In five seasons of Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, we’ve seen BoJack through seemingly every peak and valley of the emotional spectrum, from staggeringly low lows to manic, fleeting highs, but season six introduces the one BoJack we haven’t seen: sober BoJack. In the first half of the show’s sixth and final season, we pick up right where the previous season left off: with everyone’s favorite equine sitcom star checking into seaside rehab, determined to kick his alcoholism and mend fences with the loved ones he wronged. What follows is a standout season where the typically inward-facing show turns outward, widening the lens to ask what we owe one another.

At a plush Malibu rehab facility, BoJack at first spurns the hokey feel good-ism of art therapy and group trail hikes. Yet as he continuously extends his stay over the course of six months, afraid of returning to life on the outside and hurting his loved ones, BoJack learns that he needs to forgive himself for his addiction and make amends for his transgressions. The changed opening credits, with a familiar conceit but new visuals, reflect BoJack’s transformation. Instead of sleepwalking through his day-to-day life, BoJack sleepwalks through his checkered past, tormented by characters who symbolize his destructive behaviors. Making appearances are Sarah Lynn, for whose death by drug overdose BoJack feels responsible; Herb Kazazz, the friend and mentor BoJack betrayed in the name of fame; Penny Carson, the underage deer whom BoJack propositioned for sex; and even Beatrice Horseman, the neglectful mother whose abuse never ceases to haunt BoJack.

BoJack Horseman rarely explores the mechanics undergirding its world of humans and humanoid animals—how humans and animals relate to one another, how they copulate with one another, how they self-identify. Yet in this season, the show plumbs new depths of the horse psyche. In a key scene, after BoJack has inadvertently plied Dr. Champ, his “therapy horse,” with a water bottle full of vodka, BoJack tracks Dr. Champ down to a local watering hole, where he drunkenly slurs that, because he’s a horse, he reminds BoJack of his father, driving BoJack to simultaneously resent him and crave his approval. Dr. Champ also observes that BoJack has no meaningful relationships with other horses, as his loved ones are humans, dogs, and cats.

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BoJack defensively cites his closeness with his half-sister Hollyhock, saying, “If your theory were true, wouldn’t I keep her at arm’s length, desperate for her to love me but unwilling to be vulnerable enough to allow her to hurt me?” Claiming that his parents instilled in him an internalized self-hatred of horses, Bojack continues: “I subconsciously believe I deserve to be punished, but being famous, I’m never punished, so I act out even more.” Thus BoJack has cohesively laid out the modus operandi that propelled him through the past five seasons—he’s more self-aware than ever, and he’s finally learned that no man (or horse) is an island.

BoJack’s friends are growing, too, opening their hearts as they become accountable to others. As a single mother struggling to maintain her pre-motherhood workaholic pace, Princess Carolyn is drowning, moving through life like a ghost of her former self—as shown through a dazzling illustration, which shows an army of spectral Princess Carolyns whirling through the frantic multi-tasking of having it all. When invited to participate in a feel-good photoshoot spotlighting working mothers, Princess Carolyn grumbles, “I’m too busy doing it all to pose for a photo of women doing it all.” In a smart subplot about the social pressures of working motherhood, her nemesis, Vanessa Gekko, retorts, “It sounds like you’re doing it all for yourself. The new doing it all is doing it all for other women.” Despite the grueling challenges of life as a single working parent, Princess Carolyn finds a fragile peace, managing to prioritize her little family without too much professional compromise.

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Meanwhile, after a series spent falling backward into fruitless, high-flying jobs, Todd has finally found meaning in nannying for Princess Carolyn’s daughter. When his stern stepfather appears on his doorstep seeking a colossal favor, Todd reconsiders his estrangement from his family. Elsewhere, Diane chases meaning through self-righteous documentary reporting, though it’s her burgeoning relationship with her cameraman that forces her to stretch the most—for the first time, Diane has met her match in someone who truly sees and values her for her authentic self. When Diane is boxed out of her job in a corporate sale, she moves in with her boyfriend in Chicago, where she begins writing a book of her own stories rather than telling someone else’s. Even Mr. Peanutbutter, typically the show’s uncomplicated ray of sunshine, comes clean about his infidelities and seeks to rebuild his relationship with his fiancee, while his latest television project leads to an improbable gig as the national face of depression.

Though the characters are mostly isolated from one another, set forward on propulsive paths of individual growth, their journeys make for a thematically cohesive season. Together they ask how we can get our heads out of our own asses—how we can build lives of accountability and service to others. BoJack has never been a myopic show, but it’s definitely spent a lot of time looking inward. To see these characters consider a more selfless, outward-facing way through life is to see them grow monumentally, and to see the show move toward an ending that feels leagues away from where it started.

In the eighth and final episode of this season’s first half, BoJack is seemingly more ascendant than ever—he’s on the straight and narrow, letting his hair go gray rather than dying it, heading to the East Coast for an exciting professional opportunity and a new movement of his life. Yet in a bombshell of a final scene, a reckoning brews, one that will force BoJack to own up to the very worst things he’s done and to the sins he had hoped to leave in the rearview mirror. Does BoJack deserve forgiveness? Is “I’m sorry” enough? Can we ever truly wipe the slate clean? Only the back half of the season will tell.

Adrienne Westenfeld Assistant Editor Adrienne Westenfeld is a writer and editor at Esquire, where she covers books and culture.

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