BoJack Horseman: Time's Arrow

September 17, 2017 12:21 PM - Season 4, Episode 11

In 1963, young socialite Beatrice Sugarman meets the rebellious Butterscotch Horseman at her debutante party.
posted by rhizome (10 comments total)

Yeah okay, so this is definitely an 11th episode-of-the-season gut-punch. The thing with Beatrice waving her hand at her reflection and saying "ugh" like she kind of knew she was the old lady in the reflection, but in her mind she's still that eight-year-old girl? My grandmother did that all the time as she descended into dementia.

The blank faces for all the people she couldn't remember clearly, plus the scribbled out faces for the people she didn't WANT to remember was an especially creepy touch.

Her father = the devil. His ears are drawn to look like horns, with the flames of hell behind him. He caused so much pain to his wife, his daughter, and through her, his grandson, and yet he probably still thought he was only doing the right thing. (Were they still burning things after a scarlet fever outbreak in the 40s? The only thing I know about that comes from the Velveteen Rabbit, so...)

And BoJack doesn't tell his mother "fuck you" when she finally recognizes him. Sign of personal growth, perhaps realizing it wouldn't make him feel any better. He uses that moment of lucidity to make her feel better. She's back in the cabin with Crackerjack and she's allowed to eat ice cream. Bea can probably count the number of times she ate ice cream on one hand.
posted by lovecrafty at 2:01 PM on September 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

The faces (blank and scribbled) were creepy and really affected me. Well done, indeed.

Another classic Bojack (the show) moment:

"How could you not know she has scarlet fever? Say something damnit, what has become of you? I swear if I had known this is how you'd behave once we've severed the connections to your prefrontal cortex, I'd hardly have bothered."

I'm uncertain whether Bojack talking his mother through a delusion (that she is at the lakehouse in Michigan, along with her family) is actually person growth (empathy) or a strictly utilitarian thing that Bojack. I'd love to give the character the benefit of the doubt.
posted by porpoise at 2:33 PM on September 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm uncertain whether Bojack talking his mother through a delusion (that she is at the lakehouse in Michigan, along with her family) is actually person growth (empathy) or a strictly utilitarian thing that Bojack.

Judging from his actions in the next episode, I think it's growth.
posted by coriolisdave at 2:43 PM on September 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

This episode left me near tears. So well done.
posted by FireFountain at 3:38 PM on September 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

It was extremely weird to hear Matthew Broderick saying some of the things Daddy Sugarman says in this episode. Viscerally against type.
posted by rhizome at 4:01 PM on September 17, 2017 [6 favorites]

Jesus CHRIST Bojack.

THis was like one fo those Mallory Ortberg Children's Stories Made Terrifying "It all must burn!"

And yeah, it's all about the passage of time and the damage men do to women almost without thinking. like the tweet said

Me: Time to watch a funny cartoon about a talking horse!
Bojack: You inherit your parent's trauma but you never understand it. The damage people can do to each other is never ending and inter-generational!
Me: Ha! That cat is a cop!

At least now we never have to read an Updike novel ever again. Nor will I be able to hear Boderick's voice for a while.

Dear GOD this episode.
posted by The Whelk at 8:30 PM on September 17, 2017 [9 favorites]

the pause before "delicious" was quite the twisting knife.

the callous evil embodied in joseph sugarman is astonishing. pure patriarchy in the avatar of a cartoon horse. generations of damage.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:41 PM on September 17, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'll have to watch it again to confirm, (unlikely, honestly, because... holy shit), but I suspect that as Bojack is trying to steer Bea back into her delusion, she's still completely lucid and trying to play along. It was about the way that they animated her face. She just looks really confused, but more... aware? That confusion melts to this look of just utter defeat. It dawns on her exactly where she is in that moment, but she has no idea how she got there, she knows her son hates her, and is clearly about to abandon her. She realizes that there's nothing to left to do, but wait until she gets back there.
posted by Krazor at 9:18 AM on September 18, 2017 [8 favorites]

Yes this episode was definitely an emotional gut-punch, but can I just say how relieved I am that it didn't revolve (entirely) around Bojack being a terrible person?
posted by speicus at 10:38 AM on September 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

The callous evil embodied in joseph sugarman is astonishing. pure patriarchy in the avatar of a cartoon horse. generations of damage.

It isn't the show's job to make all of the characters three dimensional; I'd like it if Katrina had more depth because she's a very poorly explained figure.

Similarly, I think that it's entirely acceptable for Joseph Sugarman to be left as the pathetic root of patriarchal evil, and indeed I think if the show were too become an infinite regress into the Horseman history it would be quite boring. However, at some level I wouldn't mind knowing where Joseph Sugarman came from himself, and to see him given the treatment that the show has given to Beatrice.
But there's always another progenitor before a progenitor until you get back to the protozoic, so at some point one must stop.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:46 AM on September 18, 2017 [2 favorites]