Bojack Horseman is a Masterpiece

Watching Bojack Horseman was a truly life-changing experience. It's impossible to compare it to any other show because nobody else has attempted what Bojack pulled off. But what exactly makes it a masterpiece? Let's find out.

The first thing that drew me in was the meticulousness of the jokes. Shows like Family Guy or The Office have conditioned me to assume that when a character makes a seemingly off the cuff joke, its purpose was as a quirky one-liner. Bojack Horseman raises the bar by having these throwaway jokes be premises to entire sequences later in the episode or even later in the season. It's like every scene is a very purposeful domino.

The second thing that got me hooked was the ambitious plot lines. The show managed an incomparable balance of fun adventures in-between the inevitable gut punches. Episodes that come to mind are Fish out of Water (an episode with no dialogue) and Free Churro (an episode with a 25-minute monologue), both of which took huge risks that paid off. And episodes like The Old Sugarman Place, Time's Arrow, and The View From Halfway Down left an unrecognizable feeling of despair.

But what Bojack Horseman is known for is how it portrays depression. It shows that depression manifests for different reasons and can affect people in different ways. We get to see the real Bojack, warts and all, and that makes you want to root for him. But then he does some seriously unforgivable shit. What is the proper way to react as an audience member? That's the genius of Bojack Horseman.

In a standard show, Diane would have been the protagonist and Bojack would just be the asshole friend that wreaks havoc every couple of episodes. But we get an important glimpse behind the curtain. What makes someone a bad person? Is it their upbringing? Is it substance abuse? Or are some people rotten, irreparable? If we were to fix our own flaws, would we be better people? Or are we destined for self-sabotage? You want to believe that Bojack can be better, that you can be better.

Bojack never learns the answers to these questions, but that was really never the point. Sometimes life's a bitch, but if you keep trying to turn yourself around, it does get easier. And that's what it's all about.