Shout by Clobby Clobsters
As Cosmonaut Marcus writes, "It was whatever."
- There's no tension in the fights because, of course, they're going to win.
- Falcon with the save! Superheroes are actually saving people; thank you.
- The story: I'm right, discouraged by obstacles, I'm right again; no lesson learned
- Bucky saved some people!
- Do all these ordinary people train or just happen to know karate (the Flag Smashers)?
- And Walker doesn't go for the save.
- Nvm, Walker goes for the save!
- Wow, Sharon is the Power broker; what a relevant revelation. It's nice to know our theorists are right.
- Karli wishes she was Killmonger, huh?
- Falcon: You're right; I don't understand, but you Senators need to start asking "why?"!
- "U.S. Agent"? Ok, sure.
- WoAh, I wonder what AGeNt CArTer is up to?
There are some important messages but no revelations, lessons or challenges. Falcon just hears Bradley say, "don't do it", and does it and does fine, because...? So he had self-doubt, hears more doubt from someone else, but does it anyway?
SCORE 5/10
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@clobby-clobsters 'There's no tension in the fights because, of course, they're going to win.' - I'm sorry but what a ridiculous criticism to make. The protagonists win in most action shows or films. The tension isn't in whether they're going to win, it's in how they're going to win and at what cost.
And you're making this comment about a universe where the heroes lost to a dramatic degree, in a film that released as soon as 2018 (Avengers Infinity War). This is the fictional universe with the smallest guarantee that the heroes will win!
Shout by Clobby Clobsters
As Cosmonaut Marcus writes, "It was whatever."
- There's no tension in the fights because, of course, they're going to win.
- Falcon with the save! Superheroes are actually saving people; thank you.
- The story: I'm right, discouraged by obstacles, I'm right again; no lesson learned
- Bucky saved some people!
- Do all these ordinary people train or just happen to know karate (the Flag Smashers)?
- And Walker doesn't go for the save.
- Nvm, Walker goes for the save!
- Wow, Sharon is the Power broker; what a relevant revelation. It's nice to know our theorists are right.
- Karli wishes she was Killmonger, huh?
- Falcon: You're right; I don't understand, but you Senators need to start asking "why?"!
- "U.S. Agent"? Ok, sure.
- WoAh, I wonder what AGeNt CArTer is up to?
There are some important messages but no revelations, lessons or challenges. Falcon just hears Bradley say, "don't do it", and does it and does fine, because...? So he had self-doubt, hears more doubt from someone else, but does it anyway?
SCORE 5/10
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I'm reading your comment, but all I see is someone trying too hard to find something wrong with the show. Sorry you didn't succeed. The show was awesome. Your nit picky nonsense? Not so much.
Shout by Clobby Clobsters
"As my blood type always says, 'B' positive!"
Todd :)
This episode is so heartwarming! We got happy endings for Todd, Bojack and Hollyhock, Princess Carolyn and, oh, nevermind. But it's mostly positive! Todd's clown-dentist caper got a hilarious resolution with a satisfying pay-off. BoJack's words to Princess Carolyn by the episode's end were exactly what I'd hope to hear. And those last words, man—I've never shed tears of happiness before.
"Where's my random detail that's gonna suddenly make everything make sense?"
That's too meta, man! XD
Anyway, the end of Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter's plotline was sad—Mr. Peanutbutter's words are too authentic. His character just received way more depth, and I'm too sad right now. He just wants to be a good boy! He wants love! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!?!
"So remember, once you're in there, don't stop running."
Todd no!
This one is such a heartwarming and slightly heart-wrenching episode. It gives me all the feels, and I'm so glad I got to experience it. Oh, man, I'm watching Bojack Horseman.
SCORE: 9/10
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@clobby-clobsters You're watching Bojack god damn Horseman.
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[9.8/10] It seems like every season, there’s one episode of BoJack Horseman that just floors me, and this may be the best of them all. More than BoJack’s dream sequence in S1, more than his unforgivable act at the end of S2, more than the even the harrowing end for Sarah Lynn in S3, “Time’s Arrow” is a creative, tightly-written, absolutely devastating episode of television that is the crown jewel of Season 4 and possibly the series.
The inventiveness of the structure alone sets the episode apart. It feels of a piece with the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for finding outside the box ways to communicate the idea of dementia and the brain purging and combining and reconstructing dreams and memories into one barely-comprehensible stew. The way that the episode jumps back and forth through time is a superb way to convey the way this story is jumbled up and hard to keep a foothold on for Beatrice.
And that doesn’t even take into account the other amazing visual ways the show communicates the difficulty and incoherence or what Beatrice is experiencing. The way random people lack features or have scratched out faces, the way her mother is depicted only in silhouette with the outline of that scar, the way the images stop and start or blur together at emotional moments all serve to enhance and deepen the experience.
What’s even more impressive is how “Time’s Arrow” tells a story that begins in Beatrice’s youth and ends in the present day, without ever feeling rushed or full of shortcuts. Every event matters, each is a piece of the whole, from a childhood run-in with scarlet fever to her coming out party to an argument about the maid, that convincingly accounts for how the joyful, smart young girl we meet in the Sugarman home turns into the bitter husk of a woman BoJack is putting in a home. It’s an origin story for Beatrice, and a convincing one, but also one of the parental trauma that has filtered its way down from BoJack’s grandparents all the way down to poor Hollyhock.
And my god, the psychological depth of this one! I rag on the show a decent amount for writing its pop psychology on the screen, but holy cow, the layers and layers of dysfunction and reaction and cause and effect here are just staggering. The impact of Beatrice’s father’s cajoling and her mother’s lobotomy on her development as a woman in a society that tried to force her into a role she didn’t want or necessarily fit is striking in where its tendrils reach throughout her development. The idea of rebelling against that, and the way BoJack’s dad fits into that part of her life is incredible. And the story of growing resentment over the years from a couple who once loved each other, or at least imagined they did and then found the reality different than the fantasy is striking and sad.
But that all pales in comparison in how it all of these events come together to explain Beatrice’s fraught, to say the least, relationship to motherhood and children. The climax of the episode, which intersperses scenes of the purging that happens when Beatrice contracts scarlet fever as a child, her giving birth to BoJack, and her helping her husband’s mistress give birth all add up to this complex, harrowing view of what being a mom, what having a child, amounts to in Beatrice’s eyes.
The baby doll that burns in the fire in her childhood room is an end of innocence, a gripping image that ties into Beatrice’s mother’s grief over Crackerjack’s demise and whether and how it’s acceptable to react to such a trauma. The birth of BoJack, for Beatrice, stands as the event that ruined her life. BoJack is forced to absorb the resentments that stem from Beatrice’s pregnancy being the thing that effectively (and societally) forced her to marry BoJack’s father, sending her into a loveless marriage and a life she doesn’t want all because of one night of rebellion she now bitterly regrets. For her, BoJack is an emblem of the life she never got to lead, and he unfairly suffers her abuses because of it, just like Beatrice suffered her own parents’ abuses.
Then there’s the jaw-dropping revelation that Hollyhock is not BoJack’s daughter, but rather, his sister. As telegraphed as Princess Carolyn’s life falling apart felt, this one caught me completely off-guard and it’s a startling, but powerful revelation that fits everything we know so well and yet completely changes the game. It provides the third prong of this pitchfork, the one where Beatrice is forced to help Henrietta, the woman who slept with her husband, avoid the mistake that she herself made, and in the process, tear a baby away from a mother who desperately wants to hold it. It is the culmination of so many inherited and passed down traumas and abuses, the kindness and cruelty unleashed on so many the same way it was unleashed on her, painted in a harrowing phantasmagoria of events through Beatrice’s life.
And yet, in the end, even though BoJack doesn’t know or understand these things, he cannot simply condemn his mother to suffer even if he’s understandably incapable of making peace with her. Such a horrifying series of images and events ends with an act of kindness. BoJack doesn’t understand the cycle of abuse that his mom is as much a part of as he is, but he has enough decency, enough kindness in him to leave Beatrice wrapped in a happy memory.
Like she asked his father to do, like she asked her six-year-old son to do, BoJack tells her a story. It’s a story of a warm, familiar place, of a loving family, of the simple pleasures of home and youth that began to evaporate the moment her brother didn’t return from the war. It’s BoJack’s strongest, possibly final, gift to his mother, to save her from the hellscape of her own mind and return her to that place of peace and tranquility.
More than ever, we understand the forces that conspired to make BoJack the damaged person he is today. It’s just the latest psychological casualty in a war that’s been unwittingly waged by different people across decades. But for such a difficult episode to watch and confront, it ends on a note of hope, that even with all that’s happened, BoJack has the spark of that young, happy girl who sat in her room and read stories, and gives his mother a small piece of kindness to carry with her. There stands BoJack, an individual often failing but at least trying to be better, and out there is Hollyhock, a sweet young woman, who represent the idea that maybe, just as this cycle was built up bit-by-bit, so too may it be dismantled, until that underlying sweetness is all that’s left.
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@andrewbloom don't know what's better, the episode or your review
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[9.8/10] It seems like every season, there’s one episode of BoJack Horseman that just floors me, and this may be the best of them all. More than BoJack’s dream sequence in S1, more than his unforgivable act at the end of S2, more than the even the harrowing end for Sarah Lynn in S3, “Time’s Arrow” is a creative, tightly-written, absolutely devastating episode of television that is the crown jewel of Season 4 and possibly the series.
The inventiveness of the structure alone sets the episode apart. It feels of a piece with the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for finding outside the box ways to communicate the idea of dementia and the brain purging and combining and reconstructing dreams and memories into one barely-comprehensible stew. The way that the episode jumps back and forth through time is a superb way to convey the way this story is jumbled up and hard to keep a foothold on for Beatrice.
And that doesn’t even take into account the other amazing visual ways the show communicates the difficulty and incoherence or what Beatrice is experiencing. The way random people lack features or have scratched out faces, the way her mother is depicted only in silhouette with the outline of that scar, the way the images stop and start or blur together at emotional moments all serve to enhance and deepen the experience.
What’s even more impressive is how “Time’s Arrow” tells a story that begins in Beatrice’s youth and ends in the present day, without ever feeling rushed or full of shortcuts. Every event matters, each is a piece of the whole, from a childhood run-in with scarlet fever to her coming out party to an argument about the maid, that convincingly accounts for how the joyful, smart young girl we meet in the Sugarman home turns into the bitter husk of a woman BoJack is putting in a home. It’s an origin story for Beatrice, and a convincing one, but also one of the parental trauma that has filtered its way down from BoJack’s grandparents all the way down to poor Hollyhock.
And my god, the psychological depth of this one! I rag on the show a decent amount for writing its pop psychology on the screen, but holy cow, the layers and layers of dysfunction and reaction and cause and effect here are just staggering. The impact of Beatrice’s father’s cajoling and her mother’s lobotomy on her development as a woman in a society that tried to force her into a role she didn’t want or necessarily fit is striking in where its tendrils reach throughout her development. The idea of rebelling against that, and the way BoJack’s dad fits into that part of her life is incredible. And the story of growing resentment over the years from a couple who once loved each other, or at least imagined they did and then found the reality different than the fantasy is striking and sad.
But that all pales in comparison in how it all of these events come together to explain Beatrice’s fraught, to say the least, relationship to motherhood and children. The climax of the episode, which intersperses scenes of the purging that happens when Beatrice contracts scarlet fever as a child, her giving birth to BoJack, and her helping her husband’s mistress give birth all add up to this complex, harrowing view of what being a mom, what having a child, amounts to in Beatrice’s eyes.
The baby doll that burns in the fire in her childhood room is an end of innocence, a gripping image that ties into Beatrice’s mother’s grief over Crackerjack’s demise and whether and how it’s acceptable to react to such a trauma. The birth of BoJack, for Beatrice, stands as the event that ruined her life. BoJack is forced to absorb the resentments that stem from Beatrice’s pregnancy being the thing that effectively (and societally) forced her to marry BoJack’s father, sending her into a loveless marriage and a life she doesn’t want all because of one night of rebellion she now bitterly regrets. For her, BoJack is an emblem of the life she never got to lead, and he unfairly suffers her abuses because of it, just like Beatrice suffered her own parents’ abuses.
Then there’s the jaw-dropping revelation that Hollyhock is not BoJack’s daughter, but rather, his sister. As telegraphed as Princess Carolyn’s life falling apart felt, this one caught me completely off-guard and it’s a startling, but powerful revelation that fits everything we know so well and yet completely changes the game. It provides the third prong of this pitchfork, the one where Beatrice is forced to help Henrietta, the woman who slept with her husband, avoid the mistake that she herself made, and in the process, tear a baby away from a mother who desperately wants to hold it. It is the culmination of so many inherited and passed down traumas and abuses, the kindness and cruelty unleashed on so many the same way it was unleashed on her, painted in a harrowing phantasmagoria of events through Beatrice’s life.
And yet, in the end, even though BoJack doesn’t know or understand these things, he cannot simply condemn his mother to suffer even if he’s understandably incapable of making peace with her. Such a horrifying series of images and events ends with an act of kindness. BoJack doesn’t understand the cycle of abuse that his mom is as much a part of as he is, but he has enough decency, enough kindness in him to leave Beatrice wrapped in a happy memory.
Like she asked his father to do, like she asked her six-year-old son to do, BoJack tells her a story. It’s a story of a warm, familiar place, of a loving family, of the simple pleasures of home and youth that began to evaporate the moment her brother didn’t return from the war. It’s BoJack’s strongest, possibly final, gift to his mother, to save her from the hellscape of her own mind and return her to that place of peace and tranquility.
More than ever, we understand the forces that conspired to make BoJack the damaged person he is today. It’s just the latest psychological casualty in a war that’s been unwittingly waged by different people across decades. But for such a difficult episode to watch and confront, it ends on a note of hope, that even with all that’s happened, BoJack has the spark of that young, happy girl who sat in her room and read stories, and gives his mother a small piece of kindness to carry with her. There stands BoJack, an individual often failing but at least trying to be better, and out there is Hollyhock, a sweet young woman, who represent the idea that maybe, just as this cycle was built up bit-by-bit, so too may it be dismantled, until that underlying sweetness is all that’s left.
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@andrewbloom agreed. Don’t always agree with your reviews but hugely appreciate them and the thought you put in. I’m beginning to agree more and more as well.
THAT TOOK A DARK TURN.
This episode isn't very PG. I mean, people get decapitated! Including David!
But it was fun, endearing and gave some excellent development for David, who we've only seen so much of this season. I'm glad the writer's dedicated this and the last episode to Frida and David, allowing them a chance to shine. It's nice. I also loved the adventure outside the wall. I don't know about the episode ending with Vikings killing and bringing themselves again and again. This episode was the darkest one yet!
TECHNICAL & ENJOYMENT SCORE: 8/10
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@clobby-clobsters Thank you for the warning !
I usually watch this with my 4 year old, and it has really help with him not being so afraid of "monsters" at night, but yeah having arms chopped off, that one guy literally get cleft in two, and David get decapitated twice was not a cool move in that regards.
Review by Clobby Clobsters
NOW THAT WAS AN EPIC MID-SEASON EPISODE!
Ahlberg's back at it again, with a devious scheme to install an automated bell system all over Trolberg. But in doing so, every creature—woffs, elves, nisse and trolls—are struggling to live in peace. So Hilda and the gang set out on a daring mission to shut it down, once and for all!
This episode had a fun operation that brings together Hilda, Frida, David, Alfur, Tontu and the lost clan! But not only that, we learn more about the bell keeper. We get a little glimpse into his psyche and what's made him so bitter after all these years. After he saves Hilda's life, he convinced me he was someone we could trust. I loved seeing that character's growth and Hilda unite a group of her friends to come together to stop a common enemy: Ahlberg.
Bartell Bragga, the leader of the lost clan, has a few fun little gags, involving Alfur and combat!
Bartell: "We've declared war on the bell tower. We'll take it down brick by brick. Or die trying!"
It's just all-round fun, epic and satisfying to see Ahlberg crushed by one of the bells he had installed, much like Ernesto de la Cruz from Coco. Except Ahlberg doesn't die.
David: "The pigeons are in the coop. Bartell and Agnes look ready for battle. Alfur... not so much. Over."
It's vast in scope, fun and gathers a large cast to fight for the wilderness' creatures. That twist at the end is very menacing. I also hope Hilda gives Johanna more attention in future episodes; she seems worried all the time.
TECHNICAL & ENJOYMENT SCORE: 8/10
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@clobby-clobsters How many of these have you watched in a row?
Chapter 2: The Draugen was very wholesome. I loved seeing Wood Man again!
TECHNICAL SCORE: 7/10
ENJOYMENT SCORE: 8/10loading replies
@clobby-clobsters They've updated it all now.
POOR MYTHROL!
Another fun episode following Mando and the Child back to Nevarro. I've got to say: I like how Nevarro has changed. Not only has Cara Dune cleaned up the town, but they've established a school in place of the cantina! How awesome is that?
Baby Yoda's (the Child) shenanigans were fun. First Mando gets him to help rewire the ship (I'm surprised he didn't die from the electric shock) and later steals some macaroons from a kid at school. Just all-round hilariously cute!
This episode also gave us some insight into Moff Gideon's plans. He's got some weird science experiments going on and when Doctor Pershing says "M-count", I'm guessing he was talking about Midichlorians. I mean, they're stealing midi-chlorians from Baby Yoda and injecting them into other people?. Is Moff Gideon trying to make force-sensitive super-soldiers?
My only complaint about this episode would be the conflict. Although the episode delivers a crap ton of new mysteries, our heroes kill stormtroopers way too easily, with the sense that there wasn't any tension and I never felt they were in any peril.
Overall, it's a fun episode, with new mysteries that I can't wait to find the answers to in future episodes. Also, I haven't forgotten about Ahsoka! PLEASE, SHOW ME AHSOKA!
IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK ON NEVARRO.
TECHNICAL SCORE: 7/10
ENJOYMENT SCORE: 8/10loading replies
@clobby-clobsters Probably, they're Palpatine's clones featured in Episode IX.
POOR MYTHROL!
Another fun episode following Mando and the Child back to Nevarro. I've got to say: I like how Nevarro has changed. Not only has Cara Dune cleaned up the town, but they've established a school in place of the cantina! How awesome is that?
Baby Yoda's (the Child) shenanigans were fun. First Mando gets him to help rewire the ship (I'm surprised he didn't die from the electric shock) and later steals some macaroons from a kid at school. Just all-round hilariously cute!
This episode also gave us some insight into Moff Gideon's plans. He's got some weird science experiments going on and when Doctor Pershing says "M-count", I'm guessing he was talking about Midichlorians. I mean, they're stealing midi-chlorians from Baby Yoda and injecting them into other people?. Is Moff Gideon trying to make force-sensitive super-soldiers?
My only complaint about this episode would be the conflict. Although the episode delivers a crap ton of new mysteries, our heroes kill stormtroopers way too easily, with the sense that there wasn't any tension and I never felt they were in any peril.
Overall, it's a fun episode, with new mysteries that I can't wait to find the answers to in future episodes. Also, I haven't forgotten about Ahsoka! PLEASE, SHOW ME AHSOKA!
IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK ON NEVARRO.
TECHNICAL SCORE: 7/10
ENJOYMENT SCORE: 8/10loading replies
@clobby-clobsters Perhaps the Proto First Order is using the midichlorians to create Snoke? I remember having that theory after episode 1 of the series and this episode seemed to support that. Seemed like in the tank were possibly failed clones.
What the fuck is this garbage? I'm almost halfway through the second season and half the show so far has been centered around romantic dramas and politics/courtroom dramas—what am I watching? Fucking Suits? Banal, drawn out storylines, deus ex machinas; this show is not even half as good as Avatar.
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@clobsters I'm halfway through season 3, and you're correct; it does get better, but it's still nowhere as good as Avatar, sadly. To be fair, very few shows are as good as AtLA, it's just disappointing that a show from the same team can be that far off quality-wise.
Shout by Clobby Clobsters
Let's go Todd!
It was nice to see somebody looking out for BoJack when he was starting out (and I saw a little bit of Seinfeld there). It's a shame that guy had cancer and six months left to live. That's so sad. And Todd, let's go. Now BoJack is looking out for Todd, and he's actually gotten to know him. Now they're better friends. It's a shame to see what that video game did to him though. And I know someone who's been like that before.
It was kind of creepy to see Wayne stalking Diane and Mr Peanutbutter was hilarious this episode. I'm still unsure of what happened in the last bit. I guess we'll see how it pays off.
This is better. Much better.
7/10
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@clobsters Something to interest you that you may have missed at the end of the episode - the video game was sabotage. Bojack bought the game for $80 (hence returning it to a different store), then hired Character Actress Margo Martindale to trick Todd into buying the game . Watch the end of this episode again, and you'll see.
