[9.5/10] They got me. They really did. I believed that Saul would do it, that he would find a way to lie, cheat, and steal out of suffering any real consequences for all the pain and losses he is responsible for. I believed that he would trade in Kim's freedom and chance to make a clean break after baring her soul in exchange for a damn pint of ice cream. I have long clocked Better Call Saul as a tragedy, about a man who could have been good, and yet, through both circumstance and choice, lists inexorably toward becoming a terrible, arguably evil person. I thought this would be the final thud of his descent, selling out the one person on this Earth who loved him to feather his own nest.
Maybe Walt was right when he said that Jimmy was "always like this." Maybe Chuck was right that there something inherently corrupt and untrustworthy in the heart of his little brother. This post-Breaking Bad epilogue has been an object lesson in the depths to which Gene Takovic will stoop in order to feed his addiction and get what he wants. There would be no greater affirmation of the completeness of his craven selfishness and cruelty than throwing Kim under the bus to save himself.
Only, in the end, that's the feint, that's the trick, that's the con, on the feds and the audience. When Saul hears that Kim took his words to heart and turned herself in, facing the punishments that come with it, he can't sit idly by and profit from his own lies and bullshit. He doesn't want to sell her out; he wants to fall on the sword in front of her, make sure she knows that he knows what he did wrong.Despite his earlier protestations that his only regret was not making more money or avoiding knee damage, he wants to confess in a court of law that he regrets the choices that led him here and the pain he caused, and most of all he regrets that they led to losing her.
In that final act of showmanship and grace, he lives up to the advice Chuck gives him in the flashback scene here, that if he doesn't like the road that his bad choices have led him, there's no shame in taking a different path. Much as Walt did, at the end of the line, Saul admits his genuine motives, he accepts responsibility for his choices after years of blame and evasion. Most of all, he takes his name back, a conscious return to being the person that Kim once knew, in form and substance. It is late, very late, when it happens, but after so much, Jimmy uses his incredible skills to accept his consequences, rather than sidestep them, and he finds the better path that Kim always believed he could walk, one that she motivates him to tread.
It is a wonderful finale to this all-time great show. I had long believed that this series was a tragedy. It had to be, given where Jimmy started and where the audience knew Saul ended. But as it was always so good at doing, Better Call Saul surprised me, with a measured bit of earned redemption for its protagonist, and moving suggestion that with someone we care for and who cares of us, even the worst of us can become someone and something better. In its final episode, the series offered one more transformation -- from a tale of tragedy, to a story of hope.
(On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews here over the years. There is truly no show that's been as rewarding for me to write about than Better Call Saul, and so much of that owes to the community of people who offered me the time and consideration to share my thoughts, offered their kind words, and helped me look at the series in new ways with their thoughtful comments. I don't know what the future holds, but I am so grateful to have been so fortunate as to share this time and these words with you.)
EDIT: One last time, here is my usual, extended review of the finale in case anyone's interested -- https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-series-finale-recap-saul-gone/
I've watched this series from day one and loved it until season 4. When season 5 started, with their major plot changes, I wanted to quit this show but this episode made me loathe this show to the point where I would literally beat up Martin for giving HBO the rights to change the story line this much. I'm personally disappointed with HBO for killing of such a lovable and adorable character in a way that it wasn't possible. Stannis would NEVER agree to such a thing (and if you remembered in the last episode, he turned down Melissandre without thinking twice). Why did the TV show drop in quality? I was ready to bear the fact that Lady Stoneheart wont be in the show (even tho she has a MAJOR influence in the books) but not this major flaw. Stannis is a weak man, unable to endure the seduction of a witch and the only thing that was able to cancel her manipulation was Shireen. For god's sake Selyse had second thoughts, the woman who hated her daughter more than anyone in the world but Stannis didn't, the man who showed so much love and pride in her daughter.
I'm rating this episode 1 because this is the last episode I will ever watch of Game of Thrones. I was able to survive "The Red Wedding" and Oberyn Martell because I knew this was coming but this... THIS... I'm disgusted.
EDIT: If the actress didn't wanna act in the series any more they (HBO) could have at least killed her via Ramsey Snow's 20 men sneak attack or something. This was utterly revolting. :/
Sarah Lynn has always been a source more of humor than of drama on BoJack Horseman. Sure, there's always been a dark edge to the jokes made about her drug-induced lifestyle and the ways in which she was doomed from a young age, but for the most part, it was part and parcel with the satire of Hollywood and its dark side that stretches throughout this series. And yet, in this episode, that humor is brought down to Earth. It's not that there's no ridiculousness here, but suddenly the show starts taking that part of Sarah Lynn's background seriously.
And the tragedy of it becomes much more clear. Both BoJack and Sarah Lynn have been harmed by this lifestyle, bereft of empathy and only seeking thrills and substances to try to fill that hole in their lives. But the difference is that BoJack came to acting as an adult. Sarah Lynn was forced into it as a child, she never had a choice, and she never had a chance, and that's tragic. That's what makes something truly tragedy -- not just that it's sad, not just that it's unfair, but that it's the horrible result of forces beyond a person's control.
There's a Trainspotting vibe to this episode, a sense in which both BoJack and Sarah are letting go of whatever control they have as they take a feverish jaunt across L.A. and eventually across the country. That leads to the episode feeling somewhat shaggy in places, but it works with the rambling, unfocused, black out experience of the main characters, and so it works. That tack gives the story momentum even when it's rolling all over the place.
That spree takes BoJack (repeatedly) to the door of Ana Spanakopita, where she delivers an assessment of BoJack that is possibly even more harsh than Todd's. When BoJack asks why she abandoned him when he needed her the most, she basically tells him that he is not only unsaveable, but that he brings down anyone who would try to help him. He doesn't quite understand it, but there's a cold truth to those words, especially as they come to fruition in the rest of the episode, as BoJack brings down two young women.
The first of these is Penny. After a frantic, misguided attempt to make amends to all of the people BoJack's hurt (which leads it a hilarious "Dianne is just Asian Daria" routine), BoJack stalks Penny at Oberlin. In the process, he discovers something surprising -- she's just fine. She seems happy; she has friends, and she seems cool and comfortable where she is. That is, until BoJack shows up to mess that up. His presence reminds her of what happened and rattles her in what seemed like a safe environment. As Sarah Lynn points out, she was good until he showed up.
Sarah Lynn doesn't have the same kind of self-awareness about the way in which BoJack brought her down as well. It's hard to say that BoJack is truly the cause of Sarah Lynn's downfall. After all, in the past there were her parents and the other parts of the Hollywood machine that helped turn her into the person she became, and in the present, the very fact that Sarah Lynn was only engaging with sobriety so that she could get a really good high later suggests this would have happened eventually regardless of what BoJack did. (And, true to life, people who relapse often overdose, because their tolerance has diminished but they still consume their drug of choice in the quantities they used to, which overwhelms their systems.) To a degree, there was an inevitability to this.
But BoJack could have been there, could have eased her away from it, could have been a voice of experience and an angel on her shoulder rather than someone who brought her into his desperate race away from his own misery. Instead, BoJack was feeling bad for himself, and had managed to alienate literally everyone else important in his life. So he resorted to his old co-star, the one he was a father figure to, and jumpstarted the process that led to her demise. Maybe this would have happened eventually anyway, but BoJack was there, he hastened it, and took part in it, and managed to lose one of the last people who'd bother speaking to him in the process.
BoJack has his own damage to deal with, and much of it isn't his fault. He has an emptiness and a selfishness that he inherited, both through nature and nurture. The problem is that he prioritizes his own pain over everyone and everything else, and doesn't care about what his means of trying to feel better, or at least feel less, does to anyone close to him. That's what makes Ana's words so vital here -- BoJack really is drowning, he really is thrashing and kicking and trying to keep his head above water. He has legitimate problems, and sometimes he even makes legitimate attempts to fix them, but he's oblivious to those connections to others in this terrifying world, and that's his greatest sin.
So we feel for him when he loses out on that Oscar. It represents something important for him -- a signifier that his life and his work meant something. And we sympathize when he wants to do anything but face reality when that falls apart. But then Sarah Lynn wins an Oscar, and we see how meaningless it is for her. All she can do in that moment is think about what it should mean, what it would have meant to her, before she went down this path. BoJack is a victim, but also a perpetrator. As far as we see, Sarah is just a victim, someone who was poisoned before she even really knew how to read. And BoJack could have done something to stop it, to help it, then and now, but didn't.
Because BoJack just wants to try to anesthetize himself from his own pain, to hold himself back from his own damage. That's why when he looks into the projected stars of the planetarium, he absolves himself. BoJack never accepts blame, never takes the fault. He looks at the vastness of the universe and the eons that pass in a blink when pulled out to that scale, and declares that he need not feel bad for anything he does because nothing he does matters. To put it in Brothers Karamazov terms, anything is permitted. BoJack takes it to the self-serving extreme, to ignore his fractured attempts at making good so that he needn't feel guilt.
There is, however, a catch the nihilist's way out. Try as he might, BoJack still feels a connection to Sarah Lynn. As they sit on that bench together, gazing at the sunset as they've done in the past, he realizes that she is one of the few people equipped to understand him. They may have come to it on different terms, but they've been through the same thing. He cares about her. He may not want to care about anyone. It's easier to justify your own bad actions, to compartmentalize all the terrible things you've done, if you don't care about anyone.
But he does. And Sarah Lynn dies. And he was there for it all.
That's the kicker. Maybe your choices don't matter on a cosmic scale, but they matter on a personal one. You can hurt the people you care about, and no matter how many beers you drink, how many drugs you take, how many false amends you yell into the night, you will still feel that. BoJack will still feel that. All of his attempts to run away from his pain have only caused more pain, for many innocent people whom he's dragged beneath the waves with him, and for himself.
Who knows if Sarah Lynn would ever have become an architect. Maybe she would, as Tony Soprano once put it, ended up selling lawn furniture on Route 9. But maybe she would have been happy. Maybe BoJack could have helped her be happy, made himself happy, or at least avoided letting one more lost soul into his morass of discontent. Instead, a young woman dies, and for all his attempts to avoid his own hurt, to avoid the results of his bad acts, they finally catch up to him, and to those unfortunate enough to be in his wake when that reckoning comes.
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.
[8.1/10] A very nice way to end the season. Let’s take thing story by store.
I loved the Diane-Mr. Peanutbutter story, because (a.) it felt so real and (b.) it really captured the best and the worst of them as a couple. Everything from little arguments in traffic, to nice gestures that don’t quite connect, to big gestures that lead to misunderstandings and emotional realizations. It feels like BoJack had been setting up Diane and Mr. PB to fail as a couple from the beginning, but credit where it’s due, they’ve soft-pedaled their falling apart nicely, to where it feels like the accumulation of a lot of little things, rather than some big blow up. Very well done, and lots of truth to how things seem headed for a split.
I also enjoyed the resolution to Todd’s crazy storyline with the rabid dentist clowns. Turning it into a way to motivate people to run is the sort of zany business idea he would come up with, and turning the fish from the Better Business Bureau into an asexual love interest for him is a nice place to end his arc for the season.
Princess Carolyn has a nice capper to her arc too. Her opening, Draper-esque monologue about how stories were great, but it’s important not to mistake storytelling for real life hits home. And I love the fact that after all her cajoling and manipulating, BoJack is good enough to do the Philbert show just because she tells him that she really needs him for it. It’s a subtle but effective sign of growth for him.
Last, but certainly not least, I love the resolution of the BoJack/Hollyhock saga. The lengths that he was willing to go to in order to help Hollyhock, with no desire for credit or expectation of reward, is such a sincere sign of change and an effort to do right by someone else. They did a great deal in S4 to show BoJack’s change through actions and showing, not just words and telling, and I really appreciate it.
At the same time, it’s great to use the Schindler’s List “done all I could” as a throughline. Seeing how far BoJack is willing to go, and using the same animation style for his “Piece of Shit” internal dialogue to illustrate it is a wonderful way to convey his learning to do and be something more selfless and empathetic than it was before.
His bonding with Hollyhock about the crappiness of honeydew, and the fact that his gesture breaks through is a really sweet moment. And the “but I’ve never had a brother” line, followed by BoJack’s little smile and the music playing over the end is just a perfect, heartwarming bit.
Overall, a nice capper to a stupendous season, full of creative risks, emotional moments, and inventive storytelling. For whatever reason, this show never fully worms it’s way into my heart when it’s not on the air (so to speak) but I always find myself appreciating it and admiring it when I watch it. I might need to go back and revisit earlier episodes more often, because there’s a lot there.
9.5/10. If you'd said to me, "Hey watch this short film that's a cross between Lost in Translation and the opening act of Wall-E," I'm pretty sure I would just look at you funny. And yet that's pretty much what this was, and it worked beautifully. The undersea world BoJack found himself in, where he couldn't eat the food, couldn't engage in his usual vices, and most of all couldn't speak or understand the local dialect, captured the experience of isolation and confusion that can come from visiting a foreign country through a distinctively BoJack lens.
But it also created a great atmosphere for a format-bending episode. Offering a nigh-wordless half hour of comedy in a show that makes its hay from its dialogue could either be gimmicky or bold, and thankfully this episode tended toward the former. It helped to put the viewer in BoJack's shoes -- only able to communicate and express mood through non-verbal cues like gestures, body language, and the score.
And in the absence of dialogue, Bojack Horseman reverts to a certain Looney Tunes-esque vibe where BoJack finds himself inadvertently responsible for an adorable little seahorse moppet. (I had flashbacks to the "Buttons and MIndy"segments of Animaniacs and a dozen other classic cartoons.) The design and personality of the seahorse baby struck the right balance of adorable and mischievous, and it created a nice opportunity for BoJack to be caring, brave, and as always, eternally frustated.
But this being Bojack, of course there's a quiet strain of melancholy through the whole thing. When Bojack returns to the seahorse babe to its father, the dad is mildly grateful, but mostly blase, and the baby doesn't even wave to him when it's time for BoJack to say goodbye. They went through this experience together, through shark attacks and taffy explosions and being stranded, and the moppet is too little to even look up for his soup or appreciate what his equine friend did for him. There's an emptiness there, a sort of existential realization that all that effort, which was quite noble in and of itself, feels a little hollow without someone to share it with or to appreciate it.
So through this experience, BoJack finally finds the words to apologize to Kelsey Jannings, noting that grand acts are nice, but that accomplishments, even ones far more important than winning and Oscar like returning a child to their parent, can seem like building a sandcastle, inevitably fleeting and meant to be washed away with the coming tide. But that those connections between individuals are what sustain us and give us life and reason to go on in a world of sandcastles.
Again, this being BoJack Horseman, those words too are washed away before he can get them to Kelsey in any sort of readable fashion. To add insult to injury, he realizes in the end that he could have talked this whole time, which is the right combination of sad and funny. But overall, this is a wonderful episode that uses some great Warner Bros. silent capering to further the show's project of examining its lead's attempts to find meaning in his life, and finds an inventive way to convey that experience.
7.7/10. Look, John Oliver isn't telling us anything we don't already know here. If anything, this feels closer his Daily Show roots -- a recapitulation of the major news of the day, expression shock and anger and resignation more than adding much additional insight. And yet, it's cathartic coming from Oliver, someone you can tell is legitimately upset by Trump's election as he recaps the path that led to it and discusses the terrible things that might very follow in his wake. This is Oliver being a conduit for the frustrations of half the country (and, I have to imagine, most of the Last Week Tonight audience) rather than an informer, and there's merit in that, especially at a time when the wound is still fresh. Oliver's picking up the party lines, blaming the media for normalizing Trump, pointing to the sequestered lives and fake news that foster the echo chambers which allow candidates like Trump to emerge. But for the most part there's less information than consternation here.
That culminates in the "Fuck 2016" video, a tribute to the ways in which this year has felt particularly harrowing, particularly bizarre, and particularly difficult for so many people. The trademark celebrity appearances are a nice touch (Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly are always a treat, and Weird Al's sidestep of the F-word was a highlight). And that too is a bit of a catharsis, a way to say we hope that things will be better going forward but good riddance to what's behind us. That may feel like too little too late, but it's nice to have Oliver putting a final stamp on this year-long shitshow of an election season, exploding numbers or no.
Quality episode. I have to admit, I've grown a little worn out by Barry. There's nothing wrong with the character, he's just gotten a little played out and they needed to find a different direction for him. I don't know if this was it exactly, and in truth he was mostly up to his old schtick, but he and Archer have a good, funny dynamic that was particularly enjoyable when the two of them were in the cab together. Barry is understandably resentful of Archer, and Archer is kind of oblivious, lightly vindictive in that trademark jocular Archer way, and the clashes between them are usually entertaining because of it.
But the highlight of the episode was Mallory being locked in the underground chamber and finding her way out. Jessica Walter has such a verve in her world weary wit, to where when she's talking about the various steps of escape, it's enjoyable how acerbic she can be (like when she sees the Archer graffiti and realizes in a delightfully cutting fashion that someone blaming this on Archer doesn't narrow down her list of possible assailants much). Plus, it's also nice to see her being a bit of a badass spy herself, whether it's finding her way out of a SAW-like cell, or manhandling a truck driver. (And the Ron Cadillac cameo was great!).
Overall, there was a lot of the fun group dynamic in the A-story with the group trying to find out who Barry's mom is. Krieger in particular got to shine a bit, both from helping Archer with his electrocution plan (I assume Archer knows about the whole Edison thing from his brief time as Bob Belcher watching "Electric Love"), comforting his transgender frog, and the reveal that he has masks and gloves for each member of the former ISIS team. There wasn't as much narrative momentum to go with the laughs--Barry's plan felt more like an excuse to get everyone together than something that really drove the story--but the laughs were good, so the episode largely still worked.
Too bad they skip the subs for all the songs:
触れたら崩壊 仮想の世界
Everything I touch crumbles down in this imaginary world
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
ずっと待ってた 身体甘くして
I've waited for so long that my body became skilled.
月の裏側から
From the other side of the moon
さみしいかみさま
A lonesome God
あたしのこといってんの
Is telling me...
さみしくなんかない
Don't be sad...
さみしいとか考えない
Don't think about sad things...
ねえ きみの生まれた世界は
Hey, there in the world you were born...
きみの過ごしてる味は
What's the flavor your time is spent?
甘い 辛い しょっぱい 苦い
Sweet? Spicy? Salty? Bitter?
それとも 酸っぱいの？
Or is it poisonous?
どれくらいの愛情を
Where is your love?
この世界に向けてんの？
Are you pointing to this world?
影 嘘くさいな
The reflection is unnatural...
仮面舞踏会みたい
Looks like a masquerade party...
ぐるぐるぐるぐる まわる
Going around round round
すぐすぐすぐすぐ空いちゃう
So quickly it is thinning out (Of people)
ぽっかり空いた穴から
Gently disappearing from the hole
甘い 淡い 痛い 溢れる
Sweet Faint Pain is brimming over...
触れたら崩壊 仮想の世界
Everything I touch crumbles down in this imaginary world
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
ずっと待ってた 身体甘くして
I've waited for so long that my body became skilled.
月の裏側から
From the other side of the moon
触れたら崩壊 妄想の果て
Everything I touch crumbles down as this is the end of the illusion
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
ほらみて触れて
Oh look! I'm touching...
何か感じて 本当のアタシを
It feels... Really I'm...
触れたら崩壊 妄想の果て
Everything I touch crumbles down as this is the end of the illusion
何度も創りなおして
How many times have I rebuilt it?
触れた途端に崩れて消える
Right when I touch it, it collapses and disappears.
あたしの中のアタシ
The me from within me.
I 愛 I 愛 I 愛 しりたい
I love I love I love... Want to know.
I 愛 I 愛 I 愛 - あいして
I love I love I love... - I love (as in she loves someone)
I 愛 I 愛 I 愛 アイがなくちゃ
I love I love I love... I lost my love.
この世界は破滅よ
This world is doomed.
--
ゆめみてたのあたし
The me from a dream
天と地の丁度真ん中
Right in between heaven and earth
浮遊する揺るがないあたし
I'm there floating quietly
誰もが羨むんだ
Envying everyone
唯一 絶対的な存在
I'm the only one that exists...
こんにちは
Good afternoon!
こんばんは
Good night!
おはよう
Good morning!
はじめまして ありふれていて
"Hey how is it going?" are a common thing
当たり前でないふれあいを 知りたいの 求めているから
I want you to greet me different than the others
対等の 価値ある何かを ありったけ あたしにだけ
That you give me everything that you have, only to me
運命 奇跡 導きがあって あたしに会えたあなたは幸せ
Fate Miracle Divine guidance... Being able to meet me brought you happiness.
足りないものしかない
There is nothing that suffices
足りないものしかみえない
I can't see nothing that suffices
あたし以外のすべて
With the exception of me
きらめいてみえるのなんで？
Why does everything glow?
楽しいな 楽しいよね
Is it fun? It's fun!
嬉しいな 嬉しいよね
Are you happy? I'm happy!
あなたもそうならみんな同じ 話しましょう
You are like that, just like everyone. Let's talk.
何から話そう
What should be talk about?
ワクワクするね ドキドキするね
You're nervous huh? You're excited huh?
今が一番 幸せ
Right now I'm the happiest...
みんな と出会えて良かった
I'm glad we all met.
あたし ひとりじゃないんだ
I'm not alone.
満たされた願望
The wish I could fulfill...
これが求めてたきもち
This is how it feels to have wished
あたしもみんなと同じ きらめいてみえるはず
I'm just like everyone too... I should see the glow too now...
叶ったはずの夢だ
My wish came true in a dream.
これが求めてた居場所？
Is this where wishes are?
まだあたし以外がすべて
I still see the glow
きらめいてみえるの
in everything else (everything that's not her)
叶ったはずの夢だ
My wish came true, in a dream.
足りないものしかない
There is nothing that suffices
足りないものしかみえない
I can't see nothing that suffices
あたし以外のすべて
Everything that is not me
きらめいてみえる理由
Glows for a reason.
すき、スキ、好き、大好き。
Like, kiss, like, love.
ないものねだりなあたし
I beg for what I don't have
いつから壊れていたんだろ
For the things that have been broken for who knows how long.
ゆめみてたのあたし
The me seen in a dream
ゆめでもみれて嬉しかった
But being able to see it in a dream made me glad.
