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There’s a great paradox in criticism. The reviewer is meant to check their ego at the door for every new work, attempting to go in as objective as humanly possible. And yet, the truly great art, the stuff that really matters, is so personally crafted and deeply affecting that it often makes that impossible, forcing the critic into the same seat as the general audience. The works that affect us most threaten the very fabric of our purpose as reviewers, while also offering what many would consider the best part of their jobs: writing a rave. So I start this review of a show about an animated talking horse living in an animal-run version of Hollywood by telling you that, if this show has been your cup of tea comedically and dramatically for the past six years, BoJack Horseman’s final eight episodes will destroy you, because they destroyed me.
It’s become something of a trend for high-profile dramas to split their final season into two shorter halves. Usually, those two halves act so differently from each other in story and construction that they often feel like independent seasons. BoJack Horseman is the same. The first eight episodes of Season 6 gave most of the main characters an episode to themselves, allowing them time to grow independently into the people they need to be for the show to end the way it wants to. In effect, many of them found relative peace, most of all BoJack, becoming a professor of acting at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, far away from the red carpets and spotlight of Southern California. A lesser series would end there, but like Breaking Bad before it, the final eight episodes are primarily about tearing down that unearned happy ending and serving harsh but true justice to the characters we love despite their enormous ethical misgivings.
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Just as Hank picked up a book of poetry while sitting on the toilet in Breaking Bad, the second half of the season starts with two investigative reporters sniffing around BoJack’s involvement in the death of Sarah Lynn, an event that these episodes solidify as BoJack Horseman’s watershed moment. Inevitably there’s a crash, and then it’s all downhill from there. But Season 6 first resumes with BoJack having found legitimate peace. Teaching college kids fulfills him, and he’s regularly attending and actively participating in AA meetings. He’s done it. He’s better, and it’s a tremendous reward for us right off the bat. But it’s not meant to last. How can it? BoJack may not have built a meth empire employing neo-Nazis as Walter White did, but his sins need to be accounted for.
That’s where BoJack Horseman’s final episodes start to more resemble Mad Men’s. Since the latter half of Season 1, BoJack has sort of taken the reins from Don Draper as TV’s resident male in relative power who can’t seem to stop getting in his own way, to the detriment of his loved ones. As with that series, it’s right in the opening credits. Don may be falling down towards Madison Avenue out of a figurative window, and BoJack may be sinking to the bottom of his swimming pool, all while his loved ones advance in their lives and find a natural, satisfying stopping point for their story.
These last eight episodes make sure to properly service Princess Caroline, Todd, and especially Diane. (Mr. Peanutbutter has an arc himself, but due to his aggressively distracted, happy-go-lucky nature, it’s not nearly as profound. That’s fine. Doing otherwise would risk betraying the show’s signature tone and careful comedic balance.) Time is spent working them through the relationships that matter most to them, continuing to build profound new ones, and establishing careers that ensure they’re going to be okay. Diane sums it up best in one of the later episodes: “Your whole life is full of these pieces that don’t quite fit. But at some point, you start to think it’s you. You’re the piece that doesn’t quite fit. And you spend so long with that feeling that the feeling becomes your home. And it can be jarring when you discover one day that you don’t feel that way anymore.”
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Compared to them, BoJack just can’t quite seem to get a grasp on that relief, or the sense that he belongs anywhere, really. But then, none of them share such a dark past as him. There’s an incredibly tricky line the series has to walk here. As nice as it is to see BoJack thriving in the first episode of this batch, when the dominoes come down, it always feels deserved. And yet, we never stop caring for him. Will Arnett’s voice work remains remarkable, pushing this figure to a most natural end while taking him to some of his darkest places in all six seasons. It feels like the writers condemn BoJack for what he’s done without losing an ounce of their empathy for him. It’s exactly the sort of writing that gave Breaking Bad and Mad Men two of the best endings to a series in television history.
BoJack Horseman joins their ranks while stunningly refusing to sacrifice even a small bit of what makes this show so unique. There’s a silly recurring gag surrounding a lazy Susan. BoJack spends part of the season preparing for the titular role in a new movie called The Horny Unicorn. An experimental, surrealist episode spends a few minutes trying to get a humanoid bird to fly out the window. As dark and depressing as these last eight episodes get, everything special about this series remains intact. It’s nothing short of a miracle of tone and balance.
Of course, much of this hard work would be damaged if the series finale faltered in any way. But it doesn’t. There are fates revealed, meaningful conversations, musings on the meaning of life (something the writers smartly acknowledge that they have no basis in defining), and even some time to sit an appreciate the love given by those closest to you. “Maybe it’s everybody’s job to save each other,” one character says to another. And that speaks to the ending overall. Ultimately, this story points out that life goes on. Whatever bed we make for ourselves, we’re alive to wake up each day and try to make it better than we did the day before. Some days we fail, but others we succeed. Just because BoJack Horseman ends doesn’t necessarily mean that the characters’ struggles do. But every day, they’re getting up and trying, including BoJack. Unlike most other shows, he and his friends fail more days than they care to admit. But they keep fighting. If for nothing else, for themselves. These final episodes beautifully illustrate why we have to do that, too.