10 Times BoJack Horseman Assaulted Our Feelings

(“The Old Sugarman place” Season 4, Episode 2 & “Time’s arrow” – Season 4, Episode 11)

Okay, so we're cheating a little bit with this entry, but for good reason! These two episodes may be 9 parts apart chronologically but the sub narrative of these two episodes tell two halves of the same story.

The first of the two (“The old Sugarman place”) documents a subplot focusing predominantly on Beatrice Horseman’s mother (Honey Sugarman) as well as that of her own traumatic childhood. Initially starting life as a common, happy story about a wealthy nuclear American family. It isn't long before the metaphorical wool is pulled away from our eyes and a domino effect sets in motion, stemming from the death of her son (and Beatrice’s brother) ‘Crackerjack’. This causes Honey to have a significant mental breakdown, endangering the life of her youthful daughter and being incidentally neglected by her husband. The hardest part to swallow though is watching this sweetly innocent archetype gradually fall apart, not metaphorically, but physically mentally.

“Why I have half a mind” is a phrase that we hear time and time again becoming synonymous with the character, until it becomes poetically cruel. As the last time we see poor Honey she now actually has half a mind as the result of a lobotomy. Courtesy of a man who would rather silence his wife then allow her to expedite thoughts of feelings.

“Time's arrow neither stands still nor reverses. it merely marches forward” - As we’re told in both of these episodes.

Shedding a little light on just what made Beatrice the conscienceless monster that she’s become today – as well as the inception of the abusive tendencies towards her son. Time's Arrow (the latter of these two episodes) does a wonderful job of amalgamating Beatrice’s vast past in the short space of just twenty-five minutes and to our surprise, the once disdainful parent becomes a sympathetic cornerstone that stands inalienable to the many colourful personalities this series has spawned.

BoJack may have undergone years of therapeutic (or detrimental) alcoholism due to the incessant abuse from his mother, but in the dying moments of this episode the dementia-ridden old lady finally gains some form of memory. Requiting reality for the fabricated illusion of fantasy in belief that she is once again the little girl at the beginning of the two-part story. BoJack realises this, sits down and delightfully describes the scene, indulging her delusions and engendering these two fraternising enemies to bask in a moment so pure and so beautifully sombre that one would intuitively suspect that they were mother and son. A first and last for the series. All the while ending a concurrently tragic relationship with a level of bittersweet closure that is testament to the excellent writing found exclusively here.