"I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain"
'A Horse With No Name' - America
This show is definitely not for children, viewer discretion is completely advised.
Bojack Horseman is possibly the best thing which is on Netflix right now, my first impressions of this show from it's first season were dreadful, it's first few episodes you're really unsure where the whole thing is going, it revolves around Bojack Horseman, a washed up former 90's sitcom star, having done nothing for 18 years wanting to publish his memoirs in a attempt to 'make people love him again'.
The first handful of episodes give you the impression that it's just going to be a series of 'wacky misadventure' in a mostly 'real' world, with anthropomorphic animals with humans mixed together.
But if you sit through the weak starting few episodes, Bojack starts becoming something else, something much more deep and profound, it's horrifically dark but it can pierce a stark reality into you.
Putting aside that there's a whole episode in that Bojack steals the 'D' from the Hollywood sign in a jealous drunken fit (which is never replaced so people call the place Hollywoo from there on), and the fact there is always a B or C plot with a silly premise.
Bojack puts a harsh spotlight onto depression, the pursuit for fame, someone on a harsh self destructive cycle who always seems to sabotage himself through his own actions, as well as hard hitting satire as a reflection on the real world of celebrity, how our parents upbringing reflects on our own upbringing, the fragile yet profound nature of ourselves.
In a cartoon featuring a 'funny horse'
This cartoon with a 'funny horse' made me cry.
Season 4 launched just last week and I watched it entirely in a day, Bojack benefits from a constant watch from the first to the last, some things are setup very early on and paid off much much later.
S4 EP2 opens with Bojack, wanting to exile himself, driving in no direction, 'A Horse With No Name' starts playing, a beautiful cover of the America song, before he ends up at his parents summerhouse, we see flashbacks to much earlier in his parents life and just how screwed up it was.
S4 EP6 is titled 'Stupid Piece Of Sh*t', it features Bojacks internal monologue, his thoughts and his reflections on himself, this seriously resounded with me, because it sounded like -me-, my own voice in my own head, telling me I'm a worthless piece of garbage, it felt so goddamn real.
S4 EP11 is possibly the most tense and heartbreaking episode of anything I've watched, I don't want to go into details but 'One day this will all be a pleasant memory'
I don't want to explain much out of everything of this series, it's multilayered, for every silly stupid thing it shows, it has such a deeper and serious insight and it makes this a show worth watching.
Adult oriented cartoons tend just to be crass and deplorable, bad people doing bad things for no reason, Rick And Morty is a example of this, but Bojack Horseman has bad people doing bad things but they sure as hell make sure you feel it, there's always a consequence, there is always a reaction.
Bojack doesn't get away without pain, he's the hero, you want him to win, but he causes his own pain and we learn from that, Mr Horseman is possibly the most human of us all.
