ranked: all of bojack [FINAL UPDATE]



because what else am I gonna spend my time on?

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BoJack Horseman



The Bojack Horseman Story, Chapter One

Still bottom of the pile. Like many comedy pilot episodes in history, it really just sucks, and rewatching knowing what the show is going to become it really sticks out how crude and rough this pilot really is. It does an adequate job of introducing us to the five primary main characters, and one or two of the jokes land, but at this point there’s very little suggesting the show will be more than a one-note satire, and a weak one at that. Humble beginnings, folks.

Choice quote: The OG "What is this, a crossover episode?”

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Underground

Funnily enough on rewatch I found the main content of Underground a fair bit more entertaining - aka decent laughs from everything to do with Jessica Biel and Woodchuck Couldchuck - but I disliked the two B-stories and the ending even more vehemently. One of the most rewarding relationships, Bojack and Diane, is shafted to a couple scenes of them getting drunk in the bedroom and rehashing problems Season 2 dealt with far more eloquently. PC and Todd are shafted into a just really deeply unfunny B-story for the sole purpose of giving us the deus ex machina solve. We see the five main characters together on-screen for the first time since Season 2, and the writers waste it on a joke about Ethiopian food. This is maybe the only episode of the show where Mr. Peanutbutter's scenes are the only highlight, and that says a lot.

Choice quote: “My only hope is that the meat of Zach Braff proves lasting, but I fear by daybreak there will be no Braff meat left."

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Sabrina’s Christmas Wish

This does exist! I fucking knew it. Can't be bothered to rewatch it, though - it's a one-off Christmas thing that Netflix very clearly rushed out real quick. Watch the Community Christmas eps instead.

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See Mr. Peanutbutter Run

This episode is pleasant enough at best, and adequately introduces us to the new status quo of the non-Bojack characters while giving us Aaron Paul saying "drone throne" a couple times, but that's really it. Rewatches have really cemented for me what a non-event the entire PB governor storyline was and this episode is entirely dedicated to kicking off that useless journey. Pretty empty of real laughs, as much as I like to listen to Andre Braugher say literally anything.

Choice quote: “This D’onofrio, has had…. Enoughfrio!”

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Prickly-Muffin

Kristen Schaal makes her first appearance as the grown-up, fucked-up Sarah Lynn in a relative flop of an episode. There’s an appeal here in how quickly things spiral out of control, and Aaron Paul does great work as Todd being the only one seeing how ridiculous things are getting, but it’s a largely hollow episode that sets a formula future ones will capitalise on. Hard to totally hate this as it sets so much important groundwork, with the first mention of Herb’s cancer and foreshadowing of Sarah Lynn’s end, but the show still had a long way to go.

Choice quote: “No matter what happens, no matter how much it hurts, you don’t stop dancing and you don’t stop smiling and you give those people what they want.”

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Bojack Kills

Another rare late dud, we see the show following its impulses on a weird concept but not going far enough to pay real dividends. This episode could have made an enjoyable genre exercise had it really leaned into the murder mystery parody, but instead it sits in a weird halfway point between ‘gritty underbelly caper’ and ‘silly Bojack shenanigans’ that does neither side favours. Mostly just a mediocre thing that takes all the air out of the Cuddlywhiskers story - yet another story I kind of feel the writers never capitalised on, despite all the setup Cuddlywhiskers and Jill Pill got previous season.

Choice quote: “It’s spooky in here. Too spooky.” “Oh? And what would be the right amount of spooky?”

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Commence Fracking

I liked this episode a whole, whole lot less on rewatch than its already fairly low placing originally. Alison Brie does some great voice work and we're slowly starting to know and like Hollyhock as a character, but she and Bojack are shafted into a B-story when they really should be the A, and this is just an absolute mess of like five different stories which confirms that the PB Governor storyline is by far the least inspired and entertaining the writers have done. And who thought the POV human/dog sex scene was a thing that needed to exist?

Choice quote: “By the way, your show sucks. Should be called Tedium.”

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Mr. Peanutbutter's Boos

This episode still frustrates me a lot in a what-could-have-been way, as what coulda been our first real examination of what the hell goes on inside Mr. Peanutbutter's head, specifically in regards to dating women half his age, turns into a fanservice vehicle halfway through giving us scenes we never really needed to see like Todd first moving on to the couch, Diane telling Bojack she loved Horsin' Around (which robs a great scene in That Went Well of all its emotional impact but whatever) and the weird suggestion that one particular party every year has turned all of PB's ex-wives into cold bitches overnight. It reeks of unnecessary backstory and pointless timeline jumping, but the chemistry between the cast is too good for it to be a total flop.

Choice quote: Jessica Biel continues to be absolute gold in mediocre episodes. "It's my one major career disappointment as of 2004!"

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The Bojack Horseman Show

The Bojack Horseman Show sees the show delivering a technically well-accomplished episode without really reaching for any more. After all the mystery about Jill Pill and Bojack’s other show built up at the end of S2, we get our answers pretty much immediately in the form of a very expositionary flashback. As much as I enjoy the vast majority of their work, I think it’s fair to say the writers of Bojack are not particularly accomplished at following through on the storylines they set up at the end of previous seasons, and that’s okay, because the places they end up going are almost always way more interesting. As I said before, though, the complete deflation of the Cuddlywhiskers storyline after 3 episodes, with the exception of one flashback in That's Too Much, Man! is very odd and anticlimactic.

Choice quote: the one-off deflated closing credits. “Back in ’07, I was in an unsuccessful TV show!”

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INT. SUB

Yeah this one went down quite a few notches on rewatch when I started to wonder if it really needed to exist. It does give us Bojack and Diane's relationship reaching a breaking point in appropriately brutal fashion, but Diane having received the Escape from LA tape literally two episodes before decides to air it out to the entire crew so quickly the lack of buildup is almost funny, and this massive breach of trust between the two friends is essentially never discussed again. Tenuous narrative reasons allow Hanawalt and co. license to just go off the chain with the character designs, which is plenty fun but honestly feels like window dressing for how little plot there is to get through. I weirdly enjoy Mr. Peanutbutter playing Fritz in all the Philbert scenes a lot, though??

Choice quote: probably something Todd says, but there's no memorable lines of dialogue in this one

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Zoes and Zeldas

S1 shows significant signs of improvement as it decides to delve into the relationship between Todd and Bojack, one which will give us some of the show’s richest material over the next few seasons. Of course we’re not quite there yet, and Zoes and Zeldas is largely content to start getting us used to the concept that Bojack is actually a self-centred dick who will frequently be unlikable as a main character, and that Aaron Paul will always be likable as Todd. The first full appearances of Herb Kazazz and Character Actress Margo Martindale start kicking off both the show’s best long-running jokes and darkest material, but as much as I enjoy Aaron Paul poorly singing about space slaves, the actual rock opera stuff falls a little flat in hindsight with all the development Todd has gone through since then.

Choice quote: “Rock opera? More like shock flopera.”

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The Showstopper

You know what? For a show that consistently hit the Episode 11 mark with absolute aplomb and brilliance, they really fucked the pooch in S5. I kind of hate this grimdark, whiplash-inducing bummer of an episode, which has Bojack do his most irredeemable shit yet because it's expected of the show and they need a narrative reason for him to go to rehab, rather than out of any interest in the characters or built-in years of development they've gone through. It's too objectively well-made and structurally interesting to put any lower, but I really deeply dislike the way this episode made me feel dirty for enjoying the show.

Choice quote: Stephanie Beatriz's musical number was an inspired bit of nihilism in a messy episode.

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The Light Bulb Scene

I guess this is definitely on the better side of Bojack season openers, which tend to struggle a little with introducing all the season's storylines and as a result rarely have time to land any good emotional content. What surprised me this time around was seeing Kate Purdy (writer of literally basically all the show's best episodes) as the writer's credit instead. It's still a funny and clever piece of TV, with the ways Philbert mirrors Bojack's real life being an especially good source of comedy which sets up some real dark shit later on, but... I guess I just wanted a little more from a Kate episode, especially given this is her only credit this season. But it's fine, it's good.

Choice quote: “The network doesn’t want us to remind people about the existence of clocks.”

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The Judge

A funny, well-made episode that rings slightly hollow and compromises some of S4’s forward momentum. At a point where the show has moved increasingly away from satire and into pretty fuckin’ genuine drama, it’s nice to have a return to a fairly straightforward jab at TV, and The Judge gets off some crackers at competition television with Felicity Huffman’s Booty Academy. But it comes at a weird place in the season, emotionally, as the story of Hollyhock’s mother is largely put on hold for some one-off jokes, and Princess Carolyn’s largely stagnates as she visits Ralph’s parents and finds out they suck, etc. A good episode with some real belters, though.

Choice quote: “Your booty’s been abjudicated!”

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Planned Obsolescence

This episode isn't all that far from S3 episodes like Commence Fracking, where there's no clear A-story and it spins slightly to the episode's detriment. I have Planned Obsolescence way higher because the thread of burgeoning romance that runs through all the stories ties it together nicely, and the Todd and Yolanda stuff was fucking side-splitting hilarious. There aren't many opportunities for straight-up farce as this show has become progressively serious, so it's nice to just cut loose with some ridiculous shit that calls back to the glory days of S2 and gives Aaron Paul some of his best ever material in a season where he's not a huge player overall. I still care very little for Pickles and Bojack's story with Gina is largely table-setting for the insane shit to follow, but this is an entertaining half-hour of TV either way.

Choice quote: “Todd, can you help me move some furniture? My husband has a hernia.” “Yeah, no, I noticed in the marzipan.”

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The Horny Unicorn

S6 has been super consistent, so even the worst episode is still solid. The main problem is that it's very broad, without any specific thing to revolve around apart from the loose theme of 'everyone hates Bojack, the rest move on with their lives'. There's still some great stuff here: Judah remains terrific (I want to see what a 'famous Judah tantrum' is like), Todd's phrases for elegant adults are hysterical, and one harsh scene when he turns Bojack away from the party recalls some of Aaron Paul's best work from It's You. I'm mostly just frustrated with the way Hollyhock's storyline was handled. She didn't owe Bojack anything, but the fact that we didn't get any of this from her perspective alone is a bummer – basically, Hollyhock is far too good a character to just be a prop for Bojack to hit another rock bottom.

Choice quote: He said 'you should check out this internet meme, it always cheers me up: Sad Dog'. I said 'but doctor... I am Sad Dog'.

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Bojack Hates the Troops

This still steadily climbs up my ranking every time despite the bad reputation; it really gets funnier and sillier every time I watch it and is a clear precursor to the ‘topical episode’ formula that later seasons will perfect. Our first glimpses of Bojack’s parents, MSNBSea, and most importantly the long-running tongue-twister chains all land effortlessly, along with a great turn by Patton Oswalt as Neal McBeal the Navy SEAL. Unfortunately the show is still working out some structural kinks, and the episode runs out of air by the time it hits the end; an early and better climax sees Bojack’s rant at Neal/Tom go from jaded and cynical to increasingly self-loathing in a matter of seconds, an early showing of the range Will Arnett will bring to the role.

Choice quote: “You never know when gold’s gonna strike!” “Gold doesn’t strike.” “That’s why you never know!”

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Still Broken

S2's only real weak point is still fantastic by the standards of most shows, and has the forethought to deploy the magnificent Henry Winkler as a defense against any criticism I can lobby. The Herb story comes to an end as the Horsin’ Around crew go on an episode-long treasure hunt that ends in a pretty quick de-escalation. Of course, the anti-climax is the point, but many of the emotional beats here are ones that the second half of Season 1 hit much harder. Even so, I’m pretty much in love with every second of S2 from beginning to end, and the fact that this is a weaker point pretty much speaks volumes.

Choice quote: “So in that flashback, were you British, or American?”

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Love And/Or Marriage

S3’s hot run hits a very small bump as it tries to analyse Diane, Bojack, Todd and Princess Carolyn’s feelings on love all at once. PC fares the best as she meets Ralph for the first time, and the genuinely touching connection between the two of them provides a lighter tone to the darkness that we all know is slowly coming on. Bojack’s story for the first time feels a little perfunctory; despite the power of the “everybody loves you, but nobody likes you” moment, it comes on a little too quickly and resolves everything a little too easily. Meanwhile, Diane needs to get high to tell Mr. Peanutbutter she loves him, and that’s all fine, and the animation team gets to do some nice effects and stuff. Overall, definitely an episode that could have benefitted from another five minutes or so.

Choice quote: “Well, I’m only albino rhino gyno I know.” “Oh great, you’re also a wine addict!”

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The Kidney Stays in the Picture

Each separate storyline in this episode was fine, but I don't consider this show to be at its best unless there's a thematic resonance between the parts that informs the whole, unless the episode is only following one character or is an experimental detour. Kidney... had potential, but like a lot of S5 ultimately felt like a bunch of A-stories fighting for the main spot, with Todd's kidney thing, Diane in Chicago, the assistant unionisation and Bojack's rehab all individually being enough for an episode alone. Having said that, a whole lot of great individual scenes here: Todd doing Brokeback Mountain with sock puppets; Bojack accidentally therapising himself in the bar; MOTHERFUCKING JUDAH, and oh hey, psyched we got a Hollyhock mention!

Choice quote: literally just when Judah turns around in the chair

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Ancient History

I really wanted the show to use Hollyhock more. It's understandable that there's no room for her in the Philbert storyline, and having a new main character on the show who's a college student doesn't work, but the relationship that S4 built up even amongst all its weird narrative digressions was so strong and lovely that it demanded more. This is a technically fine episode which was necessary to demonstrate the severity of Bojack's pill addiction, but like pretty much everything in late S5 with this plotline, I leave it feeling dirty and kind of sick rather than moved or emotional. PC almost gets an adoptive child but actually doesn't - huh, have we seen this one before? - and Todd builds a sex robot.

Choice quote: "You look like you’ve just seen a Ghost In The Shell screening and you’re Scarlett Johansson’s publicist."

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Bojack the Feminist

The show might never recapture the incisive heights of Hank After Dark and Brrap Brrap Pew Pew again. S5's topical episode is the closest it's ever come, though one notable difference is that large parts of Bojack the Feminist aren't really that funny. Surface-level cracks like the Forgive-ees or Bojack saying not to choke women are driven by a real white-hot rage that powers a lot of the episode, and in an absolutely savage final turn you realise that the show isn't afraid to turn that rage straight onto its main character in genuinely shocking and unsettling fashion. In a vacuum this one of the strongest topical episodes of the show; in the broader picture of S5, the somewhat non-entity of the Philbert scenes is slowly sucking in more main characters and taking some of the energy of the show with it.

Choice quote: “You get to drop in and play Joss Whedon and everyone cheers, but when you move on to your next thing, I’m still here."

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A Horse Walks into a Rehab

The premiere of S6 was always gonna have a lot of heavy lifting to do to convince me to still actually be invested in Bojack's 'redemption' arc. This show's gone to some dark places, but S5 pushed the pendulum a little too far, and after the hopeful ending of S4 that was a pretty cruel trick. This episode... is very well-structured as a premiere, with a great form of gradually creeping flashback that keeps us wondering exactly when Bojack had his first taste of alcohol; the burn marks on the screen and the recurring image of the cosmos that Sarah Lynn was looking at as she died are brilliant animation tricks that keep this show's reputation of being visually one of the best. But idk... I don't know if I have a reason to want this character's redemption arc on my screen just yet.

Choice quote: “I could send you a swag bag from Felicity Huffman's Booty Academy, but you should probably wash the thong before you wear it.”

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lovin that cali lifestyle!!

Despite the brilliant coffee reveal, I kind of dislike the smugness of this episode giving us an huge cliffhanger with Hollyhock at the beginning that it refuses to answer until the final few moments. It's definitely trying to recapture the serious-funny-serious sandwich of episodes like It's You, but S4's B-plots are just so so bad (Todd’s stupid dentist clown storyline is trying too hard to be zany and the governor stuff is wrapped up so perfunctorily you wonder if the writers even cared about it to begin with) that the funny stuff is a waste of time and the serious stuff feels diminished because of it. The Hollyhock material is strong enough and harrowing enough to just play it straight.

Choice quote: “Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzarelli-McQuack. That’s her name. And she’s about five-eight. And she’s 17, and her birthday is in September. And...she looks like me. And she loves apples but hates applesauce."

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Start Spreading the News

A highly entertaining, dark episode that picks up all the pieces of S2 and starts moving along the Oscars plot effortlessly, but still feels pretty small-time compared to its subsequent season. The episode’s strength is the way we can see how easy it is for Bojack to be caught up in the excitement of the Oscars campaign, even when he and us both know that it’s both emotionally and literally a lie; a powerful scene from Secretariat is muted by the fact that it’s a computer program, not Bojack in the scene. The other great moment reminds us forcefully that Escape from LA will not be so easily forgotten, a deeply uncomfortable thought that S6 will twist into one of the show's most painful endings yet... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Choice quote: “Is dyke an okay thing to say now? Has it been reclaimed?”

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Feel-Good Story

I'm liking the series of character-focused episodes S6 starts off with. With the exception of the late act of The New Client, each story has time to breathe away from the other characters, and Feel-Good Story was especially good about not cramming a B-story in there – unless you count a whole arc which plays out only in voiceover via Bojack's letters, which is really just thematic support for the A-story. This is more along the lines of what The Dog Days Are Over could've been with a little more focus, and this definitely felt like the best use of Diane in a while. Diane-focused episodes aren't generally the funniest of this show, with the blazing exception of Brrap Brrap Pew Pew which always makes me wish they'd go ridiculous with this character again, but Feel-Good Story is a lowkey outing that thankfully let her live her life a little. And hey, is that Lakeith motherfucking Stanfield??

Choice quote: “BILLIONAIRES ALLOWED TO MURDER"

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Brand New Couch

Let’s tick off our last season opener as S2 opens up. Bojack premieres are all really just table-setting episodes, which sufficiently introduce the major stories without really delving into any of the heavy stuff just yet. Brand New Couch is the best of these, but it’s mostly just a very solid run of jokes as we get used to the Secretariat set and Cordovia as our major settings for the season. Of course, there’s an exception to that, as our first major scene with Beatrice in the present day gives us a brutal reminder that despite Bojack’s newfound positivity and cheerful George Takei audiobooks, he’ll never be fully fixed. It's amazing how even all the way back here they're setting up things that will play into Season 4.

Choice quote: any variation of “what are YOUUU doing here?”

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Later

After an incredible run of S1 episodes, Later lowers the bar slightly in the final round, giving us what we now know as a fairly standard ‘pick up the shattered pieces from the end of 11 and set up a bunch of storylines for next season’ formula. It’s a sentimental, lowkey episode, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, although I did drop it a few spots in the update - it's hard not to feel Raphael's writing a finale for the kind of show Bojack was in the first half of the season, silly and a little too focused on Diane and Bojack, rather than the multi-faceted and brilliant thing it had involved into over the following six episodes.

Choice quote: “Has this ever happened to YOU?” "Literally not to anyone at any time"

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Intermediate Scene Study w/ Bojack Horseman

I'm very glad this show never manufactured reasons for its main characters to stay in the same town or relationships they began with - the characters are barely in each other's lives anymore, having to travel across country just to see Bojack. The downside of this is that the cast is such a delight together, it's a little sad to hear them so separated. Of course Will Arnett can carry an episode on his own, and Intermediate... is plenty funny without ever hitting the belly-laugh point (best bit: Bojack's students constantly interrupting his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings). The comedy is balanced with a brutal phone call that snaps us right out of Bojack's new life to remind us that no matter how much he's changed, all the people he's damaged in his past are still out there.

Choice quote: “I had my doubts when he did the scene from Proof, but when he did the scene from Doubt I thought, there's the proof.”

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Thoughts and Prayers

The show tackles gun violence and sexism in an entertaining episode, which slightly falls flat of the high standards set by its two predecessors. Diane takes the lead as usual, standing in for morality and decency in a universe populated by jaded cynics. Of course, the richness is that she’s as much as a jaded cynic as anyone else, but unlike its two predecessors Thoughts and Prayers doesn’t get much mileage out of the central tension, largely coasting by on some incisive social commentary jokes. Meanwhile, a very important moment for Bojack and Hollyhock is largely relegated to B-story as Beatrice comes into their lives, beginning S4’s major downward spiral; it’s a shame this story has less time devoted to it, because it really could have carried the entire episode.

Choice quote: “I can’t believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.” “….No?”

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The Amelia Earheart Story

The prospect of a flashback episode for PC was pretty narratively exciting, given how much development she got through Season 4 and how much more there is to explore with her as a character. Amelia Earheart falls a little flat in two ways - the present-day stuff is fine, but gets undone with a single line in the finale and so feels slightly pointless, while the flashbacks again are perfectly good watching but don't really tell us anything we don't know about the character already. It's not a bad episode by any means, as any PC is good PC in my books, but a few lines of spoken dialogue in Best Thing/Ruthie hit these emotional beats far better than this episode did actually showing them.

Choice quote: "St. Mary’s Good Shepherd of the Lady of the Passion of the Constant Gardener of Latter-Day Belle & Sebastian."

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Out to Sea

After – fuck it, let’s call it one of the most gruelling episodes of TV probably ever – Season 2 decompresses slightly with a fairly upbeat, fun romp. Bob-Waksberg delivers quick, simple jokes focusing largely on Bojack and Todd’s relationship, an emotional beat which feels slightly out of place given how little attention S2 has given it before this; meanwhile, Princess Carolyn gets to be a badass and Diane’s sad-drunk storyline winds down sweetly, if a little too simply for my tastes. It’s a little disingenuous to have all this be the ending hook with Escape from LA just in the rearview mirror, sure, but such a light and easy script is a much needed relief as a near perfect season of TV winds to a close.

Choice quote: Amy Sedaris gets the most genuinely fist-punching, badass moment of the entire show with a pitch-perfect landing: "My name is *Princess* Carolyn."

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Live Fast, Diane Nguyen

Back to Season 1 as we start getting some real traction on the show, but there are still leaps to be made. For the first time Todd’s full potential as comic relief is totally unlocked, and we get the first B-story that is far more entertaining than the A-, as Boreanaz House somehow manages to get stupider and funnier over the course of 25 minutes, and still one of my favourite running gags all this time later. There’s nothing wrong the major plot, either, as we finally get some more layers on Diane’s character (and about time), but there’s nothing really amazing about the way the episode plays out – her family really are as sucky as she says, so there’s no real tension, and it would feel a little pointless if we didn’t have Bojack finally making his call to Herb at the end.

Choice quote: “You’re hearing my voice in your head because that’s how reading works.” “Oh yeah…”

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Xerox of a Xerox

One of my favourite things as this show has gone on has been the evolution towards long-form, drawn-out conversation. This used to be known as the show for quick, witty quips or devastating one-liners, but something shifted when Free Churro broke the structure of the show wide open, or when that gnarly Bojack/Diane argument in Head in the Clouds came along. This is all about that painful second interview which seems to go on forever, where Bojack finally sees his own patterns in front of the entire world. The episode structures itself cleverly around this, building that sick feeling in your stomach when you know exactly what's about to happen. And the isolation of our main cast especially cuts, because it becomes painfully obvious that they have the lives Bojack could have, but he might have squandered his final chance.

Choice quote: “I used to feel like my whole life was an acting job. Just doing an impression of the people I saw on television."

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Horse Majeure

In the wake of the show finally hitting its true heights/depths, Horse Majeure is a really funny but fairly light follow-up, as we get an increasingly absurd montage of Bojack trying to stop Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter’s marriage. Given how long they’re married for, I honestly almost forgot this was even a plotline in Season 1, and it feels weirdly pointless to watch Bojack run around trying to stop it when he’s so clearly grasping at straws. Still, that’s the point, and as Todd finally realised who sabotaged his shock flopera and Diane’s book gets closer and closer to release, we get a supporting cast starting to wake up to the fact their lead is a bad person who can do awful things. And we see Vincent Adultman and Margo Martindale goes to jail, so those things are pretty important.

Choice quote: “Don’t you want to know what my Rosebud is?” “You told me repeatedly it was the nudie magazine your uncle showed you with the three-nippled woman.” “Who WAS she?”

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A Little Uneven, Is All

I haven't mentioned it yet, but even the new title S6 credits made up of all the things haunting Bojack have me feeling feelings – this show is excellent at figuring out ways to call back to the past without being too overt about it. In this particular case the one shot of Bojack looking in his dressing room mirror on Horsin' Around and seeing the cosmos is becoming a kind of non-linear season motif that's really powerful, and it's a brilliant way to still be feeling the ripples of Sarah Lynn's death three seasons later. The present-day material is all great stuff too, with Bojack accidentally getting his therapy horse drunk and dealing with the fallout, but PB and Diane have some pretty perfunctory scenes which really serve as stopgaps on their own journeys.

Choice quote: The callback to the three-nippled woman, one of my all-time favourite jokes on the show, had me wheezing. "Who WAS she?"

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Our Story is a D-Story

We hit the second half of Season 1 and stuff really starts picking up, as we get some much-needed friction between PB and Bojack and the tension starts mounting. Bojack falling in love with Diane is a pretty temporary development, but it also provides a much-needed narrative kick that gets us into the really juicy stuff. As it is, this is the first episode to mesh Hollywood satire with emotional blows in a way that feels earned and natural, and it establishes a baseline for the show to work from from here out.

Choice quote: “Nothing on the outside, nothing on the inside.”

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Head in the Clouds

The biggest relationship of the season finally melts down, and goddamn, what a scene. The direction of Bojack and Diane's neverending fight is a visual marvel as the camera seems to get more disoriented, and Will Arnett and Alison Brie turn in some of their best performances alternately self-righteous, self-loathing, disgusted and wounded. With a little more focus this would be a better episode 11 than the actual episode 11 of the season, though unfortunately you can pretty much sum up S5 by saying the absolutely fantastic argument scene is bookended with some sex robot stuff and a subplot about two comedians who don't like each other or something. This was definitely when the balance between humour and darkness was at its shakiest and the show suffered for it.

Choice quote: "...yet?"

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Old Acquaintance

Another episode which juggles a lot but manages to catch it all, as PC fucks up two movie deals for Bojack, we meet Captain Peanutbutter, and Bojack tries to patch things up with Kelsey. The PC material is the strongest by far, and the show plays with some interesting questions as all our lead characters end in a bad place, while the two villains get a wholesome happy ending. Really makes you think.

Choice quote: “The kind of stuff you’d hear in a sad Creed song. Or a happy Elliott Smith song.”

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BoJack Horseman



The Stopped Show

I have a theory that even the writers felt a bit gross with how S5 played out, as the finale instead of wrapping things up neatly takes the form of an intervention for every major character, asking the simple question "have these people actually changed?" It's a testament to the show's quality that the answer changes wherever you look - Bojack might finally, actually be starting to change, albeit in the wake of the darkest and most unforgivable fuckup he's ever sunken to. And Diane might have changed too, taking the final few seconds of the season in a beautifully animated shot that could suggest a whole lot of things to every viewer, even as her ex-husband comes up to the edge of change and can't do it. On the heels of a season I find myself caring for less and less, The Stopped Show is a thoughtful and powerful semi-colon that left a lot for S6 to work with.

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Angela

Angela is a terrific, terrifying character played perfectly, who comes to take away the last thing Bojack has – being the horse from Horsin' Around. Seeing him drink again is crushing, but that final shot of young Bojack's screentest cutting to now is even more devastating. But this episode is as much about getting the rest of the cast to a place of resolution. Todd's story is a little too goofy, and while I love seeing how he's changed, it's hard to invest in this abrupt mother storyline. PC's big moment is just as out of leftfield, but Judah is so fucking good it doesn't bother me too much. Surprisingly Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter take this one. In just two scenes evaluating their lives, Alison Brie and Paul Tompkins do some of their best ever work.

Choice quote: “I feel like if we met each other as the people we are now, things would be totally different with us.” “Yeah, but if we hadn’t met each other until now, we wouldn’t be the people we are now.”

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After the Party

The show's first real chronological structural experiment sees the show bouncing around in time to follow its multiple storylines. We get a brief, glorious moment of all five main characters in a room together – gasp – before they split off into pairs of PC/Todd, Bojack/Wanda and Diane/PB, with the episode giving us the following events from everyone’s perspective. It’s technically great, but the structural experiment doesn’t really enhance or detract from any of the stories and almost feels like a dry run for the much better Stop the Presses next season, although this episode's willingness to really play with character pairings (I think it's the first proper Todd/PC teamup we ever got as well as the first big Diane/PB fight) has made me warm to it a fair bit on rewatches.

Choice quote: “I went balls to the wall for this party! Literally, there are balls all the way to the wall!”

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Hooray! Todd Episode!

This is another one that jumped up a few places in my estimation, an incredibly solid comic episode which suffers from being placed after the greatest episode of the show and in a season which doesn't quite know what it wants to be. This one juggles a lot with a breathless pace, although in this particular case the pacing works well towards letting us get inside Todd’s head. Hard to fault Aaron Paul on maybe his best performance - him doing a Christopher Walken impersonation thinking it's Channing Tatum might be one of the show's best overall jokes - even if S4 itself is looking a little directionless at this stage.

Choice quote: “That’s a TERRIBLE thing to say to a baby!”

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That Went Well

Like the other season closers, That Went Well sees Raphael Bob-Waksberg setting up a bunch of plotlines that don’t really get followed through on in S4, although that’s unfair to hold against what is an extremely solid season closer. The payoff to the spaghetti strainer/Cabracadabra storyline is indeed tremendous, while one especially brutal scene sees Bojack freaking out over the possibility of creating another Sarah Lynn on Ethan Around. The show’s all-time best musical cue closes out the episode as we come closer than ever to seeing an actual end for our main character, only for the smallest of things to bring him back.

Choice quote: “When you sang that high note and shoot fireworks out of your boobs, that was such a moving tribute to gays in the military.”

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The New Client

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but Princess Carolyn became my favourite character at some point and she elevates even perfunctory storylines at this point. S6 is cleverly using unusual animation tricks to get us inside the characters' heads, and this episode's brilliant conceit was not only visual but audible, with multiple ghost PCs running around in each scene making a constant background music of anxiety. She's such a strong character now she can easily carry an entire episode on her own, and The New Client's best moments by far are the ones about PC alone, with the final line of dialogue being the kind of sweetly sentimental gutpunch that immediately became a top-tier moment on the show for me. The only thing keeping this one down is a third-act diversion with Bojack and Mr. PB which feels a bit shoehorned in from another episode – I'd almost throw Todd in there as well, but Todd is so consistently good I don't really mind.

Choice quote: "....Ruthie."

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What Time is it Right Now

Season 4, weirdly, ends on a happy note. It’s good weird, not bad weird – the show is aware that continuing to have Bojack on a downward spiral could pretty much only end one way (and that would’ve been pretty soon, judging by S3), and that having the character grow towards something more healthy is the smartest way forward. Unfortunately, like a lot of the season the road to get there is unfocused and inconsistent, like Diane and PB's story, which ends on a beautifully delivered line that almost makes the governor shit on the way worth it.

Choice quote: "But I'm so tired of squinting" vs "But I've never had a brother before", depending on if you feel like sobbing or grinning

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Good Damage

Diane grew into one of the best characters on this show, once she grew out of her role as voice-of-reason/love-interest and into someone who deals with as much damage as anyone else, but is uniquely equipped to talk about it as a writer. Good Damage has echoes of The Dog Days Are Over thanks to Joanna Calo's thoughtful writing of Diane, although the jump to non-standard animation to show her writer's block makes it a companion piece to Stupid Piece of Shit. Everything with her and Guy is so strong that this only didn't place higher because the story has to split time with the reporters in New Mexico. I like this storyline, and Paget Brewster is extraordinarily funny, but there's no real thematic connection to Diane and it's hard to miss the feeling that it's all just table-setting for episode 3.

Choice quote: “Are you one of those stupid pop culture analogies I’m always doing? Because you’re charming at first, but eventually enough already!”

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Fish out of Water

The famous ‘silent episode’ kicks off an incredible streak of material that lasts all the way to the end of S3. This is a weird one, an episode which plays off existing relationships but feels almost entirely divorced from the show itself, a weird one-off that manages to be captivating and beautiful but never feels essential. The animation team have a field day creating the show’s best visuals to date (Season 4 will somehow even eclipse it), but it’s Jesse Novak’s sound design that really brings the underwater city to life and make the episode land. Admittedly one that struck me as a classic Bojack episode on first watch and has fallen down a little bit every time I go back to it, though the fact that an episode as audacious as this is out of the top tier is really just a testament to how good the damn show is.

Choice quote: “Oh you’ve got to be kiddi-“

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Sunk Cost and All That

Bojack reckoning with every shitty thing he's done has been a long time coming, and throwing everything up on the whiteboard is a smart way for the writers to remind us of the person he is. (That and sneak in some killer gags: “lied about dating Natalie Portman” and “lied about “getting” Radiohead”). I love how this episode gives us time to fully sit inside each character's relationship to the crisis; Todd just walks out because he's seen this all before; Diane is disgusted but still thinks there's good in him; PC goes into Hollywoo producer crisis mode. It's this last relationship I'm most invested in. In a final bit of absolutely stunning dialogue, Bojack and PC frankly look at their lives and whether it's even worth being around each other anymore, and that's the shit that guts me everytime.

Choice quote: “When I tell my daughter the story of the great love of my life, I want it to have a happy ending.” “Is it possible you letting me go is the happy ending?”

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Yes And

Season 2 breaks up the most sincere, sweet relationship Bojack’s had on the show, and in doing so sets us up for the complete gut punch of the next episode. Secretariat, Cordovia and Wanda are all largely wrapped up this episode, with varying levels of brutality and heartbreak, and the fact that it rarely feels perfunctory makes it one of the show’s tighter and more consistent scripts. Still, nothing really reaches for the stars until that breakup scene, when the show lets you know how hard it’s willing to let the characters fall and fall and fall.

Choice quote: “It’s funny. When you look at someone through rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”

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Surprise!

I loved Surprise! since 6A dropped, but a rewatch really cemented what an insanely good and funny bit of comedy this episode is. An inspired way of taking a simple premise and stretching it out over 25 minutes, this isn't only a bracingly funny episode but manages to explore the dynamics of almost every main character pairing without most of them directly interacting. Bojack and Diane get the most focus, but we start to see the seeds of change that take Mr. Peanutbutter to a marginally more mature place by the end of the season, and the livestream gags are tremendous. The entire Pickles storyline was worth it for this.

Choice quote: "That's not a friendship, that's a hostage situation."

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Ruthie

Season 4 is Amy Sedaris’ best season of the show, straight up, and Ruthie is the episode where they finally pull out all the stops in taking arguably the show’s most solid, centred character and tearing her entire world down. Not all of this works for me – the cat musical flashback is just dumb weird, even the episode is aware that the Bojack b-story is a total waste of time, and How I Met Your Mother conditioned me to expect the twist from the moment the future setting was revealed. But that doesn’t make the moment where it happens – or indeed all the others, like PC pushing Ralph out of her life – any less utterly devastating.

Choice quote: “I was not trying to engage in punnery during business hours.”

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One Trick Pony

Season 1’s funniest and most scathing satire is not like the other episode 10s, which are generally used as a final fuck-up/narrative nosedive which set the scene for the infamous 11s. Instead, One Trick Pony leans fully into the comedy, drawing together all the disparate plotlines in a satisfying way that does not at all prepare you for the complete turmoil to come. We finally see Bojack actually on a movie set, and the inherent absurdities in such a place are cranked up the point where the actual episode content is almost irrelevant underneath all the quickfire jokes. Still, though, this is the episode where Bojack’s book finally hits the shelves, and the season’s most important relationship starts to show the cracks that it will fall into in just the next episode.

Choice quote: “Not to over-use my catchphrase, but tru dat.”

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Stop the Presses

S3 takes another swing at a structural experiment and pulls it off fantastically. The framing device of The Closer is a brilliant way to keep bringing the episode back to a baseline despite all the narrative tangents, and the fact that it all happens just to unsubscribe from a newspaper keeps things from getting too serious this early in the season. Not much else to it except a terrific illustration of all the guilt, confusion and bad choices that are pulling at Bojack from every direction - this is a fantastically watchable episode but one that's definitely marking time in the season, which led me to knock it down a few places in the ranking because of all the better things to come.

Choice quote: “It kinda just looks like a billboard for the sky.”

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The Dog Days Are Over

Speaking of episodes that grew on me insanely. Nothing else took a journey from mediocre to incredible in my eyes like this S5 cut, and I couldn't even tell you why. Maybe because it avoids the mess of the rest of the season by just letting us live in Diane's head a little. Maybe the inspired Buzzfeed-style episode structure. Maybe just looking back on the show once it ended and realising how much Diane grew as a character. I don't know, but all I can tell is you the montage of Diane standing still while the background changes around her gut-punches me as hard as anything that's happened to Bojack in the show.

Choice quote: "Erica! What are you doing here with a child-sized coffin?"

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Higher Love

Bojack tackles auto-erotic asphyxiation in one of its funniest episodes. Literally just listing all the various names for it said throughout this episode would be a pretty apt descriptor of how good it is – “the funky spiderman” vs “the one-hand strangle dangle” for my favourites – but the show weaves in some genuine Wanda and Bojack relationship action in the midst, again showing how expertly it mixes its two emotional halves, and so on and on.

Choice quote: “let’s talk about the elephant in the room-“ “wooow. OK. You know what? I can’t even- woooow.”

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Yesterdayland

One of the most underrated episodes introduces Wanda in a straightforward, sentimental, fucking hilarious fashion. Wanda’s coma backstory allows for some terrific jokes about nostalgia and memory, but it also gives us a powerful look into Bojack’s psyche and the type of woman he thinks is perfect for him. Joel McHale gives one of my favourite guest turns as the Russian sleeper agent who takes a liking to Wanda, a completely unnecessary plot that is nevertheless hilarious. S2 is barely revving its motor and we’re already getting quality like this?

Choice quote: I’ll throw it to Bojack for Arnett’s delivery of “slap my salami, the guy’s a commie!”, but Wanda’s “I haven’t had sex in 30 years – I hope” is a close runner-up. Honourable mention to Aaron Paul for the “noooo! beeeeeees!”

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The Shot

The show runs away with one of its wackier concepts, but even more than usual there’s a heart of melancholy bubbling underneath which keeps even the best jokes grounded in something grim. Yet another S2 episode where all our characters’ work is savagely undone in a single line at the end – seriously, writers, chill – The Shot manages to juggle Diane in Cordovia, PC’s idyllic dreamworld, and some powerful Bojack material without ever dropping the ball; and a scene where Boj breaks down crying after admitting he can’t cry in front of people, which would feel cheesy and forced on any other show, becomes one of the season’s most tender moments. Just the ninth classic entry in a series of twelve, folks.

Choice quote: “And that’s when you realise… the book you’re writing in your head will never be a book. So you stop-“

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A Quick One, While He's Away

Most of us think an episode without our main characters at all would be a tough sell – even Time's Arrow, the nominal inclusion here, has Bojack woven into the timeframe - but the truth is Bojack's past is the shadow this episode takes place inside. Again what amazes me here is how effortlessly the script, a Bob-Waksberg, stitches together the lives of so many characters, in this case all stumbling their way towards arriving at a terrifying realisation. In an inferior show all the shitty things the main character had done would be left in the past, written off as necessary stops on an arc towards getting better. That's never been how Bojack works, though, and now we all get to wonder for three goddamn months what happens when our main character has to take real responsibility for the first time in his life.

Choice quote: “Who was he?”

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It’s You

Season 3’s wild rollercoaster gets closer to the crash-and-burn point, but we’re not quite at the bottom of the pool yet. It’s You once again pulls out the non-traditional episodic structure in a clever way, as a wacky Mr. Peanutbutter story (giving us the incredible background “Tom Hardy (who is a cat)" gag) nestled inside some typically depressing Bojack-on-the-edge stuff. There’s a little tonal whiplash, especially in the too-long chase sequence with PB’s phone, but the sincerity of both the comedy and the drama lands both as we end on one of the most stark, brutal scenes, feat Aaron Paul’s best line delivery on the entire show.

Choice quote: “Fuck, man. What else is there to say?”

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Chickens

One of the show’s most underrated episodes shows how the non-sequitur wacky Family Guy thing could actually work if it was written to resemble not-garbage. Chickens raises some horrifying questions about the nature of food preparation and consumption in an anthropomorphic world, then just leaves them hanging over your head while digressing into a series of hilariously dumb jokes. Todd takes the lead, of course, and gets some of his absolute best material as the show fully leans into the potential of his comic relief. Plus that opening ad is just fucking incredible.

Choice quote: “Don’t you get it, Todd? THEY’RE ALL BECCA.” “Ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

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Stupid Piece of Shit

Will Arnett pulls out one of his best ever performances – not an easy statement – for this mid-season peak. The first watch of this episode had me convinced me it was top 5 at least, but it’s fallen slightly on rewatch – the episode reaches a feverish emotional peak a little too early when Bojack throws Doll out the window, and once Mr. Peanutbutter comes in it leans a little too hard into the wacky comedy (a problem in the season overall) rather than the powerful place it started (with some of the show’s best non-standard animation). Either way, though, the last scene is one of the show’s most brutal, as Bojack tells a lie even worse than his usual kind to Hollyhock, setting up a dynamic that S5 could explor-oh, yeah, nevermind.

Choice quote: “What if for eighteen years straight I just tell it how worthless it is every day, how it embarrasses me, how my life would be better if it had never been born! Would that be a good idea? Probably, right?”

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Escape From LA

As important and impactful as this episode was to the future of the show, I just don't really like watching it anymore. There's only so much you can get out of this one and the greatest episodes of the show reveal something new or interesting each time you go back. This one... see it once and that's all you need.

Choice quote: the poster on Penny’s wall that says 'Llama Del Rey' tbh

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Hank After Dark

Just another one of Season 2’s masterpieces switches gears a little bit, diving into the darkness not emotionally but with a cold, brutal analysis of the shit celebrities get away with on a daily basis. The show’s leaned this way before in Season 1 with some of the more satirical stuff, but Hank After Dark zeroes in on sexual abuse and attacks the topic so ruthlessly it’s brutal to watch. It’s no throwaway episode, either; Diane’s total failure at the episode’s end sends her on a spiral that will play out savagely over the last third of Season 2.

Choice quote: “Everyone knows who I am. I’m Hank Hippopopalous. Who the hell are you?”

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Brrap Brrap Pew Pew

The show’s second funniest episode beat-for-beat, Brrap tackles a tricky subject the only good way to tackle a tricky subject – blow everything so out of proportion you can only see how silly everything else is. Perhaps sensing that trying to match the darkness of Hank After Dark with the next topical episode would be futile, the team swing the pendulum so far the other way it pretty much shatters all good taste, sensitivity and subtlety. Thank god, too, because this shit is fucking hilarious.

Choice quote: “we’ve assembled this diverse panel of white men in bow ties to talk about abortion.”

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That’s Too Much, Man!

That’s Too Much, Man! is in some ways an anti-Downer Ending; while that episode headed straight for the tripped-out drug sequence as a way to get into Bojack’s head, this episode stays ruthlessly fixed on the brief moments of lucidity, giving us terrifying snapshots of a bender growing further and further out of control. In fact, I think my only complaint with this episode is that it fails to give us enough insight into Bojack's head - Downer Ending literalised his thoughts in animation for the first time, brilliantly illustrating all our main character's anxieties and fears, whereas That's Too Much Man! uses blackouts to cut around that kind of stuff, showing us the awful result of Bojack's shitty actions but not the reasons why he does them.

Choice quote: “This might be all the nitrous and bath salts talking, but I wanna do more nitrous and bath salts.”

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The Telescope

The show finally plays its first ace with the reveal of Herb Kazazz, and in the process finally shows how broken and irreparable its characters truly are. A stupid Todd B-story keeps this from being a classic, but Stanley Tucci’s electrifying final scene with Will Arnett provides the show’s first dive into the real emotional depths.

Choice quote: “Now get the fuck out of my house.”

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Say Anything

The Telescope is, canonically, the episode where this show became great – our first ‘fuck’ moment showing how unforgiving and brutal the show could really be. Except, on rewatch, it’s not – Say Anything, the Princess Carolyn episode right before, has all the clear indicators of how phenomenal the show would become. It’s hard to talk about them separately because the timelines of the two episodes are cleverly intertwined – a clear precursor to the likes of “lovin that cali lifestyle!!!” and others – but for the first time we see the mask of cheap satire and sharp dialogue fall completely away, and we’re left with one of the most powerful endings the show ever did.

Choice quote: "Where else would I go?" "Happy birthday, Princess Carolyn. You are 40."

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The Face of Depression

Who was expecting 6A's penultimate episode gutpunch would be... peaceful and beautiful? Things fell apart in 6B, as we all guessed they would, but in the moment this was an episode I was totally happy for the show to end on. The character arcs resonate and inform each other beautifully, and even Mr. Peanutbutter getting his crossover episode, which should be pure final season fanservice, is as genuinely moving as it is funny. This is where I was finally convinced that Bojack was a character I still wanted to be invested in, and it was just because of the small things he did like cleaning up for Diane and finding someone for Todd. Maybe no one will else rank this up there with the show's best, but this was the first episode ever I left feeling genuinely warm and contented, and that's something.

Choice quote: “What's the point?” “Of anti-depressants? I believe it's to be anti-depressed."

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Let’s Find Out

This isn’t the most powerful episode of the series, nor the most experimental or emotional. But Let’s Find Out is, arguably, the best scripted episode of the whole show. In fact, the script for this thing is so watertight it should really be used in scriptwriting classes; every single joke lands perfectly, the satire is well-placed and cutting, the celebrity guest appearance puts every other instance of a star parodying themselves on a show like this to shame, and the characters are perfectly sketched and move in the ways we expect them to move. Honestly, this is the episode I'll rewatch above all others.

Choice quote: the entire episode, really, but “daaaaamn Bojangles, you got served!”

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Downer Ending

This is the episode that kicked off a lot of things. It introduced us to the Episode 11 gut-punch, arguably the show’s most consistent and powerful feature. It truly let the animation team off the hook for the first time, in a major way. It showed us the real depths the show was willing to show its characters sinking to, making The Telescope look practically upbeat by comparison. Last of all, it showed us that there was nothing else quite like Bojack Horseman on TV, and probably never will be. So say we all, amen.

Choice quote: “Tell me that I’m good.”

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Nice While It Lasted

...Halfway Down was an incredible ending, but we also needed a goodbye to the living. This is a bittersweet farewell that balances the humour with the sadness (Hollywoob!) but doesn't shackle itself to resolving anything. All the speculation about how this should would end missed the mark because we all assumed it had to end. Nice... lets us believe the characters will just keep going. I never wanted this show to end with death; it's such a betrayal of its ultimate ethos, that you can always keep living for the next day. Of all these beautiful conversations, it was always gonna be Bojack and Diane, maybe for the last time, sitting on the roof and talking about life. Credit to the writers for giving Diane, the show's realest character, the line that sums up the show for the final time.

Choice quote: “I think there are people that help you become the person that you end up being, and you can be grateful for them, even if they were meant to be in your life forever.”

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Time’s Arrow

It admittedly took a while for me to see this episode for what it was. I was initially complaining that it was a little too convoluted, too removed from our main story for an Episode 11 and not saying anything about our main characters. That is, in hindsight, dumb as shit - Time's Arrow is a visual animation marvel, one of the most striking I've ever seen, but the episode's real genius is in showing how trauma and mental illness plays out across generations, with the failures of each creating a new set of neuroses for their children and setting out the whole horrible cycle in a detail the show hadn't managed before or since. The story of Beatrice is the story of Bojack Horseman, and I don't know why I thought you could ever separate the two. This is a masterpiece.

Choice quote: “If I’d known this is how you’d be when we severed the connections to your prefrontal cortex, I’d hardly have bothered.”

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Free Churro

This isn't the most experimental episode of Bojack Horseman, even if on the surface it looks utterly ridiculous and beyond the capabilities of a Netflix show to even attempt. It's actually sort of the simplest episode - it starts with a classic Bojack speech, a mixture of self-deprecation and confused love and painful childhood memories, the kind of speech we've heard him give a dozen times or more. Then it just doesn't stop. This is Raphael's best script for the show by a degree of miles, and Will Arnett's high point as an actor - it seems almost logical that, having pushed the show as far as it can go into animation-as-story with Fish Out of Water and Time's Arrow, S5 just swings the pendulum the other way and lets the dialogue flow and flow. I hope high school kids perform this as a drama monologue for years to come.

Choice quote: "My mother is dead, and everything is worse now."

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The View from Halfway Down

Jesus. That slow creeping realisation of what's happening, that stomach-punch understanding when you see Bojack's silhouette in the pool. The chance for the animation team to cut loose one last time. I'm sure a lot of people think this should have been the series finale, and I see it: it's Bojack's last goodbye to the dead, working through his worst burdens (and uhh Corduroy Jackson-Jackson and Zach Braff are there) while calling back to some of the show's best moments (the trumpet reprise of The Old Sugarman Place song, Gina's musical number, Secretariat). Arnett somehow outdoes all the other work he's done on this show – some of the best voice acting of all time – reading the poem. There's more to say than I can fit, so I'll just highlight that final minute between Bojack and not-Diane, something I found harder to watch than any of the other dark places this show has gone.

Choice quote: “Well if it doesn't matter, can I stay on the phone with you at least?”

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Best Thing That Ever Happened

Right in the middle of Season 3, before the emotional rock bottom of That’s Too Much, Man! and after the literal rock bottom of Fish Out of Water, the best episode is actually very well hidden. Kate Purdy makes a case for being the best writer on TV currently between this, Downer Ending and The Old Sugarman Place, as Best Thing That Ever Happened draws on years and years of PC and Bojack’s relationship – and you can feel every one of those years in Arnett and Sedaris’ voices here - to destroy everything they’ve built in a painful 25 minutes. Like a trainwreck in slow motion the episode starts out wrenching and just gets worse; it relies not on crazy drug trips or tragic deaths, just two people who love each other tearing each other apart because they have to. In several ways this is the saddest episode of the show, for my money.

Choice quote: the way Will Arnett’s voice changes when he says “Bojack, you wasted my thirties!”