Watching Bojack Horseman: Season 2

I have to start off by saying this show is great. As my person would say it has some of the best showing of what it is to have depression on television. Season 2 of Bojack Horseman was fantastic to watch.

This season reached some great highs and some heartbreaking lows. Happiness is an inside job and Bojack struggles to find it and does in spurts, but never for long. That’s how depression goes sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard to change a mindset that you’ve held on to for years.

The very first episode was the hardest for me to watch.

Nothing gets to me like sucky parents and the closest I’ve gotten to crying because of this show has been seeing how awful Bojack’s parents were to him. Made him feel like his existence was inherently wrong and bad and it’s no wonder he’s grown up not truly being able to find happiness, because he’d never found a good way of healing all that pain. He gave himself to alcohol and bad decisions. He’s found great success in life, but still feels like nothing will ever be good enough. It can’t be not when he can’t find the good in himself.

Bojack finally lands his dream role of Secretariat. Yet at first his want to change his attitude makes him not as suitable for the role. All along Bojack had a lot of similarity to Secretariat’s essence even if that really is a sad truth. Yet even when he’d preform at the core of who Secretariat would be, they decided to make a completely different movie, all the grit removed. Hell they didn’t even use a single bit of Bojack’s acting in the final movie, just a cgi version of him.

Yet, somehow this very different movie that has nothing to really do with Secretariat turns out ok. Yet, it says nothing of Bojack or Secretariat and I don’t really know if I’d be ok with that if I were in Bojack’s shoes.

Another huge part of season 2 of bojack is JD Salinger’s show having Mr. Peanutbutter hosting. Bojack becomes a celebrity on the first episode and shit hits the fan. It becomes about humiliating Bojack until Princess Caroline tells Bojack about Mr. Peanutbutter’s tell. That episode is one of my favorites. It gets into so many difficult topics and realities of human reaction. Bojack gets petty and makes some sucky decisions and it is what it is.

Not to mention that Bojack’s girlfriend Wanda is a very important part of season 2. She makes Bojack happy for a while, but with his focus often elsewhere it isn’t enough and his depression wins out. Wanda is a positive being. She lifts Bojack up, but Bojack doesn’t want to be lifted not really. He may have loved her for a while, but in the end he breaks her heart and instead of chasing after her he chases his past and again only finds a temporary kind of happiness.

One of the most interesting things to watch was the dynamic between Bojack and Diane. Diane was supposed to go off to Cordovia for 6 months and she does, but then she realizes that Sebastian St. Clair is full of shit and she really isn’t doing anything to help anyone so she heads home. Yet, instead of going home she stays at Bojack’s house and lies to her husband for months that she’s still in Cordovia. Yet all the while she lays around drinking with Bojack and he lets her stay there.

This of course creates tension between himself and Wanda. Wanda certainly doesn’t want her boyfriend sitting on his ass wasting away with someone he’d had love for, for hours on end. It’s then she realizes she never really knew Bojack and everything between them falls apart.

Yet I have to say my favorite high of the show was for Princess Caroline. She enters a relationship with Rutabaga and they want to have a company together. Since Rutabaga puts the company in her name when things go bad for the two of them when Rutabaga shows he’s playing around and doesn’t truly respect Caroline she gives him the finger and keeps the company for herself. I have mad respect for Caroline. She’s amazing. Love seeing such a strong feminine feline in this show.

On a whole, season 2 was amazing to watch. It had great funny moments. It showed some real friendship. It had some wonderful jokes. Some real lows. A lot of difficult subjects to delve into. It’s a masterpiece. Every single character is three dimensional and real. You care for everyone no matter how flawed. People don’t always chose the “right” thing and this show gets that and isn’t afraid to show things for what they are.

There is so much detail that goes into the art and you can screenshot any point and you could see just how much was going on. It’s so good at showing hard truths. Yet it isn’t a hopeless show. Bojack wants to be better and it shows him working on himself, but finding his inner happiness and strength seems like it may be a long battle.

One of my favorite conversations was him talking to Mr. Peanutbutter:

Mr. Peanutbutter has something that Bojack doesn’t, a feeling of self-worth and the confidence that goes with that. Nothing seems good to Bojack because he hasn’t found that yet. It’s such a powerful conversation in the show. It was incredibly well done.

I’m excited to continue on and watch season three. It’s going to be incredible. Bojack’s journey is a hard one and I want to watch it to the very end.

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING! Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below! 

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Watching Atypical: Seasons 1 and 2

Over my short self-imposed celebration break. I watched this amazing show on Netflix called Atypical.

When I saw the banner for it. I knew I had to give it a shot!

Before I start talking about it, I do have to acknowledge that this is not a perfect representation of the life of someone who is autistic. I’ve read some great reviews that can tell you about some of the things that the show doesn’t get quite right. Here is one from New York Times and another from The Guardian.

I don’t pretend to know all that much about what it means to be autistic. I know that it affects everyone differently, much in the way that anyone can have completely different experiences with the same disability. However, for me watching this funny family drama with so much depth to it was simply an all around great experience for me.

I loved that it was light-hearted, but also very real at the same time. I loved that the biggest problems weren’t surrounding Sam’s condition, but related to the family as a whole. My favorite character by far was Sahid. Sam’s best friend and coworker at techtropolis gave the worst advice (that sometimes worked), was the biggest ladies man on the planet, and did whatever he could to help out his friend no matter what. Half the time the words that came out of his mouth were so ridiculous that I would shake my head and roll my eyes, but then there were other times where you could see how much he genuinely cares for Sam and he became the coolest person in the show for me.

I also really enjoyed the dad in this show. He doesn’t know how to connect with Sam and he wants to. The growing relationship between them was one of my favorite things to watch. In general, I really enjoyed how relationships were portrayed overall. I loved how they were all different and cared about each other in different ways.

Sam and his sister were always fun to watch interact. Sam’s sister clearly looks out for Sam, but she also messes with him and treats him mostly like a brother and sister would treat each other. Actually, I think Sam’s sister was one of the best developed characters. Her storyline was one of the most in depth and changing of all the characters and I really enjoyed watching how she approached the many challenges that she was presented with making her own choices no matter the consequences.

The mom too, made her own choices. Some really bad ones, but they were her own. The show does a really good job at making people human, dealing with internal issues and external conflict.

I must admit, there are some weird plot lines in this show. Sam falling in love with his therapist (who never returns that love) being one of them. That plot line was the one that made me cringe a little, but it made for some of the most dramatic and weird situations so I found it in myself to forgive it. I loved that especially once your into season 2 everyone had their own stories in it. There was more depth then ever in each of the characters. It was so much fun to see.

There are heartwarming moments, and laugh out loud moments, and moments where your heart sinks to the floor. It isn’t perfect by far, but I think it shows that there is an effort being made to go in the right direction. I fell in love with this show. I think many of you might feel the same.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below! What are some of your favorite shows?

-Till next time!