Horseman Episode 06 Review

Bojack and the Massive D.

05Index07

Why I watched it:

Out of everything I could have possibly been doing this month, this seems most reasonable.

How it works:

My wishful thinking from the episode 05 review seems to have given me the ability to metabolise desires into reality, much like that of the fictional Gods, and also Coconut Fred. The potential that I was referring to back then took the place of electric potential, which does nothing until you release it, as it did in this episode.

So a horse, a dog, and a young lady walk into a restaurant. They then have a pissing contest over who can one-up each other the most, eventually buying a helicopter, the restaurant, and a shit ton of pissing contest apparati, which they eventually use to culminate in the worst "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" trivia question you could have asked. Bojack gets the piss taken out of him, and drowns himself in absinthe.

Later, he wakes up to find himself the proud owner of a really big D. If this was a Family Guy episode, this would mean he has a big cock, which he would compare to his son's for the rest of the episode and have to justify his manliness because his cock is smaller than his sons, which just so happens to reach down to his knee and who the fuck thought of that plot and why aren't they in jail. In this show, there is a literal, giant, letter D in his swimming pool. And it turns out he stole it.

Mr. Peanut Butter is pissed that he got his piss taken out of him, so snoops into Bojacks house to rat him out. Bojacks drunken voice messages sure are convenient for plot development, seeing as that's the only way he would be able to remember anything in order to advance the plot with. Apparently the dog is able to sniff out hormones, because he's able to tell that Bojack is becoming infatuated with his girlfriend. That's why he stole the sign - it was to make Diane's boyfriend look like shit.

So the dog is insecure about himself, which demolishes my theory he was acting like an idiot in order to fuck with Bojack, and they eventually come to a truce, making a plot to ditch the sign with the helicopter in exchange for not cucking Mr. Peanut Butter. They eventually distract the entire population of Los Angeles by making Beyonce trip on some one-dollar bills, and all the bad puns in the world doesn't make up for her music that's as mediocre as her husband's rap skills - a perfect combination for the Burger King and Queen.

Also worth mentioning is Todd finding prison an exceptionally enjoyable experience, being treated like a prom queen between the rival "crips and the bloods", so to speak, except this time between the Aryan Nation and the Latin Kings. I guess Nazis are as famed for their hospitality as gangbangers are, seeing as Todd tries to juggle the two, only to have the giant D destroy the prison wall right before he gets curb-stomped. Well, that's one unfortunate implication we can tidily shove away.

The big D is Disposed, Bojack goes back to drinking, and cucks Mr. Peanut Butter by hitting on his fiance. Now we are faced with the dilemma - should Diane take the asshole horse who shows personal development at the pace of your average 4channer, or the stupid dog with a heart of gold who just wants to see her happy? Do we take the pursuit of happiness, or the pursuit of new experience? Do we settle for the cheap and easy, or do we take a risk and see what could come down the line?

Fuck if I know it's only been two damn minutes trying to get me to answer the fucking questions fuck you.

What I felt:

The overall middling comedy of the series so far seems to have fucked off to the curb and replaced it with some damn fine laughs. Most of the jokes in this episode, blatant or otherwise, were excessively funny, and really brings some credibility to this pathetic world filled with pathetic characters that the animators have built. The episode starts on a high note with the pissing contest, and keeps the momentum going as the pissing contest continues.

As for the story, Bojack Horseman always had simple plots. Bojack gets mad over some muffins (episode 02). Bojack helps Todd with his rock opera (episode 04). Bojack tries to show up Mr. Peanut Butter (this episode, dummy) and does so in spectacular ways. These simple plots are important for giving the characters room to mess about in, because a complicated plot would constrict the comedy in exchange for a story that isn't particularly good, which is what the show typically suffers from.

I actually like the story in here, though I don't like it a lot. I believe it's setting up the typical love triangle scenario, and it's less a triangle and more Bojack trying to cuck a dog and his girlfriend (world record for most "cuck"s in a review). I think this is the writers trying to set up a typical sitcom scenario that doesn't play by sitcom rules more so that it does playing by the rules of reality, which would be a very harsh lesson for Bojack to learn that reality is a lot more complex than the simple tropes he's used to on his simple, shitty, TV show.

And it's the assumption that Bojack is entitled to court Diane just because they spent a few days writing a book together which shows Bojacks unrealistic expectations of people, treating them as if they were nothing except for when they are convenient to him. Todd bummed around his house for five years just so he wouldn't be so lonely, and Diane only started working for Bojack because he couldn't write a book on his life. There was no honour or decency when The Gang got to know each other - it's only because Bojack is a sad little horse that their relationships exist at all.

I like this simple story as, while it guides the characters into new situations and lets them know each other, it doesn't become so much of a distraction like it would be if the writers were trying to fulfill a checklist of things. For instance "Establish Bojack as an asshole", "Teach a moral through exposition and not actions", "Have at least one heart-to-heart talk", and when you treat a story like a checklist things start to become contrived.

What I like about this story, about Bojack trying to shit on Mr. Peanut Butter and then realising why they wanted to shit on each other so much, is that it's natural and teaches us about the characters without relying on a monologue at the end telling us what they learned. It happens because of the actions of the characters and their unique interactions with each other, and it's resolved because of those same unique interactions. There's no contrivance here - it's just what happened.

My criticisms of the story in Bojack Horseman was that it was often shoehorned in, and now that I look back on the early episodes, I can also say they were forgettable. Please don't consider this as a criticism against having a story in a comedy show. The key is to have a story that doesn't interfere with the comedy, and in a best-case, enhances it due to the absurdity of the situation. For instance, the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode where Frank wants to set up a billboard where he poses with two models with huge breasts and tries to convince The Gang that this isn't a huge waste of money. It's stupid, but it works because you're not supposed to take either the story or any of the characters in it seriously.

So as to whether this simple story branches off into a simple story arc and gives the series the reason for being that it deserves, only time will tell. Sorry, that's a generic way to end a review. If this series doesn't succ me thru a sippy straw by the end, I will succ myself. Then again, being unique for the sake of it is a snowflake way of being unique. I'll just leave.

What I learned:

You would be forgiven for thinking a series is ass if the first few episodes of the series was demonstrably so, though us Men of a Generous Disposition are happy to find the good parts of a series, and wait and see if the showrunners capitalise on those good parts to create something that is, in general, good. Nobody wants to create a bad work, unless they're a small niche of real life shitposters, because creating bad work reflects poorly on them as a person.

So the good parts of Bojack Horseman, being the over-the-top humour while being somewhat grounded in reality, the sane characters who have to deal with Bojack being a really horrible horse, the successful satire of our media culture being a banal and evidently worthless thing, and the strong continuity where there's a continuous thread of relationships growing and developing instead of just being dumped, aren't being so easily tossed away as a bad show would toss, and it seems that the writers understand that they have a great concept they need to learn to capitalise on.

If the writers purge the bad parts, being the need to teach morals instead of creating them through the natural progression of a plot, the characters not acting in-character for the sake of plot convenience, the need to express your opinions instead of telling decent jokes, and even the overall stilted animation (budgets are hard), then it would be an obvious yet beneficial statement that the show would have a far greater impact in the minds of its audience.

The reality - Froghand.

Today's page was updated on September 9, 2016!

I am the piss I worship.