The Meaning of Life According to 'BoJack Horseman'

What happens when a cartoon horse breaks open the essence of human existence.

In this series of posts, I’ll be looking at the ultimate messages of some of TV’s most meaningful shows.

The BoJack Horseman finale is called “Nice While It Lasted,” which boils this series’ philosophy down to its essence. The “it” here is life. That’s all there is to it.

The entire series had hinted that our self-destructive title character was headed for his ultimate, self-induced demise during our time together. The opening credits had always shown scenes from his everyday life and a glimpse of him at the bottom of his own swimming pool, concerned friends looking down at him, with a helicopter—medical help? media?—hovering overhead. And the penultimate episode had taken us on a trip through his mind post-overdose after what appeared to be his death.

But then … he’s rescued, recovers, and serves time for breaking into his old house. BoJack’s life might be nice, at times, while it lasted. Here, however, it goes on, nice at times and not so nice at others.

BoJack serves as a stand-in for the hypermasculinity on display in so many of the shows that dominated television in the years leading up to BoJack’s 2014 premiere on Netflix. Because it’s a cartoon, it reads from the start as a critique of the antihero genre that it imitates, but it goes so much farther than even one with the highest expectations of an animated adult series might expect. It ends up delivering more profound and astute observations on manhood, and really on humanity, than The Sopranos or Mad Men ever could. Yes, I said it. And I said it as a huge fan of both of those other shows.

Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, BoJack ran from 2014 to 2020, imagining an alternate version of Hollywood called Hollywoo, full of anthropomorphic animals mixing freely with humans, often dating and sleeping together. Will Arnett voices BoJack, a horse who found massive fame on a ‘90s sitcom called Horsin’ Around. He struggles to deal with his post-fame ennui, mostly with sex and substances, and attempts a number of “comebacks” with the help of his agent and ex-girlfriend Princess Caroline (a cat voiced by Amy Sedaris), his memoir ghostwriter Diane Nguyen (a human played by Alison Brie), his frenemy and former rival Mr. Peanutbutter (a dog voiced by Paul F. Tompkins), and his roommate Todd Chavez (another human, Aaron Paul).

Bojack repeatedly self-sabotages and pushes away those closest to him. He’s contrasted with the open, vulnerable, and optimistic Mr. Peanutbutter. Though it starts slow in season 1, it kicks into a different gear in the second season and beyond, becoming a meditation on fame, purpose, addiction, and human (or, I guess, interbeing) connection. I consider it among the best shows of the 21^st century so far and my favorite animated show of all time.

In those final moments of the final episode, BoJack and Diane share a quiet moment together. “Well, what are you going to do?” he says, resorting to cliché. “Life’s a bitch and then you die, right?”

Her answer: “Sometimes … Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep living.” This is almost literally what had happened to BoJack. He swerved near death, went to jail, and ended up in this moment.

When I watched this scene for the first time, it hit me hard. Oh. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you that sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep living? This felt more true than anything I’d seen depicted on television, ever, even though it was a conversation between a horse and a human at the wedding of the horse’s ex, a cat who is a showbusiness agent.

It also represented the end of his character arc, though, we like to hope, the beginning of his better life. He has, we like to imagine, recovered from addiction, reckoned with his past, and, finally, redeemed himself. He did every one of these things in ways we never would have anticipated.

Death, we have realized, is the easy way out. And life, as the existentialists tell us, is whatever we, personally, make of it.

BoJack’s character arc critiques not only anti-hero shows, but also sitcoms. As Jack Godwin wrote for The Verge, “BoJack longs for a life as simple as the one in his former hit sitcom Horsin’ Around, where every conflict was resolved in one episode, so everything could reset again. From the beginning, the series made it clear that this fantasy was incompatible with reality, and that BoJack’s refusal to deal with his problems was only going to make things worse.”

Judy Berman wrote for Time, “BoJack is, among other things, first-time TV creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s experiment in subverting that formula—in using half-hour episodes to challenge the assumption that the artificial comfort we derive from sitcom clichés is in any way benign. It’s certainly not the only great, unorthodox dramedy to emerge in recent years (see: Atlanta, Better Things, Fleabag, Barry). But it is the one most interested in deconstructing its own format, which sows complacency and dissatisfaction with the imperfect lives we all lead.”

At one point during the final episode, apropos of the wedding, Todd says, “You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about,” and we know he’s not talking about some dumb group dance. BoJack worries he’ll relapse when he gets out of prison, and Todd assures him, via this insufferable song, that he won’t, and suddenly, “The Hokey Pokey” seems deep.

Diane ultimately delivers the final blow to a favorite sitcom trope, the will-they-won’t-they couple: “I think there are people that help you become the person that you end up being, and you can be grateful for them, even if they were never meant to be in your life forever.”

Bob-Waksberg’s unique sensibilities made him a good candidate for sending up the sitcom form. “I have a much, I don't know if I want to say sadder sense of humor than what I normally see on television, but I felt like there was more room for melancholy on TV,” he said. “I am a big fan of melancholy.”

It might be melancholy, but it’s also truth—more truth than most shows featuring real, live humans manage to tell.

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Other things I’ve written lately

What’s It Really Like to Be in a Rock Band?: An interview with Franz Nicolay, member of The Hold Steady and author of the illuminating book "Band People" about "the character actors of music."

“Your Outie Is …”: My Own Surreal Journey with an AI Version of Myself: I got a glimpse of what it's like to have a "Severance"-style alter ego. Beware the hagiographic version of yourself who is inevitably coming to an internet search near you.