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Bojack Horseman: Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities

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Netflix dropped the second season of Bojack Horseman, it's animated comedy series last Friday. If you don't already know the basic premise of the show, let me let the end credits theme explain!

If you're still confused: The show takes place in a world where humans coexist with animal-human hybrids, like the title character who is a horse-man. The human/animal division is never commented upon (i.e., this isn't a show about persecuted mutants, nor about furries) and is mostly used for a plethora of puns and jokes. The primary location is Hollywood, and the main character is a washed up actor who was most famous for a Full House-esque family sitcom, but now has devolved into a misanthropic alcoholic. Then a publishing company pays him for the rights to his biography and assigns him a ghost writer, which sets off a whole new chapter in his life.

Now, that base description really undersells the show. The first few episodes are a little uneven as they set up the world and inundate you with relatively easy puns (the publishing house is Penguin Publishing which is run by an actual penguin, the second episode features Bojack having a run in with a Navy SEAL who is a seal, etc.) and low level Hollywood is full of vapid people lol" satire. However, the show really deepens throughout the first season, revealing that its characters probably have the deepest (and darkest) interior lives of television characters since Mad Men or final season-Moral Orel.

And yet, no matter how bleak it gets (and it gets plenty bleak at times) the show never veers into enervation or wallowing sadness. Partly this is because it never forgets how important it is to be funny, but the writing is also consistently amazing, and that just continues into the second season. I've heard some people describe it as a show that's best paced out rather than binged, but I tore through the newest 12 episodes this weekend and thought it was an amazing build on the heights of the first season.
 
Claudette Savagely said:
Liking it so far. Carney outdid himself on the intro theme.

The swipes at Hollywood are so far a tad clumsy, but otherwise the interaction between Bojack and the rest of the cast really works. It builds the picture of his personal misery effectively without drowning you in it.

I like it!
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I will say that the second season handles the showbiz satire much better, mostly because of the inclusion of a character who went into a coma in the 80's, awakes in the present day, and without a beat resumes running a television network.

Okay, what if we got relevant superstar David Copperfield to make the World Trade Center disappear?
[long, incredibly awkward silence]
Uh, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but…David Copperfield isn't really a big draw anymore.
Glimmervoid said:
You mean Hollwoo.
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True, I suppose the more accurate statement is that the series starts off in Hollywood.

The Hollywoo stuff is also a good highlight of how dedicated to its stupid jokes the show is, especially when you start to see how businesses are just painting over the 'D'. But really, the best (and uncommented on) joke is Mr. Peanutbutter's dogged but Sisyphean quest to make sure his custom signs and shirts are correct.

 
I've been rewatching and I thought I'd find out what people think. Was Vincent Adultman wrong not to tell Princess Carolyn about his son, Kevin? Communication and honesty are very important, but I can see why he'd want to leave his kid out of it until the relationship developed.
 
Glimmervoid said:
I've been rewatching and I thought I'd find out what people think. Was Vincent Adultman wrong not to tell Princess Carolyn about his son, Kevin? Communication and honesty are very important, but I can see why he'd want to leave his kid out of it until the relationship developed.
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I'm not convinced that he didn't tell Princess Carolyn out of a fear of it damaging their relationship. I think it came about as a result of the strained relationship between father and son, it's never explicitly stated but the writing and direction go well out of their way to ensure that the two characters are almost never in the same shot at the same time. The few times they are, Vincent is almost always obscuring his face. I mean I don't think they say a single word to each other in the whole episode.
 
Sorry for the double posting but...
Season 4 Episode 1 said:
"For the sake of fairness, we brought in two experts of opposite opinions who will now have equal time to say those opinions, because that's what news is."
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My sides.
 
Just finished the season. What a ride. 'Time's Arrow' has to be one of the most haunting, beautiful things I've seen on T.V. in a long, long time.
 
the atom said:
Just finished the season. What a ride. 'Time's Arrow' has to be one of the most haunting, beautiful things I've seen on T.V. in a long, long time.
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So many gut punches.

I can't say how glad I am that Bojack manages multiple times this season not to spiral into gigantic feats of assholery and actually helps the people around him and not complain about unfair his life is. Like I love Bojack being a dysfunctional wreck but we've had three seasons of realising he will never be happy with himself and he's fundamentally a shitty person who will do the bare minimum to pretend he's a good one with a hard life whilst dragging down everyone around him. If he didn't start to change by this point there wouldn't be any point watching.
 
Mortis Nuntius said:
So many gut punches.

I can't say how glad I am that Bojack manages multiple times this season not to spiral into gigantic feats of assholery and actually helps the people around him and not complain about unfair his life is. Like I love Bojack being a dysfunctional wreck but we've had three seasons of realising he will never be happy with himself and he's fundamentally a shitty person who will do the bare minimum to pretend he's a good one with a hard life whilst dragging down everyone around him. If he didn't start to change by this point there wouldn't be any point watching.
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Part of that stems I think from the fact that this wasn't a very BoJack heavy season, which is fine because it gave a lot of the supporting cast a lot of room to breathe.

EDIT:
What worries me is that Diane is going to split with Mr. Peanutbutter and wind up getting dragged into BoJack's orbit.
 
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Anyone watching the new season?

Because I just watched episode 6 and I think they outdid the episode underwater with no dialogue, because this episode was an entire monologue by Bojack disguised as an eulogy for his mother. Watch it, it's great.

There are other things, of course, but that would be spoilers. I will just say that Stephanie Beatriz, the actress who plays Rosa in Brooklyn 99, voices a new character in this season. You will quickly see who it is.
 
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