I think my favorite little exchange of this half-season was
Doctor Champ: "Hey, I'm Doctor Champ." Mister Peanut-butter: "Mister Peanut-butter" Doctor Champ: "Hey! Your name's Mister? My name's Doctor!" Mister Peanut-butter: "How about that!" Bojack: "Wait... is Doctor Champ just your name? Are you NOT a doctor? Doctor Champ: "Five minute warning everyone! Five minutes!"
I was watching episode 6, and my fucking internet went out right as Todd was having a powerful character moment!
Noooooooooo!
Edit: okay, I finished it on my phone. Crisis averted.
One thing I've come to appreciate from these ~3 hour seasons (see also: Living with Yourself) is that I can watch the whole thing on my phone in an afternoon.
I thought I would just be annoyed at this split season idea, but it really just splits it into two epic-length films and it works really well for me.
I'm really crossing my fingers that this show finishes its hopeful swerve. Bojack is.. getting better. He's doing it! It felt so good to see. "Is this what therapy is?!" All of episode 7 felt very powerful, to the point where you almost want to stop there to get your nice happy ending.
Even little things like the airport bunny barista - old Bojack would have tried to sleep with her, new Bojack ends up pushing her towards Todd. The smash cut fake out with the old hair stylist from the AA meeting. He cleaned Diane's depression apartment! He's making good decisions and it's having a positive effect on his life and the lives of people around him.
And now the Bojack Horseman the Television Series signature "dark turn" looks like it won't, or at least doesn't have to be I hope, the character Bojack horribly fucking up again - the setup now with Hollyhock and the reporter storyline gives us this better person now faced with accepting responsibility for their past mistakes and facing consequences. I don't expect that to be a smooth process, but what an opportunity for the show to set itself apart from the Glorified Broken Man genre that I've always thought it was inaccurately grouped with and that the show itself has frequently explicitly railed against. This is going to be hard for Bojack, bad things are going to happen, but imagine him making it out the other side and actually setting a good example for how to reckon with being a piece of shit instead of the lashing out, doubling down, the denial, the retreating to a toxic right wing comedy tour that we see so often in real life when people are called to account for themselves.
I think this show could really pull off something special if it decides to go out in a hopeful note and I'll be a little disappointed if it opts instead for a super dark gut punch. I don't think it will.
also this half-season was extremely funny
It feels to me like they're building towards an ending where
Bojack does redeem himself and genuinely becomes a better person, maybe even becoming a therapist to help others, yet has also irrevocably pushed everyone who used to be close to him away. The show's message very strongly seems to be that you don't have to be stuck in a cycle, you can change, but that doesn't undo all the awful shit that you did and other people absolutely do not have to forgive you.
Which, I dunno, wouldn't be the worst note for the show to end on? A purely happy ending wouldn't feel very Bojack but he definitely doesn't deserve a purely unhappy one after all the shit he's been through.
+15
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I'm really crossing my fingers that this show finishes its hopeful swerve. Bojack is.. getting better. He's doing it! It felt so good to see. "Is this what therapy is?!" All of episode 7 felt very powerful, to the point where you almost want to stop there to get your nice happy ending.
Even little things like the airport bunny barista - old Bojack would have tried to sleep with her, new Bojack ends up pushing her towards Todd. The smash cut fake out with the old hair stylist from the AA meeting. He cleaned Diane's depression apartment! He's making good decisions and it's having a positive effect on his life and the lives of people around him.
And now the Bojack Horseman the Television Series signature "dark turn" looks like it won't, or at least doesn't have to be I hope, the character Bojack horribly fucking up again - the setup now with Hollyhock and the reporter storyline gives us this better person now faced with accepting responsibility for their past mistakes and facing consequences. I don't expect that to be a smooth process, but what an opportunity for the show to set itself apart from the Glorified Broken Man genre that I've always thought it was inaccurately grouped with and that the show itself has frequently explicitly railed against. This is going to be hard for Bojack, bad things are going to happen, but imagine him making it out the other side and actually setting a good example for how to reckon with being a piece of shit instead of the lashing out, doubling down, the denial, the retreating to a toxic right wing comedy tour that we see so often in real life when people are called to account for themselves.
I think this show could really pull off something special if it decides to go out in a hopeful note and I'll be a little disappointed if it opts instead for a super dark gut punch. I don't think it will.
also this half-season was extremely funny
It feels to me like they're building towards an ending where
Bojack does redeem himself and genuinely becomes a better person, maybe even becoming a therapist to help others, yet has also irrevocably pushed everyone who used to be close to him away. The show's message very strongly seems to be that you don't have to be stuck in a cycle, you can change, but that doesn't undo all the awful shit that you did and other people absolutely do not have to forgive you.
Which, I dunno, wouldn't be the worst note for the show to end on? A purely happy ending wouldn't feel very Bojack but he definitely doesn't deserve a purely unhappy one after all the shit he's been through.
This sounds about right
The whole part with Martindale kind of hinted at something like this
I'm really crossing my fingers that this show finishes its hopeful swerve. Bojack is.. getting better. He's doing it! It felt so good to see. "Is this what therapy is?!" All of episode 7 felt very powerful, to the point where you almost want to stop there to get your nice happy ending.
Even little things like the airport bunny barista - old Bojack would have tried to sleep with her, new Bojack ends up pushing her towards Todd. The smash cut fake out with the old hair stylist from the AA meeting. He cleaned Diane's depression apartment! He's making good decisions and it's having a positive effect on his life and the lives of people around him.
And now the Bojack Horseman the Television Series signature "dark turn" looks like it won't, or at least doesn't have to be I hope, the character Bojack horribly fucking up again - the setup now with Hollyhock and the reporter storyline gives us this better person now faced with accepting responsibility for their past mistakes and facing consequences. I don't expect that to be a smooth process, but what an opportunity for the show to set itself apart from the Glorified Broken Man genre that I've always thought it was inaccurately grouped with and that the show itself has frequently explicitly railed against. This is going to be hard for Bojack, bad things are going to happen, but imagine him making it out the other side and actually setting a good example for how to reckon with being a piece of shit instead of the lashing out, doubling down, the denial, the retreating to a toxic right wing comedy tour that we see so often in real life when people are called to account for themselves.
I think this show could really pull off something special if it decides to go out in a hopeful note and I'll be a little disappointed if it opts instead for a super dark gut punch. I don't think it will.
also this half-season was extremely funny
It feels to me like they're building towards an ending where
Bojack does redeem himself and genuinely becomes a better person, maybe even becoming a therapist to help others, yet has also irrevocably pushed everyone who used to be close to him away. The show's message very strongly seems to be that you don't have to be stuck in a cycle, you can change, but that doesn't undo all the awful shit that you did and other people absolutely do not have to forgive you.
Which, I dunno, wouldn't be the worst note for the show to end on? A purely happy ending wouldn't feel very Bojack but he definitely doesn't deserve a purely unhappy one after all the shit he's been through.
I agree.
If this was a show that was only concerned with it's characters getting better and moving past themselves, the series finale would have been episode 7. Episode 8 reminds us that this isn't that kind of show, and damage done to others can't be ignored. I was so impressed with the overall narrative structure of this half season and how it set up the rest of the season/series. Most mid season finales aren't nearly this great.
Going to really miss this show when it's done. There is simply nothing like it.
...that seeing BoJack get better wasn't as entertaining or teeth-grinding inducing as the last couple of seasons. It dawned on me what kind of show BoJack really was for the majority of its run, and what made us stay tuned. I'm really happy that BoJack is moving in a better direction after so much struggle (despite what episode 8 may foreshadow), but at the same time I could feel his character wasn't so interesting to watch on the screen when things were going so well for him. He has his issues, but he is putting them aside and helping others.
...that seeing BoJack get better wasn't as entertaining or teeth-grinding inducing as the last couple of seasons. It dawned on me what kind of show BoJack really was for the majority of its run, and what made us stay tuned. I'm really happy that BoJack is moving in a better direction after so much struggle (despite what episode 8 may foreshadow), but at the same time I could feel his character wasn't so interesting to watch on the screen when things were going so well for him. He has his issues, but he is putting them aside and helping others.
I totally disagree with this!
If anything, a lack of actual growth at this point would to me feel like an uninteresting retread. (I think I felt this a bit with season 5) Someone moving past their issues and helping others is incredibly interesting to me, especially after having spent so many years getting deep into those issues and really feeling the impact of them with the character. I absolutely did not just want to watch the Bojack Behaving Badly Show forever, and frankly they've made it clear they're trying to do more than that since all the way back in Season One when the show took its first real turn about seven or eight episodes in. I know for me that's what got me invested beyond just the jokes and animal puns.
I also think the growing ensemble nature of the show more than makes up for any shift - the show is much less just about Bojack himself than it was at the start. For a while now the most "entertaining" sequences or episodes often aren't even about him and I think that's fine.
Honestly I think Diane's self-destructive streak last season has really grated, I much prefer where Bojack's headed after all this turmoil.
I thought it was fine, I also really like where it landed in S6 halfway point.
She was supposed to be kind of the audience stand-in to begin with but turned into an actual character, well-rounded with flaws and issues and positives. She might be my favorite in the show.
I love Bojack - it's one of my favorite shows ever - but if this season ends how I think it's going to end, there would be nothing left to say for an additional season or a movie.
It's ostensibly the story of how a broken man fucks everything up and then ultimately has to fix it. He's on the path, but his past is about to make it really hard. This season can end one of two ways: Bojack overcomes the shadow of his past and becomes a good person (or, as Diane would put it, a person who chooses to do good things); or the shadows swallow him and he winds up back at the bottom.
Either way, the show will have completed its argument. Either anyone can change, no matter how far they fall; or some people are just beyond hope. Regardless of how it ends (I highly suspect the former, but it's a credit to the show that I can't rule out the latter), there's no need to keep going.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I binged the final episodes. What a truly great show. I'm just so happy that it existed.
I have nothing to say that a thousand other people haven't already said about how this show portrays substance abuse, depression, self-hatred, growth, but most of all the constant and neverending process of becoming. I just want to thank everyone who contributed to this show because it truly achieved what it aimed for, I think.
Very general ending spoilers:
I think they ended the show with a great encapsulation of a mature and thoughtful message: that life goes on, as painful as it is, and we bear it the best we can. The two possible endings presented by ElJeffe, salvation or damnation, was a false dilemma, because life doesn't end on that one final satisfactory note where a person is neatly and finally judged to have been saved or not. All we can do is continually try to get better, and help others with their own journeys. It's all there is.
A little more specific spoilers:
I'm happy they ended it specifically with a bookend shot of Bojack and Diane on a roof, only this time it was for them to say goodbye. It's a great corollary message: that sometimes people come into your life, and then they leave it, and you grow apart and that's it. They were there for a chapter in your life and you just have to be thankful for that moment, and that you opened yourself up to another human being.
It sounds like a giant and ultimately inevitable tragedy of life, that two people can pour so much vulnerability and growth and pain into each other, and that sometimes despite all that they find themselves understanding that there's nothing more to say. But that relationship still happened, and was still meaningful, and they wouldn't be who they are now without it. Life is pain, but we can help each other through it.
Nothing ever truly ends in this life, neither the suffering nor the possibility of redemption. I think understanding that was what made this TV show so sad, yet so hopeful, and ultimately great.
Super secret conspiracy theory spoilers:
Or Bojack died at the end of the penultimate episode and that this is just in Bojack's dying mind. But I feel like that might kind of throw a lot of the message out the window, but that opening to the last episode is rather strange....
Eddy on
"and the morning stars I have seen
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
That was such a great ending. Just binged the new episodes and they managed to wrap it all up in a perfect manner.
I mean, it's not wrapped up at all, but that's life. The final shot of Bojack and Diane was so good, and really drove home the theme of always moving on and always growing. Sometimes things end, and this is not good or bad. It just happens and you deal with it.
Whether or not Bojack is "fixed" is not a question that can be answered, since noone is ever fixed. We always have to live with out flaws and struggle to be a good person anyway.
I felt it was kind of uplifting in a bittersweet kind of way?
Like, they'll never see each other again... but that's okay! Life's a bitch but then it keeps going. Just do what makes you happy, do what you can to make others happy.
+9
Options
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
I think I would've been exponentially more bummed if
The show ended with Ep 15, which was fucking existentially terrifying.
"There is no other side" will be burned into my memory for the rest of my life.
I thought it was pretty good!
Only complaints:
I don't like the reporters and their schtick got really tiring.
I feel like the last episode needed a little room to breathe
I thought it was pretty good!
Only complaints:
I don't like the reporters and their schtick got really tiring.
I feel like the last episode needed a little room to breathe
Its less the gimmick and more that she's an awful human being er wild Boar. She was fine harassing victims and getting info in very unethical ways for her story
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
I felt it was kind of uplifting in a bittersweet kind of way?
Like, they'll never see each other again... but that's okay! Life's a bitch but then it keeps going. Just do what makes you happy, do what you can to make others happy.
I guess it just hit me particularly hard because I've been feeling very lonely for about five years now. Ending the series with BoJack's various relationships with the few people he had in his life weakening or completely severed when he's still in a very vulnerable place was too relatable for me.
To try and make this post less about my own personal hang-ups, BoJack's developing relationship with Vance Waggoner makes me wonder what we're supposed to infer about BoJack's future.
Posts
Mister Peanut-butter: "Mister Peanut-butter"
Doctor Champ: "Hey! Your name's Mister? My name's Doctor!"
Mister Peanut-butter: "How about that!"
Bojack: "Wait... is Doctor Champ just your name? Are you NOT a doctor?
Doctor Champ: "Five minute warning everyone! Five minutes!"
One thing I've come to appreciate from these ~3 hour seasons (see also: Living with Yourself) is that I can watch the whole thing on my phone in an afternoon.
I thought I would just be annoyed at this split season idea, but it really just splits it into two epic-length films and it works really well for me.
It feels to me like they're building towards an ending where
Which, I dunno, wouldn't be the worst note for the show to end on? A purely happy ending wouldn't feel very Bojack but he definitely doesn't deserve a purely unhappy one after all the shit he's been through.
This sounds about right
I agree.
Going to really miss this show when it's done. There is simply nothing like it.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
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3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Maybe everyone should wait and see how the show ends first...
The elephant from Home Depot
I totally disagree with this!
If anything, a lack of actual growth at this point would to me feel like an uninteresting retread. (I think I felt this a bit with season 5) Someone moving past their issues and helping others is incredibly interesting to me, especially after having spent so many years getting deep into those issues and really feeling the impact of them with the character. I absolutely did not just want to watch the Bojack Behaving Badly Show forever, and frankly they've made it clear they're trying to do more than that since all the way back in Season One when the show took its first real turn about seven or eight episodes in. I know for me that's what got me invested beyond just the jokes and animal puns.
I also think the growing ensemble nature of the show more than makes up for any shift - the show is much less just about Bojack himself than it was at the start. For a while now the most "entertaining" sequences or episodes often aren't even about him and I think that's fine.
It may be a rough landing but it looks like it's at the correct destination.
I thought it was fine, I also really like where it landed in S6 halfway point.
She was supposed to be kind of the audience stand-in to begin with but turned into an actual character, well-rounded with flaws and issues and positives. She might be my favorite in the show.
It's ostensibly the story of how a broken man fucks everything up and then ultimately has to fix it. He's on the path, but his past is about to make it really hard. This season can end one of two ways: Bojack overcomes the shadow of his past and becomes a good person (or, as Diane would put it, a person who chooses to do good things); or the shadows swallow him and he winds up back at the bottom.
Either way, the show will have completed its argument. Either anyone can change, no matter how far they fall; or some people are just beyond hope. Regardless of how it ends (I highly suspect the former, but it's a credit to the show that I can't rule out the latter), there's no need to keep going.
"...only mights and maybes."
I have nothing to say that a thousand other people haven't already said about how this show portrays substance abuse, depression, self-hatred, growth, but most of all the constant and neverending process of becoming. I just want to thank everyone who contributed to this show because it truly achieved what it aimed for, I think.
Very general ending spoilers:
A little more specific spoilers:
It sounds like a giant and ultimately inevitable tragedy of life, that two people can pour so much vulnerability and growth and pain into each other, and that sometimes despite all that they find themselves understanding that there's nothing more to say. But that relationship still happened, and was still meaningful, and they wouldn't be who they are now without it. Life is pain, but we can help each other through it.
Nothing ever truly ends in this life, neither the suffering nor the possibility of redemption. I think understanding that was what made this TV show so sad, yet so hopeful, and ultimately great.
Super secret conspiracy theory spoilers:
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
Whether or not Bojack is "fixed" is not a question that can be answered, since noone is ever fixed. We always have to live with out flaws and struggle to be a good person anyway.
it was interesting to pop onto reddit and see one thread
re: last 2 eps
but that's wild, because what got me was the rooftop ending scene
that's the one that hit me hard
and that was such a good way to end it i thought
i guess different emotional triggers for different people
also plebian redditors thinking death was a better way to end it, fuck that, dum dums
I felt it was kind of uplifting in a bittersweet kind of way?
"There is no other side" will be burned into my memory for the rest of my life.
Even the parts that hurt the most were right.
Yep. Really made me think of my own shortcomings.
On a lighter note; best line of this half season was "Why do you talk like that, we're from Fresno"?
Only complaints:
I don't like the reporters and their schtick got really tiring.
I feel like the last episode needed a little room to breathe
Its less the gimmick and more that she's an awful human being er wild Boar. She was fine harassing victims and getting info in very unethical ways for her story
To try and make this post less about my own personal hang-ups, BoJack's developing relationship with Vance Waggoner makes me wonder what we're supposed to infer about BoJack's future.
Having lived in Fresno,, it got a good snort laugh out of me.