This episode is just pain
Bojack should've been honest as to why he was in New Mexico.
As soon as Charlotte said she had a family, I knew he screwed up. Then they started asking him why he was there. My jaw dropped when he decided to stay for two months.
I like how he tried to help out Charlotte's daughter, but saying that she looks just like her mother is creepy. Giving Maddie that whisky was a big mistake. I hope she's alright.
BoJack messed up. First he tries to get with Charlotte, before trying to do it with her daughter. When BoJack said Penny didn't know what she wants and turned down her offer, I was proud of him. Those last few moments hit hard with the disappointment and betrayal Charlotte must've felt. Jesus.
She was right, though. You can't run away from who you are.
Those final few scenes were almost as devastating as Downer Ending. BoJack needs to sort out his internal struggles.
THIS IS A HEARTBREAKING PRE-SEASON FINALE EPISODE.
TECHNICAL SCORE: 8.5/10
ENJOYMENT SCORE: 9/10
What a coincidence. A friend of mine suggested we watch the John Carpenter film Escape from L.A. (1996) just yesterday, and now here I am catching up and landing on this very episode of Bojack with that same title.
This one is a really good coming of age story. Bojack is a good man. He knows his right and wrong. I highly respect how he handled his friend's daughter after arriving from the prom. He then has a chat with that said friend and I like the following quote:
"It doesn't matter where you are.
..California or Maine or New Mexico..
It's who you are, you know, you can't escape... you."
I heard a similar quote like that recently from the film I Am Number Four (2011). I have friends that like to say that they don't like the town they are currently living in, and want to move away. Whereas I feel opposite to that. This will be something I tell them.
Good life lessons to be learned from this show.
«It doesn’t matter where you are, it’s who you are, and that’s not gonna change whether you’re in California or Maine or New Mexico. You know, you can’t escape... you».
—
«Non importa dove ti trovi, il punto è chi sei tu. E non importa se stai in California o nel Maine o in New Mexico. Sai, non puoi scappare da te stesso».
Anyone who says they don't jam to "Kyle and the Kids" is lying or has horrible taste in music
painful to watch.
It reminds me that BJ used to say he was only trying to hate himself a little less.
That's why he keeps chasing all the illusions.
Escape from LA?Escape from himself.
this was the first episode that I straight up could not sit down and calmly watch. Just for those last 5 minutes. Watching BoJack screw up that royally is incredibly painful.
That kind of drama is what makes this show so revolutionary as a western cartoon. I know anime has hit some significant levels of depth before, but beyond Japanese media, I’ve never seen an animated series with moments this genuinely mature and sophisticated.
Once in a while there will come an episode, that reminds me why i love this show. This is one of those episodes.
It was so obvious that going to see Charlotte was such a bad idea. The whole episode is weird. OK for the start, with the predictable disappointment, but then he stays for months ? We see a happier, well adjusted Bojack, taking care of the kids (almost) responsibly. But then he still tries to go for Charlotte ? How could this situation last for 2 months then ??
Ending is ok too. Pretty incredible how many time Bojack refused. Then the worst ending possible for his relationship with Charlotte.
However everything in between was without any interest. And all the boner "jokes" were so so below the show's level.
I lost count of how many times BoJack scratched the back of his head in this episode. I guess that made them save on animation frames.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-11-20T02:58:42Z— updated 2016-08-05T21:29:01Z
This wasn't a very funny episode. Most of this was straight up, if occasionally lighthearted, drama. There is something unbelievably sad about seeing someone be both self-destructive and hurtful to the people they care about in the choices they make. From the second BoJack took Penny on a driving lesson, I was convinced they would hook up. It's kind of how television works and he already sort of pulled this trick with Sabrina from Horsin' Around.
But the show convinced me that's not where they were going, and then yes and no and yes and no that by the end of it, I was not only convinced that BoJack and Penny weren't going to hook up, but I was actually proud of BoJack for turning Penny down, not only when he was still fairly right-minded and knew she was feeling weak after the prom, but then again after he was feeling down and vulnerable after being told to leave by Charlotte.
But that just made the finish, where Charlotte finds them about to go at it, all the more horrible and disappointing. The last five minutes or so of the episode, where BoJack and Charlotte seem so close and he seems so happy, transitioning to Charlotte's inevitable realization that it's not good for him to be there, on to the terrible betrayal of finding him in bed with her daughter, was powerful and dark and--to use a word I keep coming back to when talking about this show--devastating.
It's devastating to watch someone burn their own life, their own chances for happiness down. BoJack was never going to get back together with Charlotte. She's right to point out that she doesn't know him anymore, and that BoJack's idealized something as a salvation. She's also right that he's trying to run away from deeper problems when his real issues are internal. But he could have had support. He could have had friendship. He could have had the real connections with other people, albeit platonic ones, that help make a person feel loved and whole. Instead, he not only couldn't sustain that, but he had to sabotage any chance of that with Charlotte and her family, hurt a friend who's shown him nothing but kindness, and try to exorcise the demons of his past with a young woman whom, he admits in his more clear-headed moments, doesn't know what she wants.
It's not comedy. It doesn't have to be. To be frank, a lot of the comedy doesn't really work in this episode. The jokes about Trip's boner are pretty lame. Kyle is basically a non-entity. The sitcom-esque intro to Charlotte's life was just kind of there; the high school drama element is fairly cliche, and really only Maddie's delivery of the word "society" gave me a chuckle. But the character work, and the dramatic elements in the episode's close really carried the day. It's not the last minute gut-punch of my favorite Futurama episodes; it's a core of sadness that runs through BoJack and eventually dissolves into wherever he is and whatever he touches.
It's sad. It's really sad. And the episode's final moment that juxtaposes him with an equally sad Dianne isn't promising for BoJack not making any further bad decisions. But it's still damn good.