On Bojack

Watched the latest season of Bojack earlier this evening. I loved everything until the last part of the latest season. It's not the series last; they have the second half of the sixth season coming out in January. It's just bizarre that they seem to be bringing everything back for the ending, almost as if to punish the character. He's an awful person who has done shitty things to everyone around him, and we've seen in the last two seasons how hard he has been trying to be better as a human being (er...horse). To throw it all out for some sort of justice would be crappy. And so would not closing the show with nice tied knots. The show is about shitty, depressed people, coming back, etcetera. If in the end they show that there's no coming back (from reasonably shitty things), or the only reasonable end is like that of Camus's suggestion, it would be a fairly disappointing one.

Their throwaway jokes have always been on point, their show-biz references, city and brand-specific references have been great too. They have done many bits with layered complicated satire (a lot of which can somehow feel cynical yet hopeful, perhaps the latter because they are after a tv show and need to put in something nice). The focus on the boring has-been as their protagonist has gotten tired over the years, despite the layering and complexity added over the seasons. Great side-characters have grievous injustices happen to them show-wise -- Diane is a sparkly, bloated version of whatever she was in the first season, her issues that seemed genuine now seem tiresome and almost cliche at this point. The show played a big part in playing this about, and it makes fun of itself through the Mr. PB and depression storyline, but it's still taking itself with Diane. What was cool about Bojack in the first few seasons was that this was a show about Serious stuff that did not take itself seriously. It's started taking itself too seriously, perhaps smelling the proverbial self-farts. And sometimes it feels like the lead-character, washed-up version of something that used to be great

Which is not to say it's not a good tv show. It is, loved it. And if they made two, maybe three more seasons of it, I'd happily watch those. It's just...it has evolved towards a direction in these years that I hoped it would not go to.

Redemption. That's the word I was looking for. Truly awful characters don't deserve those. The show has gone out of its way to show us that Bojack is not one of those. He is ultimately, despite all his terrible flaws and weaknesses, worth saving. That he deserves redemption. If after all this, the show changes the tune and doesn't give him that, it's going to be a damn shame.