Worst episode of the season so far?
Worst episode of the season so far.
This wasn’t a bad episode of television (I’m not sure BoJack Horseman has ever made one of those) but at this point the show has built up enough acclaim and trust from its audience that it must be held to a higher standard than other programs. Therefore I am critiquing this episode that digs into BoJack’s psychological state and the effect his neuroses have on his relationships with Todd and Ana on the way in which it went about investigating those relationships, rather than just on the effect that the exploration may have had. It’s a subtle difference but an important one. The end result of this episode was a decent look into BoJack’s current state of mind and where his relationships are at but it all felt like a bit of a cheat getting there.
Ever since Tony Soprano sat down in Dr Melfi’s office all those years ago and began to cathartically unburden himself to her (and the audience) it has become common to place a character in a psychiatrist’s office and let them reveal their own insight into what the audiences has been seeing over the previous episodes or seasons. It has become so commonplace, in fact, that it sometimes feels like writers are taking an easy option when they put in such a scene, especially if they build a whole episode around it, as happens here. Put a character into a conversation with somebody who asks “and how did that make you feel?” and it means there is then no need to naturally work such character building into another storyline. The reason the psychiatry sessions worked so well on The Sopranos is because Tony and Melfi’s sessions were an integral part of the program for many different reasons, not just to have Tony describe his actions in his own words. Melfi was a three dimensional character in her own right. The effect the sessions had on Melfi mattered just as much as they did on Tony. Melfi was nearly always in control of those sessions, she led Tony to places he didn’t want to go to and his reaction to that could be frightening at times. The sessions were just as interesting for the things that weren’t revealed (like in Melfi’s most famous moment on the show when, after grappling with the decision for the entire episode, she refuses the opportunity to tell Tony she was raped, knowing what it will mean for her rapist and for herself). The weaker version of these types of scenes is to simply put your protagonist in a room with a stranger and have them spill the beans. This is not to say that the ploy isn’t still effective: it’s very effective, hence why it’s so popular. It’s just a little cheap and disheartening to see a great program do it when you believe it is possible for them to do it in another, better way.
I think the BoJack writers know this, too, hence why they don’t literally sit BoJack down on a psychiatrists couch and instead they vary the formula up a little bit by making it a phone call to the mysterious ‘Closer’ of the L.A. Gazette instead. The joke works up to a point (the Closer even reassures BoJack of the ‘Customer Service Rep – Client privilege’) but they build the concept of the episode around BoJack revealing his story and feelings, not around the concept of the joke, hence why it is problematic. Once BoJack gets into the conversation with the Closer it may as well be him speaking to a psychiatrist for most of the episode, aside from a few occasional jokes about renewing his Gazette subscription.
So, mechanics aside, do the ends justify the means in this episode? Were the story revelations and insights into BoJack’s mind good enough to forgive the clunky mechanism that begot them? I would argue probably not. We got confirmation that BoJack and Emily slept together, but we basically knew that anyway. The Closer analysed that BoJack keeps people at arm’s length with bad deeds so that when they leave him later he can blame it on the bad deed rather than any inherent fault within himself. I don’t think at this point that anybody who watches the show can mistake that for a new or particularly deep insight into BoJack’s character. We do, however, get some interesting movement in BoJack’s relationship with Ana that comes off the back of his first conversation with the Closer.
So far I think it’s fair to say that BoJack and Ana’s relationship (both professional and otherwise) has compromised mainly of power struggles and not much else. Ana started the relationship as clearly the more powerful of the two; a strong female figure attempting to guide BoJack towards his coveted Oscar who was more than willing to chastise him when he fell off track and was able to correct his mistakes with ease. ‘Brrap Brrap Pew Pew’ then featured an interesting juggling of the power dynamics with Ana surprisingly giving into BoJack’s demand that he be her only client in the Oscar race. Ana regained power immediately though, holding BoJack by the balls (literally) and reminding him that he better not fuck things up for the both of them now. In this episode BoJack suddenly decides that he wants to get more intimate with Ana and learn about her life outside of work and car sex. Ana tries to throw him off the idea of doing this and she is right to attempt this. Based on what we have seen of their relationship so far there is no evidence to suggest that BoJack should particularly want any further stake in this relationship; neither person seems particularly enamoured with the other and it is obvious that BoJack’s sudden attempt at human engagement is a direct reaction to the Closer asking him if he is “afraid of being known and knowing others?” (BoJack even parrots these words back to an unknowing Ana when trying to justify his sudden interest in her personal life). What then follows is incredibly unhealthy relationship behaviour and evidence that BoJack wasn’t really listening to the Closer’s advice all along.
Firstly, BoJack follows Ana home and spies her through her kitchen window and is troubled by the intimate sight he witnesses (and apparently, “It wasn’t the good intimate, like seeing your mom cry”). The very human version of Ana that BoJack sees spilling food on her sweater ruins her for him, at least momentarily. The fact that BoJack has this reaction proves he didn’t really want to get to know her more intimately at all. What did he think was going to happen if he was let into her private life? The reality of her life was always going to be less impressive than the permanent tough exterior she displays during work hours.
The bigger problem with the change in their relationship, however, comes at the end of the episode when BoJack, acting upon the Closer’s advice returns to Ana’s apartment and persuades her to let him in, telling her that control is a myth and so therefore she should stop trying to control their relationship so much. Here’s the problem though: control is not a myth and the Closer gives BoJack bad advice (BoJack is even able to notice that her message of existing within the beast is a mixed metaphor). BoJack doesn’t prove to Ana that control is a myth, he is just able to make her believe that this is true long enough for him to gain control himself. When Ana relinquishes control, that control doesn’t just disappear, that isn’t how relationships work. BoJack wants Ana to relinquish control so that he can get what he wants (and, it must be noted that based on her decisions in the past two episodes, Ana very much likes it when BoJack takes control of the relationship). Ana relinquishes control and, guess what? BoJack gets exactly what he wants, both professionally and personally. After staying the night at Ana’s place, BoJack forces his will upon the marketing campaign and the ‘I Am Secretariat’ ads (that only he likes) are put into action, with disastrous consequences. BoJack even acknowledges that he didn’t think the campaign through and, as always, he hasn’t really thought through the rest of his actions here either.
The problem with this episode is that, by design of his character, BoJack is unable to come to any epiphanies on his own and needs someone to give him life advice but he isn’t the type to ever go to therapy to find that out. Even if he did go he’d end up cursing out the therapist and storming out before anything was able to be figured out (he even initially skips out on the conversation with the Closer when it gets too deep with the convenient excuse of going to his marketing meeting). Furthermore, BoJack’s personal relationships are mostly so fraught that there is no one bar, possibly, Diane (who is currently trying to avoid too much contact with him) that he would be able to open up to enough that they could give him advice like this. This leaves the writers occasionally stuck in a bit of a corner and unfortunately, the only way out of it is perhaps to do episodes like this from time to time where BoJack attempts personal growth but the means of doing so come somewhat unnaturally. Due to the nature of the show, this may be a bit of a necessary evil to endure for BoJack Horseman fans.
Twice now this season there have been episodes that have strongly focused on one issue or plotline: ‘Fish out of Water’ (a.k.a the underwater episode) and ‘Brrap Brrap Pew Pew’ (a.k.a. the abortion episode). Inevitably having these episodes basically halt most of the plot in order to service one or two issues means that somewhere along the line we have to have episodes full of exposition or plot stuffing in order to fit all storylines into the season. Think back to ‘Love And/Or Marriage’ and the way that pretty much every major character on the show had a plot line that episode. In my review for that episode I opened by stating that it was no accident that this occurred directly after ‘Fish out of Water’ spent its entirety on a plotline for BoJack that has had very little to no effect on the proceeding story arc of the season (so far at least). Now, ‘Love And/Or Marriage’ and ‘Stop the Presses’ have probably been my two least favourite episodes of the season but they have both followed show-stopping episodes that have been my two favourites of the season thus far. If you were going to tempt somebody towards watching BoJack Horseman you would almost certainly begin by telling them about the genius of ‘Fish out of Water’ or the biting social criticism of ‘Brrap Brrap Pew Pew’. If we have to have episodes like ‘Stop the Presses’ once or twice a season in order to make up for the lack of plot movement in the more stand alone episodes such as ‘Fish out of Water’; I’d probably be up for making that trade.
Other Thoughts
Anything to be made out of BoJack getting his life advice from a newspaper? Having his problems sorted by a consumerist whose end goal is to have him buy something to make him happier? A, sort of, ‘buying things won’t ever truly make you happy, but BoJack doesn’t truly realise that’ type thing? No? Too much?
Character Actress Margo Martindale makes a triumphant return after ‘laying low’ doing regional theatre and having an arc on ‘The Good Wife’. I seriously hope this running joke never ends as I find pretty much every aspect of it hilarious. She takes the ‘Escape From L.A.’ off BoJack’s hands tonight to (you guessed it) escape from L.A. when the heat gets too much for her. I really hope the boat and its new captain return at some point (possibly after a battle on the high seas with the Scientologists Shenanigags improv crew)
After seeing the less than spectacular side of Ana’s home life it will be interesting to see if Princess Carolyn’s workmate Judah ever gets the same kind of exploration. On the surface Judah is a very similar character to Ana: hard, efficient to a fault and difficult to get past a surface knowledge of. Let’s not forget that at the end of ‘Love And/Or Marriage’ Judah was at the office until well after dark. Perhaps his home life is as unwelcoming as Ana’s for him to do this.
