“But isn’t the point of art less what people put into it and more what people get out of it?” -Todd Chavez
It was Bojack that put forward the maxim that you can’t have happy endings in sitcoms, not really, because if everybody was happy then the show would be over- and the show has to keep going. “There’s always more show,” Bojack said during a eulogy in the groundbreaking episode (and my favorite) ‘Free Churro.’ “I guess, until there isn’t.” Well, now there isn’t. The ending of Bojack, for all its stumbles and speed, was a fitting, bittersweet farewell to one of the most impactful shows in television.
I say impactful for a few reasons, both personal and objective. I think I’ll begin with the personal. Bojack Horseman began, more or less, as an animated sitcom with elements of deeper drama and sadness (one would argue humanity if they felt like making jokes about it.) I warn people who are about to watch the show, even as I ferociously recommend it, to give it at least five or six episodes because the first half of season one still feels like the show wants to be a Family Guy ripoff. But after that hurdle, when the show finds its feet, it becomes one of the most in depth and heartbreaking looks at depression, anxiety, toxic relationships, growth and failure, and human (and animal (I couldn’t resist)) nature I’ve had the pleasure and pain of experiencing.
The show came at a formative and important time in my life- a time when everything felt like it was changing and all the certainties life tries to prepare you with crumble away. More than anything, I am grateful to the writers and actors who brought this show to life, because Bojack Horseman gave me the words to express all the new things I was feeling, and all the things I’d felt before but was never able to talk about.
Suffering in spite of achievement, anxiety over success, imposter syndrome, the reality of mortality.
More than that, it gave me hope through the darkest parts of my existence so far with flashes of comfort- lines cast out into my pit that pulled me through.
“Don’t feel bad about feeling bad.”
“It gets easier.”
““The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn’t the search for meaning; it’s just to keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you’ll be dead.”
“3:10?! I spent six hours playing with fonts? Holy shit!”
“I’m responsible for my own happiness? I can’t even be responsible for my own breakfast!”
There’s a very controversial episode of Bojack that deals with the topic of abortion. Politics aside, and I stress that, there’s a moment where the characters discuss that the ability to laugh at something makes it a little less scary. That’s something Bojack offered too, as comfort and as reality. To laugh at, one might argue to laugh in the face of, the weight of the world, of one’s own mind, of the void itself, makes it all feel a little better.
It makes it less scary.
There was comfort in being able to throw off a line like:
“Usually when people ask how I’m doing, the real answer is I’m doing shitty, but I can’t say I’m doing shitty because I don’t even have a good reason to be doing shitty. So if I say, “I’m doing shitty,” then they say, “Why? What’s wrong?” And I have to be like, “I don’t know, all of it?” So instead, when people ask how I’m doing, I usually say, “I am doing so great.”
I think part of the comfort of this is the relatability of it all, at least to people like me who’ve felt, and do still feel, that kind of unsatisfied itch at life, the people in it, and the meaning of it all.
So, we can either sink into that pit, or we can laugh at it, and know that sometimes to live and experience can have meaning in the now even if it might not in the future.
The penultimate episode, which deals with mortality explicitly, might be in the running for my new favorite if only because of the wonderful warning it gives to people, and I can relate, who have been so far down they’ve contemplated the end. There’s a chill to the insight provided that, while not entirely comforting, is at least the epitome of why I so strongly related to this show during the entire run. I felt at once heard and understood.
That’s not to excuse any of the horrible things people do to try to fill that void, don’t get me wrong. The show doesn’t excuse it either, and that’s to its benefit. It’s easy to fall into associating with the characters making awful choices, and justifying them because of how awful they feel, but that’s not the point of it either. Bojack, the show, places an emphasis on trying to do better, be better, and treat others better as a source of growth and development (while understanding that growth and progress aren’t linear processes, and failure is as much a part of them as it is anything else.) That doesn’t even mean that everyone will forgive you for the things you do, and they shouldn’t, but it does offer a way forward.
Insert Bojack Horseman in joke about Time’s Arrow here.
On an objective level, I adore this show for a few reasons as well. The animated nature of Bojack brings an important distance that more often than not is required for the depth this show reaches. It also provides amazing visuals, something the showrunners have taken to their extremes in design (especially in the episodes dealing with a character’s mind) and in their attention to minor details. Sight gags and hidden jokes and clues abound in the fleshed-out background of Bojack, and they are not to be missed.
This is to say nothing of the writing, the voice acting, and even the music and sound design. The completeness of the show, the attention and care paid to the smallest bits of it, are on another level that I still appreciate every time I sit down to watch and rewatch favorite episodes or the entire run of the thing. Now that it’s over, it will probably be the latter.
Because there’s always more show. I guess, until there isn’t.
To say that the ending of Bojack Horseman felt rushed is at once obvious and a bit of an understatement, but I suppose that’s what happens when a show that tries as it does to tell more of a story than others gets cancelled as opposed to ending naturally. Whether or not the quote at the beginning of this post is meant to highlight those efforts, or bring attention to the nature of Bojack as a whole is, as so much of this show is, up for interpretation.
If we’re being fair, the majority of the threads the show weaved came together in the end, and while not being completely whole, I still feel as though the ending of the show was satisfying.
It was satisfying because of what I got out of it.
It was nice while it lasted.
Because now I know, and I will always know.
“It gets easier.”
“Huh?”
“Every day it gets a little easier.”
“Yeah?”
“But you gotta do it every day. That’s the hard part. But it does get easier.”
(It’s been a long while since I’ve actually written a blog!! New York trip and formatting issues will do that. Newsletter is going to be very delayed, formatting issues. But I’m happy to have my Photography section up and running! It also needs formatting, I know. Stay tuned!)