'BoJack Horseman' Review: Season 4 Is Brilliant and Silly, But Inconsistent

“You’re the biggest a–hole I know, and you’re the only one that makes sense to me,” someone confides during the fourth season of “BoJack Horseman.” And that sums up how I feel about the show: It can be a mess, but it makes sense to me.

“BoJack” has always been two shows in one: a darkly comic look at a washed-up ’90s sitcom star who also happens to be a talking horse, and a delivery system for bad puns like Keith Olbermann voicing a whale news anchor on “MSNBSEA.”

The fourth season of “BoJack Horseman,” which premiers Sept. 8, isn’t the show’s strongest. But its mix of Hollywood commentary, puns and absurdity are thankfully intact. And it still delivers surprisingly ambitious moments that can be both surreal and affecting.

Also Read: BoJack Horseman Is Still Missing in First Trailer for Season 4 (Video)

The season opens with BoJack (Will Arnett) conspicuously absent, and it plays like a collection of throwaway B-plots from past seasons. BoJack’s friend and rival Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) has decided to run for Governor, and BoJack’s ability to rein in his crazy whims with surly cynicism is sorely missed.

But the season’s second episode brilliantly combines the beautiful and bleak with the subversive and silly. It picks up where the previous season left off, with BoJack leaving behind his life in Los Angeles.

He visits his run-down familial home in Michigan, and the show treats us to a flashback of his grandmother as a child, coping with the loss of her brother in World War II. Both stories appear side-by-side, so we can see the characters even though they can’t see each other.

It’s the start to a heart-wrenching season-long story about BoJack meeting his estranged daughter, Hollyhock. Together they set out to look for her biological mother, and BoJack begrudgingly reconnects with his own mother (Wendie Malick).

One standout episode finds Arnett doing some of his best voice work yet, delivering BoJack’s internal monologue throughout the episode. “You’re a piece of s—,” the episode opens. We see how BoJack thinks one way and acts another, except in one cruel moment when he throws a baby doll his sick mother was nursing over a balcony, to get back at her for years of neglect.

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Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg has a gift for slipping political observations into absurd sitcom premises. In the fifth episode, Diane (Alison Brie) discovers that holding a gun makes her feel as safe as a man. (We also get a look at the clickbait headline on her blog, including “These soups will enrage you,” “Sixty-Nine Days of 69’ing” and “I used sex lube as lip gloss.”) The episode’s payoff offers provocative ideas about American values.

While the focus on Diane is welcome, the show can meander when it focuses on supporting characters. Season 4 carves out whole episodes for Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris), BoJack’s manager and former lover, and Todd (Aaron Paul), his lovable, slacker friend.

Princess Carolyn spends much of the season desperate to get pregnant. In one episode she wears a watch that tells her when she’s ovulating, and only “BoJack Horseman” would think to have that watch be voiced by Harvey Fierstein. Or conceive of puns built around the word “miscarriage.”

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Todd has always felt like the best character with no reason to be on the show. This season, his pea-brained business idea is to dress dentists up as clowns… or clowns up as dentists. It’s zany fun, but is hit or miss.

If “BoJack Horseman” were just the sum of its non-sequiturs, it could still be a cult hit. There’s a female-fronted reboot of “Taken” called “Ms. Taken.” It has bits of wisdom like, “Life is like the second season of ‘Friday Night Lights.’ You have to plow forward and hope there’s good stuff ahead.”

This caliber of gleefully dumb writing is rare, and the show’s moments of greatness are worth its inconsistencies.

Who Are All These People In 'BoJack Horseman'? (Photos)

While much of the Netflix spotlight has been dominated by "House of Cards" and "Making a Murderer," "Bojack Horseman" has become one of the most surprising hits of the streaming era. On the surface, it's an absurdist parody of Hollywood and showbiz politics, where human and furries live, work and have sex with each other. But it has also become an uncomfortably realistic depiction of depression and self-destructive behavior, told through the eyes of a millionaire star who doesn't know what would make him happy.

Netflix
That star is the titular BoJack Horseman, once the star of an awful but wildly popular sitcom called "Horsin' Around." Since his hey (or hay?) day passed, BoJack has jumped from vice to vice, including sleeping with the actress who played his daughter. He's desperately searching for something that will make him feel fulfilled, but nothing sticks. All the while, he destroys what few relationships he has with his behavior.
Netflix
In Season 1, BoJack releases a memoir that reveals the dark side his fans haven't seen. The book earns him adulation, but BoJack still isn't satisfied because the public isn't embracing the image he wants them to have. In Season 2, he lands a role as the champion racehorse Secretariat, but due to his unreliable nature and his inability to do dramatic acting thanks to years of sitcom work, most of BoJack's work is replaced with a CGI version of himself.
Netflix
Nonetheless, critics are fooled into thinking the computerized BoJack's acting is done by the real thing. In Season 3, BoJack becomes a top contender at the Oscars, but struggles to deal with the awards circuit as his downward spiral continues.
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Opposite BoJack is Mr. Peanutbutter, a golden retriever who got famous by doing a sitcom that was a blatant ripoff of "Horsin' Around." In Season 1, it seems like Mr. PB has everything Bojack doesn't. He's happy, loved by all, and has a positive outlook on life. But in Season 2, the dog's glowing image that BoJack so bitterly resents gets chipped away.
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As BoJack remains stuck in depression despite a huge career rebound, Mr. PB tries to stay positive as he falls into bankruptcy after following one stupid business idea after another. Those who live with him on a day-to-day basis find his happy-go-lucky personality grating and insensitive, and his marriage is going through a tough period.
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Mr. Peanutbutter's wife is Diane Nguyen, a human writer who ghostwrites BoJack's memoir. She is by far the most patient and mature character, which allows her to put up with BoJack's irascible attitude and PB's ditzy behavior. Still, she struggles to turn her desires for social activism into meaningful good.
Netflix
While she truly loves Mr. Peanutbutter, Diane spends Season 2 feeling troubled that her marriage is locking her into a cycle of routine that is preventing her from doing something meaningful with her life. Mr. PB, being a happy dopey dog, doesn't seem to get this, causing them to spend some time apart, until they realize that whatever problems they may have they are still happiest when they are together.
Netflix
While Diane is a friendly, gentle figure in BoJack's life, his ex-girlfriend/agent Princess Carolyn is a tough kitty. She puts her entire life into her work and has become one of the hardest working agents in Hollywoo, but wonders if there's more to life outside the office that she's missing. This leads her to impulsively start relationships that never work out.
Netflix
Take for example, her decision to finally leave her agency and start one of her own with the rabbit Rutabaga Rabbinowitz. In the Season 2 finale, Carolyn discovers that the rabbit had lied to her about divorcing his wife, and that he had been using her as a disposable interest and a tool to advance his own career. Furious, Carolyn fires Rutabaga on the spot, leading into Season 3 as she tries to run an entire talent agency on her own.
Netflix
Finally, there's Todd Chavez, BoJack's slacker roommate. Despite being a lazy bum, he proves to have many talents over the course of the series, including entrepreneurial skills, songwriting and TV production. Unfortunately, every cool idea he comes up with always ends in disaster, often due to his sudden bouts of stupidity. As the series goes on, he begins to wonder if he really is as worthless as the world tells him he is.
Netflix
While Carolyn, Diane and even Mr. Peanutbutter have reached a breaking point with BoJack and called him out for being a colossal jerk, Todd remains his closest friend. He puts up with BoJack's insults and constant demands to "clean up your s--t," and deep down BoJack knows that he can't bear hanging around his mansion without him. Will BoJack finally cause Todd to hit his breaking point in Season 3?
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Netflix’s adult animated sitcom features a horse person and a dog person. It also features one of TV’s most realistic takes on depression

While much of the Netflix spotlight has been dominated by "House of Cards" and "Making a Murderer," "Bojack Horseman" has become one of the most surprising hits of the streaming era. On the surface, it's an absurdist parody of Hollywood and showbiz politics, where human and furries live, work and have sex with each other. But it has also become an uncomfortably realistic depiction of depression and self-destructive behavior, told through the eyes of a millionaire star who doesn't know what would make him happy.

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Who Are All These People In 'BoJack Horseman'? (Photos)

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