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.
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.
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’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.
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.
You can see the Hollywood sign from the griffith observatory in real life, so I don’t see how thats relevant
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!
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.
This is my belief as well.
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?
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 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 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