Fucking

Okay so I feel like we need to contextualize a few things here.

Initially, she opened up to him about the acting teacher at her college leaving their job. Bojack almost immediately decided this was an offer for them to be closer together and decides to take that job without once consulting her to see if she’d be okay with her 50+ year old half brother who happens to be a celebrity suddenly being a prof at her college. Imagine if you found out someone like your mom or dad was a teacher at your school/college? It’s gonna be awkward as fuck and you’re gonna wanna keep your distance, right? That’s exactly what ended up happening. Bojack was being annoying and clingy and Hollyhock had enough at one point and decided to establish clear cut boundaries. Bojack complied. This is just the setup though.

We have the setup established. Now is where things start getting juicy. Hollyhock ends up running into Pete Repeat at a party, and finds out about how Bojack took some high schoolers to prom (something that’s already really awkward) and got them drunk. One of them ended up getting drunk enough to need to go to the hospital, and instead of taking responsibility for it, Bojack just left her there at the hospital with Pete to deal with it, an experience which was very traumatizing for both of them. Take this knowledge and combine it with her own experience of overdosing on amphetamines in his house (an event which was admittedly not Bojack’s fault), a connection has been made: young people get intoxicated around Bojack, often with substances provided by Bojack. Shortly after, the news breaks out about his involvement in Sarah Lynn’s death. We now have another person of a significantly younger age than Bojack who became intoxicated in his presence. Connections made, patterns established. This brings us back to the beginning now. This guy, a known drug addict, with a clear history of being around younger people when they end up being fatally intoxicated on drugs provided by him, now has a job where he’s an authority figure to younger people. It’s easy to see why she would want to keep further distance from him and potentially even cut him off.

Now, as for the nature of her disconnection from Bojack, I don’t think there was any better way to do it for her than by changing her phone number and sending a strongly worded letter to him. We’ve all seen firsthand that Bojack is a pretty good manipulator, and if he has the chance to verbally convince you to stick around, he will do it and he will succeed. He did it with PC. He did it with Todd. He did it with Diane. He did it with Wanda. All these characters would’ve ditched his ass if he didn’t sweet talk them into sticking around just a little longer. Hollyhock would’ve recognized this and decided that the only outcome that would result from telling him in person was that he would sweet talk her into backtracking on her decision to leave him. Ghosting him completely was the only way.

Tl;Dr: the relationship was already awkward when he decided to take the teaching job at her college without asking her about it. After that, the combination of her own experience, Pete’s testimony, and the knowledge that came out about Sarah Lynn, Hollyhock was able to conclude that there was a very concerning pattern involving young people overdosing on drugs/alcohol around Bojack that, in most scenarios, are provided by him. She also knows Bojack is a master manipulator and would find a way to keep her in his life if she talked things out with him. As a result, ghosting him was the only way to truly cut ties with him.

No

Penny was still in high school during Escape From LA. Her mindset and behaviour aren’t inconsistent with others of her age.

a quick way to end the show on a happy note.

It wasn’t happy though.

Bojack lost all his friends. He’s in prison. His public reputation is down the toilet and likely will never be recovered. The threat of relapse still looms over him.

Post #2737474 about “hey guys I totally did not understand one of the biggest themes of the show and think that Bojack should’ve died and basically got away with all the shit he did with zero consequences”.

Yea iirc Gina stopped him from coming clean because she wasn’t a big enough star yet to stand on her own two feet if she did go public with it. She’s getting there though so it’s entirely possible that she’d consider doing it if she became big enough but ran into a block which prevented her from going further due to what happened with Bojack.

What are YOU doing here?

His profile honestly fits bpd more than it does adhd

Pretty much every adult in the show makes at least one morally wrong decision.

Didn’t the swap happen after Diane returned from Cordovia?

I had the impression that things were already pretty bad before Todd was swapped, hence the actual Prince trying so hard to get out of his duties.

Was it because Bojack saw him as more a father figure/role model than his actual dad?

Yes. Bojack viewed Secretariat as his positive role model while he was growing up, and many of the social cues he picked up are from various TV shows he would watch to drown out his parents’ infighting.

Later in the episode they go out to have a cigarette and Bojack talks to him like he’s his actual dad…why? Thoughts???

It’s an interaction he deeply wishes he could’ve had with his own father. The two of them, just chilling, having a smoke together, and good vibes, just like in the TV shows and movies. It’s something that could never happen because firstly, Butterscotch died, and secondly, Butterscotch was a terrible dad.

He even writes like Butterscotch did. Is this him desperately trying to save Bojack from dying?

Yes. The poem expresses the regret Secretariat felt as he was halfway down from having jumped off the bridge and the reality of his situation hit him.

I hate that Bojack is solely blamed for Beatrice spiking Hollyhock with amphetamines.

I get that maybe Hollyhock would be reluctant to believe that the one mother figure she had in her life at that point in time, a frail old woman with dementia, was the one who fucked her up instead of the pill popping alcoholic half brother, but even after Bojack explains himself to her 7 fathers, even after enough time has passed that one can reconcile with the fact that it was actually not Bojack who did it, even after Hollyhock has the time to reflect on the fact that “omg Bojack was actually right when he tried to keep me away from his mother”, Bojack is the one who gets shit on. For the one messed up thing in their relationship that wasn’t on him.

Could Bojack have been more proactive in recognizing the signs of amphetamine use? Maybe. Truth be told though, how much of Hollyhock’s amphetamine behaviour resembled weird teenage habits anyway? Hollyhock was a weird teenager even without amphetamines. I don’t blame Bojack for not really looking into the weirdness. He had his own stuff going on too.

Can Beatrice, a person with dementia who doesn’t even recognize her own son, be reprimanded for spiking Hollyhock’s morning coffee? I’m not sure. That doesn’t mean she gets off scot free though. She might not have fully recognized her world, but she knew full well what she was doing when she put those pills in Hollyhock’s morning coffee.

Why is it also never acknowledged that Hollyhock didn’t heed Bojack’s very clear warnings about Beatrice either? None of this would’ve happened if Hollyhock just took Bojack’s word for it and left Beatrice alone after the first couple of meetings. Or if she just took his word for it and let him look for another retirement home to send her to instead of bringing her back home. Like, if someone I was pursuing a new family type relationship with told me to steer clear the fuck away from their own parent, who they tell you very explicitly was an abusive piece of shit to them for decades, I’m not gonna try my level best to establish any sort of connection with that parent. I’m not gonna visit them, I’m not gonna try to make them live with us, nothing.

Beatrice spiked Hollyhock’s coffee. Hollyhock pursued a relationship with Beatrice that Bojack explicitly told her not to. Somehow, all of this is Bojack’s fault though. Like, why?

Cope

Imagine how powerful an ending that would have been

It wouldn’t have been powerful though. It would’ve been cliché and goes against one of if not the biggest message of the show: you have to deal with the consequences of your own actions.

Good grief. Grow up, all of you

No u

Forgive me if this has been done to death here

It has. Dw about it though.

personally always felt it was more poetically beautiful for Bojack to die

A big and recurring theme of the show is consequences and dealing with them. Bojack dying would’ve absolved him of any and all the consequences of his actions. Like, sure, he’s had a sad life and has done some bad shit which he regrets, but that doesn’t give him a pass to kill himself and not have to deal with the full fallout of those actions.

I disagree about it being poetic or beautiful. It also sends a wrongful message that suicide is a “get out of jail free” card. I really don’t think this is something that we should be preaching to our audiences.

I’m gonna watch the episode today. I feel like there’s probably more context for which that line would make sense as a callback to Bojack.

It could just be a coincidence too though 🤷‍♂️

It’s just digging tunnels underground but you’re using liquid to do it instead of digging the hole with a shovel.

It’s used to extract natural gas. The high pressure liquid injection is meant to displace said natural gas and make it more accessible.

I am, but not on an urgent basis