BoJack Horseman

I want to spend some time discussing another media-centric thing my wife and I have enjoyed over the last few years. Having cut the cord of the malefactors of the cable industry years ago, we have come to rely on the increasingly amazing source of entertainment to be found among the streaming networks. Netflix and Hulu have defined television for our modern era, and are now producing quality, serial shows the likes of which have never really been seen outside of HBO and some of the other premium cable channels. While it remains to be seen if Netflix’s growth can be sustained over the long haul, there can be no doubt that in a few short years the company has unleashed some of the best stories we’ve seen in the medium for a long time. For now I want to focus on an animated show from the streaming service that is a roaring success in various and deep ways.

And that show is BoJack Horseman.

What is this show, exactly? I could describe it simply as a pastiche of anthropomorphized animals and humans co-existing in a world of “Hollywoo” - but that’s not all that detailed or interesting. I could be boring and say read the Wiki. A better description would be this: a show that seems OK with the idea of being a screw-up, in life or in career or anything. And that is something our world desperately needs. Voiced by one of my all-time favorite television actors (Will Arnett), BoJack is the washed-up former star of “Horsin’ Around,” the type of banal sitcom that was populous in the alternate 1990’s of this (and our) world. After a glorious eight seasons, while he has become famous BoJack leads a desperate life of partying and drift. We first see him in season one working with a ghost writer (Alison Brie), who he first is fearful of getting his autobiography wrong and who he then becomes romantically attached - and that’s just getting started. But I can hardly do justice to the writing of this show - it is that freaking good. Arnett is surrounded by an amazing cast, including Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Amy Sedaris, and Paul F Tompkins.

In my lifetime, we have witnessed a fair amount of variation of animated television shows for adults. The Simpsons premiered just as I was turning 6 and my parents didn’t really let me watch it anyways; I was more lucky to be around during my formative and uh, substance-using years to enjoy a hefty dose of the reality-bending comedy coming out of the folks at Williams Street, adult swim (then known as the Cartoon Network’s evil, late-night twin). The intervening decades also brought new and highly original ideas like South Park, Futurama, and Archer. The chain of events leading to BoJack has led to something that is like a homage to all that has come before, and yet is very unique on its own. Creator Raphael Bob-Waksburg, who got a nice profile in the New York Times Magazine this July, stated that he pitched the show to his partner Lisa Hanawalt as being about a “Depressed Talking Horse.” That gets a lot closer to the center of it for me, and especially my wife Mary. Living with a mental illness is not easy, and being the partner of someone with that affliction can be tough. But I don’t know how hard she has it, most of the time. Late in the first season, Arnett gives a stunning voice performance, pleading with ghostwriter Diane to (in his words) “tell me I’m a good person.” It’s a poignant moment for many reasons, but it also speaks to a fundamental emptiness many of us have felt at one time or another in our lives.

I can speak to this as well. Moving to Minnesota in the summer of 2007, I had essentially zero reason for going other than my current life in Iowa was falling into a malaise of drugs and a general feeling of no direction. Not having much of an ability to change myself at this point in my life, this lifestyle unsurprisingly followed me up here. The results of which, while being helpful to mine for my in-progress third novel, led to a desperation that was only resolved by meeting the woman I was supposed to fall in love with and marry. But in the intervening years I indeed could be described as a “f*ck up,” having the desire to write a book but no motivation to see it through. This is the world BoJack inhabits all the time, and so it’s difficult viewing because of the raw nature of the portrayal of what very much is one of life itself. We’re not necessarily used to that from a show of this type, are we?

At the end of the first season, BoJack finds out that the autobiography he maligned has gotten him the role of a lifetime: playing the great racing horse Secretariat. Season two finds him acting in the movie and slowly, finally finding a way to gain happiness, only to find that it causes him to lose out in being in the film (to find out what I mean by that, you gotta watch!). This leads into the phenomenal season three, released this year, in which the creators found even more bizarre and experimental ways to toy with the medium and nature of the show itself, including what I thought was one of the best yet: a (mostly) silent, underwater episode that takes place under the ocean. Having some sort of pseudo-nostalgia about silent films dredged out of me after viewing The Artist years ago, this one particularly moved me. The entire three-season run covers a rapidly growing amount of ground, including celebrity culture in general and the shallowness of those people we put on pedestals in Hollywood. Season three even has a disturbing Cosby-esque allusion revolving around a supposedly “beloved” talk-show host and his treatment of women.

At its core, this show is about disappointment, and realizing that life is going to give you plenty of it. But for some people, this is about as good as it might get for them. Depression is a real disease, and it affects a lot of people. Just the fact that a streaming service was willing to take a chance on a show that caters to this very fact of our modern existence is a pretty big step forward, and is a start toward addressing larger issues about why so many people in today’s America feel this way. Sure, everyone feels like a screw-up once in awhile, but a lot of people can never escape that feeling. Those of us who can gain pleasure from a dive into a depressed talking horse’s alternate universe and still come away in one piece need to be there for those who may not find the return trip so easy.

Without diving too further into the dark territory, I have to conclude by saying that if you have the means and the time to watch this powerful show, I would highly recommend it. I will also say this - in our current era of “peak TV” (or whatever blithe description you want to throw on this First-World Problem) there seems to be an encouragement to binge-watch these kinds of shows. In this case, I would actually advise against it. While each episode is telling a part of the overall story they are each worth digesting on their own; even breaking it up to one or two episodes a week is worth it. But if you don’t give a hoot what I think, binge away! The important thing is to get more people viewing this incredible, moving show.