scene that features BoJack drop a line very similar to the reason he and Wanda broke up last season:

"It's so sad that when you see someone as they really are, it ruins them."

By the time BoJack has explained all of this to The Closer, she's got him pretty well figured out and essentially tricks him into keeping his subscription by saying that cancelling it only gives him an illusion of control over his life. BoJack even thanks her for the renewal. Damn. Closer gon' close.

After the last phone call, BoJack goes to Ana's place and she tries to send him away, but he explains all the great things he sees in Ana and that he wants to know her, and that neither one of them should be afraid of that. He also demands the use of the mirror ad and Ana seems impressed by his aggression and confidence about the matter. Unfortunately, BoJack's idea seemed much more intelligent in the meeting than it does in practice. The mirror billboard appears to just reflect the sky when looked at from a ground angle and when the sun is setting, it's a massive glare problem for drivers. The episode ends with a literal thud, as a bird-person flies into it and slinks to the ground.

The B-story was also pretty entertaining, culminating in Emily essentially explaining to Todd what happened between her and BoJack without spelling it out. Todd's disappointment is painful, but you can tell that he's not completely surprised about what happened. We also got a reappearance of Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale, who steals BoJack's boat to stay on the run from the law. Her appearances are always appreciated, though this was something of a throwaway plot line -- for now anyway.  BoJack Horseman knows how to play the long game.

Episode Grade: A- (I have gone back and put a grade on my reviews for all the other episodes I've reviewed this season)

Bullet Points

• "Cabracadabra! We wanna reach out and grab ya!"

• The view of the Los Angeles Gazette office is scathing, from the dilapidated building to the "Sales" chart turned sideways in the manager's office. BoJack Horseman hates print media and network television with a passion.

• "Every morning, I open my door to a new edition of the L.A. Gazette. It's like I'm in a boring episode of the Twilight Zone".

• Per The Closer's computer, BoJack's middle initial is "F".  Do we know his middle name?

• "Todd AND Emily you've done it again! For the first time!"

• Ana's favorite fruit is honey dew and that repulses BoJack -- one of the show's more subtle running gags.

• BoJack throws a delivered box of Cabracadabra stuff into his bush and it's never mentioned again. I wonder if that will be relevant in a future episode.

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Six: "Brrap Brrap Pew Pew"

Per my introductory post to this website and the sensitive nature of the subject matter of this episode, I won't be recapping it.  I'm happy to discuss my thoughts on BoJack Horseman's handling of the abortion issue (and have, several times since watching "Brrap Brrap Pew Pew" earlier this week) to anyone who wants to have a one-on-one conversation. But, despite the fact that I have plenty of feelings and opinions on the episode, this isn't the forum for it.

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Five: "Love And/Or Marriage"

It's back to the world of landlubbers as we reunite with the main cast of characters, each of which gets a little something interesting to do (even Todd!). Secretariat hits theaters and Bojack feels just awesome that it's a huge hit and that he's become a big star. The fame goes to his head as he lords his status over others (even Kiefer Sutherland!), asks for free drinks, and ultimately, crashes a rehearsal dinner.

BoJack makes a point of taking Todd along for the ride. One thing I've noticed so far this season is that BoJack has been a far better friend to Todd, which has made their reconciliation at the end of Season Two feel all the more sincere. I like the direction they've taken there. Most "standard" TV shows would have had the two make up only to resume business as usual in the next episode, but Bojack Horseman seems committed to building their friendship.

At a bar, Todd encounters his old love interest from high school, Emily. Her best friend is one of the two women getting married and the entire wedding is thrilled that BoJack Horseman, movie star has shown up. The father of the bride even asks BoJack to take over his speech and he gives a brief but genuinely touching speech about knowing how your spouse is your missing puzzle piece.

Unfortunately, the speech backfires and one of the brides, Taneisha, calls off the wedding. She says she doesn't really "know" about her fiancee and thanks BoJack for helping her see the light. For the first time in the episode, shit hits the fan for BoJack and he's faced with a room full of people that suddenly despise him. He takes it upon himself to do the right thing and talk to Taneisha and the words he gives her are both what she needs to hear and (in true BoJack fashion) unfathomably sad at the same time:

"Taneisha, nobody completes anybody. That's not a real thing. If you're lucky enough to find someone you can halfway tolerate, sink your nails in and don't let go, no matter what....because otherwise you're going to get older, harder, and more alone. And you're gonna do everything you can to fill that hole, with friends, and your career, and meaningless sex, but the hole doesn't get filled. One day, you're gonna look around and you're going to realize that everybody loves you, but nobody likes you. And that is the loneliest feeling in the world."

Wow.

OK. The wedding's back on now.

Meanwhile, Todd tells Emily about his idea for a ride-share app with women-only drivers. Emily is enthusiastic about the idea and wants to see the project through and begins hitting on Todd in the process. Todd seems uncomfortable with the idea of being intimate with Emily and starts drinking a lot, followed by telling her that he feels sick and wants to go to bed when she tries to take him back to his room. It all seems like a nervous defense mechanism, and we see Todd later just laying on the bed by himself, all melancholy. This is as excited about a Todd storyline as I've been throughout the series' run, and it will be interesting to watch both his app idea (if they pursue this) as well as his difficulty connecting with Emily unfold (though Emily's brief bar encounter with BoJack before the episode ends is REALLY unsettling).

This week's episode also pushes forward the Mr. Peanutbutter-Diane dynamic. The former is hogging all the speaking time at their marriage counselor session, but that's just as much because Diane doesn't have a clue how to express the way she feels. When talking about her inability to communicate with Mr. Peanutbutter, she attributes the issue to her upbringing which rings pretty true. We know Diane's family treats her like garbage (remember the awful 'Criane' video?) and it makes perfect sense that she'd have trouble expressing herself when the people she should be closest with just dump on her all the time.

Diane randomly gets a text invite to hang out with movie star Alexi Brosefino and she's apprehensive about how she'll act around "cool kids". She gets peer pressured into taking drugs, and shortly after it's revealed that Alexi sent the text to the wrong Diane. Diane gets embarrassed and after an authentically kind talk from Alexi, realizes that she needs to go home to her husband. In her drugged-out state, she's finally able to tell Mr. Peanutbutter how much she loves him and needs him. It's a touching moment, and the first moment of this season that makes any sense out of this couple.

But then, they randomly drop a bomb at the end of the episode. Diane's pregnant. Her reaction? "MOTHER F-" (they save the "ucker" for the beginning of the next episode.)

The "C" story focuses on Princess Carolyn, who's (as usual) overworked. However, she's being helped out a great deal by her assistant Judah, who really seems to have his shit together. He asks her for an ownership stake in the company because of how far above and beyond he's gone to help out, even taking the liberty of handling both sides of the percentage negotiation and drawing up the paperwork. More importantly to the episode's plot, Judah sets up three dates for Princess Carolyn on a rare night off.

The first two dates are a dullard and a gynecologist who's snippy about Princess Carolyn conceiving children at her age. The third date is a mouse named Ralph and the two of them want to call off the date for species reasons, but he turns out to be an engaging, nice fellow and the two hit it off.  She returns to her office afterwards where Judah has been diligently keeping the place running smoothly. Judah seems too good to be true. I wonder where they're going with this.

Episode Grade: B+

Bullet Points

• "Critics called it gurble glub glub blub blub."

• In the background of the bar, you can see that random awful girl that BoJack slept with in the second episode of the series

• "I didn't have Diane Peninsula. I had the Isthmus of Assholes."

• I think Todd's idea is an allusion to SafeHer or SheRides, but it comes off as a really good idea in the context of the episode.

• "Oh, drug taking. That's cool. I'm cool."

• "MR. PEEPERNUMBER!"

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Epiosde Four: "Fish Out of Water"

BoJack Horseman's greatest asset is the fact that it has some of the best writers on television right now. A close second is the voice acting which does a stellar job of making you feel things that you never thought you could watching an animated show.

The writers decided to strip that second element from the fourth episode of Season Three by giving us a mostly silent adventure in an underwater environment. And you know what? It was one of the best episodes of the entire series.

I'd heard a bit about the infamous "silent episode" from a few sources before actually sitting down to watch it. Some said it was pretty great. My friend Jake said "you basically feel like you're high the whole time watching it." I've never smoked in my life, but I'm pretty sure I get that.  Needless to say, going in I was pretty excited about what it had to offer.

BoJack's heading off to an underwater film festival to "make a splash" and improve his Oscar buzz. After all the comments I've made so far this season about BoJack Horseman's supporting cast staying way in the background of the interesting stuff, I'm surprised that the best episode to-date was pretty much a BoJack-only story.  We don't even see Todd, Diane, or Princess Carolyn in the episode and Mr. Peanutbutter's only around because he briefly appears in an underwater TV commercial and sign-board ad for seahorse milk.

BoJack starts to dread the trip when he hears that Kelsey Jannings is going to be attending the festival. Kelsey has probably been the best minor character (outside of the main five) on the series and I'm very happy that they decided to at least return to the fact that she and BoJack really need some closure after BoJack pushed her to do the Nixon scene in "The Shot" last season, causing her to get fired.  BoJack wants to apologize to her, but it's painfully obvious that he has no idea how to do it. His attempts to write an olive branch letter range from the stupidly obtuse ("Kelsey, weird we haven't talked. Keep it real!"), to the nonsensical ("Kelsey! Long time no talk. So anyway, you're the Kelseyiest! Smell you later." to the dammit-he-sort-of-tried-but-she'd-slap-him-upon-reading-this ("Kelsey, sorry you got fired. That sucks for you. P.S., We're cool, right?").  It's pathetic on its surface, but we know that BoJack can have a hard time bringing the good out in himself to connect with people even when he tries pretty hard, so the ostensibly weak effort resonates.

Eventually BoJack falls asleep on a bus and winds up stranded in the middle of nowhere after witnessing the birth of five six baby seahorses.  One of the baby seahorses winds up stranded behind with BoJack. We know that BoJack's kind of a shitty dude and he actually contemplates leaving the baby behind because dammit, he's already 30 nautical miles away from where he needs to be and that youngun would be nothing but a hindrance. But of course, he's ultimately not able to abandon the infant and takes the little seahorse with him.

They embark on adventures that seem Looney Tunes-ish in nature. It could have been totally silly, but the music and animation makes their misadventures (including a trippy hop through light-up anemones) a bonding experience and by the time that BoJack is actually able to return the infant to its father, it's obvious that BoJack has really bonded with the baby and has found some fleeting happiness in caring for it.

In typical BoJack fashion, we get the rug ripped out from under us when BoJack gives back the baby at its home. The father seems to just robotically think of the baby as a statistic and shows little enthusiasm to have his child back. By the time BoJack leaves, the baby has already blended in with its identical siblings and he realizes that his brief but meaningful relationship with the little seahorse has ended.

To BoJack's credit, he channels the experience into something constructive as he finally has the words to write to Kelsey.

"Kelsey, in this terrifying world, all we have are the connections that we make. I'm sorry I got you fired. I'm sorry I never called you after."

But we get yet another gut-punch when BoJack successfully tracks down Kelsey's cab just to find that the ink on the note has become runny and illegible. Kelsey's not exactly patient enough to wait around for BoJack to explain himself. I'm hopeful that they'll return to this storyline, but for the time being, it's hard to watch BoJack do the right thing and have it not be rewarded.

In the absence of characters speaking, the episode's soundtrack is simply brilliant. Aside from it being serene and pleasant, it helps to set the atmosphere of each scene and often helps to convey BoJack's emotions. This was an extremely creative installment; the writers took a big risk and it's easy to see how this could have wound up a complete dud a-la Season One's "Downer Ending".  Fortunately, they really hit this one out of the park and we got another treasure of an episode that I'll throw right up there with "Say Anything" (s.1 ep.7), "Let's Find Out" (s.2 ep.8), and "Escape from L.A." (s.2. ep.11).

Episode Grade: A

Bullet Points

• "Also the French smell and I hate them."

• "I haven't been underwater since my mother tried to drown me in the bathtub when I was 22."

• Billie Jean is Not My Lover -- directed by Kelsey Jannings

• What fish in the right mind would want to watch "Naked and Filleted"?

• One nice touch that I caught upon re-watch -- it's pretty clear that Kelsey is not doing well. When BoJack first sees her sitting at her booth at the reception, she tries to awkwardly smile and wave at a passer-by to attract his interest in her film. She's pretty cold on her surface and she must be feeling pretty desperate to put on that kind of face.

• The thumbs-up thing and the "we don't care for your paper dollars down in this here ocean, mister" running joke were excellent sources of humor throughout the episode.

• The revelation at the end that BoJack could have talked the whole time had he just pushed a voice-box button on his air-helmet was one of the best laugh-out-loud moments of the series.

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Three: "BoJack Kills"

One of the staples of 90's family comedies was the annoying neighbor kid. From Steve Urkel to Kimmy Gibbler, these caricatures were usually good for a throwaway joke about how bothersome they could be.

Horsin' Around's Urkel is a weirdo known only as "Goober" and anyone who saw the BoJack Christmas special is keenly aware of the "Go Home, Goober!" catchphrase. It's called back in the cold open and we're introduced to Goober ("Reggie somethingorother", who cares, the guy's Goober, I don't blame BoJack for not remembering his name) as he exists today. He's the manager of a strip club / amusement park hybrid that's a "sexy time for the whole family" and exploits killer whale-women. Fred Savage takes a lot of shit for the fact that he's a pretty crappy actor, but I loved his voice work as Goober. Somehow, the kid from The Wonder Years was perfect for the voice of perhaps BoJack Horseman's creepiest character yet.  Whodathunkit?

This week's story pairs up BoJack and Diane, who's been avoiding BoJack due to some combination of shame and desire for self-correction, as she associates BoJack with all the time she wasted drinking in his house when she didn't want to deal with the fact that she couldn't cut it in Cordovia. It makes perfect sense and it's nice that their relationship has something of a more evolved plot to it than the love interest angle.

BoJack essentially traps Diane into joining him on his errand to pick up a letter that Jill Pill wanted reclaimed from Cuddlywhiskers' house. The pair find a dead killer whale-woman from Goober's club lying in the pool and the police instantly show up and pin BoJack as a suspect. This sets the pair off on a murder mystery to figure out whodunit before the controversy blows up BoJack's Oscar campaign. The twists get even weirder when the dead woman's phone shows a text saying "BoJack is going to kill me" and an investigation into Goober's club shows "BOJACK KILLS" spray-painted on the wall.

At the end of it, it's revealed that "BoJack" didn't refer to the Horseman but rather a brand of heroin being distributed by Goober, who's arrested by Officer Meowmeow Fuzzyface shortly after that revelation. It's a fun little twist, but this ends up being more of a throwaway plot line in the grand scheme of things. Cuddlywhiskers eventually shows up at the end to talk about his newfound happiness, gained from throwing away his worldly possessions and dedicating his life to helping people. He mentions that his Oscar never made him happy, an ominous statement that pretty much takes the wind out of the motivation that Ana gave BoJack in the first episode of the season. Diane and BoJack are both struggling to find a way to be happy in this world, and the path that Cuddlywhiskers outlined to doing so is unsettling to both. The episode ends with his words sinking in during the car trip home, during which both are visibly very uncomfortable with what they heard.

The "B" story in this episode revolves around Mr. Peanutbutter and Todd getting skunked and Princess Carolyn needing to swoop in to save them from their predicament for some reason. There's some decent jokes in there (I particularly enjoyed Mr. Peanutbutter being unable to shake off his compulsion to shake himself dry after taking his tomato bath) and enjoyable references to the absurd amount of spaghetti strainers that Mr. Peanutbutter purchased from his "business venture" in the first episode of the season, but it's mostly not that compelling. Todd desperately needs something to do. He's a comic relief character that keeps things lighthearted, but he's had plot lines over the show's run, like his rock opera or his brief improv career that have done a better job of fleshing him out beyond "goofy dude who's just kinda there."

I'd say the same for Mr. Peanutbutter except this episode probes deeper into the issues he and Diane are experiencing. It's confirmed that they're seeing a marriage counselor (all but spoken in "Start Spreading the News") and Mr. Peanutbutter's neediness is placing a pretty serious strain on the relationship. His first real conversation with Diane in the flashback episode showed how happy he was when Diane validated something he said and to this day he's still seeking that validation. Diane's clearly in a rough spot, trying to get through a day at time without dwelling on the stress of asking herself whether she's happy. She becomes so consumed with the thrill of the murder mystery and the way it helps her forget herself that Mr. Peanutbutter gets lost in the shuffle. He calls her angrily (pretty rightfully) because she never went home that night and she doesn't have much to say for herself. Mr. Peanutbutter seems pretty damn irrelevant to Diane's quest for self-satisfaction, and combined with how important she is to his, it certainly seems that this won't end well.

Episode Grade: B

Bullet Points

• Todd still has the Latin Kings and Skin Heads tatoos. Nice continuity touch.

• Goober is also the #1 customer of Whale World. Not surprised.

• One of my favorite parts of this episode was the first post-theme scene featuring the "Non-Denominational Winter Day Pageant". The PC jokes were fast and furious....
• The song was great: "It is winter yes that's right / A time for family and lights / It doesn't mean God and it doesn't mean pray / Unless that's what you want but who are we to say."
• "Where are you? I hear mirth."
• "Snow goblin is an offensive slur."
• "Jesus Jill, you thought your play sucked."  "I didn't."
• The non-denominational word for schmooze is "hobnob". The more you know.
• "Did you miss the three wise people make their journey to visit the regular baby?"

• "Watch your mouth, lady. There are children here."

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode Two: "The BoJack Horseman Show"

It's a BoJack Horseman flashback special! The year (as they make abundantly clear) is 2007 and we're going back to the roots of BoJack and Princess Carolyn's tumultuous on-again off-again relationship. Things were just as weird between them back then and both insist that their hook-ups won't continue, which is funny and sad at the same time.

In 2007, Princess Carolyn's stuck as a secretary to her agent boss, Marv. Marv seems to exist only to speak in a crusty voice, act unhappy, and whip Princess Carolyn's movie scripts into his ceiling fan. When Carolyn tries to convince Marv to put BoJack in a starring role of the only script he was willing to listen to (because it had a two-word title), he snorts derisively stating that not even the best agent in the world could get BoJack off his ass.

Princess Carolyn takes this as a challenge and introduces BoJack to a hamster named Cuddlywhiskers who penned the script. We see that the artist currently known as Jill Pill is his housekeeper and are told very aggressively that Cuddlywhiskers went to Harvard. How on point.

BoJack is excited about working with Cuddlywhiskers but is initially nervous that he won't be any good. After a brief flash-forward, we see that Carolyn was able to eventually convince him to go through with the gig after some tough love. BoJack's grateful enough to give a gift to Princess Carolyn that's simply purrfect ("It's a box! With crinkly tissue paper in it! How did you know?"). With all the shitty things that BoJack has done over the series' run, it's important that the writers give us moments like these to remind us why people even put up with him in the first place.

BoJack and Cuddlywhiskers do a great job with the initial reading of the script, but the potential for success frightens BoJack and he engages in some self-sabotage by convincing Cuddlywhiskers to change everything about the show (seriously offending Princess Carolyn with some mean-spirited put-downs in the process). The pair go on an epic bender and write an absurd pilot in which BoJack's character actually takes a dump on a DVD of Horsin' Around and has a dumb catchphrase, "Wassup bitches?!?!" (with apologies to Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

Princess Carolyn takes BoJack's harsh words and does what she usually does when life gives her lemons -- channels her anger and disappointment into her career. She tells Marv she wants to be an agent and in a really weird and odd-fitting plot twist, he just decides to quit and effectively hand her his job. Marv jumps off into a monologue that explains the depression, regret, and missed life opportunities that the job has meant to him and we know all too well that all of Marv's ghosts will one day visit Princess Carolyn. For the time being, though, she's naive and thrilled to have the job she wants, effectively numb to how it tore her predecessor apart.

She then goes to have a frank talk with BoJack that's truly crushing given what we know about the way her life turns out over the next eight years.

"I'm your agent and your friend and I will always support you. But I'm 33 years old and I want to have a family by the time I'm 40.  I don't want to spend the next seven years of my life falling in and out of love with you. I've wasted too much time waiting for things to happen.  And I'm not going to wait anymore."

All I could think about was the end of Season One, Episode Seven, when Princess Carolyn's phone wished her a happy 40th birthday while she was alone at night in her office.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peanutbutter is married to his second wife Jessica Biel, who is the latest in a line of celebrities to lend their own voice to the show and portray a thoroughly awful version of themselves. She's already moving on to Justin Timberlake as she's visibly sick of Mr. Peanutbutter's positive yes-man attitude towards literally everything. Diane winds up being Mr. Peanutbutter's rebound when Jessica verbally divorces him. It's some neat backstory, but for the second straight episode, nowhere near as compelling as what's going on with BoJack.

The "C" story shows Todd's first kiss with a girl named Emily. It wasn't overly interesting aside from Todd stumbling onto the ending of The Sopranos, which I probably would have appreciated more had I seen that show.

Episode Grade: B-

Bullet Points

• Old Running Guy has a female companion in the opening scene of the episode. My first thought was, "Hey, great, he found someone" but then when it was revealed shortly after that this was a flashback episode, this became sad.

• Got a kick out of the guy handing out flyers for home loans -- "No Job, No Credit, No Problem!"

• Another running joke that I like are the stereotyped radio songs with lyrics explaining what decade it is.

• The mouse-chick from J.D. Salinger's production room from Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out! makes a brief cameo in a Stanford sweater as an annoyed bystander when Todd and Emily skateboard by.

• "Blarn"

• We finally have the answer to how many Lokos are an adequate amount of Lokos for BoJack. Sixteen!

• "I now pronounce THIS marriage over. Biel with it!"

• "Hey there Delilah"

BoJack Horseman Season Three, Episode One: "Start Spreading the News"

Welcome to my (hopefully) semi-regular coverage the new season of one of my favorite television shows I watched last year, BoJack Horseman.

Since this is a Netflix binge show, this coverage will be slow compared to how quickly people likely watch it. Not too many people comment here, but I'll ask that people don't post spoilers for future episodes, because I actually am watching them at the pace that I write.

We rejoin BoJack's adventures on his Secretariat interview tour where he's required to answer the same boilerplate questions over and over again ad nauseam. For me, it conjured up memories of the "I'm tired of running in circles" scene from last season (and upon re-watch, I may have just been reading the poster in the background!). There's pretty little that BoJack hates more than being forced to bullshit with people and sure enough, the sarcasm starts to come out pretty quickly. Things get worse when the interviewers start to hone in on the fact that Horsin' Around is considered to be a crappy show and BoJack simply will not stand for that. Ana Spanakopita, BoJack's advisor for the tour has to give him a reality check between takes by skewering him with a biting and well-delivered line: "Horsin' Around...was a piece of shit."

In-between the rigorous interview schedule, we're introduced to the enigmatic Jill Pill, whom was discussed last season when Princess Carolyn tried to convince BoJack to talk to her about becoming a Broadway actor. She's voiced by Mara Wilson! Remember her?  She really hasn't been up to much in the acting realm, so it's neat to see her back out there. BoJack sees her weird marionette play "Greg Kinglear" and then meets her at a diner. In BoJack's discussions with Jill, he seems to think that he'll be remembered if he wins an Oscar for Secretariat, but she troubles him with a metaphor:

"You know what the real tragedy of Greg Kinglear is? He's a marionette who doesn't realize that someone else is pulling the strings."

Ouch.

We see a callback to that when BoJack tells Ana that he's not her "puppet" when he gets frustrated with her micromanagement. When Ana leaves BoJack alone, he gets drunk and tries to sleep with a journalist, but things go south during the encounter when she mentions a boat. That brings back BoJack's memories of Charlotte's daughter, Penny, from the most crushing episode of last season. It sends BoJack into a bout of depression and eventually he's recorded saying that he's not actually even in Secretariat and that the producers were able to digitally replace him. That seems like a major catastrophe, but Ana later mysteriously notifies him that everything has been taken care of.

Ana finally gives him a heart-to-heart to address the troubling seed Jill planted within BoJack -- the uncertainty over whether he actually wants to win an Oscar. She's as realistic as possible with him; the Oscar isn't going to cure his depression or make him whole.

Meanwhile, Princess Carolyn's pretty overwhelmed with her new agency and she loses J.D. Salinger as a client. She tries to get Mr. Peanutbutter to get some work, but that only inspires him to cook up more crazy schemes, much to the chagrin of his poor accountant. Todd has a goofy adventure getting lost in the hotel room and Diane's not really involved all that much with the story. BoJack Horseman generally does a great job of working with its secondary characters, so hopefully they start to branch out soon despite the heavy BoJack-focus of the first episode.

Episode Grade: B

Bullet Points

• It's revealed that Vanessa Gekko and Rutabaga Rabitowitz have teamed up to form a competing firm. While it's not explored in the first episode, teaming up Princess Carolyn's archrival with the sketchy guy she shunned at the end of the last season is a pretty interesting setup. 

• Princess Carolyn's conference call with BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter gives us some hints that things aren't going great between Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane as they begin to dominate part of the call with unmistakable marriage-counseling-speak.

• The guy who asked BoJack "What's it like to play Sea Biscuit" sounded a LOT like Vincent Adultman, so I guess Alison Brie's working overtime.

• "I told you to wear lipstick...and underpants, Teresa."

• I was a bit disappointed by the "small bottle of shampoo at airport security" joke, even as a throwaway. That's been done a billion times.

• "She had to move to Detroit." "Oh GOD!"

• "The lyrics are too relevant! Don't do it! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"