BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Five: Thoughts and Prayers

BoJack Horseman once again came up short while trying to be something it's not: a show about politics.

In the one sense, it's totally understandable, because ever since Donald Trump became a thing, everything has become politicized. It's hard to turn on a late night talk show, watch a football game, log on to social media, or even have a conversation with friends and family without hot-button issues creeping in. The problem is that BoJack Horseman doesn't have the biting satire and nuanced storytelling of South Park, nor is it equipped to comment on hot-of-the presses stories (or tweets) like the late-night hosts. When BoJack Horseman tries to veer into this territory, it provides nothing that you can't get from the Twitter echo-chamber and the writing comes off pretty flat as a result.

Take the following lines from this episode:

• "Thoughts and prayers." This is repeated nine times during the episode, and it's meant to be a shot at the hallow virtue-signaling done by celebrities and normies all over social media (i.e., a person is not posting their feelings on social media because their sadness compels them to, they're posting because they want other people to think they're compassionate, and/or get likes/reactions). However, it's a joke that's been made many times before and far better. As a one-off, this might have worked, but they kept going back to it with diminishing returns.

• "I am totally unqualified to cover a news story this important. But as a straight white male, I will plow forward with confidence and assume I'm doing fine." The underlying message here from A Ryan Seacrest Type isn't wrong, it's just something that's been beaten ruthlessly to death.

• "I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns." This was probably the laziest line of the episode, as that sort of message was plainly clear by the immediately preceding banning of guns in reaction to Diane's speech. In of itself, it's an arguable statement to make that's presented as fact, despite nothing but a ridiculous congressional (I think?) scene to earn it in the context of the episode.

This country does need more responsible gun control laws. Women deserve to live as safely as men do, and men absolutely take their relative safety for granted. Straight white males exist in a state of relative privilege that most of them fail to recognize and all of them fail to deserve. These messages are all true, but in this episode, BoJack Horseman wasn't able to deliver any of them in a meaningful, creative, or nuanced* way. In fact, they didn't even try to do that; they just had their characters directly speak the messages. It would be unfair to expect BoJack Horseman to illustrate these points via extended and powerful storytelling a-la-The Wire. However, their chosen method of trying to extract a laugh by flatly observing these societal problems isn't worth a full episode of TV. 

*The one thing I did think was interesting that did add some nuance was the way that Diane's worldview was warped by the power of holding a gun and that her stance on their usefulness flipped once it became a source of empowerment rather than a threat. Diane's not one to compromise her morals easily and it was a nice way for the show to at least acknowledge the seductive hold that guns can have on people.

It's completely fair, on the other hand, to expect BoJack Horseman to understand what it is at its core and develop content accordingly. Fortunately, the BoJack plot in this episode was on point and kept the episode from completely floundering. It's been a long time since BoJack has actually interacted with his horrible mother, Beatrice, and he tracks her down in a retirement home (with some not-so-eager help from Princess Carolyn) only to find that she has dementia and doesn't remember him. "The Old Sugarman Place" did a great deal to humanize (heh) Beatrice, and that pays off here. There's something tragic to Beatrice's condition when it could have seemed more like "horrible woman is on her way out".

BoJack just wants her to remember him so that he can give her a straight "Fuck you, Mom" to the face. That particularly hits home because BoJack Horseman to this point has only used the word "fuck" once per season, all in critical moments. Beatrice recognizes BoJack in re-runs of Horsin' Around, so BoJack tries to put on a live Horsin' Around skit with Hollyhock to jog Beatrice's memory. That backfires when Beatrice has a bad reaction to the skit and winds up getting herself kicked out of the home, ultimately leading to her living with BoJack. It's a very interesting way to set up future episodes.

Unfortunately, the gun control storyline (and its associated offshoots) is possibly the weakest that BoJack Horseman has ever done. This was the worst episode of the show since early in Season One.

Episode Grade: B-

I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05

I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05

I am totally unqualified to cover a news story this important.
But as a straight white male, I will plow forward with confidence and assume I'm doing fine.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Four: Commence Fracking

With my daughter being born a little over a week ago and so much time having elapsed since I watched this episode, I won't really be doing a full recap of it because nothing about it stuck out to me either way. When I don't have a lot to say, these recaps can be a roadblock to me continuing on with the series, and I don't want that. Maybe I'll flesh this out later. Probably not though.

Episode Grade: B

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Three: "Hooray! Todd Episode!"

The writers of BoJack Horseman have always had their work cut out for them when it comes to the character of Todd Chavez. The first six episodes of the series made me think that the show was mostly going to consist of frivolous humor and Todd was the biggest goofball of them all. Todd was created as BoJack's naive deadbeat roommate whose silly antics were usually good for a laugh. His stories were largely on the periphery of Season One and as the show drilled heavier into the characters of BoJack, Diane, and Princess Carolyn, it seemed that Todd was just going to be used as a comic relief character.

Of course, the show has evolved to take all of its major characters seriously. That gets tricky at times with Todd, a character who once built his own amusement park out of trash. Todd's penchant for screwing around means that we spend most of his screen time thinking "what sort of kooky caper will he cook up next?" BoJack Horseman somehow has to balance that image with its desire to treat Todd as a person with feelings that we're supposed to care about. That's tough to do, but they've been able to pull it off, especially of late.

"Hooray! Todd Episode!" is the latest installment that threads the needle perfectly. Since near the beginning of Season Three, the show has done a great job of developing the "Todd is asexual" story and despite all the goofy dancing and obtuse behavior, they manage to make us the serious moments resonate. His reunion with BoJack, who has either backstabbed or left Todd hanging in at least one major moment in each season, perfectly encapsulates all the pain that he's experienced as a part of that relationship. His coming-out-asexual moment really feels like a strong moment after all of the B-plots he's been given over the last season or so that have been building towards it. In hindsight, though, it makes all his attempts to connect with women over the internet in Season One seem out of place, so I do wonder whether this was intended from the beginning or whether that's something that the writers will spin in hindsight as Todd trying to figure himself out before he actually found himself with a real live woman in Emily who was interested in him.

Aside from the serious stuff, this episode is great fun as Todd and his typically-helpful demeanor tries to fulfill the demands of his various friends while BoJack's probable daughter Hollyhock enters his life to complicate matters. When we first caught a glimpse of Hollyhock late in last season, I was thinking that we'd get some broken girl who had never felt complete because she'd never met her father (and since we just met Hollyhock, I'm not completely ruling it out), but instead we get a total waste of space who has inherited most of BoJack's worst traits. Todd puts it best when he says, "Um, we may not need that DNA test."

In addition to being a great Todd episode, we get a couple nuggets that set up the plot for later. Obviously, BoJack connecting with his daughter is going to be the big one, but the pending conflict between Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter feels inevitable. Diane's back in activist mode, and despite what she takes from her encounter with Todd-as-Channing-Tatum, you can't help but feel that exploiting her husband is going to be a tempting way to get people to read her articles.

Bullet Points

• It feels like Princess Carolyn has been taken out of focus for the most part this season. I bet she'll be featured heavily in a soon-to-come episode

• I legitimately did not know what fracking was before watching this episode. Is that bad?

• "It's me, Channing Tatum. I'm busy channing right now, but you can come back...Tatum?"

• "Less of course."

Episode Grade: A-

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Two: The Old Sugarman Place

Now that's more like it.

As the story turns back to BoJack, the series also takes the opportunity to delve into an under-explored character, Beatrice Horseman. BoJack's mother's cruelty has long been pointed to as a reason that BoJack's so messed up, but before now, we didn't really get a good sense of why she's such a bitch. "The Old Sugarman Place" clears it up, and true to BoJack Horseman, the truth is unfathomably sad.

BoJack, not really knowing what to do after alienating everyone in his life, drives to his mom's parents' summer home in Michigan (which I hear has had its tourism hurt by the advent of air travel). The place is a dump, and we get some great comedy out of BoJack trying to fix the place up while doing a very poor job of assuming a fake identity. For the record, if I had to fix up an old place like that, I probably would have been just as ineffective as BoJack, with the exception of when I got to the hardware store, I wouldn't have had a damn clue what to buy. BoJack lived my nightmare in this episode.

The structure of the episode is very clever. It interweaves BoJack's story at the house in present-day and Beatrice's childhood with her family. Her older brother CrackerJack, (voiced by Lin Manuel-Miranda!) is headed off to war, which doesn't end well, as he's killed in battle. The family, particularly Beatrice's mother Honey, is never the same again. Honey falls into a manic depression trying to fill the new hole that's been punched in her life, but nothing works, and her husband Joseph is basically an embodiment of stereotypical male attitudes towards women in the World War II era. He actually utters, "As a modern American man I am woefully unprepared to manage a woman's emotions. I was never taught, and I will not learn."

That sort of ridiculous admission takes a turn for the dark when, later in the episode, Honey pleads with Joseph to make her better, saying that she doesn't know how to fix herself. Joseph, in turn, does one of the most unspeakably awful things I've ever seen in real life, live action TV, or cartoon TV. It's a crushing moment when Beatrice encounters the "new" Honey. Her personality is muted and there's stitches across her forehead. The bastard made her get a lobotomy because he couldn't deal with her struggles. As if that wasn't hard enough to watch, the last line Beatrice says -- echoing an earlier quote in the episode -- is, "Why, I have half a mind...". It ranks as one of the most brutal moments that BoJack has ever done.

In the present, BoJack actually gets his house repaired thanks to the generous help of the Sugarmans' neighbor, Ed, who is a dragonfly. It's clear Ed's wife passed away some time ago and that he's still in pain from that, and BoJack and Ed actually form a sort of bond as they work to fix the house. There's a great scene in which they overlay the past and present and Honey and Ed perform the same sad song for a crowd. The experience sort of unhinges Ed and when BoJack stupidly falls off a roof in a weird attempt to get Ed to fly again, it works, but culminates in Ed exclaiming that he doesn't want to live anymore after BoJack saves him from drowning in a lake.

BoJack eventually talks to Diane and I like to think that how much he misses her, rather than her pep-talk, is what drives BoJack to head on home. I'm thoroughly convinced that we haven't seen the last of a BoJack / Diane romance, and this episode went a long way toward fueling that fire. The next thing we know, BoJack has the Sugarmans' house destroyed and a bewildered Ed is just left there trying to figure out what the heck this was all for. BoJack simply says that it was all a big waste of time, and quotes Sarah Lynn with a solid "suck a dick, dumb shit" before vacating the premises. Ed was simply another victim of BoJack's self-serving behavior. He destroys everything he touches and while the show doesn't provide any further updates on Ed in this episode, there's potential for darkness here.

"The Old Sugarman Place", while packed full of gut-wrenching moments, is what BoJack Horseman is at it's core and how it works at its best. The creative storytelling, the stellar voice acting, and the way that Raphael Bob-Waksberg & Co. give such depth and vivid angst to their animated characters never ceases to amaze me. We didn't have to wait long for the first fantastic BoJack episode of Season Four, and after a shaky premiere, it's a relief to see that this show hasn't lost itself.

Bullet Points:

• Maybe we should all be just a little bit more concerned about Joseph's secretary's self-esteem, huh?

• "Oh, of course, the twelve hundred pound horse will shimmy up a drain pipe to get it, that makes more sense than the dragonfly, who has the word "fly" in the name of what he is."

• The easiest way to get BoJack's goat remains talking about how fat he is.

Episode Grade: A

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode One: See Mr. Peanutbutter Run

I don't know how well I'm going to be able to keep up with these because my second daughter is due to be born literally any day now. So if these stop abruptly at some point, please know that it is because my life has been turned upside down once again and I would probably rather be sleeping.

My single greatest fear coming into this season of BoJack Horseman is the plot line teed up at the end of last season involving Mr. Peanutbutter running for governor. These days -- thanks to Donald Trump -- comedy shows, late night talk shows, and an unhealthy percentage of social media has devolved into people trying to tell the same jokes in different ways. Trump sucks, and the underlying issues are important, but I often find myself longing for the days when there was something else to say. BoJack Horseman is a special treasure; it has something unique and important to say about self-worth, happiness, and the struggle for both. I don't want to see it become Family Guy. Shit, I don't even want to see it become South Park, a show that handles the nuances of hot-button political issues better than any other I've seen. That isn't what BoJack Horseman is at its heart. I hope it does not become just another voice in the echo chamber.

The opening episode of Season Four doesn't feature the titular character at all. BoJack has gone all Luke Skywalker on everyone and only Diane seems to care. Diane's struggling with Mr. Peanutbutter's campaign and just wants it to end while appearing supportive of her husband's aspirations. While the premise at hand is ridiculous, I'm sure that many have found themselves in lower-stakes versions of that situation and that makes it relatable. We know from last season, though, that Diane's new blogging gig is going to pressure her to expose dirt on Mr. Peanutbutter, so I'm sure a lot of her concern isn't just the coffee-snatching annoyances invading her house, it's a desire to avoid that conflict.

The central plot of the episode is crazy; Mr. Peanutbutter wants to be governor, but there's no election at hand; he needs to oust the current governor, Chuck Woodchuck. In the spirit of true Hollywoo craziness, he challenges Woodchuck to a ski race for the rights to be governor of California. That, of course, doesn't make any sense. The rather level-headed Woodchuck pays it no mind, but obviously the Hollywoo media and general public is all about it, and heck, there's a State Legislature, dammit! So of course, the law is changed such that the outcome of a ski race with poorly drawn rules determines the governor. I say "poorly drawn", because Todd drops out of the sky from his "drone throne" (a truly great and hilarious Todd concept) and crosses the finish line first, and that apparently counts.

Todd refuses the gubernatorial bid, as he's still not feeling all that sure of himself following Emily's labeling of him as asexual. That refusal makes the seat vacant until the completion of a general election, thereby setting up the plotline we thought we'd get from the beginning: Mr. Peanutbutter vs. Chuck Woodchuck in a heated election race.

I want to jump back to that Todd subplot, because I think the show can do some great work with it. There hasn't been a lot of attention paid to asexual people in pop culture; it's sort of an unexplored territory (at least in my experience). I think that it could be interesting, particularly because there's probably a lot of struggles that haven't been exposed to the public eye. In just this premiere, we're faced with two: Emily distances herself a bit from Todd once she understands that he's not going to be a sexual partner and Todd himself rejects getting slapped with the label, as he at least says that it's not quite the right descriptor of his situation. The Todd scenes were the strongest part of this premiere and I'm intrigued by what they might do with this going forward.

As for my greatest fear coming into this season? Well, there's references to Mr. Peanutbutter not really knowing what he's doing, being completely unqualified, never really thinking things would go as far as they do, verbally berating an ostensibly competent counterpart, etc. It's the same shit South Park did with Mr. Garrison last year, only with someone who's easier to like (and also: a full year later). BoJack Horseman deserves all the benefit of the doubt in the world, so I'll give them a chance to see how they want to play this one out. Hopefully they understand that telling a tired story with their excellent characters doesn't make the tale any less stale.

Bullet Points:

• "GO WOODCHARLES!" (in an episode with plenty of solid jokes, that landed the best for me)

• "Ski Race" is not one of the "Constitutional and Democratic Paths to Governorship" but dammit, "Lawful Elk Duel" can get you that office, fair and square.

• It wasn't immediately clear to me whether Princess Carolyn had a miscarriage or an abortion, but maybe I missed something. 

• I'm honestly curious as to how the BoJack / Mr. Peanutbutter relationship will play when BoJack inevitably comes back at some point. Mr. Peanutbutter was the only major character with whom BoJack didn't have a major falling out (though he and Diane seemed to have reconciled), and I thought that was an under-explored element of the falling action of Season Three.

• Maybe a spin-off of Todd traveling the world on a drone throne, eating kettle corn? Please?

Episode Grade: B-

High Maintenance Season One & Webisodes (Spoiler-free!)

High Maintenance is a show with a very unique structure that's pretty tough to sell. Honestly, I'm surprised I gave it a try at all, as I'm big on serialized character arcs and it was very clear from a simple overview of High Maintenance that this is not what it's all about. I think the reason that I actually wound up taking the recommendation to check it out was that I was a fan of Louie and that show had just one frequently recurring character (if you don't count the one played by Pamela Adlon). So, at least there was some precedent.

There's 19 (I think) webisodes of High Maintenance that run typically between 8 and 15 minutes of length. These were released between 2012 and 2015 and should be watched first. HBO then picked it up as a regular TV series and released 6 episodes (half-hour length) in 2016. High Maintenance follows the adventures of The Guy, a nameless marijuana dealer that travels by bike around New York City and delivers weed to his clients (hence the very clever name for the series). Though he's the closest thing that the show has to a main character, The Guy is not the principal focus of very many episodes. Rather, the show focuses on different clients of his in each installment and how his periodic visits for a sale fits into their lives.

Though the storylines in each installment are mostly are separate from the rest, High Maintenace does a decent job of world-building, as a few of The Guy's clients have cameos during unrelated episodes or get more than one full-length plot over the course of the series to-date. The biggest reason that the show succeeds is that creators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld have a great eye for talent and they utilized a slate of mostly anonymous  character actors (on the other hand: hello, Kether Donohue and Amy Ryan!) that really make The Guy's clients come to life. 15 minutes is not a large amount of screen time, but it's all High Maintenance needs to make viewers feel like they really know these people and get a sense of their stories.

If I have a criticism of the show, it's that when you essentially create your characters and story for each episode from scratch (except The Guy), you can't draw from past episodes to create intrigue and that allows for the potential for individual installments to fall completely flat. I liked all 6 episodes of the official HBO TV series, but a couple of the webisodes didn't do it for me. That made the experience of watching those isolated episodes essentially worthless since the characters and stories don't carry over. Those were a small minority, though; most were very good. Given the non-serialized format, I wouldn't be shocked if the stories that are "duds" differ from viewer to viewer.

For those who have seen the series, my favorite of the webisodes was the one centering on comedian Hannibal Buress and my favorite of the full-length HBO episodes was "Grandpa", which is basically told through the point-of-view of a dog. For those who have not seen the series, I'd recommend giving it a try if for no other reason than that the short length of the webisodes allows you to do so with minimal time commitment. Some of my favorite recent TV experiences (Master of None, Louie) have done a good job of making relatively mundane situations very interesting via great writing and acting. High Maintenace fits pretty neatly into that mold.

Webisodes + Season One Grade: B+