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"