‘BoJack Horseman’ Was One Long Quest for Happiness

BoJack Horseman‘s very first episode revolves around BoJack (Will Arnett) begrudgingly accepting he needs a ghostwriter for his memoir. Within minutes of meeting her, Diane (Alison Brie) tells BoJack, “You’re responsible for your own happiness.” BoJack immediately dismisses the notion as depressing before making a couple of self-deprecating jokes and throwing up a truly staggering amount of cotton candy. Six seasons later it’s clear that Diane was right all along. As BoJack Horseman proved, we are all responsible for our own happiness and, more importantly, the journey it takes to get there.

Between the pain, Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s Netflix original has always had fleeting moments of joy for its characters over the years. These moments have come in the form of Princess Carolyn’s (Amy Sedaris) professional wins and relationships with the nefarious Rutabaga (Ben Schwartz) and later the sweet but overly safe Ralph (Raúl Esparza). They’ve happened throughout Diane’s marriage to Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) and her quest to use the written word to speak truth to power. For BoJack they’ve most often cropped up in his professional life as a career-saving memoir one season, an Oscar-bait take on Secretariat the next, and then as a prestige drama, just for good measure.

These personal highs have always felt nice. It’s always pleasant to watch characters you care about achieve their goals. Yet even the most jaw-dropping feats have always been defined by an echoing hollowness for every character. No matter what they accomplished, BoJack and Diane were still bound by their self-loathing. Princess Carolyn was chained to her job. And Mr. Peanutbutter and Todd (Aaron Paul) were still avoiding maturity and their own responsibilities. Throughout most of BoJack‘s run its characters may have felt good but, by their own standards, they weren’t actually good.

They didn’t stay that way. During a time when the sad-com reigned supreme, BoJack has slowly learned to stop fetishizing its own sadness. Instead, character by character, this show dove into the painful process of examining its insecurities and bringing those thorny secrets to light. This happened at different points for different characters: through Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter’s divorce; through Todd’s dismissal of BoJack in favor of the cult of improv; through Princess Carolyn deciding that she would do whatever it took to have a baby. Of course the most memorable of these reckonings had to do with BoJack himself. In a move that cost him much of his personal and professional life and destroyed his ego, Season 6 saw BoJack finally check himself into rehab before confronting his two greatest sins.

After BoJack’s near sexual encounter with the teenaged Penny (Ilana Glazer) and his involvement in Sarah Lynn’s (Kristen Schaal) overdose came to light, it would have been easy to let him die. BoJack’s death was expected, even. Fans have long predicted that the opening credits scene that sees BoJack floating underwater is a reference to his overdose or suicide. But in a stroke of brilliance, those few moments spent floating were actually a nod to his rebirth.

If BoJack had died after all the people he had hurt — all the sins he had committed — his pain and self-hatred would have been martyrized. He would have forever been known as someone who had strived for change and happiness but could never grasp it, further continuing the false narrative that there is nothing to be gained in trying to be better. He would have ended just like Philbert or Walter White or Tony Soprano or a million other complicated male antiheroes whose cloak of possible death softened the severity and pain of their lives.

Instead, BoJack lived. He went to jail for breaking and entering and had to serve time. He was forced to face his friends and colleagues, knowing that they finally understood the full extent of his crimes. In these small ways he atoned for the lives he’d hurt and his own selfishness. In the end, BoJack may have lost some friends but in his new life, with all of his dark secrets now on full display, BoJack was given something much more valuable. By living, BoJack was given a chance at true happiness.

The last moments of the series end with BoJack and Diane together once again as they look out over LA. Once again, Diane’s words about life and happiness haunt the scene. In the end the depressed horse show didn’t just give us a way to vocalize our own vulnerabilities, insecurities, and mental anguish. It also gave us hope for a better future, as well as a guide for us all to find our own happiness.

Watch BoJack Horseman on Netflix