The writing on BoJackHorseman has been great since the beginning, but season five really outdid itself on scales large and small
Photo-Illustration: Maya Robinson/Vulture and Photo by Netflix Well-written television shows are, by nature, smart television shows. They’re the kind of dramas and comedies that are meticulously planned but nevertheless take audiences by surprise, because our brains are always at least a half-step behind their narratives. They are filled with clever dialogue and details that speak to bigger themes without announcing those themes in flashing neon lights.
There’s “The Dog Days Are Over,” which follows Diane , BoJack’s closest friend, on a trip to Vietnam that’s supposed to reconnect her with her roots but only makes her feel more isolated. And there’s “The Amelia Earhart Story,” which flashes back to the teen years of Princess Carolyn , BoJack’s agent, and illustrates how her experience with an unplanned pregnancy shaped the woman she would become. There’s “INT.
The message Diane conveys to BoJack about accountability sounds as relevant now, as the Jeffrey Epstein case is unfolding, as it did in the immediate weeks after the first stories about Harvey Weinstein broke. What’s remarkable about this season of BoJack Horseman is that the writers began working on it in 2017, before the stories about Weinstein’s transgressions were published.
What’s especially remarkable about the episode is its format, which is structured as a listicle that Diane is writing for Girl Croosh but glides back and forth between her experiences in Vietnam and flashbacks to the events that led to her meltdown and decision to take the trip.
In the episode, Vance Waggoner, a blatant Mel Gibson stand-in voiced by Bobby Cannavale, is in the process of making a comeback, in a role opposite BoJack on Philbert. After BoJack speaks out about his casting, he inadvertently becomes an outspoken male feminist and believes he can ride that wave of celebrity activism.
“Free Churro” .youtube[data-uri="www.vulture.com/_components/youtube/instances/cjya863eu004r3a6622p4xiu7@published"].border-top:before { content: 'Watch'; } “Free Churro” is the “I rest my case” in the argument for BoJack Horseman as the best written show on TV. “When it got canceled, I was really bummed out,” BoJack says of Becker. “Not because I liked the show, but because I knew it could be so much better and now it never would be. That’s what losing a parent is like. It’s like Becker. Suddenly you realize you’ll never have the good relationship you wanted, and as long as they were alive, even though you’d never admit it, the stupidest goddamn part of yourself was still holding on to that chance.
Amazon’s Homecoming, based on the Gimlet podcast by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg, certainly distinguished itself as a visual spectacle. But creator Sam Esmail also translated a largely prose-based audio narrative into a narrative that would work for television, taking the story of a shady military hospital into unexpected directions.
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