BoJack Horseman final season premiere review: A horse walks into rehab

In the first episode of the final season of BoJack Horseman, BoJack is finally clean and sober, but the road to “getting better” isn’t always that easy.

When we last saw the eponymous talking horse Bojack Horseman, Diane dropped him off at rehab after his most recent rock bottom. The final season of the animated series, following the trend of other recent Netflix shows, debuts in two halves.

The first episode of season six picks up with the worst of BoJack’s many rock bottoms–the night Sarah Lynn died. We see for the first time the moments right after her death, including the lies BoJack told her parents, the police, and himself.

It’s a heartbreaking juxtaposition for the opening of the show, which doesn’t even have its usual credit sequence and instead, jumps right in where the finale of season five left off. BoJack checks in, and true to the ethos of the show, we’re quickly treated to a few jokes on the high cost of rehab and mental health care before he even gets to his room.

BoJack Horseman has always deftly handled its tone — a show that is on one hand a wacky comedy with bits and jokes you can’t explain to friends out of context, and on the other, a sensitive treatise on mental health, addiction, popular culture, and intersectional feminism.

Importantly, the show has allowed BoJack to genuinely grow over the course of the last five years. We’ve all seen alcoholic, narcissistic, misogynist celebrity stories before. That in and of itself isn’t interesting.

What is fascinating is to watch this archetype try to become better. “You say you want to get better, but you don’t know how,” Diane tells BoJack in season 5. Diane serves as BoJack’s conscience and mirror in many ways. And importantly, the show argues that BoJack has to take responsibility for his actions. Some of which have been truly terrible.

A lovely montage shows the mundanity and pain of what it looks like to get clean with a series of title cards like PLANT THERAPY, GROUP THERAPY, HIKE THERAPY, and, of course, HORSE THERAPY.

While BoJack is initially reticent, his personality always leaning towards sarcastic and defensive. And by the end of his six-week stint, he has fully bought into therapy and rehab–aside from the question of when his drinking began.

BoJack’s resolve is soon tested. When Jameson, a younger girl in rehab with him, insists the program is stupid, BoJack attempts to use the same ploy his therapist had used on him earlier, telling her the gate code and saying she can leave whenever she wants, but knows that she really wants to stay.

However, that night, Jameson actually does sneak out. With Sarah Lynn on his mind, who did her own stint in the same rehab, BoJack follows her out to make sure she stays safe. But his attempts soon go awry when Jameson leads them to a frat party and BoJack straight to a bar.

Trying to convince Jameson to go back to rehab, Jameson instead steals a car and goes to her parents house, hoping to provoke her dad. After a great three-way phone call with Diane and Todd involving a classic BoJack tirade involving the specific digits in Diane’s number, BoJack finds Jameson’s house.

Once there, BoJack remembers how he became an alcoholic. After catching his dad in a compromising situation with his secretary at his office, BoJack’s dad, Butterscotch, gives BoJack a Jack and Coke, telling him he’s old enough to have a drink with his dad.

Young BoJack wakes up in his dad’s car, having gotten sick from the alcohol. His dad tells him it would make his mother upset if she knew, so they should both just forget.

In a nod to Ferris Bueller–Jameson’s dad literally has the car from the movie—BoJack finally agrees that their dads are to blame and helps Jameson destroy the car.

Hearing the noise, Jameson’s dad (voiced by the great Tim Meadows) wakes up and comes in with what Jameson claimed was his new baby she had replaced her with. An upset Jameson leaves the room and BoJack soon learns the truth–that Jameson frequently coerces people into helping her break out of rehab, and that the baby is actually hers.

Once they’re both back at rehab, an exasperated BoJack tells Jameson how lucky she is to have someone who cares enough about her to keep giving her chances. He takes the water bottle full of vodka she was attempting to sneak in and signs up for another six weeks, but keeps the vodka…

The episode closes on one final heartbreaking flashback to a young BoJack looking around a violent, wrecked living room as his parents are both passed out. A bottle of vodka in plain sight, BoJack takes a gulp and curls up on his mom’s lap to join them.

As tender and thoughtful as always, it’s no surprise at how mindful BoJack Horseman‘s treatment of rehab will be as we watch BoJack try to become better over the final episodes.