Prior to the Biscuits Braxby interview, Hollyhock’s behavior was reasonable at least. She didn’t handle Bojack’s imposition as well as she could have, but she’s young, Bojack is still relatively new to her life, and she already has the baggage of the weight loss pill incident. It wouldn’t be fair to expect her to be good at establishing boundaries with Bojack, who struggles with the same issue at the same time, just less destructively than normal thanks to the rehab. She was rude, and I don’t think Bojack deserved it, but I wouldn’t hold it against her, either. It can be looked past.

After the interview, her reaction was completely correct. We don’t know what was in the letter, but we don’t need to know. Whatever it was was long enough to require a second page. I imagine it took one of two tones: excoriating and hostile, or plain and definitive. I usually go with the latter in my mind. Either way, all we know is that it’s done, and Hollyhock has committed to it. She would be right to react either way to the revelations of the interview.

In general, if your child is obsessing over something, it behooves you as the parent to investigate it. Which is why you’re here, so good on you. :D

Her fascination with the show may be completely unrelated to her troubles, it may be her reaching out. You won’t know either way until you look into it. All we as the fandom can really do is let you know that the show deals with the issues your daughter is facing, so there is a distinct possibility for that connection. The rest is up to you.

If TVFHD didn’t exist, Downer Ending would be my favorite episode. It’s up there with the first episode of Death Note among the most powerful series hooks I’ve ever seen.

Yeah. I also relate to PC to a lesser degree, maybe mildly to PB, and strictly superficially to Diane. I’ll probably resemble Henry the Horsefly’s demeanor in my old age.

Bojack. He’s the character into whose soul we are thrown. His every desire, every aspiration, every fear is naked to the viewer. More than anything else, Bojack is the reason the show is good.

My second favorite episode, Downer Ending, establishes the thesis statement of the entire show: Bojack wants to be a good person. The A-plot of the entire series can roughly be described as “Bojack’s quest to be a good person.” I want to be a good person, too. I root for anyone who wants to be a good person, so I root for Bojack.

As much as I love the cast in general, no one else comes close to Bojack in terms of what motivates my engagement with the show.

Me reading your post.

Look, I don’t really have a horse in the race of “defend Bojack from the Penny incident.” It’s not a zero-sum situation. Both parties are clearly wrong, and Bojack being wrong does not in any way absolve Penny, because the nature of Penny’s wrongfulness goes a step beyond just “teen soliciting sex from an adult.” Penny’s wrongfulness is “Sober adult soliciting sex from a drunk man.” Doesn’t matter if Penny is immature, that is the mistake she is making. Bojack’s wrongdoing is less interesting to me because it’s been thoroughly mapped out. The small percentage of people who defend Bojack are eclipsed by the percentage of people who act like his wrongdoing absolves Penny. It doesn’t.

Aaanyway, to answer your question, yes, I completely agree. I wonder to what extent Charlotte and Kyle sheltered their kids. Or perhaps it was just the peaceful Tesuque environment, and when Bojack brought the Hollywoo with him it tested Penny’s level of adult maturity. I need to rewatch the episode. It’s been a while. I do not recall the degree to which Bojack’s behavior may have conditioned Penny over the course of his stay with Charlotte. I don’t think he had any intention of grooming Penny, so I won’t use that word to describe it, but he clearly had an effect on her in one form or another.

But what I like most about his character is that it shows how easy it is for a man like that to never be judged or face the consequences of his actions.

I agreed with you until you said this. This makes PB sound like a straw man for men in general. He may spend the entire show not being judged by the people around him, but the show’s audience has leveled pretty much every conceivable criticism of him by now.

It’s been about a year and a half since Bojack got out of prison. He’s been clean, been out of trouble, he now gets asked if he’s the unicorn from The Horny Unicorn.

Gina reveals the choking incident. Big press conference, media explosion, the band-aid over the fallout from season 6 ripped open. Restraining order. Criminal charges. Bail. PB and PC both know that he wanted to come clean immediately back in season 5. Both of them know it was Gina’s choice to keep it under wraps. We can also assume that Todd is aware of that, since we can assume it was discussed during Sunk Cost and All That. Instead of watching Bojack spiral, we watch him doing the right thing every step of the way. This time he is truly committed. Which makes it all the more painful when things continue to get worse.

I haven’t thought of how the season would resolve, but it probably involves the footage of the incident that Flip McVicker took. Perhaps in the episode of Philbert that used it, it was too heavily edited to present as evidence, so the plan is to get it from him somehow. A direct confrontation between Bojack and Gina never happens. He’s trying to do things right, so he respects the restraining order. Instead it happens between Gina and PC. As an agent, one who similarly no longer works with Bojack, she might get access to Gina.

Diane is, appropriately, completely absent from the season. The show is Bojack Horseman, and she is no longer in his life.

I’m doing great. I elected not to do drugs today, and I haven’t hurt anyone around me. Been in trade school for about 3 months, keeping a 4.0 average. Before long I’ll be installing mini splits and making a killing like that one scene in Pander-verse.

I, uh…only ever related to Bojacks good side. I dont have any of his vices, and I dont suffer any of his victimhood. I have depression, that’s about it. My life more resembles Todd’s than Bojack’s, but I dont relate to Todd at all as a person.

He’s a difficult one for me to place. There is a wiiiiide chasm between Henrietta and Hollyhock, and he just kinda fell into it. If I was to put him in B, I’d have to do the same for Hollyhock, Butterscotch, etc.

It’s the Call of the Wild. It represents a kind of horse that Bojack is capable of being, even if he never will. I like to think that possibility is what pulls him back from the brink.

Speaking of which, I highly recommend reading Jack London’s classic book, The Call of the Wild. It’s about 230 pages, but reading it feels more like 90.

It immediately reminded me of my favorite episode of Tom and Jerry, Mouse in Manhattan. I didn’t care much for the episode though. The scene in Mouse in Manhattan where Jerry is dancing with the plastic figurines on top of the building has been etched into my DNA. Nothing in Fish out of Water really comes close to that.

So, I had an idea for a season 7 involving Gina reversing her decision to keep the choking incident a secret a few years after Bojack got out of prison and rehabilitated for real. Bojack is suddenly thrown into controversy again, and Gina is conveniently leaving out of the discussion that Bojack wanted to come clean immediately but she stopped him. Sadness ensues.

I think that if Paige and Max hadn’t gone after Bojack Horseman, there is a real possibility of Gina going after him.

I wanna be an architect.

I tried to get my dad to watched it. He’s not interested in animated stuff in general. He managed to the end of season 1, but the only episode he liked was Bojack Hates the Troops. If The Telescope and Downer Ending wouldn’t do anything for him, then the rest of the show wouldn’t, either.

I’m not going to insist further. He deserves better than that from me.

I don’t think anyone else in my life would like the show at all, so I don’t try.

The shows goes to great lengths to make Bojack the least defensible major character. I could cite Hank Hippopopalous or Vance Waggoner, but that feels cheap.

That said, he’s a short (incomplete) list of the inexcusable things other characters have done, with emphasis on instances where Bojack is the victim!

PC:

• Assaulted Bojack in Elefante

Diane:

• Wrote a traumatic event into Philbert to make Bojack relive the trauma

Ana Spanakopita and Flip McVicker:

• SA’d Bojack

Beatrice Horseman:

• (among other things) attempted to kill Bojack

Eddie the Horsefly:

• attempted to kill Bojack

Angela Diaz:

• Encouraged Bojack to drink at the lowest point in his life

Every responsibility Judah failed, every betrayal he committed, every mistake he made in this scenario is under the purview of his job. His personal relationship to PC is completely irrelevant. PC firing Judah for his dereliction of duty was 100% justified.