Forgive me if this has been done to death here, I’m relatively new to this sub. I personally always felt it was more poetically beautiful for Bojack to die. The tragic (anti)hero meeting his end after a chaotic life of destruction to himself and everyone around him. I don’t hate the ending we have, but I always felt there was a certain beauty and closure that felt right
the point of the show was to show how bojack, a traumatized, damaged, addict thinks and navigates the world. we see bojack refuse help time and time again, he never truly changes bc we see the “old him” shine through even after his attempts of change. and how even though you yourself can heal and “change”, what you did before isn’t excused or wiped away. if he wasn’t forced to confront them, the whole show would have been for nothing. it’s about taking responsibility for who you are and what you’ve done and how that’s affected other people. we see in the final episode how his actions still affect those he’s traumatized. him dying would have been an easy ending, not the gritty that we’ve seen all through the show.