"Time's arrow marches ever forward"
This axiom gets repeated quite frequently throughout the fourth season of Bojack Horseman, a season of television that may just be the best season yet in an absolutely phenomenal program. It's obvious what it means (the future is unavoidable) but its recurring usage throughout the 12 episodes of Bojack Horseman's fourth season demonstrate how much the concept of time plays in the overall season. The past, the present and the future all collide frequently through Bojack Horseman's fourth season, resulting in storytelling that, even considering this shows meditative qualities, totally took me by surprise in the absolute best way possible.
That's just one of the many ways Bojack Horseman really manages to excel on a writing level in this season. Similarly integral for this seasons level of quality in terms of storytelling is the decision to expand the show beyond just its titular character. Now, the supporting cast of Bojack Horseman have gotten plenty of depth prior to season four, but this season goes the extra mile in terms of allowing the assorted supporting players to come into their own as individual human beings. The conclusion of season three wherein Bojack (Will Arnett) abruptly left town is revealed to be an over year-long exile from Los Angeles, leaving plenty of time for the various people who used to orbit around Bojack to establish their own existences.
Princess Caroline (Amy Sedaris), for instance, is no longer Bojack's agent first and foremost, she's now got her managing agency to run. Her season-long plotline details her relationship with Ralph Stilton (Raul Esparza) and her attempts to start a family. Diane (Allison Brie), though she calls an unresponsive Bojack regularly, has plenty of her own issues to deal with now revolving around the growing cracks in her marriage to Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Thompkins). Most impressively, Todd (Aaron Paul), has gone from being Bojack's slacker roommate to being his own fully formed human being with his own desires, goals, and social circles to keep track of.
Instead of immediately reverting things back to the status quo between Bojack and Todd the moment they run into each other again, Todd has one extended conversation with Bojack saying that he's been doing better separated from his former roommate. The two characters only have one other interaction for the rest of the season, with the rest of Todd's storylines detailing the various jobs he'll have to tackle for the other characters, his clown dentistry business and embracing his own asexuality. The scene of Todd showing up to a gathering of asexual individuals may be the most heartwarming moment of the entire season of Bojack Horseman, a clear depiction of Todd coming into his own, embracing who his asexuality (man alive do they ever handle Todd's burgeoning asexuality in a touching manner) and finding kindred spirits he can connect and relate to in that process.
Having these individual characters inhabit their own worlds manage to make the world of Bojack Horseman notably richer and it's all the more impressive that the assorted subplots are able to coexist peacefully without the season coming off as scattered. By making the likes of Todd, Princess Caroline and Diane go off on their own individual paths, we not only get extra dimensions added to these characters but there are also chances to explore plotlines heretofore unutilized by the show. It also means Bojack Horseman as a character is more isolated for the majority of this season with only a midseason episode wherein Bojack and numerous other people, including Zach Braff, are trapped in Mr. Peanutbutters' sunken house has him interacting with other supporting characters of the show.
There is no Todd, no Wanda, no Diane, nobody for him to find escape in as he's left with only two family members that represent the past and the future as permanent fixtures in his life. The past is embodied by his mother, Beatrice (Wendie Malick), a person whose always been cruel to Bojack his entire life and is now living with Bojack while she suffers from crippling dementia. Meanwhile, the future manifests in the form of Bojack's newly discovered daughter Hollyhock (Aparna Nancherla), a young horse searching for her birth mother and requires Bojack's help to accomplish such a task. Bojack is taken aback by the presence of a daughter he never knew existed but his worst tendencies bubble up again as he becomes pervasively worried about damaging Hollyhock just like he's done to everyone else. It's a vicious mental cycle Bojack's stuck in; instead of improving on the past so that he can develop healthy emotional relationships, he feels the only way to ensure he can't let someone down is by alienating them with the most abrasive side of his personality.
Bojack's ennui this season manifests in smaller-scale ways than the high-profile acts of sabotage that demonstrated his dangerous personality in past seasons. No cars being driven into pools here; just as the supporting cast members get their internal hopes & dreams put under the microscope, so too does Bojack's internal angst arise in more intimate ways. The sixth episode of this season, Stupid Piece of Sh*t, has large amounts of dialogue derived from Bojack's interior monologue as his brain constantly berates his behavior in a frantic manner that leaves him so overcome with anxiety that he spends several hours of most days just sitting in a car alone or consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. Where does the aforementioned vicious cycle of Bojack Horseman's behavior come from? The viewer gets to have a tragic glimpse into just what it's like to occupy the mind of that character to help answer such a question.
Interestingly, such a thorough examination behind why Bojack acts like he does isn't meant to be a reason to handwave away all of Bojack's misdeeds, rather, it's intended to be an examination of what makes this particularly acerbic creature tick. A similarly comprehensive examination of a notable cantankerous character occurs in the best episode of the entire season, Time's Arrow. This one comes eleven episodes into the fourth season, and at this point, the eleventh episodes of individual Bojack Horseman seasons are well-known for being particularly emotional experiences, but Time's Arrow just goes all in in terms of exploring the character of Beatrice.
The viewer's primary exposure to Beatrice as a character throughout the entire course of this show has solely been that of a disapproving mother, one whose unobtainable affection drives Bojack up the wall. For this particular season, Beatrice's dementia has made her own son unrecognizable to her as she refers to Bojack only as Henrietta while another recurring trait of hers in this mental condition has Beatrice constantly cradling a doll she refers to as her "baby". It's already a pretty stark and realistic depiction of dementia up to the eleventh episode, which opens with Bojack about to drop his mother off at a new delipidated nursing home in retaliation for Beatrice slipping in weight loss powder into Hollyhock's beverages, a recurring action that ends up sending his daughter to the hospital.
Just as Bojack is about to drop off his mom, the perspective shifts to being from Beatrice's viewpoint. Suddenly, Beatrice is decades younger and being driven by a woman whose face is obscured. After that, we return to Beatrice's childhood for the second time. The first exploration of this character's childhood was already chilling as we saw Beatrice watch her own mother slip away from her after her mom received a lobotomy, but now we get to watch Beatrice grow from a child to a rebellious teenager to a hopeful adult to a disillusioned adult. All the while, small ticks, like sudden jump cuts and the fact that the majority of the people in this flashback don't have faces, signal that we are in Beatrice's fractured mind, we are watching her relive these memories. The episode just keeps dropping one massive emotional gut punch after another, from the hopeful attitude shared by younger versions of Beatrice and her husband to the revelation of who Holly Hoc's father really is.
And then, towards the end of the episode, we get a flashback that sent me into tears and cemented this as maybe the best episode of the entire Bojack Horseman endeavor. Beatrice as a child watches her father (voiced with eerie calmness by Matthew Broderick) order various workers to destroy Beatrice's belongings since they've been contaminated by a sickness Beatrice endured. One such item that is tossed into a roaring fire in the fireplace? Beatrice's precious dolly. As she watches her favorite object go up in flames, her father warns her to not let her "womanly emotions" consume her as the silhouette of Beatrice's lobotomized mother stands in the background.
Suddenly, everything clicks into place, it's an incredible and devastating "Eureka!" moment, This is why Beatrice is who she is. Her psychology, like any person, is complex and layered but this is where she was broken, this is where the seed of who she would become took root and began to bloom.
After that emotional whirlwind of a sequence, a calmer final scene closes out the episode as Bojack is finally recognized by his mother and he proceeds to lie to her and tell her that, instead of being in a broken down nursing home room with a window that faces a dumpster, she's in her old summer home surrounded by loving family & friends. There's no accompanying music here, no jokes, just two characters engaging in a dialogue that has so much going on in between the lines. There's so many calmer dialogue-heavy endings just like that one throughout this season that I loved, including Hollyhock asking Bojack is that little voice inside you that says you're fat or ugly goes away or another ending where in Princess Caroline reveals to Bojack what she thinks to herself after a long crummy day.
Here's the amazing part though; all of that complex pathos is intricately laced throughout the various episodes of this season and yet there's still plenty of room for wacky comedy too. Mr. Peanutbutter, whose voicework that's full of perfectly peppy spirit from Paul F. Thompkins, has tons of memorable humorous lines throughout the season, most notably when he recalls the last time he was at a high level of stress. Todd's antics (especially his rumination on kettle corn) deliver a bunch of laughs, an appearance from Zach Braff, who voices himself, is one of the seasons comedic highlights while even the most emotionally powerful episode, Time's Arrow, has some amusing book titles that signal how much time has passed in between scenes. There is also a duck character named Quackers whose very name had me giggling like crazy.
I didn't even know it was possible to mix hilarious animal-based puns with such beautiful meditations on time and the long-range impact our actions have, but it very much is possible if Bojack Horseman's fourth season is any indication. Much of the success of those jokes come from the voice cast (which includes an all-star guest star list that's customary for the show at this point). The guys and gals behind these main characters know their roles inside & out at this point and work vocal wonders with their parts. Aaron Paul is especially impressive at following the lead of the writing of his character this season by unveiling new layers to Todd while Will Arnett's ability to discover new ways to vocally capture Bojack's sorrow continues to be a work of art. Best of the new cast members has gotta be Aparna Nancherla as Hollyhock, she's both really funny in her line deliveries and aces the more emotional line readings she delivers, there's a fascinating mixture of vulnerability and determination in this characters voicework that proves to be thoroughly unique in the context of the show and also impressive on its own merits.
There all kinds of new characters, some fun, some meaning (the latter category certainly fits for Broderick's recurring character) and towards the end of the season it struck me how cool it was that this show was introducing a bunch of new side characters instead of just constantly rehashing old characters. For instance, notice how fan favorite character actress Margo Martindale gets only a brief mention in text form on a news program while fellow beloved supporting character Vincent Adultman isn't even referenced once. Of course a show this smart on handling hefty thematic storylines would also recognize the value of bringing in new comedic bit players instead of just only repeating what's worked in the past. That's just one of the countless brilliant touches to be found in the exemplary writing of this season of Bojack Horseman which turned out to be an impressive achievement that thoroughly demonstrated what a bold piece of art this program has turned into.
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