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Grab some whiskey and get ready to barf up cotton candy, BoJack Horseman is turning five. Today marks the five-year anniversary of Netflix’s beloved adult animated show about Hollywoo phonies and animal puns. Who knew that a cartoon about a depressed horse celebrity would be this adored?
Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg with character animation by Lisa Hanawalt, Netflix first premiered BoJack Horseman on August 22, 2014. The series had a notoriously rocky start. Though it would go on to become a critical darling, Netflix initially only gave critics the first six episodes of the show, leading to a Rotten Tomatoes score of 67 percent. Once the second half of the season was released and critics and fans saw how the series built its emotions and plots episode to episode, that consensus changed dramatically. The series even inspired an informal rule at IndieWire of only filing reviews of Netflix shows after watching the entire season.
Since then the series has gone on to become an unapologetic success. BoJack Horseman is currently the only Netflix show to have a syndication deal with Comedy Central, and with its Season 6 expected to premiere this Fall it’s one of Netflix’s longest-running originals.
In honor of BoJack’s big day, here are the best episodes of one of the most revolutionary, brilliant, and consistently hilarious shows on TV.
"Fish Out of Water"
It’s difficult to find an episode of TV more appropriately titled than “Fish Out of Water,” which is directed by Mike Hollingsworth and written by Elijah Aron and Jordan Young. Not only does this near-silent Season 3 gem take a break from BoJack‘s typical rapid-fire dialogue, it forces BoJack to literally be in a position where he’s a fish out of water. Or a mute horse in water. You get the idea.
While working on the promotional tour for his dream movie Secretariet, BoJack has to go to the Pacific Ocean Film Festival, which just so happens to be underwater. Once there he sees the Secretariat director he betrayed and never contacted again. BoJack being BoJack, he spends the remainder of the episode avoiding Kelsey Jannings (voiced by Maria Bamford) while also returning a seahorse baby to its father.
It’s not the episode’s masterful and innovative use of visuals that makes it so lovely, nor is it the care-taking subplot BoJack is all but forced into. It’s the vulnerability in “Fish Out of Water.” For 26 wordless minutes we watch BoJack do what he does best: avoid his problems and distract himself until they go away. But at the end of his antics, that never happens. He’s still left with the nagging reality that he hurt someone he once loved and she never deserved that. BoJack’s apology to Kelsey is messy, muddled, and nonsensical. But it’s also emotionally raw and bitterly funny.
"That's Too Much Man!"
Even when BoJack Horseman‘s characters make their biggest, stupidest mistakes, they can normally bounce back consequence-free. Sure, they may lose a bit of respect from their friends and a boat to two, but nothing is unsalvageable. At least, that was the case until Season 3’s devastating penultimate episode, directed by J.C. Gonzalez and written by Elijah Aron and Jordan Young.
After failing to secure an Oscar nomination for his dream movie, BoJack has a meltdown. He needs drugs, booze, and an endless stream of good times. So where else does he go but to his fake daughter-turned-pop star Sarah Lynn (voiced by Kristen Schaal)? Told through a rambling combination of blackouts and hazy memories, BoJack and Sarah Lynn snort everything in sight, stalk the teenager BoJack once almost slept with, and reflect on what their lives could have been if they weren’t famous.
Every episode involving Sarah Lynn is tinged with sadness. For a character whose catchphrase is “Suck a dick, dumb shits,” she perfectly epitomizes the anxiety, depression, and lost potential that come with a young woman becoming too famous, too young. Her final moments slumped against BoJack in the planetarium are nothing short of tragic. There are consequences in this world, and even now it’s deeply unfair that the once hopeful Sarah Lynn had to be the one to face them.
"Stupid Piece of Sh*t"
Raphael-Bob Waksberg’s cartoon has never shied away from mental health problems. BoJack is almost always depressed first and a forgotten TV star/a movie star/a fading celebrity/a friend/a father surrogate second. However no on-screen story has captured the exhausting horror and dread of dealing with depression better than “Stupid Piece of Sh*t.”
Directed by Anne Walker Farrell and written by Alison Tafel, the actual plot of this Season 4 episode is painfully simple. BoJack volunteers to buy milk so he can avoid his mother (voiced by Wendie Malick). But every step of his journey, from drunkenly stumbling out of a bar to throwing his mom’s baby doll over a cliff in a fit of rage, is told through BoJack’s scathing internal monologue. We always knew that BoJack hated himself; he’s told his friends as much multiple times. But hearing him call himself a waste of space so intensely, with such passion and certainty is eye-opening.
This episode shows the true tolls of depression. It’s not that BoJack’s self-abuse is vulgar and belittling and cruel, though it absolutely is. It’s how confidently and constantly this berating occurs that makes it feel so deadly. For once, all of BoJack’s terrible behavior starts to make sense. And when his sister Hollyhock (voiced by Aparna Nancherla) asks if her own belittling voice will ever go away, it hurts because BoJack has been living with the answer his whole life.
"The Dog Days of Summer"
When BoJack wants to bring out its big emotional moments, it typically calls in its titular character. Two episodes in Season 5 — “The Dog Days of Summer” and “The Amelia Earhart Story” — proved that this show can be just as strong and as heart-breaking even when BoJack is largely off screen. But of the two, it’s the series’ Diane-focused episode that stands head and shoulders above the rest.
Directed by Amy Winfrey and written by Joanna Calo, “The Dog Days of Summer” picks up with Diane (voiced by Alison Brie) while she’s in the middle of her divorce with Mr. Peanutbutter (voiced by Paul F. Tompkins). Desperate to change up her life, Diane gets a new haircut, ditches her jacket and jeans for a cute romper, and books a last minute ticket to Vietnam to connect with her roots. At least that’s the plan. What actually happens is Diane spends several days wandering aimlessly through a country she believes she should feel connected to but that leaves her feeling more alone than ever.
There’s so much this beautiful episode episode gets right, from Millennial disillusionment to the trend of using travel to “find” yourself. And that the subtext is the BoJack team grappling with the real life controversy surrounding casting Brie as a character of Asian descent only makes it richer. Yet even when the episode is at its most painful, this chapter is still completely told through Diane’s optimistically-tinged snark. Diane Nguyen has always been so much more than BoJack Horseman‘s second lead, and this episode proves it.
"Free Churro"
Every rule of animation is broken in this Emmy-nominated episode. For nearly the entire running time, “Free Churro” never leaves a single location, in this case a church. The focus of the episode only shifts a few times, only once losing track of its central focus BoJack, other than a cold open focusing on BoJack’s father, Butterscotch Horseman (also voiced by Arnett). And it’s a masterful piece of storytelling.
After years of verbal abuse, BoJack’s mother Beatrice dies, and BoJack agrees to give her eulogy. That’s it. That’s the entire premise of “Free Churro,” one big, long, rambling eulogy. But as BoJack drifts from his prepared jokes and drum cues to solemnly reflecting on just why he was never enough for his mother it becomes so much more.
Raw, aggressive, painful vulnerability has always been what BoJack has done best. And no episode captures that strength better than this one. As BoJack tears into his heart in front of a silent audience, everything tells you to look away from the emotional mess on screen; but you can’t. It’s impossible. Director Amy Winfrey, writer Raphael Bob-Waksberg, and Will Arnett, in a performance that should define his career, come together to create one of the all-time greatest episodes of both animation and modern television.
