10 Times BoJack Horseman Assaulted Our Feelings

(“The view from halfway down” – Season 6, Episode 15)

Where to even begin with this one.

This episode from the outset is very heavy viewing especially when you consider the fact that our main protagonist may have potentially died moments prior to this episode opening.

In what looks to be BoJack's own personal purgatory, he finds himself surrounded by the ghosts of the many lives he’s lived and the many lives that he’s ruined. The deceased are all here; BoJack's long-time friend and collaborator Herb Kazzaz, fellow Secretariat actor Corduroy Jackson-Jackson and dysfunctional mother Beatrice Horseman etc.

The premise alone is eerie enough but when we reach the pivotal scene in which we see an array of characters lining up for what seems like a talent show, it becomes increasingly unnerving until it takes a severely dark turn. As the first performer (whose name won't be mentioned just yet) finishes their performance they receive not a standing ovation, encore or even applause. But instead an unidentifiable door opens to what we as viewer’s can only assume is a door leading to “the other side”, another plane of reality. Presumably because all of these people are now dead. It makes sense, right?

The rug is completely pulled from beneath our feet when the audience disperses and the curtains close, yet the door remains wide open. After Herb Kazzaz (who plays the host in this insomniac nightmare) utters the ominous words; “This is it”. He disembarks the world he was once part of, leaving nobody but BoJack in his wake and leaving nothing but a serene helplessness felt by the titular horse. Radiating all the way to the distressed viewers still unflinchingly watching despite the collective sinking of their hearts.