12 Most Depressing BoJack Horseman Moments Ever

BoJack Horseman isn’t like other animated TV shows. Though it started innocently enough, with a drunk horse arguing with a seal about muffins, and writing a fun rock opera, it soon delved into truly harrowing territory.

BoJack himself evolved into a protagonist it became simply impossible to root for, while real issues like anxiety, depression, addiction, and unhappiness were explored. It went from making you laugh to making you think, and many times, depressed.

This came in a lot of forms. It could have been something BoJack did that was so awful it could affect your mood for days, an alternative outlook on something that was supposed to be happy that really made you think, or when something seemed happy but was snatched away at the last moment.

These moments may have been depressing to anyone watching, but they were truly powerful. The fate of the characters you cared about could make you really feel, and even cartoon horses or dogs could be so thought-provoking. BoJack Horseman, through a plethora of different characters and situations, often had the power to devastate its audience without remorse.

While BoJack spent a year of his life at the Old Sugarman Place, the events of his family’s past were played out in a haunting parallel. This revolved around his mother, Beatrice, as a young girl spending her summers at the very same house.

At first, her older brother, Crackerjack, was still alive and was the apple of her mother’s eye. However, he was tragically killed when he went off to fight in the war. This sent Honey Sugarman into a spiral of depression that she never recovered from.

She had zero support from her husband, who was more concerned with his secretary’s self-esteem rather than his wife’s mental health, and without that, she was driven to depression, alcohol, and taking Beatrice in the car while she was in absolutely no condition to drive. Her pain was so much that she told her daughter never to love anyone like she loved Crackerjack, something that Beatrice never forgot while raising BoJack.

Joseph Sugarman, her horrendously unsupportive husband, instead of trying to help her, opted to send her for surgery. The heart couldn’t be repaired, but Honey’s mind could be fixed with a simple lobotomy. She was no longer the same person, and it was deeply upsetting to see.