#rewatching bj

i’m planning to do two episodes each day

In 3x10, we witness Todd’s famous speech “It’s you”, in which, after being disappointed several times by Bojack, he finally breaks down and makes him face the ugly truth: Bojack is all the things that is wrong with Bojack. And not the alcohol, or the drugs, or whatever happened to him as a kid. This is the moment where the two stop having a friendly relationship, and for the longest part of season 4, the ‘status quo’, if we can talk about a status quo in this show as if it was The Simpsons, will not be restored.

The first moment in which Bojack disappoints Todd appears very early in season one, the sabotage of his rock opera. The second moment is when he fails at supporting Todd in the improvisation cult, not showing up to his initiation when he expressly asks Bojack to.

Finally, when Bojack sleeps with Emily in season 3. Last year I talked about how this only shows Todd that his friend will not just fix his behaviour. He will not change for himself or for anyone else. He will not stop to think if someone important is being hurt or risking their job: if he has the chance to sleep with someone, or to go on a bender, or to break into someone else’s life just because he thinks that’s what he needs to get another chance at life or to be redeemed for his mistakes, he will do it. Bojack is a selfish person, always been, probably always will be.

What does this departure mean for Todd? Well, at the beginning of season 4 we see him living at Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane’s. He spends a good part of the first episode doing typical Todd shenanigans: Emily buys him a drone throne, he flies around California, is democratically named governor, then immediately abdicates.

The change we see between 4x01 and 4x03 is subtle, but clear: in the first episode, he declares that he doesn’t feel comfortable with labels, in response to having started to think that he could be asexual. Emily brings up this word (I think for the first time in the series but I could be wrong) and he suddenly gets defensive, stating that it doesn’t necessarily describe him. Two episodes later, approximately a year has passed, and we see a Todd who’s more comfortable with that identity, finally going to a meet up for asexual and aromantic people.

Besides that one meaningful shot, this episode would pass as typical for Todd. Yes, something happened, he reaches to a new group of people and tries to find his own identity (and he confirms that despite Bojack’s return, he still considers him selfish and doesn’t want to be friends again), but this doesn’t necessarily mean a structural change to his character, to his function as part of a larger story, which is the one the show is trying to tell us. That would be the case, if it wasn’t for the very last scene.

A Musician Lion (I googled, that’s his official name) opens the episode talking to a group of people about how wonderful this guy is, how he’s always giving and making other people lives better, without expecting a reward. And maybe what he actually does, from Todd’s own point of view, is very minimal, because it takes no effort from him, or rather, he enjoys doing whatever he does in every situation, this represented by his supposedly great performance being only a single note on the triangle. Musician Lion almost wishes that for one day, he didn’t show up to play that one note and puts his own wishes first, becase no one “should be asked to give that much”.