‘BoJack Horseman’ season five: How to get better

| Senior Cadenza Editor

“You say you want to get better, and you don’t know how.” This line was repeated throughout the trailer for season five of “BoJack Horseman.” Over the course of the show, BoJack repeatedly tries to be a better person but fails at doing so. The major theme of this season is facing consequences. Over the course of the previous four seasons of the show, personal relationships have been tested and poor decisions have been made and now everything begins to boil over.

Warning: Major spoilers for the first four seasons and minor spoilers for the fifth season of “BoJack Horseman” lie ahead.

The season opens with BoJack working on his new show “Philbert,” Princess Carolyn trying to adopt a baby, Todd dealing with his new relationship and Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter going through a divorce.

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In “Philbert,” BoJack sees an eerie reflection of himself. He left season four lonely and desperate after Hollyhock, his half-sister, was taken away from him after being secretly drugged by his mother with dementia. To cope, he’s worked out a system to limit his drinking and drug use and has established a line of communication with Hollyhock, his only living family member that he doesn’t hate.

Philbert, the character, represents to BoJack what was wrong with him before. The character is mean, an alcoholic and haunted—possibly literally—by his past. BoJack is forced to deal with what he hates about himself personified.

But for all the coping that BoJack does, he still hasn’t changed. He is still the same proud, selfish and haunted man that we have come to know over the first four seasons. Despite his “efforts” and self-made solutions, he ends up making the same mistakes. In the middle of the season, Diane urges BoJack to begin therapy, but he refuses, just as he has been doing for his entire life. “You say you want to get better, and you don’t know how,” Diane says to BoJack. “Get therapy.” But BoJack, still the same man—or horse—that he’s always been, refuses.

That is not to say that BoJack never examines himself. My favorite episode of the season, “Free Churro,” is a 26-minute eulogy for BoJack’s mother. In this episode, we see BoJack more vulnerable and open than ever before as he talks to a room of strangers about his relationship with his parents.

While BoJack is stuck being BoJack, the rest of the main characters are moving through life and growing up. Diane is living on her own as a newly single woman. Todd is still living with Princess Carolyn, but now he has a job and a girlfriend. Mr. Peanutbutter has a new, younger girlfriend and is trying to reinvent his image to be a “tough guy.”

Whenever I talk about this show with my friends, the words “I just want Princess Carolyn to be happy” will inevitably leave my mouth. In this season, we see Princess Carolyn with a stable job as a producer, and instead of looking for a boyfriend, she’s looking to adopt a baby. It is a painstaking and expensive process, but she’s redefined what she wants and is looking for that. I honestly don’t know if Princess Carolyn will ever be happy, but I am keeping my hopes up for my favorite character.

Todd begins the season in a relationship, and struggles to find out what it is like to be in an asexual relationship. With such a small dating pool, Todd worries that he’s only with his girlfriend because they’re both asexual romantics. And in navigating his relationship in the first part of the season, Todd learns more about himself and what he wants.

But Todd does not only face new experiences on the romantic front. After trying to find some sort of life direction, a scheme with BoJack goes awry, and he finds himself as the Vice President of Ad Sales at whattimeisitrightnow.com, the website producing “Philbert.” We see Todd at the top of the corporate ladder and we see the same entrepreneurial spirit that Todd has always had mixed with responsibility. This is not to say that Todd has not held responsibility before, but he does so now in a different way.

After Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter finalize their divorce, Diane takes a trip to Vietnam to find herself, and ends up finding very little. She spends the trip moving through personas and experiences, only to realize that she’s as lonely as she ever was. She then takes a job on “Philbert” in order to make the show seem less sexist.

We see the continuation of Diane’s struggle to be good. She continues with her attempts to make the world around her less sexist and continues feeling angry about the state of said world and the fact that change doesn’t seem to be happening. In the fourth episode of the season BoJack becomes an accidental feminist icon and enlists Diane’s help to not screw everything up. She finds herself with a platform again, and once again finds that “Hollywoo” is only willing to shame a famous, yet terrible (in the sense of who he is) actor for so long.

At the end of the episode, Diane receives a visit from Ana Spanakopita, BoJack’s season three publicist. Ana agrees with Diane’s points and hands over a tape she has of BoJack talking about his incident with Penny.

This season, in a more heavy-handed fashion than ever before, impresses the idea on viewers that they are not supposed to like BoJack. You might identify with parts of him, you might feel sympathy for him, you might even want him to overcome his demons and find his own happiness, but you should never like him. BoJack, time and time again, shows that he is undeserving of affection and needs to find help, but he is too proud to do so.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of the season. Along with the heavy personal relationships comes the “haha, the cop’s a cat.” The visual gags are top-notch and the writing is as brilliant as ever. This season of “BoJack Horseman” brings all I could have asked for. To quote Todd, “F— man, what else is there to say.”

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