The latest show to eschew its form’s conventions is Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, an animated series of startling sincerity and disarming depth.
Returning for a second season after a promising albeit uneven freshman run, the series has perfected its balance and now legitimately poses as a most unlikely candidate for Best Show on TV. Its comedy is the respite for its tragedy; its melancholy informs its humor. BoJack pushes back and forth, eviscerating many prior notions of the animated comedy by bravely tackling aspects of the human condition that are difficult to dramatize but are essential for their rawness.
From creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the series is at once a razor-sharp L.A. satire and a potent exposé of depression, placed in the hands of an anthropomorphic horse as its lead character. In this world, animals and humans harmoniously co-exist, dating each other and working together and playing the rest of life out in sync. At its center is BoJack, a recklessly selfish actor (and horse) who came to fame in the long-running '80s series “Horsin’ Around” (a pitch-perfect parody of the era’s stock sitcom) and has been reclusive in the decades since, proclaiming simultaneous neediness and superiority.
Though certainly not without intrigue, it may sound strange to praise a show of such a premise as either erudite or profound. Even while comfortably enjoying BoJack’s early episodes, I didn’t allow myself to consider it to such extents. There’s an inherent bias there, to be sure, and it’s one that other animated gems like The Simpsons and King of the Hill often embraced in order to more complexly stylize.
Yet in binging BoJack's second season, I located the show’s point of true radicalism: it doesn’t succumb to that bias. While he does take advantage of the form’s benefits – again, key characters are anthropomorphic animals – Bob-Waksberg doesn’t play to its perceptions. The deeper you get into it, the more you realize BoJack Horseman is telling a linear story of depression, loneliness and sadistic masochism (or maybe masochistic sadism) without pandering or subverting.
It helps that the bones of this second season are constructed more fluidly; in this run of 12 half-hours, BoJack manages tightly-serialized arcs while telling several effective episodic stories within them. The show had some trouble with this last year, building a world from scratch while struggling to find the precise place for side-characters like Todd (Aaron Paul), BoJack’s drifter roommate with a penchant for getting caught in larger-than-life situations. But this season, having landed the role of his dreams (in a Secretariat movie) and left to wrestle with the success of his unflattering biography (written by a ghost writer, Diane, who’s voiced superbly by Alison Brie), BoJack is thrust into an arc that’s both sturdy and compelling.
Returning for a second season after a promising albeit uneven freshman run, the series has perfected its balance and now legitimately poses as a most unlikely candidate for Best Show on TV. Its comedy is the respite for its tragedy; its melancholy informs its humor. BoJack pushes back and forth, eviscerating many prior notions of the animated comedy by bravely tackling aspects of the human condition that are difficult to dramatize but are essential for their rawness.
From creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the series is at once a razor-sharp L.A. satire and a potent exposé of depression, placed in the hands of an anthropomorphic horse as its lead character. In this world, animals and humans harmoniously co-exist, dating each other and working together and playing the rest of life out in sync. At its center is BoJack, a recklessly selfish actor (and horse) who came to fame in the long-running '80s series “Horsin’ Around” (a pitch-perfect parody of the era’s stock sitcom) and has been reclusive in the decades since, proclaiming simultaneous neediness and superiority.
Though certainly not without intrigue, it may sound strange to praise a show of such a premise as either erudite or profound. Even while comfortably enjoying BoJack’s early episodes, I didn’t allow myself to consider it to such extents. There’s an inherent bias there, to be sure, and it’s one that other animated gems like The Simpsons and King of the Hill often embraced in order to more complexly stylize.
Yet in binging BoJack's second season, I located the show’s point of true radicalism: it doesn’t succumb to that bias. While he does take advantage of the form’s benefits – again, key characters are anthropomorphic animals – Bob-Waksberg doesn’t play to its perceptions. The deeper you get into it, the more you realize BoJack Horseman is telling a linear story of depression, loneliness and sadistic masochism (or maybe masochistic sadism) without pandering or subverting.
It helps that the bones of this second season are constructed more fluidly; in this run of 12 half-hours, BoJack manages tightly-serialized arcs while telling several effective episodic stories within them. The show had some trouble with this last year, building a world from scratch while struggling to find the precise place for side-characters like Todd (Aaron Paul), BoJack’s drifter roommate with a penchant for getting caught in larger-than-life situations. But this season, having landed the role of his dreams (in a Secretariat movie) and left to wrestle with the success of his unflattering biography (written by a ghost writer, Diane, who’s voiced superbly by Alison Brie), BoJack is thrust into an arc that’s both sturdy and compelling.
At its core, BoJack Horseman is a blistering portrait of Hollywood (or should I say Hollywoo?) in all its promises and despair.
Take the season’s seventh installment, “Hank After Dark.” It provides a raucously funny and depressingly realistic allegory of the Bill Cosby controversy, envisioning him as Hank Hippopalous, a predatory hippo (yes, hippo) and American television icon. The episode captures the events’ cultural essence, incorporating such recognizable reactions as misogynistic anger, corporate indifference and media exploitation. It expertly juxtaposes the two-sided outrage over the allegations against Hank, determining it as both relatively minor – an indication of Todd’s improved role in the second season, he ends up accidentally switching places with the Prince of Cordova and witnesses atrocities of genocidal proportions, to which all are too preoccupied to even remotely care – and indicative of broad societal dysfunction.
On its own, that contrast would make for an effective dramatization of the year’s most disturbing entertainment scandal. But as it does so often, BoJack takes it about 10 steps further. Diane, a character as cynically defeated as BoJack himself, goes from accidentally flaming the story's fire to finding herself targeted for merely wanting the town to accept it as fact. Her despairing journey emerges as a resonant determination of sexism, adding another wrinkle to this cultural panorama that's subtler but no less bleak. And as if that weren't enough, the episode also manages a brilliant institutional critique: writer Amy Winfrey satirically exposes the bloated corporate mergers dominating our society, demonstrating just how they come around to protecting people like Cosby.
“Hank After Dark” encapsulates what BoJack Horseman strives for and often achieves. There are other wonderful stand-alone episodes, including a hilariously sad piece on factory farming – which answers a necessary question: which animals live as humans in the BoJack world, and which as animals? – and an Aaron Sorkin-esque delving into the behind-the-scenes action of a television game show about celebrities created and masterminded by an Alan Arkin-voiced J.D. Salinger. (You read all of that correctly.) Plus, Margo Martindale returns as Character Actress Margo Martindale, a recurring player who could never overstay her welcome.
The little details add up. Bob-Waksberg's world is humorously populated with mammals, reptiles, birds and amphibians alike, and it’s no coincidence. Beyond the egotistical BoJack, flighty Todd and displaced Diane is Princess Caroline (the great Amy Sedaris), a workaholic talent agent (cat), and Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins), Diane’s happy-go-lucky (dog) husband with sneaky demons of his own. A pink cat with a Cheshire smile, a yellow dog with a love of chasing milk trucks, a feminist 30-something who goes to “Women on the Wall: An Exploration of Gender in Text and Media: Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer in conversation with Helen Molesworth” for her birthday – the lines differentiating these characters couldn’t be more visible.
Yet as an ensemble work, BoJack Horseman brings them together. Each is searching, trying to extend beyond their depressive instincts to ascertain purpose or happiness or whatever it is they’re supposed to find. In the beautifully intimate episode “After the Party,” three love stories are told consecutively: Caroline realizes the limitations of her relationship with “Vincent Adultman” (though not because he’s three boys stacked in a trench coat… which he is); BoJack and his new fling, a network TV exec/owl who’s just woken out a 30-year coma (yet still has great TV ideas!), decide to give real love a go; and Diane and Peanutbutter finally acknowledge their vast differences in worldview without sacrificing their love for each other.
Collectively, these stories identify (and subsequent conflate) the illusion of perfection and struggle for fulfillment. Each plot in the episode – from Caroline breaking up with three boys not-so-convincingly masking as a “businessman” of an adult, to BoJack figuring his future out with an owl who thinks “Snoop Dogg” refers to an old comic strip – sounds just as ridiculous as they end up. They’re viciously funny and vibrantly weird. But the emotional weight of these tales, about love's blind promises and its unavoidable insufficiencies, is just as palpable.
This absurdist take on such multi-faceted concepts reflects the show's most penetrating element. The characters feel more genuine, more nuanced and more comprehensively damaged than what most live-action entertainment delivers. This is BoJack Horseman’s secret sauce – its infectiously melancholic creation. In an instant, it goes from pleasantly unconvincing to harshly true.
This absurdist take on such multi-faceted concepts reflects the show's most penetrating element. The characters feel more genuine, more nuanced and more comprehensively damaged than what most live-action entertainment delivers. This is BoJack Horseman’s secret sauce – its infectiously melancholic creation. In an instant, it goes from pleasantly unconvincing to harshly true.
In the season’s final line, BoJack is told that all he can do is keep looking – that just maybe, the search for that missing ingredient in his life is worth it. The implication there is universal, for BoJack Horseman isn’t afraid of the indefinite as an encompassing engagement. It owns its intellectual prowess, recognizing the connective potential of aimless searching as a focal point. In lacing that idea with distinctive humor, the series establishes a feverishly unusual aesthetic and is able to maintain its dramatic purpose and comedic vitality.
Because while BoJack may close out every episode by singing “I don’t think I’m going to last,” two seasons in he continues to defy the odds. His demons are all of ours, something you wouldn't expect of an animated anthropomorphic horse. But, as BoJack Horseman so chronically reminds, here we are. Here we all are.
Grade: A