Written by Tyler Zucker
“When was your first drink?” asked Dr. Champ (Raphael Bob-Waksberg) to our deflecting titular protagonist. Viewers have only known Bojack (Will Arnett) as an alcoholic, self-destructive person but we have never really asked why he turned to alcohol in the first place. In the Bojack Horseman Season 6 premiere, the animated dramedy continues to play with its episode structure and once again delivers a hard hitting story with everyone’s favorite 90s television actor at the center.
Bojack was last seen finally making significant steps to becoming the person he desperately wants to be. He enters rehab and although he hates the majority of the people there and think the whole idea of it is stupid, he tries to make it work for himself and for the people he truly does care about. Sarah Lynn (Kristen Schaal) continues to haunt him and as seen in the flashback in the cold open, is a constant reminder of what he did the night she tragically overdosed. Arnett’s voice acting is at his best during this opener. The way he talks about her former co-star to a clueless Officer Meow Meow Fuzzyface (Cedric Yarbrough) feels as if Arnett really did lose someone and that the guilt he has while lying is eating him alive.
As the story progresses, it is clear that Bojack has made some steps toward becoming the “good” person he has always wanted to be seen as. Instead of letting fellow rehab member Jamison (Daniele Gaither) run away and potentially overdoes, he follows her and acts as a sober companion. This main storyline is paralleled by flashbacks that show multiple moments in which Bojack may have taken his first drink. The episode’s increasingly dark flashbacks progress backwards, starting from his first time drinking on the set of his 90s sitcom “Horsin Around. Later, he is shown drinking in college to be accepted by others. These scenes intercut the primary story and give a further glimpse into Bojack, someone who viewers thought knew all too help already but as these scenes unfold, more heartbreak and trauma is left to be discovered
Viewers think that Bojack’s first drink is the result of his father Butterscotch (also Arnett) manipulating his young son into hiding his affair with his secretary. But there’s still one more flashback to behold and it is just as devastating. A six-year-old Bojack stumbles into the living room to find both his parents asleep in a drunken slumber. Potentially inspired by them from their rampant drinking, he tries some of the left over vodka himself and then crawls into the lap of his mother before falling asleep. There is no one here that coerced him into drinking. No outside source or someone else he could blame it on. His first drink was all on him and a need to connect to his parents who have only shown to resent him.
Bojack Horseman once again starts the season off with a episode that is light on humor and heavy on characterization. We see Bojack racked with guilt in the cold opener after the camera then pans down downward from the darkened, photo-realistic sky. The beautiful skyline has been shown throughout the show and it appears as it’s a motif for Bojack. Gazing up at something so far away, wishing he could be as bright as the stars above him. He’s getting closer every season and with another half scheduled to premier in January, viewers can only hope that our star finally shine among them.
