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!!!!!"