I want to hear the theories that you gotta stretch before you reach for, but that you still genuinely believe and are willing to defend.
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Vincent is an adult, man
That Sarah Lynn was responsible for for Sarah Lynn’s death.
I believe BoJack dies at the end of S6E16. At the end of 14, he goes into a coma because he’s in the pool for far longer than we see, 15 is him saying goodbye to everyone who died before him, and 16 is everyone saying goodbye to him in the hospital before he flatlines. I don’t consider it a wild theory, but I’ve gotten some hate on here for saying it. I think some people closely identify with BoJack, and they need to believe that he makes it so they have hope for their own lives. I’m glad the show speaks to them on such a profound level, but I’m not going to apologize for seeing the ending differently.
If anyone wants to know why I believe this, I’d be happy to explain, but please actually listen to what I say rather than address points I haven’t brought up.
I think bojack dying sorta goes against the main themes of the show, about continued existance and a lack of closure on life. It’s not about hope for bojack, it’s about reinforcing that core theme for me
Yeah as much as I hate that he didn’t die/was “magically revived” in the rushed montage at the start of the series finale, I agree that what you’re left with (the fact that life goes on and you just sorta have to live it) does hit a lot better than just having him die.
I usually hate when shows end with “he might have died he might have survived” kinda endings (that one anime about a British prince comes to mind. And another anime about a bounty hunter I guess)
But with Bojack I actually kinda like the ambiguity. Is it a deathbed hallucination? Is it reality? You can’t really tell, and it makes you feel eerie, like you yourself are in the middle of a hallucination or something, experiencing it together with Bojack. Or you could say that what’s happening is the actual reality, the wedding, the closures, the last conversation with Diane - and get satisfaction from that. There will be no confirmation one way or another because the show is over. Mr Blue starts playing, and the Bojack universe closes down. We can’t tell what’s on the other side, there’s no other side.
I can’t think of another show where that feeling of ambiguity, the feeling of not knowing for sure hadn’t frustrated me. But idk here it kinda works
This is my belief as well.
This theory is so fucking awful and goes against every point of the show
Great counterarguments, you’ve really convinced me. Oh wait, no you haven’t, you’re just one of the people I mentioned who can’t accept the possibility that he dies
It’s objectively worse ending from the point of view of the show. What the show sets up, the themes it introduces and hammers over and over. Death is cheap and easy. Living is complex and nuanced. That’s what the show is.
If Bojack dies we weaken the themes of redemption, consequences and accountability, continued struggle, and hope.
If you want to believe he died, sure. But literally it isn’t what happened in the show (as we very clearly see) and it would be a worse ending. So I’m not sure why you would choose to decide for yourself that what you saw with your own eyes wasn’t real, and invent a worse ending overall
Yeah, this is the emotional backlash I’m talking about. Themes of redemption? We must not have watched the same show. BoJack hurts people in all sorts of horrible ways (Sarah Lynn, Penny, and Gina are the most extreme examples), destroys his closest friendships, tries to kill himself at least two times (and dreams about killing himself when he gets old), and ends up relapsing again. And what do you think about all of the lines about life not getting better? Do those just not count because you don’t like them?
I don’t know how to be, Diane. It doesn’t get better and it doesn’t get easier. I can’t keep lying to myself, saying “I’m gonna change.” I’m poison. I come from poison. I have poison inside me, and I destroy everything I touch. That’s my legacy. I have nothing to show for the life that I’ve lived, and I have nobody in my life who’s better off for having known me.
I guess my question is, do you…do you think it’s too late for me? I mean, am I just doomed to be the person that I am? The person in that book? It’s not too late for me, is it? It’s It’s not too late, Diane, I need you to tell me that it’s not too late. I I need you to tell me that I’m a good person. I know that I can be selfish and narcissistic and self-destructive, but underneath all that, deep down, I’m a good person, and I need you to tell me that I’m good, Diane. Tell me, please, Diane. Tell me that I’m good.
[silence]Suddenly, you realize you’ll never have the good relationship you wanted, and as long as they were alive, even though you’d never admit it, part of you, the stupidest goddamn part of you, was still holding on to that chance. And you didn’t even realize it until that chance went away. “My mother is dead, and everything is worse now.” Because now I know I will never have a mother who looks at me from across a room and says, “BoJack Horseman, I see you.” But I guess it’s good to know. It’s good to know that there is nobody looking out for me, that there never was, and there never will be.
People don’t change, Diane, not really. We’re Zoes, Diane. We’re cynical and we’re sad and we’re mean. There’s a darkness inside you, and you can bury it deep in burritos as big as your head, but someday soon, that darkness is gonna come out, and when it does, I want you to call me.
I’m not gonna give you closure. You don’t get that. You have to live with the shitty thing you did for the rest of your life. You have to know that it’s never, ever going to be okay.
You’re wearing some awfully heavy blinders if you think this is simply a show about redemption and not someone continuing to fuck up his own and others’ lives. If you want to address what I actually said, then I’ll hear it, but I can tell you’re emotionally invested in one particular ending and don’t want to see any alternatives.
I’m interested to hear your points.
Just gonna say one thing that really drills home for me that he didn’t die, at the end of 15, we hear the flatline, right? But after a few seconds we see it start to beep again. There are other reasons I have but this is a piece of (imo) very strong evidence.
This is turning out pretty long. Some day, I’d like to systematically go through the show and jot down all of these details, but that would take a long time.
The flatline is an interesting detail: At the end of 15, we hear it, then the beep resumes. But at the beginning of 16, we see BoJack and Diane sitting on the roof, looking up, and then the beep comes back in, increases, and flatlines again. I believe this is when he actually dies. The show does a lot of misdirects - a couple innocuous ones from S1 are the birds having blackmail on BoJack that never amounts to anything, and Todd never finding the BeastBuy receipt that shows BoJack sabotaged his rock opera - and I believe the transition to Horsin’ Around is one such misdirect.
When BoJack is on his bender in S1E11, we see a lot of surreal references to impactful moments or conversations in his life, like his dad forgetting to pick him up after a soccer game, him sinking into a tar pit like Charlotte talked about, and he and Herb fighting and then Herb dying. I believe we see the same memory bleeding in 16 with his guilt over killing Sarah Lynn, which means BoJack is not experiencing actual events: PB reveals the Hollywoob sign at the planetarium even though we have never seen the Hollywoo(d) sign and the planetarium in the same shot (I believe, although I would have to watch the entire show again to verify this); when Todd brings BoJack to the beach to watch fireworks, we keep seeing flashes of red and blue on their faces, just like the lights from the police car at the planetarium when BoJack waits 17 minutes and then calls for help (there is also some yellow from the ambulance); and when each of the main characters stops talking to BoJack, we get a brief blackout transition before the next character starts talking, just like BoJack keeps blacking out during the S3E11 bender episode. We also learn about the BoJeebies kid who found him in the pool, and it looks like he’s falling into a life of predatory fame. BoJack freaked out when Olivia said she wanted to be like him, and I think he worries that he’s going to ruin someone else’s life just like he ruined Sarah Lynn’s.
In the car, BoJack has a line where he tells PB he doesn’t want to go to the wedding because he thinks that something bad is going to happen. He also looks suspiciously at the sign for the roof before PC starts talking to him, and this sounds like a premonition of his death, as in “Once I say goodbye to Diane, I have no reason to hold on.” In a similar vein, PC has a strange line where she says she that Horny Unicorn is doing well and he could get back into acting, then backtracks with “I’m sorry I said anything”; this sounds like exactly the kind of fumbling statement you’d say to a dying friend before you realize quite what you’ve said.
I will say none of this is ironclad and I could be wrong, and I like that such finely-tuned details exist. One thing I know is that we know BoJack couldn’t have actually died at the end of 15 because he would have no idea that PC and Diane married, which we got independent confirmation of earlier on, so I think that everyone saying farewell to him in the hospital while he’s in a coma, or at least some drugged-out state.
I could see this being the case. The small details with the fireworks and the cuts really add to it for me. The only thing that I can say to counter is that I don’t think Diane would go to a hospital in LA to tell this to dying Bojack. She tells him at the wedding because he’s alive and there. But she wouldn’t say this to him in his dying moments, especially if she’s medicated.
You can see the Hollywood sign from the griffith observatory in real life, so I don’t see how thats relevant
As far as the Hollywoob sign and the observatory, if you’re talking about their physical location relative to eachother you can see one from the other.
I just rewatched the finale and while I don’t think I’m fully convinced, I can definitely see where you’re coming from and I like this take. The wrap-up with each character did feel a bit too neat, not like how it would actually go at a wedding(even in bojack’s universe), and each conversation did give off some deathbed vibes, especially Bojack and PC.
Nah, I mean in the show. But I just realized they show the sign at the very end of S1E12, so they’ve made that link before and PB stopping there isn’t as strange as I thought it was.
I agree that the wrap-up of each character feels too neat, especially when we’ve spent so much time seeing how messy everyone is. When I first saw it, I was disappointed that the writers would go with such a basic “PC and Diane are married, therefore they’re happy now,” but now I think it has a lot of significance because it’s just the sort of facade you would present to someone you won’t see again.
A funny detail is that the jury is full of people whom BoJack has offended in some way (e.g. the Home Depot elephant he insults, the Princess Bride guy, and Neal McBeal). That could be his subconscious eating away at him, though it could also simply be a result of a corrupt legal system or incredibly shitty luck.
Oh I’m super interested, if you want to expound. I genuinely love hearing people’s takes, no matter how far out, and I hate when the ‘it’s-not-that-deep’ police come ruin the fun.
I would count myself as one of the ones who sees themself in Bojack and definitely wants him to be okay in part because of that. But at the same time I know that’s not how life always works out. No idea if I’ll agree with your theory, but I know I’m interested in hearing it!
That Vincent Adultman is actually several children in a trenchcoat doing the thing from The Little Rascals.
Vincent was three kids in a trench coat, guys, I swear!
The reason PC keeps having miscarriages is due to her necklace. It’s costume jewelry that was made in a time where lead paint was common. A couple results of lead exposure in women are miscarriages and infertility, and she’s worn the necklace every day for decades.
Not a lot of evidence for this one other than the time the necklace was made, but the idea that the one thing she wore as a symbol of hope and strength to her was actually causing her strife is definitely something the writers would do.
That Butterscotch committed suicide after seeing his horrible book reviews and Beatrice made up the story of him and the critic.
There’s not a lot of evidence for it but it makes more sense than what we’re told, and from the time they both grew up in suicide was seen as “the cowards way out” since mental health wasn’t taken seriously. Beatrice could’ve lied to protect her reputation among her socialite friends and keep Bojack from thinking his father was “weak” (also deep down she may have wanted to protect him from what that knowledge would do, even if she would never admit it)
I’m pretty sure it’s not true, and it’s more of headcanon really, but I think it’s neat
Never thought of like this before. This is a great theory. Makes absolute sense.
Not sure if this counts but Vincent Adultman is actually just an adult who’s a weirdo, not three kids in a trenchcoat
Same, I unironically believe this lol
Princess Carolyn burried Tim Burton and covered his death.
In S04E04, she says to Ralph “so the studio finished Mars Attack without him. And since they never found the body, my client Tony Trombonni has been making movies under the name Tim Burton ever since”. So we know that the real Tim Burton is dead and that PC know, but where it gets interesting is when you add S03E03 : when Mr. Peanutbutter tells her “I need your help, I’ve done something bad, very bad !” (he got skunked), she answers with “Put the corpse on ice, I’m on my way”. So obviously she’s already helped cover a murder, and seems very chill and pragmatic about it.
I think the reason she knows how to deal with a dead body is because she helped a client (possibly Tony Trombonni) cover the accidental or voluntary death of Tim Burton, burried the corpse herself in a place where it couldn’t been found, like a desert, and then kept covering the tracks.
I think it’s perfectly in character for her to help with a murder because she just can’t say no to people.
Bojack died in View From Halfway Down
I prefer this view but it sure upsets a lot of people!
not super wild but i reckon that herb actually died of cancer and he tweeted about the peanut thing to make ppl laugh one last time. like how and why would u live tweet your own fatal car crash lol
Hearing this all read by Henry Winkler as himself was what made it for me 😂
Oh, wow. That’s actually really clever.
But then why is he eating peanuts in the afterlife, where everyone is eating the last food they ate
wouldn’t whoever pronounced him dead be able to tell the difference between a guy who died of cancer in hospice vs a guy who just started remission who died in a car crash
That doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t show how anyone was officially alerted about his death. We just know it was live tweeted (which doesn’t exactly seem very feasible to carry out).
If Herb really wanted to do this, he could have probably even put it in his will. Then the only person who’d know the truth would be whoever was specifically designated. The blind man who oversaw it was a stranger to everyone at the funeral, so really he could’ve been anyone.
the coffee cup in horsin around was commenting on how two people can experience the same memory with differences
That Penny would’ve been far less traumatized had her mother not interrupted them.
😬
bojack died in the pool and the entire last episode is his view from halfway down, what he imagined he could’ve had if he didn’t go swimming
I also believe there are some arguments to support this as well.
Why would Diane attend the industry wedding and not the real one? For that matter why did Todd attend the industry wedding? Both are not in the movie making industry but personal friends to PC so it makes no sense.
Why was Gina hired as Starlight/Fireflame or whatever the superhero was when Kelsey advised against Gina’s hire?
It is an industry wedding but Judoh did not attend? Why when it is supposed to be “work”?
There are more but these are off the top of my head.
I do like the ending as it is but I also like crazy theories.
And for that matter why did Todd attend the industry wedding?
Some of our greatest memories/dying hallucinations come from our mistakes. Bojack not only fucked up the Guten Burbon opportunity PC worked hard for him to get around his depression, but his fuckup made Todd the face of Guten Burbon.
I’m not sure if Bojack realized how he fucked his friend over (again) by replacing the prop Burbon with real Burbon but after his genuine disappointment with himself destroying Todd’s Rock Opera it may have become another core memory fuckup Bojack played to himself, adding Todd to the ‘industry list’ under Todd’s Manager PC where he belonged.
It’s an industry wedding but Judah didn’t attend
I’d save the first view of the bride for the actual ceremony myself, particularly as viewing the bride in advance is bad luck for a groom. Or maybe Bojack, who never had a relationship with Judah, was processing and professing his feelings to PC and excluded him out of unfamiliarity/his mind wanting uninterrupted closure with PC.
Why would Bojack imagine Gina getting hired for that role? He had no knowledge of the film that we’re aware of. No offense but you can kinda tell these theories are off the top of your head.
Why would Bojack imagine Gina getting hired for that role?
I’ve spent a lot of time in this thread arguing that the last episode is BoJack in a coma. I was about to say that the billboard is great evidence against that, because none of the main characters would have any reason to care enough about that detail to tell him. However, PC helped fuck Gina over (both by connecting BoJack with the shady doctor who got him hooked, asking “Are you okay, Gina?” instead of intervening, and orchestrating the interview to try to absolve him), and I think she would have a pretty compelling reason to let BoJack know that the woman he horribly abused still made it in the industry, which was her dream and the reason she went along with the cover-up.
These aren’t theories, these are arguments for one theory.
You’re right Bojack wouldnt have knowledge of the film but you failed to explain how was Gina hired anyway?
You know when you have a counter-argument you’re supposed to give an explanation not just tell me how mine is wrong and not elaborate.
Here is how I remember it going:
1.Kelsey wanted to make money from movies.
2.She got a chance to make a superhero movie.
3.She sought advice from her long time friend who has made many such movies
4.He advised her not to hire Gina and they BOTH agreed everyone loves Courtney Portnoy and that she is the better choice
5.???
6.Gina is hired. (Profit}
No offense taken we’re here to discuss shit why would I get offended.
If one option is improbable and the other option is impossible, you go with the improbable option. QED.
Guilt. He needed to believe it turned out ok for her after all.
Valid points but let me give my explanations.
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Diane still has PC as her agent for the books and PC mentions a lot a movie franchise based on Ivy Tram. Also, she knew Bojack was going to attend and maybe planned to cut the last string, as she did. For Todd, he runs the daycare and we see children running around. Maybe he went to look after ruthie as PC would be busy. And why wouldn’t her close friends be in the industry wedding? It’s still a wedding.
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I like to thing that Kelsey connected the dots and discovered that Bojack traumatised Gina in some way. Then she hired her for this reason: to help someone who experienced something bad from the same person she did.
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This is the weirdest but Judah was at the wedding. They talked about him solving a theatrical crime. I interpreted that he was at some room going over contracts, still in the same place.
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Yeah honestly as heartfelt as that series finale is, my own head cannon is that he dies and The View From Halfway Down is the true ending.
That’s dope
While I believe that he lived, I do think it’s a valid theory
Agree. I prefer this interpretation but it upsets a lot of people.
Do you mean the last episode was kind of like the Ruthie episode, where it all happened in one of the characters heads but not in their actual life? Or it didn’t happen at all, it was just for the audience as a ‘what if’?
i mean it as something that happened in his head, it was something his brain was going through before he died
I don’t think that actually was David Boreanaz house
Finally! Someone said it! Know what I think? I think it was Mila Kunez house and she has an obsession with him