I think realistically Mister Peanutbutter is the type of person who would also be very prone to addiction. I’ve met a lot of people like him and the drugs and alcohol were what they relied on to maintain that overly positive and friendly facade in such a high pressure environment like the entertainment industry. I understand that for the sake of fiction MPB needed to contrast Bojack more, and having two addicts in the main ensemble would have made the show a lot bleaker than it already gets. I think he’s a funny, flawed, lovable character, but having experience with how addicts in real life who are a MPB on the outside and Bojack on the inside makes it hard to not see those characters as two sides of the same coin.

The first two seasons can be hard to sit through because it sets up Bojack as someone who keeps doing these heinous and seemingly irredeemable things. But after that he gradually becomes more tolerable and sympathetic, and the rest of the characters start growing into their own roles and they have much more manageable and hopeful arcs. Overall it’s a show that’s absolutely worth watching just for the finale alone because it gives a fuller perspective on what recovery looks like. It’s messy, complicated, confusing, you’re not always going to get the closure you want, you’re still going to burn some bridges, and you still have to be held accountable for your past actions, but you can still keep trying to better yourself and you can still live life on life’s terms.

When Biscuits asks Bojack if he really believes he didn’t have power in his relationships with all the women he hurt, he responds “I am an addict, one of the first things I had to accept was my own powerlessness.” This is a reference to step one in 12 step programs (“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol/drugs, that our lives had become unmanageable.”) Bojack of course grossly misinterprets this step, showing that he hasn’t actually learned anything.