What's up Wisecrack. Welcome to The Good, The Bad & The Brilliant. The show where we break down the TV shows,
movies and video games that we're really excited about. This time we are going to be talking about
the final season of BoJack Horseman. This season gives us answers to big questions
like, will Birthday Dad be a hit? Will Diane ever become the writer she wants
to be? And will BoJack just be okay? I'm Michael and joining me today is animator
and comedian, Sean Godsey. Hello everyone. Now before we get into it, let it be said,
we are going to spoil the entire last season of BoJack Horseman and the series as a whole. So if you have not seen the show yet, maybe
hit pause, go binge it and come back. I promise it'll make a lot more sense. But now that we've gotten that out of the
way, we can get started. We know where we got to start. You're the guest of honor so you can get it
going. We got to talk about what's good. So Sean, what do you think is good about the
final season of BoJack Horseman? I would say the Diane character. Usually Diane is not one of my favorite main
characters, but this season I really thought she was great. I thought she was very relatable. I don't know, her story seemed very real. That she's this writer who can't write, and
she finds happiness in writing this kid's book. Which is like completely against her character. Yeah. I think like Diane's always been one of my
favorite characters. I think they really honored that character
in the final season. I think her arc was very interesting and really
one of the best redemptive arcs. I think in a lot of ways - Yeah, that's true. This is a character that saw herself being
some type of like an edgy LA writer. And then to fall in love, move to Chicago,
then Houston, end up writing the type of fiction she never thought she would write. She finds a happiness there. Maybe this is something we can get into in
the brilliant section, as well. There's something really powerful about that
idea that sometimes the person who we think we want to be, might not be where we're going
to find happiness. Yeah. It felt very real. Oh, also a smaller thing. I love that she gained weight, but no one
made jokes about it or like mentioned it. Like that felt like very real to life, people
change all the time. I was very kind of impressed by that like
very small detail. Yeah. And even just the way they deal with her mental
health in general. I thought was really careful. By careful, I just mean they weren't reckless,
they didn't turn it into a joke. They also didn't make it this thing where
like her life was over or she couldn't have a relationship. She still had a loving relationship. She still got work done. She just had to figure herself out. And of course, one of the themes I think of
this final season is all of our main characters figuring something out. Making some big turn or big leap in their
lives for better or worse. Such that when the curtain falls, every character
really has made some sort of progress. We can really see that in this season. And it's nice that it's not like these big
happy endings where everyone's like cheering. Everyone’s ending , I think, is also a little
sad or morose. But it feels real. I mean, listen, it doesn't feel cartoony. It doesn't feel cartoony. And I think ... and this is to jump ahead
to one of the final moments in the final episode. It's BoJack and Diane having a conversation. BoJack says something to the effect of, “Life’s a bitch and then you die, right?” - “Sometimes. Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep
living.” I love that line. And to me that's one of the main themes of
the show. That sometimes stuff sucks really bad and
life's really hard and it might be career stuff, or relationship stuff, or mental health. But you keep going step by step. Not to make this too like self-helpy. But I thought that was a really good take. But the whole show is pretty self-helpy. I mean the whole show is about like depression
and addiction... Well it's a show that if these were humans
like live action and not cartoons. It wouldn't be a comedy. It would be like a really dark show. I agree. I mean if we imagine some of the stuff that
BoJack goes through. It's just like Leonardo DiCaprio getting shit
faced and driving and breaking into a house and almost drowning in a pool. Which has maybe happened. I've heard stories, and I don't want to get
into it because of the libel law. I will get into it. Okay, so one of the things I think stood out
to me is one of the big questions and thematics of this season. I thought this was really good, is the question
of is redemption possible? Is it possible for someone, who by all accounts
did some really shitty things and hurt a lot of people, is it possible for that person
to find redemption? And sort of along with that, what are the
limits of justice? Because I think for lack of a better term,
we could say this is the season where we have BoJack's like me too story. Yeah, that's true. He gets publicly called out for both his sort
of participation in the death of Sarah Lynn, and also him taking advantage of various women
in his life. He gets called out on national TV. He has that sort of a gone with the wind talking
reporter. “If we pivot our perspective so we prove
a larger pattern, we can paint a clearer portrait of a problematic person for a page one profile
that will pave our path to a Pulitzer.” It's very stupid and funny to like have these
like reporters from like what the '20s or something. Yeah. Constantly tracking this like very serious
... it's funny to have these '20s reporters doing like a me too story. It's like a weird juxtaposition that like
... I don't know, I guess added levity to this like horrible thing. For sure and it was an absurd way ... and
I think you put that perfectly, to add levity. I think the show did something really interesting. Because we have the one episode where BoJack
does a TV interview. Sort of confesses and everyone loves him for
it. He goes to the coffee shop the next day and
they say, "This is on me because my manager said he watched that and went straight to
AA." We do get this narrative in that episode where,
"Great, you confess for the shitty stuff that you did. Everyone loves you for it. You can move on." BoJack's on cloud nine. He's so excited that he says, "Let's do another
interview." In that one, some more things come to light. Especially this idea that he left Sarah Lynn
dying and waited to call the paramedics and call the police. “I just keep thinking about those seventeen
minutes. You waiting in the parking lot, after she
died...but she wasn’t actually dead yet. She died in the hospital.” - “Right, but at the time I-I-I-I didn’t-’”
- “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you didn’t take those seventeen minutes?” And there we really get an actual reckoning
with the shit he did. There he finally gets ostracized by the Hollywoo
community. I think that's something that is more honest
and accurate than guy gets to be shitty for his whole career, gives one honest interview,
and now it's like free Starbucks for the rest of your life. I do think that was very cool. I think in general, it was cool to see like
a cartoon show where ... in general I feel like in a lot of animated sitcoms it's like
people doing horrible stuff, but it's like funny. Or like Peter Griffin will kill someone in
a gag, but then it's like funny. Listen...or not, but- No, it's funny when cartoons kill people. I don't know if it was trying to be a commentary
on cartoons. But it did kind of feel like ... because cartoons
will go very far and be very extreme. Especially in like adult animated comedy cartoons. It was cool to see a cartoon that was like,
"Whoa, whoa. Like you did all this like fucked up stuff. You're a terrible person." Well and I think what was important as well
is, it avoided this easy dichotomy between either people are good and people are bad. Almost no one in this show is totally good
or totally evil. “I wanted to officially welcome you to the
MBN Thursday night family.” - “Thank you.” - “And to ask if it wouldn’t be too much
trouble for you to shout out Birthday Dad during your interview.” - “Why would I-” - “ But only if the
interview is going well. If the interview is going poorly, please do
not bring up Birthday Dad.” I think especially the way they handled addiction
was very real. Because we see in BoJack's life, he's a part
of a cycle of addiction. He was raised by shitty parents who were alcoholics
themselves. Against his best efforts ... and we see some
flashbacks to the years where he started drinking in this final season- which I think is instructive. Against his best efforts, he keeps getting
pulled into that. So I think they handle it in a great way. Because the point isn't, "Oh, he's an alcoholic,
so it's fine. Not his fault." But the point also isn't that he's completely
responsible in a way where his addictions don't play into it. It deals with the messiness of these things. And avoids giving any simple conclusion. It's cool that he is like on this cycle,
which is like very real and it's not like getting sober is the end all be all for an
addict. Yeah. You know, this is the season too where something
clicked with me in terms of why these characters need to be animals, because I think it really
got at the idea that as humans we're animals. We forget that, and I think that, in the show,
why does BoJack keep going back to this stuff? Animal instinct. The inability to, even though he knows the
right thing to do, sometimes he can't do it. The same thing with a character like Diane. She kind of knows what she needs to do, but
she sometimes just can't do it, because we're caught in this weird space as humans where
we're rational, we're smart, we can think all these great things, but we're still an
animal. We still have those base instincts, and I
think that show gets at that tension so well. Even if you know your problem...you're still
going to do it, probably. Yeah. It's fun to do bad things. And it's good. It's good. Do bad things. So, to shift a little bit, I think there was
a lot that had to do with the convergence of the media and capitalism. We see the Birthday Dad thing. IP that came from a card. Getting this idea that so much stuff that
gets made isn't anything. It's just some shitty idea that we turn into
something because we think it's going to make money. We have the White Whale company that Diane's
invested in. I love that. Yeah. That I think is like a stand in for Amazon
and Jeff Bezos, and this idea that these massive companies own these little things that we
think are pure and interesting, and the way in which we see people who changed their art
or what they do because of the interest of this company. And there's a question, in one of the White
Whale meetings, Diane basically asks, "What's the difference between capitalism and evil?" “White Whale’s not evil, they're just
capitalists.” - “What’s the difference!?” And they get at this moral question of how
this economic structure is shaping so many things in their world, and these are real
things. It's like, "Come to Hollywood kid, you'll
see it." “He bought a telephone company, a sports
team, and when he didn’t like the way the newspapers was talking about him - he bought
his own newspaper!” There's moments where it portrays Hollywood
as good or a fun place to be, but mostly it's pretty cynical about Hollywood, which is very
fun. And again, I do think it's fun that Diane's
happy ending is leaving that, and leaving Hollywood, and living in Houston. I do want us to talk at length about the penultimate
episode, but I think we should save that for the brilliant part. Before we finish our good section, anything
else that you wanted to hit that you noted while watching? Things you were excited about? Things that really stood out to you? Well, listen, I'm an animator. I draw. Throughout the series, and I think it's only
gotten better, so the last seasons especially. The character design is great. It's such a colorful world. I love the style of BoJack Horseman, and...this
is a very specific note, but their clothes. They have real clothes that people would wear,
that you could probably order from a catalog. In a lot of cartoons, it's kind of like you
just draw a line across someone's neck and that's their tee shirt. Rick and Morty kind of does that. A lot of cartoons do that, but everyone in
BoJack wears real clothes and has jackets and buttons and, I don't know, I've never
seen a cartoon pay so much attention to clothes. This is why we needed an animator for this. We wouldn't have gotten that. Yeah, got to know
about those clothes. This is like inside the animator's studio. Okay, now that we've talked about all the
things that we thought were good about the final season of BoJack, which was a lot, we
have to talk about what didn't work as well. What was something that you would say was
bad about the final season of BoJack Horseman? Todd's mom. You were so quick with that. Yeah. Todd's mom. That was a terrible storyline. I don't understand. That's not a real problem, that like, Todd
helped his mom so now she won't come downstairs for dinner. “She didn’t come to dinner because...she’s
ashamed.” - “She can’t say hello? The woman has my kidney.” - “And that’s why she’s ashamed. A mother shouldn’t owe her child her life.” Anytime they made Todd dramatic, I didn't
like it. He's a silly character. I understand BoJack is very dramatic and really
gets into real issues, but I don't know, let Todd be funny, or let him be silly. I don't know. I hated that. Yeah, especially cause there was some good
stuff happening for Todd in this season. He finally had his first really nice, asexual
relationship. Yeah, I liked him in the relationship. I liked that. Yeah. No, I just kept wondering with the mom stuff. What am I missing? What is this trying to get at in terms of
emotional stakes? I know a part of it was trying to set this
thing up where Todd's going to get his own place. Todd's capable of being a grown man. Although I did like Todd's adventures with
his stepdad. I liked his stepdad, especially in the first
half of the last season. I thought his stepdad was very fun. Especially when he drugged him and took him
to Chicago. I thought that was a really fun move. That was great. One thing I didn't like, and to be clear,
didn't hate it. It was fine. The final episode dragged a bit for me. I think that the penultimate episode, which
we'll get into, was phenomenal, and I don't envy the writers for having to figure out
a way to follow that. Yeah. It's hard to end a thing. But the final episode is a bit meandering. We had some nice final conversations with
people I think, sometimes, when they really dive
into some of the Diane/BoJack conversations it seems like they really get wrapped up in...
they're good writers or something. Maybe that's weird to say, but it feels like
they get far up their own ass, and like, "Look how long we can make these people talk." I also felt like the last episode was just
a little lacking in comedy, which is fine, BoJack does get very dramatic, but you can
be funny too. “Bojack don’t make me ask you to leave.” - “You don’t have to-” - “Ah come
on dude, let us in. These plants heavy as tits.” Maybe this is a hot take...why are there humans? Get rid of the humans, just give me animals. I like Todd. I like Diane. Make them animals. The animals are fun to look at; the humans
are not that fun to look at. They look very standard, like 2D sitcom. Yeah. But the designs of the animals are so fun
and so colorful. Also the sex stuff. Right? I'm not weirded out by a cat and a dog having
sex. Yeah, I like that. Or a horse and a Llama? Yeah. But when it's like a human and a cat- they’re
having sex...it makes me a little bit uncomfortable. It challenges me- It challenges you? ... and at the end of the day I still like
it. But- Yeah, but then you wonder why do you like
it? Yeah. Am I bad? What does that say about you? Is it bestiality? Is it? I mean, objectively this is a show, and this
isn't controversial, right? The writers all know this- Yeah. They like it too. It's a show that promotes bestiality. Yeah. That's from the outset. That's fine. Yeah. We're cool with it. We are fine with that. So, we'll move away from this, but we all
agree, not controversial, show promotes bestiality, we're fine with that. Yeah. But we're in the bad sections. We've got to shift away from that. Oh yeah. But bad... Get rid of the humans. They look boring. Their clothes look good. Their bodies look boring. I would say I agree with you. Let's just keep Todd. No humans. But Todd, and don't explain why Todd's still
there. That would be more fun if there were like
one human. Lisa Hanawalt is like the main designer, she's
great. Most of her art is like animal based. Yeah. Let them do the animals. The humans look boring. Get them out of there or kill them. Yeah, that would be good. Just kill all the humans. If the animals rose up, kind of like in Us
where the people from... sorry to spoil Us for you, but you've had time- Sorry. ... When the underground people come up and
they want to kill all the above ground people...that could, maybe they'll make one more episode
and it's like a purge of all the humans. And where BoJack gets revenge. But once again, not big issues. Bestiality- Not big issues. ... fine, all humans should die, blah, blah,
blah- Blah, blah, blah. And humans don't look good. Real humans- No. ... humans in the show. When's the last time you saw a human and you
thought like that's a good looking human? Never. I've only looked at animals and thought they
looked good. I saw a Siberian Husky earlier today. More attractive than any human I've ever seen. I'm in a committed relationship with a human
woman and sometimes I look at our cat. Oh my God. I'm also in a committed relationship with
a human woman, and sometimes I'm just on petfinder.com...and I feel like I'm cheating. I feel like I'm on a dating app. Yeah. I get it. Because I see an Australian Shepherd that's
100 miles away that needs a loving home and I'm just like, "I love you. I need you, I want to be with you. Your eyes are pretty. Come home to me." Yeah. Anything else you think is bad? That's it. Awesome. Yeah, I agree. It's a pretty good show, so I don't have a
lot of bad stuff to say. Now we've done what's good. We've done what's bad. We get to the fun part now. We get to do our lightning round questions. Are you up for it? I am up for it. Fantastic. In case you don't know, but you know, this
is the part of the show where we get to ask a bunch of questions to each other. They can be about the show. They can be about the show as it relates to
our emotional life, about our views on geopolitical issues, whatever we want. Okay, so I'm going to go first. Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Cool. So would you rather be stuck in a room for
two days and forced to watch Horsin’ Around or Birthday Dad? Oh, I think Birthday Dad. I really want to see Birthday Dad. I'm so interested to see a full episode of
Birthday Dad. I feel like you know what Horsin’ Around
is, it's like Full House. I don't know what Birthday Dad is. I have no idea what Birthday Dad is. I'd love to watch Birthday Dad. And then especially when they show the war
episode. How does Birthday Dad go to war? Like what war does Birthday Dad start, you
know? Do you think Saddam Hussein was a Birthday
Dad? Was he... He was the Birthday Dad? Well, he started wars and he was also a dad. Yeah. Think about it. Which nonhuman type of person did you identify
with most in the show? So you're still a human, you're in this world. Who are you hanging out with that's not human? I like... I don't know if I identify with him, but I
like Mr. Peanut Butter. Yeah. He's very fun. He's rich. He's loose with that money. Yeah. I bet I could become... A dog adjacent? Yeah. Do you think Mr. Peanut Butter's name is a
reference to the urban myths about people putting peanut butter on their buttholes and
having dogs lick it off? It's about butt... I've heard it's about the front- Well, front. I think butt, front. Yeah, anything below the waist. Any, yeah, that's- I hope so. I think that's very funny if it is, that his
name is a reference to bestiality. Yeah. Yeah. Because once again, it's not a big deal. Do you think that Judah's band was any good
or would be good? We didn't get to hear them all together. We heard him play a solo song. Band did an instrumental set. Do you think they were any good? I do think they were funny. Is that okay to say? A band can be funny. I don't think they were good. I think it's funny that Judah talks his lyrics. He's not really a singer. He's like a talker. “My aim is to be accurate and clear.” Can you tell how old anyone is on the show? No. I like that you see BoJack's gray hair. So it seems like maybe he's in his 50s. Yeah. But up until that point, I can't really tell
the difference. And when we learn that Diane is maybe like
40, I was like, I just thought she's been- Oh, you think she is? I think that's implied that she's- Wow. ... near there and you just seem like a 22
year old, this whole time, to me. I agree. And especially the animals, it is hard to
tell their age unless they're like specifically like an old character. Yeah. I'm going to cheat a little bit. I'm going to do two, but they're quick ones. Okay. Best celebrity cameo. You know the voice of someone that pops up. We had a lot of them. I thought it was very funny that Zach Braff
was like a butler in the second to last episode. Yes. Zach Braff, being Zach Braff, great. I'm a big Zach Braff fan. I think he’s funny. Best LA reference? The show has a lot of inside baseball references
to LA and Hollywood culture. Anything that tickled your fancy? Best LA reference? Yeah. And if not, it's fine. I'm coming at you with this, no prep. Yeah. Best LA reference. I'm just going to say I like Hollywoo. And I liked in the last episode, spoiler alert,
it was Hollywoob. Yeah. I thought that was very funny. I liked it a lot. Like Hollywoob. I like how... Should we start calling it that? Yeah, we should. Okay, so we're broadcasting live from Hollywoob,
California. Woob. It sounds like Holly- Don't say it. Boob. What animal would you be in the BoJack universe? Oh, um...probably one of the aquatic ones. I've always identified more with like dolphins
and sea porpoises and ocean mammals. Uh-huh. So one of those. Maybe, I think... Isn't there the Keith Olbermann voiced character
who's like a whale news anchor? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He has a huge head. Yeah, so I'd want to be whale or dolphin and
I want to work in a media adjacent industry. Wow. And I feel like I'd get along with that group. Oh, cool. But I'll still hang with you and the dogs
on the weekends. Thank you. Yeah. I wouldn't be a dog. I would just hang out with them. No. But you and the dog. I'm not saying you're a dog. I would be a dolphin. You would be dog adjacent- My name is Sean Godsey. Godsey backwards is yes, dog. Holy shit. Well, keep going. This is becoming a lot. Would you rather live in Hollywood or Hollywoo
or Hollywoob? I mean, I guess I got to say Hollywoob now. Yeah. Because here's why, Hollywoob happens at the
very end. Yes. So we know that all these people are in a
better place. I think because all of these characters are
so influential in Hollywoo/woob, it'll be a better vibe. Hollywood itself, I can take it or leave. Yeah. So I'd say I want to be resident of Hollywoob. Good. And then the extra part of that is whatever
one you choose, the other one burns. To the ground? Yeah. With all the people in it? Yeah. Am I responsible for that burning? Yeah. So I'm responsible for a mass arson that destroys
a whole city. In this question. A whole city. It's just a question, but yeah. Okay. You implicated me in that and I feel really
bad now. But you already chose it, so that is the reality. Okay. I guess, do another one. Oh, what would your letter to BoJack say? Hollyhock wrote a letter to BoJack that we
didn't get to see. Yeah. What would your letter to BoJack say? I would say... And in this, it's just from me or me in that
world having been hurt by him? You exist in Hollywoo. Uh-huh. You know what happened. Yes. Okay. I would say, "Dear Mr. Horseman, I grew up
watching Horsin’ Around and also liked your underground comedy. I'm not just in it for the big time stuff. You've been an inspiration to me, but the
recent things that I've learned about you really upset me. Now I know you come from a long line of addiction
and that your parents weren't that great to you, but I wish you would take responsibility
for yourself and your actions to move forward. I don't think you're beyond forgiveness, but
I think before forgiveness happens, contrition needs to happen. I need to see you confess and I need to see
you make the effort. In the meantime- It's a long letter. ... I would love to have you on my podcast,
and if you could follow me on Twitter, that will be great. Retweet one joke a week. I would love that. Trying to blow up in the industry. From your friend, Michael Dolphin Burns. Good. That was good. Yeah. I would just say, tsk-tsk. Tsk-tsk is all you would say to him? Mm-hmm. Okay. You got any more for me or you good? Just let me unlock my phone with my face,
which is bad technology. Oh, what play would you direct in prison? Oh, that's really good. What's a good prison play? So, part of me thinks you want to go gritty,
but then part of me thinks you want to go something not gritty to break through that. Because it's already gritty in prison. It's already a bummer in prison. Yeah. I'll tell you, I won't be Hamilton. I'll tell you that much. I hate Hamilton. I think it's bad. I haven't seen it. I think it's probably good. I haven't seen it. I just know it's bad. I think it's objectively bad and I think that,
no, I don't want to see a founding father rap. In no situation do I want to see that. I would like to see anyone rap. Oh, most people I don't want to see rap. I'd say 99.9% of people, I don't want to see
them rap. Okay. I want to say, I'm just going to say this
is one of my favorite plays. The Sam Shepherd play, True West. And I would want to adapt the setting a little
bit. Maybe we're doing it in prison, but I think
it deals with this concept in the play of some people who we think of as good and upstanding,
all they are is a few steps away from losing their shit and becoming violent. Some other people that we perceive as shifty
criminals, might just have gone through some stuff and are trying to make it right. So, I think in that sense, by doing the play
we can maybe help get at some stuff. Wow. Yeah. That was amazing. Yeah. So if anyone in the prison system needs a
director for the theater program- They probably do. I'd give it a go. That'd be fun actually. I think that'd be really cool. I think everyone needs art. We all need art. Now it’s time for us to get into the brilliant. This is where we talk about the big ideas
that really caught us in the season. So, what was something that you thought was
worthy of being called brilliant in the final season of BoJack Horseman? So, what I really loved was the episode where
Diane was trying to write her book. I loved seeing her inner thought process with
that. It was really interesting. That's another, I think brilliant thing that
BoJack does in general, is they'll use alternate animation styles within the show. And is this where she's having a depressive
episode trying to work and the animations showing us that? Yeah, it's sketchy and it has a plain background
and I loved that. I loved that the message of it was that your
damage doesn't have to lead up to anything. It can just be damage. Yeah. Because there's that question, right? Does all art have to come from a place of
damage? Did you have to be someone who's been through
trauma to create good art? And I think it gets at that in a really interesting
way. And I like that Diane is so plagued throughout
the whole series and that she ends up writing a fun kids book, but that brings her happiness. I love that. Well, I think it gets to the simplicity of
happiness, right. Often, I think happiness can be thought of
as having to be this big emotional moment, or winning the big race, or getting married
to Brad Pitt, or whatever it might be. Or writing. Yeah. Writing her really deep novel about how everything's
so terrible. Yeah. And I think this shows that it's okay to maybe
find happiness in something that seems a little more practical, a little more every day. You can move to Chicago with your boyfriend,
and eat Chicago style foods. They really got into the Chicago jokes in
this season. I thought that was fun. It’s fun that he’s a bull. Yeah. Yeah. Because the Chicago Bulls are a sports team...in
Chicago. That's right. Oh, I thought it was a great look at the creative
process and she kept writing stuff and it being crap. Or the characters in her head were asking
her, "Is this anything? Is this anything?" It just felt very real to like, if you're
writing or creating anything you felt like, "Oh, yeah. That's kind of what you go through." You're constantly like, "I don't know. Maybe." That's great. Yeah. And I think definitely the coalescence of
seeing someone deal with some mental health issues and also the creative process. And I think for many people, those two things
can go hand in hand. And I imagine a lot of creative people can
watch that and find some solace. I love the line that Guy is like- “I need to go to a dark place, and I can’t
get there. When I’m with you, when we’re out, I feel
good. I feel happy, but the minute I sit down to
write-” - “Hey, you were having trouble writing this book when you were depressed,
and you’re having trouble now that you’re not depressed. I liked that the story wasn't like, yeah,
she took medication and it blocked her creativity and that she even thought that and then she
was wrong. I think that's great. I think that's a great message. I liked that a lot. Yeah. So, that was an episode you found brilliant. I really found the penultimate episode where
BoJack is, can we say, dying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was incredible. That was great. I mean, I thought it was an interesting meditation
on the mean of death. And I think we had two shows, had their final
seasons around the same time, BoJack Horseman and the Good Place, both ended on this question
of what does death mean? I want to say I liked BoJack Horseman's read
on it better. Now, in this episode, we have this sort of
neurons slowly firing off as he drowns to death. We see all of these important people from
his life who have also died and died in many cases because of, not him directly, but situations- Like he’s involved Yeah. And there's this door. They're doing this talent show, Zach Braff
is there on roller skates, and everyone performs and they go through the door - and BoJack
keeps asking, "What's on the other side, what's on the other side?? And finally, Herb says to him, “Oh Bojack, no. There is no other side. “ And it gets at that idea that, I don't know
... I mean, I've really, the show is saying that there is no heaven. Yeah. The shows making that bold of a claim, there
is no heaven. There is no hell. When you die, you die. I thought that was great just to kind of pick
a side. What it reminds me ... Can I get a little
bit nerdy for a sec? Please. Thank you. But it reminds me of something that Nietzsche
talks about. One of his problems with religion is that
if people get so obsessed with heaven and what happens after they die, they don't give
a shit about their life now. They don't care about their relationships,
their passions, all this sort of stuff and it bums him out. Nietzsche's critique of religion isn't some
mean, angry, 17-year-old thing. It's a critique of people that don't care
about and value their own lives. And I think what we get from this particular
interpretation of death is, BoJack can't find redemption in death. He can't make it all right by dying and going
to heaven where everything's okay. If he wants to find redemption, he has to
do it himself, and he has to do the really hard slow work. And I think, in this season as a whole, BoJack
just wants to be okay. He wants to kind of snap his fingers to apologize
once, and for years of bad behavior and years of being a fucked up guy...to go under the
rug. And I think when we learn that, spoiler alert,
he didn't die. He's alive. He now knows he has to engage in the hard
work of getting better. Visually it was so cool. Once a season they always do this kind of
trippy episode, which is always great. And this episode specifically, was amazing
visually. I loved when the black goo was chasing him
down. He was running on the table and black goo
was chasing after him. Yeah. It's just like pure black nothingness, just
annihilating everything. It's just visually very good and very interesting,
and a departure from the rest of the series. Yeah. And to me that relates to something I think
we talked about before a little bit as well, of this overarching question of the show:
Are some people just good and are some people just bad? And are some people just brilliant? But are people good or are people bad? And I think the show gets at the idea that
they're neither, that we are shaped via what we do. This is something, I'm going to put on my
nerd hat for two more seconds. People like Aristotle and David Hume, have
always posited this idea that morally we kind of just are a collection of habits. And if we do good stuff, we become good people
with good character. If we do bad stuff, we become bad people. It's not like a really evil person is just
born evil, and a really great person is just born great. I think we see that in the show, that BoJack
is someone who learns that lesson, that if he wants to become better, he has to do the
work to become better. And he was bad, he did these terrible things. But he's still the main character and you
still kind of want him to be okay even though he maybe killed his former co-star and damaged
all these people. I still found myself wanting him to not die
in that episode. And I think this show's been compared to Mad
Men and Breaking Bad in terms of having the anti-heroes that's protagonist. I think this show did a better job than either
Mad Men or Breaking Bad at creating a character who's on surface level, a bad guy, but that
we still sympathize with. That we still want something good for because
we see, we learned so much about his backstory and we see so much of the pain that lies behind
all of this stuff that we can both sympathize and want what's best for this character, while
still wanting him to reckon with the consequences of his actions. Yeah, you do kind of want him to have a downfall,
but then also you always see that he doesn't like himself either. It's not like he did that to Sarah Lynn or
he did that to Hollyhock and then he's like, "Yeah, fuck you." You know? He's always like, "Oh, what am I doing? I don't want to go to prison, blah blah blah." Yeah. I mean, he knows he's a piece of shit. Yeah. I mean, he gets that and I think we see him
spiral in that way because of that awareness. And then when we see him do good things, we
see him slowly build back up. I mean it is sad and maybe he'll get back
there one day, although he does it in prison, when he does go and become a theater teacher
at that college. I think we do see this thing that by doing
small good things for people, that that's good and it makes them feel good and he sees
that. I do think it is kind of poignant that in
prison, he's still able to do that. Yeah, that felt nice that he continued teaching
acting even though he was in prison, “Schlesinger, if you have time to fashion
a shiv and organize a jump on the rats in Block C, you have time to learn your lines. ‘Kay? Priorities.” Okay, Sean, we've been through a lot. We've talked about what's good, what's bad,
and what's brilliant. We've done the lightning round. The last thing we need to do is take all of
the intricate words we've used, all the wonderful ideas we've explored, and throw them out the
window and reduce this entire show down to a five-point numeric system. Wow. But what we do here is we need to figure out
what our arbiter of value is going to be. So we have to figure out what we're going
to have five units of. When you think of stuff from the show, so
I mean it could be like five bottles of booze or pills, that's a little dark ... A little dark. What do you think? It could be five Hollywood Ds. Five Hollywood Ds, that's good. Five Hollywoob, Bs. Hollywoob Bs. Five Chicago style baked potatoes that you
would get at a human's game. Five unread letters to BoJack. Or unseen, I guess, BoJack read it. Yeah, five prison productions of plays. But you know what I liked that you said? I liked the Hollywood DS. It's this thing that loomed over the whole
series. Yeah. You never really get it. So let's use our D system. So one D is this is garbage, this is like
Horsin’ Around with all the BoJack cut out of it. Five is just like, it's full Secretariat. Just awesome work. Okay? So I'm going to put the onus on you. You have to go first. Is this the whole show or this season? We'll do this season. Okay, okay. But we can like consider in the back of your
mind a little bit because you can't forget it. So final season of BoJack Horseman, one to
five Hollywood Ds, what does it get, Sean Godsey? I think that BoJack Horseman gets 4.5 Hollywood
Ds. Wow. 4.5 Ds. Yeah. And because I'm not capable of original thought,
I'm also going to give it 4.5 Hollywood Ds. I think it was so good. I think there were some low moments. Yes. Todd's mom. Todd's mom, the finale. A few things, but definitely 4.5- Overall, it was great. I liked it a lot. It's great. I highly recommend it. If people haven't watched it ... I don't know
why they would still be watching this if they haven't watched it. Yeah. Subscribe to Netflix. Yeah. Or get a password from someone. Or get or go on the dark web and buy passwords. You can do this. Or go online and you can watch illegal streams. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Or don't do that. I don't know if I could say that. Oh, and watch the illegal streams while you're
committing crimes in real life, so you could watch it on the mobile device while you're
doing crime. Or you're robbing a bank. Yeah. Don't do drugs, go do crime. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Sean, it has been great to have you
here. If people want to find you, not in life, on
social media. I can give my address a phone number. Don't do that. Don't do that. Okay. I don't want to have ... no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. Yeah. Where could they find you on social media? So find me at @scannedlife on Instagram. Nice, and if I'm not mistaken, they could
see some of your animation there, right? That's right. You can see some of my animation. You can message me, I'll let you know my address
and phone number. Well guys, that has been The Good, The Bad
& The Brilliant on the last season of BoJack Horseman. Thank you so much for sticking around. Please let us know what you think in the comments,
and let us know about any properties that you'd love to see us cover on the show in
the future. Sean, I'm Michael. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Later!
