Credit: Fanart.tv

The 4th season of “BoJack Horseman” came out yesterday, on September 8th. It is perhaps the show’s most bombastic, fast paced, and unstable season, one in which you are in constant dread that the few good things that have been happening to the characters will soon crumble, or even worse, explode much like pop tarts do in a microwave if you do not take the wrapping off. You are constantly there with BoJack, Princess Carolyn, Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter, Todd and the newly introduced Hollyhocks (voiced beautifully by Aparna Nancherla,) you are there when they fall, get up and fall again. When they fight with each other, apologize, lie and ask for forgiveness. Every episode is an emotional thrill where you are never certain how you will be feeling when the credits start rolling and the infamous line “Back in the nineties I was in a very famous TV show” starts playing, one that always reminds the viewer of the constant theme of the past and how one can never escape it. Perhaps this is why I am scared to finish this season.

This is true, I have not yet seen all the episodes of season 4. In the beginning I rushed it, following the regular Netflix strategy of devouring every episode right when the new season comes out. By episode 5, when I realized that I am almost halfway through something that I have been waiting for more than a year, a show that I consider to be one of the best ever made, I started to get worried. Much like Beatrice Horseman, I wanted to switch the channel but the old man in me was fighting back. “I never get to watch what I want.” In a way, that is how I feel in the months between seasons, so the constant desire to bindge is always there, fighting back.

The reason why I am scared to finish this season and the one after and then (hopefully) the one after that until the show is done is simple: I do not think a show like this will come around again anytime soon. A show that can combine nonsensical humor, obscure plot lines, endless references to the most random of things, and moments of true sadness and inability to understand how can these characters live and forget what happened to them in the previous episode. This season especially emphasizes that forgiving has become the only way for the characters to move on. The show must go on, and so must their lives.

Because of BoJack’s structure (every episode fits in about 20 minutes, much like most animated shows) and because of its refusal to spend some of that priceless time fooling around and experimenting, taking paths that stray away from its main characters to approach social commentary, most of the excruciatingly emotional moments must be done quickly, only in a few lines of dialogue. It does not make sense how these moments feel so heartfelt, so unforgivable yet truthful, how they transition from the constant silliness to sadness, from animal gags to human tears. Such a cliche line as “It is okay to cry and you should not feel bad for feeling sad,” said by Hollyhocks, in the context of the show suddenly becomes a revelation. One can only thank the brilliance of every single voiceover actor, no matter how small the role, and the confidence that the writers have in the characters and the emotional universe they so tediously yet unstoppably crafted through out three previous seasons. There is a character in episode 4.2, “The Old Sugarman Place,” whom we have never met before, yet in the short screen time that he has we come to understand exactly who he is, what is his greatest tragedy (an aspect that all characters in the show have) and in the moments when this tragedy is addressed, we wonder if he will be okay, if when the show leaves him he will move past it, or at least make peace with it. Most shows cannot do that with a character if given an entire season.

Credit: Netflix.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy that the show explores is loneliness and its consistency. How, no matter where you come from, what you become and what you achieve, certain things always stay with you. How, when you thought you were able to move past it, it just comes back, screaming louder and punching harder. How some of us, just like BoJack, when trying to solve the problems of our past just make them worse. While “BoJack Horseman” is not the only show that deals with loneliness, there is no show you can find online or on TV that can offer you so many various perspectives on it. Whether you feel alone at home, with friends or your loved ones, the series will invite you to have a drink, maybe two, and show that out there, there is a horse and his daughter, a pink cat, a human in a red hoodie, and a golden lab and his human wife that feel much the way you do. While I will take my time to finish this season, I cannot help but already imagine rewatching all the episodes, remembering how I was first introduced to the people I feel so strongly connected to, laughing at the crazy and weird gags and being all “Doggy-doggy-dog what?” when another obscure Hollywood reference comes up.

There is a moment in the 2002 Jonze/Kaufman film “Adaptation” in which Charlie Kaufman asks screenwriting legend Robert McKee what to do if you want to write a story “where characters don’t change.” Perhaps Kaufman would appreciate the effort of these characters who, while trying to figure out how to change and become better, accept their imperfections and instead look for people who will do the same.