I’d be lying if I said that “BoJack Horseman” season four wasn’t a step down from previous seasons. I’d also be lying if I said that it didn’t have the best ending of any ‘BoJack’ season yet.
The season’s primary storyline surrounds the introduction of a new character: the maybe-BoJack’s-daughter, Hollyhock, voiced by the supernaturally endearing Aparna Nancherla. She shows up one day, claiming that BoJack (Will Arnett) is her father, amid a search for her biological mother. Here’s the problem with this story thread: we’ve seen it, on this show, far too many times before. It may have played out differently with Sarah Lynn, or with that deer girl, but the majority of this season alternates between BoJack bonding with Hollyhock, being ambivalent about her, and pushing her away, none of which is new to the show or its lead character. Luckily, as I indicated up top, ‘BoJack’ manages to avoid falling into its old, cyclical finale pattern, and brings the story to a close in a way that suggests character growth — something that had been lacking on the show to this point.
That’s a huge point in this season’s favor. And yet, few of this season’s stories feel fresh, few of its jokes particularly funny, and few of its secondary characters especially well served. Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) spends most of the season as a Trump analogue — he’s running for governor with, some level of success, due to the imbecility of the general populace — and as a result feels like less of a character than ever before. When you take a character and mold him into the shape of a real political figure, he loses what made him appealing to begin with and becomes one thing and one thing only: political satire. (This season has a few of what I’ve come to think of as Cold Take episodes: full episodes that exist largely to propagate the least interesting versions of Twitter political consensus.)
Princess Caroline (Amy Sedaris) and Todd (Aaron Paul) are similarly underserved — although, luckily, neither is explicitly used to make obvious political points that Seth Meyers has already made four hundred times in the last week alone. Todd has a business venture that has to do with clowns and dentists; it’s not great stuff. Princess Caroline is having domestic issues with her mouse-boyfriend, some of which are compelling (Princess Caroline’s history with pregnancy) and some of which are not (the mouse-boyfriend’s family is super rich and condescending). There’s a Caroline-centric episode toward the end of the season that uses the worst framing device the show has ever attempted — it makes you think back extra-fondly to the show’s now-nostalgic glory days of “Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities! What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let’s Find Out!” and BoJack’s silent underwater adventure.
The jokes are worse this season too. ‘BoJack’ has always excelled at alarming its audience with excellent alliteration (so sorry) and casual, fast-spoken rhyme (I’m particularly fond of last season’s hilarious “you’re my itty bitty city kitty, I want you wimme, fitty-fitty,”) but the best stuff it comes up with this season feels forced and unnatural. There are extended bits about fictional actors and their last names, about Hollyhock’s eight gay dads, and about clown-dentists, all of which echo better bits from previous seasons of the show.
It’s trying too hard now, both in its comedy and its pathos-laden moments of drama. The show has (rightfully) gained a reputation as “that animated show about a talking horse that is really about depression,” and it is now leaning into that hard. There’s a full episode that features BoJack’s self-loathing inner monologue in what might be the least subtle depiction of depression ever put to screen. It’s on-the-nose and underwhelming. There is one weird little subplot that I found oddly touching. It involves Judah, Princess Caroline’s assistant (voiced by the ever-fantastic Diedrich Bader). I won’t spoil too much about it here, but suffice it to say, ‘BoJack’ wrings more true human emotion out of this brief, “unimportant” subplot than it does out of BoJack’s maybe-daughter storyline which lasts all season.
There is some funny stuff in the twelve-episode season, including Jessica Biel voicing a batshit-crazy version of herself in what becomes a recurring role; it’s pretty stupendous. Up until she gets involved in local politics and ingratiates herself fully into the gubernatorial race storyline, that is, which is toxic and kills everything that touches it.
The season as a whole is just not great. And that’s why it’s so important for me to stress just how overjoyed I was by its ending – the finale demonstrates growth as a show, growth on the part of the writers and, more importantly, on the part of BoJack himself. [B-]