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
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?"
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