Bojack Horseman
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Why do our parents matter so much?
For a long time, Ill admit that I thought the concept was overstated.
I was an independent kid, but that just means I had transcended the limitations of my crappy childhood!
Thats not how it works.
We always inherit a whole range of crappy behaviors.
I overvalued what one parent thought was good.
I didnt embrace something else a parent thought was bad.
Basically, I created a system of problematic adaptations.
But we always do.
And there is no opting out of this dynamic …no matter how much BoJack tries.
His mother couldnt make it, so he had to come!
And it ruined a day of writing!
Thats when you know theyre doing it for the attention!
And for BoJack, it will be true.
But today theres a reason.
And thats when we realize BoJack is giving his mothers eulogy … And thats the entire episode.
BoJack Horseman, delivering his mothers eulogy, all to his own captive audience.
There are no cutaways or narrative tricks.
Which also means that this episode is incredibly hard to summarize.
It basically amounts to a stream-of-consciousness rant, albeit a deftly woven one.
Now he can finally talk back to his parents.
Because even though this is mothers eulogy, its still just as much about his father …
2.
On Butterscotch Behold the man who is the pinnacle of intellectual insecurity!
Hes spent his whole life writing an unpublished novel that went nowhere.
He berates with verbosity.
But his bullying is the sign of the thinnest skin.
Like everyone, he wanted to be seen (which is an idea well come back to).
On Beatrice The opening tease gives us a picture of his mothers true psychology before the cynicism.
Like the Ibsen play, she wanted to escape the confines of her abusive partner.
Nor did she want to cry all day in the throes of depression.
But that only helps remind him that the two of them never had a moment like this.
He echoes the same words she said at his fathers funeral, Everything is worse now.
Instead, he was a boy who was unloved, but served as his parents punching bag.
All he could do was adapt to a corrupted system.
But there was an understanding that we were all drowning together.
So BoJack learned to find solace in the commiseration of misery.
It was his only hope, really.
But from this system, how could he ever learn to transcend it?
To look out for someone and love in return?
Its all part of the abusive cycle, how we always believe a person can get better.
To him, that observation finds the realest truth about sitcoms.
And thats life to him.
Hes bummed out cause he knew it could be so much better … if only he were someone else.
Which is all he ever wanted.
To have his pain validated.
Just as his mom wanted to be comforted when she cried.
Just as his father wanted his novel to be read.
So of course BoJack watched TV and wanted to be famous.
He wanted to have a life like it was on TV.
Which is why hes still so driven by that part of his life.
Because can he really exist without it?
What happens if he died and he never really got it?
BoJack remarks on how the shortness of life makes us small and stupid and petty.
For someone to be sorry he died and to be sorry he had this horrible fate in life.
But more painful is the idea that his life could have been different …
7.
On Empathy Earlier, BoJack observes that two people can experience the same moment in entirely different ways.
For him, that moment was usually terrifying because he was usually the abusee of an abuser.
BoJack jokes later, My mom died and all I got was this free churro!
This notion wounds him like no other.
A grim acknowledgement that she was the only one who could have protected him from his dad.
She could have saved him.
But they could never save each other, because they could never learn to have empathy for each other.
Which is how we truly end up alone.
Nor is it just about confirming his solipsistic myopia.
It is the acknowledgement that BoJacks speech wasnt really for anyone else in the first place.
Because eulogies arent really for the dead.
We write them for ourselves.
But the comparison is important because Barts dad actually tried to apologize and brought him ice cream.
One time she smoked an entire cigarette in one long inhale.
I watched her do it!
… And ethnically insensitive vaudeville routines.
I do my own stunts.
This Weeks Actual Mean-Joke Targets: Lit Majors /Becker, in a way?
Moment That Made Me the Happiest: When BoJack talked about everyone coming to see his mom dance.
