You were born into a family of 7. Everyone in that family hates you. You were bullied in school, and your only role model was on television. You survive your 20s on sheer unbridled optimism and a barista's salary. You meet two people who are just like you, who are passionate and cynical and bright minded. One day, you fall in love with an older man who is nothing like you, but he's kind and extraverted, and it's something you have no frame of reference for. You meet your idol. He's not who you thought he'd be. He's the furthest from it that you could possibly imagine. But you love him. Because he's you. He reminds you of the girl you were growing up. Sometimes he's compassionate towards you. Sometimes your now husband is compassionate towards you. You don't know how to respond in either situation. You try to look for reasons to push them away. Your closest friends love you, and you feel so alone.

You were born the youngest of 12. Your mother loves you, but she needs you a little too much. You grow up obsessed with a film about a girl who flies away, a girl who (for better or for worse) comes of age. So then you decide to fly away. You get a job as a strongly independent intern. But then you meet a man. He's deeply flawed, and the way you take care of him reminds you too much of the girl you were growing up. But you see so much good in him, and you spend your time telling yourself that the good outweighs the bad. He has single handedly got you out of the worst situations you have ever found yourself in. And for all your independence, you crave companionship, in any form. The love that anyone feels for you is forever fleeting. You feel so alone.

You were born into a loving family. You meet a beautiful wife in your 20s, and get the best job ever solely by accident. There is no reality other than this. And why would anyone want one? This is perfect. You try so hard to go back to that first era where you were happy, by surrounding yourself with people who agree with you. Your first wife starts to disagree. You don't understand her decision to go into politics, because there is no reality other than this, and why would anyone want one? You break up with her. You have to keep the illusion going, fill that space asap. Your second wife disagrees with you. You meet your third wife on the day your second wife leaves you. Your third wife cares more about the world outside the bubble you've cultivated than your first wife did. But status quo is god. It worked in your dream job, and it's going to work now. Your third wife leaves you. You feel so alone.

I think this is also a very important element of BoJack Horseman and especially the earlier episodes of the show that people don't really acknowledge as often.

As we all know, BoJack sees life as a sitcom. As a result of this, the show is a deconstruction of the type of show that BoJack loves, and one of the most important rules of a classic sitcom is the idea that Status Quo Is God; no matter what happens in an episode, there will always be a return to equilibrium at the end. As this show isn't a sitcom, however, BoJack has to actively make this happen, instead of it Just Happening as it were.

The first proper example we get of this is in Zoes and Zeldas, where BoJack is faced with the realisation that Todd might actually leave him forever, and he has to do everything in his power including literally hiring an actress to make the status quo remain. The interesting thing about this is that in the episode itself, we (the spectators) are tricked into thinking this works! Because we know what happens in a sitcom, we know what Status Quo Is God is, even on the most implicit level! When I watched this episode with my mum, halfway through she turned to me and said "this episode is sad" because she knew what was coming. Of course she did. Of course Todd wouldn't actually leave BoJack and follow his dreams. Why would he?

It doesn't work, of course. Todd spends the rest of the season becoming more and more emotionally distant with BoJack as soon as he finds out that BoJack betrayed him. Because this isn't a sitcom, and change is possible. Before this happens, however, the show has to first establish that this show has continuity unlike the average sitcom. How does it do this? In Our A Story Is A D Story, there's a one off bit that suddenly establishes the lengths this show will go to for its continuity:

Just like Gravity Falls, this show uses subtle bits in the dialogue like this to show us that change is possible! Side note: me and my mum both thought this bit was SO funny.

First, we see it with Mr Peanutbutter. From the very first episode, BoJack is shown to despise this man. He thinks his entire existence is irritating, he sees him as an overbearing presence, and the only thing PB has actually done to warrant this in any capacity is by being Diane's boyfriend, and even that's a dynamic that manifests itself later on.* Mr Peanutbutter spends season 1 and much of season 2 ignoring this behaviour at best and being completely naive towards it at worst, always treating BoJack with the excited behaviour that you would expect to see from a dog who loves you. And, if you actually think about this, it's completely unrealistic! Because why would he just not care? Even if he did love him unconditionally (which he does, but that deserves to be spoken about separately), SURELY it would get to him? And then Let's Find Out happens, and we see truly and properly for the first time that it Does. It does get to him. He is truly hurt by BoJack's constant berating. Of course he notices. Why wouldn't he take this new opportunity to humiliate him. Doesn't he deserve it? After all these years???

Then, we see it with Todd. BoJack's relationship with Todd at the start of the show is a much more complicated situation, because the show hints at the relationship being toxic straight from episode 4, but essentially, BoJack's view of being a dad is extremely fucking warped based on 1) his parents (unhealthy) and 2) horsin around (unhealthy but in the other direction). In the case of the latter, he also believes that as long as he just uproots everything and rides his boat to the middle of the sea, he can savour their relationship. The grand gesture means more than the day to day. But it doesn't. And unlike with Mr Peanutbutter, Todd is shown as this really getting to him very early on. In Downer Ending, Todd explicitly says to him that, after 5 years of literally LIVING with him, he's officially given up on BoJack being a good person. Lest we forget, this man's first line in the ENTIRE SHOW is "morning, sunshine!" Now, I understand why this might be difficult to recognise, because even though he's much less tolerant at this point in the story, he's still living with him. He still takes it. But then we see more and more Todd pov episodes. BoJack doesn't come to Todd's improv show. BoJack sleeps with Todd's kind of girlfriend. And THAT'S when Todd finally properly flips out. That's when Todd says "fuck". And you can say it was unexpected all you like but it wasn't. It was inevitable.

Both "Let's Find Out" and "It's You" show turning points in both of these relationships, and both of these are for the better. BoJack's relationship with Mr Peanutbutter becomes much more open after this episode, although they still have their bumps in the road. And BoJack and Todd's relationship has taken so many bumps up to this point that they basically have to start an entirely new relationship from scratch, eventually cumulating in Nice While It Lasted, as they have their first genuinely friendly conversation they have in the entire show.

And the thing about both of these relationships is that they stop being sitcom tropes and start being real.

Let me explain. In situations such as this one, it's extremely easy to relate to BoJack. BoJack is introduced to us as a very usual, grouchy, mean sitcom protagonist. That's what we Know coming into it. That's what He knows as we watch him. That's the only thing he knows. He genuinely believes this is charming behaviour. Hell, that's why grumpy x sunshine ships exist in the first place! And this is why it's useful to put ourselves in the shoes of the other parties. So I'm going to leave you all with a few questions to ponder in your own time. How would you feel if your closest friend kept berating you simply for existing? How would you feel if your kind of father kept betraying you and failing to make it up in the small actions he does every day? And finally, when was the last time you shipped a grumpy x sunshine ship and related to the sunshine?

The struggles he goes through throughout this episode are relatively simple. When it comes down to it, he lost his mum recently, and he wants more than anything to talk about it, but he fundamentally doesn't know how. He's so traumatised that he doesn't know how to healthily reach out to people, and this trauma manifests itself in a way that is low stakes enough to be digestible. Sure, this later becomes something much bigger with his conflict with Diane, but fundamentally it represents both how layered he is as a character (he has terrible problems with communication that we largely saw unpacked one episode prior) and how far he still has to go: he doesn't want to improve enough that he can actually tackle this head on.

This episode isn't from Bojack's perspective! It's texturally from Dr Indira's, but on a deeper level this is Diane's journey!!! Diane is the one who has to deal with the consequences of this. Diane is the one who wants to talk to BoJack more than anything, but his trauma is preventing her from doing so. And it's brilliant, because this is exactly where Diane's ideologies lie. At the end of S1, Diane makes a point about how people are fundamentally their actions, and that the deep down doesn't matter.

Also, just think about it. A man who tortures the women he's close to, just because he's horrible and never bothered to think how they would feel? We already have a character like that in the show, who is portrayed as a parodic caricature. But a man who is 100% a product of his upbringing, never thinking of trying to be anything else? A man who, despite this upbringing, still loves his wife and daughter? A man who has such a misguided view on how to support said wife and daughter that he believes that destroying his daughter's possessions and lobotomizing his wife is as thoughtful and helpful as teaching his daughter to stand up for herself against her bullies, and standing up for his daughter against his wife?

A LOT of BoJack's characterisation is based on the fact that he sees life as a sitcom. You can't separate BoJack the show nor BoJack the character from sitcoms. So much of the show is based on deconstructing sitcom tropes, and that BoJack thinks that the sitcom solution will work in his life. Take that episode in season 1 where Diane and PB are getting married: BoJack keeps trying to create increasingly complicated situations to sabotage their marriage because he has a crush on Diane, because that's what would happen in a sitcom. But none of them actually work. Diane and PB get married anyway because, why wouldn't they? And the episode ends with Todd telling BoJack that he should just give up.

The sitcom thing is played for laughs to varying degrees throughout the show, with Escape From LA being one example that is exclusively played for drama. The entire episode is set up like an episode of a 90s sitcom: BoJack is extremely close with Penny and involved in her life, there are characters with quirks and catchphrases, BoJack does his stupid BoJack dance at the dance, BoJack acts as the "cool grown up friend" to all of Penny's friends, the New Mexico leitmotif plays throughout the episode as a scene transition, the bjhm theme song is replaced by an 80s sitcom parody of a theme called "Kyle And The Kids".

But the thing about all of this is that the show isn't a sitcom, and everything I just listed has a real life consequence.