So, Goodbye Bojack. And Thank You.

Bojack Horseman, "That's Too Much, Man!"

*CONTENT WARNING: Addiction, depression, and mild spoilers regarding Bojack Horseman.*

I got a phone call from my girlfriend the first time I ever watched Bojack Horseman. It was 2015. She was driving home from something or other and wanted to talk for a few minutes. I didn't even pause the show. It wasn't worth it. It was just a silly cartoon horse that says vulgar shit. I had been looking for my next Futurama or American Dad! when I found the first season of Bojack. I took her call and lowered the volume on the TV.

And then she got hit by a car. The call dropped. I called back, and she answered without actually answering. She didn't realize I was back on the line. Turns out she'd accidentally answered my call getting out of her car. All I could hear was the faint sound of talking, car doors slamming, and the crunching of glass. I so distinctly remember listening to the crunching of glass as I paced my bedroom, a cartoon show playing softly in the background.

She realized I was still on the line when she grabbed her phone from her car seat to call her mom. I got word she was okay and the car was being taken to a shop about 45 minutes later. My anxieties subsided a bit, I laid back down in bed. Bojack Horseman was still on. I turned the volume back up. The comedy show had rolled on to the fifth episode by the time I refocused my attention on it.

And maybe it was my heightened emotions still in control, but I watched the entire episode without laughing. I remember finding it so un-funny, so absurd, so sad. The ending of the fifth episode - a heartfelt conversation about how shitty abusive family can be, even though we still might love them - struck me not at all as funny, but as depressing. And important.

It reeled me in. I watched the next episode. And the next. And the next. I binged the entire first season on Netflix in that one night. (Netflix must have been so proud of me.) And I found myself in tears as the first season's finale played. A cartoon comedy had me crying.

At this point, those of you familiar with Bojack Horseman know all about the shock and confusion I was feeling as I realized the show was much deeper than what I originally thought. But for those of you who aren't as familiar, here's the gist of the show: It's a cartoon show - the style of The Simpsons or Family Guy - about an anthropomorphic (i.e. Mickey Mouse) horse-man, who's a washed up celebrity, and his cohort of friends - a high school dropout named Todd Chavez, his biographer Diane Nyugen, a fellow celebrity and labrador retriever-man Mr. Peanutbutter, and his agent, a pink cat-woman named Princess Carolyn. It is, at face value, an absurd cartoon comedy.

But after the first five episodes, it is so, so much deeper.

Turns out, Bojack Horseman isn't really a comedy whatsoever. It's a drama. More accurately, it's a five-person character study on depression, addiction, and love masquerading as a cartoon comedy. And, as far as I'm concerned, it's might be the best character study since Mad Men. Maybe even beyond?

Now of course, as most everyone reading this blog is familiar, I'm an addict who deals with chronic depression (as well as falling in and out of love, oops); so, maybe the show hits a little too close to home for me. (It absolutely hits too close to home, double oops). But I'd challenge you to find me a single person who's watched all of, or even most of, Bojack who thinks it isn't one of the most profound dramas of modern television. I don't think there are many.

After 77 episodes, the sixth and final season of Bojack concluded earlier this year. No episode was longer than a half hour. The series never wavered from its absurdist take on drama. With almost 90,000 reviews on IMDB and a rating of 8.8, Bojack Horseman is tied for the eighth highest rated full length television series of all time.

While that warrants mentioning, it's not really what I wanted to talk about. I simply wanted to thank the creators, writers, actors, illustrators, and everyone else who played a part in the creation of Bojack, and I wanted to celebrate their amazing achievement by sharing what it meant to me.

I'm writing this tonight because it was a really shitty day, and while a lot has changed in my life since I began watching Bojack five years ago - as in, I've fallen in and out of love half a dozen times, I've traveled the world, I've been sexually assaulted, I've come out of the closet, I've damn near graduated college, I've begun treating my depression, I've gotten sober, I've gotten help - what hasn't changed is that I always come back to Bojack on bad days. 

I don't come back to Bojack himself, per se. Bojack Horseman is a bad person. For too long I saw myself in him. The addict. The asshole. The antihero. For too long I didn't realize he wasn't actually an antihero. He's just a bad person, plain and simple. And bad people change, but that doesn't mean they weren't a bad person who did bad things. I get that. But I've learned not to glorify it. I've learned I'm not just "a Bojack."

I guess the point I'm trying to make is this: for five years, Bojack taught me things about myself. Princess Carolyn, a depressed overworked woman who "compulsively fixes other people because she doesn't know how to fix herself," taught me things about myself. (And my mother's own life.) Diane, a depressed writer who never feels like she's making enough of a change, taught me things. Mr. Peanutbutter, the perennially happy womanizer, who also happens to be (wait for it) depressed, taught me things. And Todd, the wacky goofball who explored his sexuality in a way most series haven't dared, taught me things about myself. ("Clean up your shit, Todd!" should be painted on my wall.)

It's a cynical show. It's a depressing show. It's a show that ripped my heart out over and over again. Some scenes, even though they're cartoon scenes, are so fucking hard to swallow, the show feels unbearable.

And yet, more often than not, the philosophy of the show shines through and enlightens its audience. It was never afraid to explore touchy subjects like rape, addiction, sexism, child abuse, gun violence, death, and generational trauma. In so many ways, it explored all of those topics better than any of its contemporaries. (No, I'm not fucking with you. A cartoon for adults really might be the most empathetic and enlightened show of our times.) Above all else, it showed that depression is multifaceted and corrosive, but at the same time, it's treatable. Depression, addiction, heartbreak, trauma - they aren't the end all, be all. You might never conquer them, but you can face them.

Before Bojack I'd never seen a series that told me that. In the five years I've watched it, I haven't seen anything else tell me that either. And that's why I always come back to it. In therapeutic value, Bojack Horseman stands alone.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, Bojack is wildly funny. It's colorful and smart and funny. It's got to be one of the funniest dramas full stop. (Once again, a pretty good comedy masquerade, if not for the fact that you actually have to watch the show in order because it isn't episodic.) The writers were able to simultaneously create some of the funniest and most gut-wrenching episodes of television I've ever watched. 

(Side note, cause I know you're wondering, the twelve, yeah twelve, best episodes of the series in chronological order are: The Telescope, Downer Ending, Let's Find Out, Escape from L.A., Fish Out of Water, That's Too Much, Man!, The Old Sugarman Place, Time's Arrow, Free Churo, The Showstopper, The View from Halfway Down, and Nice While It Lasted.)

If I could go back to that night when my girlfriend got in a car accident, I would. I'd experience the anxiety all over again, just to rewatch the first season of Bojack Horseman with fresh eyes, just to hear the jokes again for the first time, just to watch as the lives of five cartoon characters play out in the realest of ways. But since I can't go back, I'll take the lessons it taught me forward.

Bojack is over, but I think (and I believe, and I certainly hope) that its achievement will live on: A profound cartoon of singular importance, possibly the greatest character study on what it means to be human.

"Looks like you found some solace in our show. Stay if you like. In thirty minutes, we start over."

-Bojack Horseman, "The Face of Depression."