BoJack Horseman season 6 episode 3 review: Diane learns what it means to be happy
In the third episode of the final season of BoJack Horseman, the show picks up with Diane as she tries to find her own happiness in Chicago.
It speaks a lot to the rich writing and character development over the course of the last five years of BoJack Horseman that in a show and season focused on its main character’s mental health and journey to personal healing and redemption, BoJack doesn’t need to appear on screen at all to loom large.
In the continued zoom-out of season six of BoJack Horseman, the third episode picks up with Diane as we learn the reason she was in a seedy motel in episode one was because she is traveling on the road to shoot her Girl Croosh web series.
The videos are a sort of Vice-like gotcha journalism, but adorable mouse Stefani wants something more on brand and “feel-good.” Diane’s dashing bison cameraman (and new friend with benefits), Guy (voiced by the Internet’s dream boyfriend, Lakeith Stanfield), suggests they throw Stefani a bone and give the feel-good thing a try.
As we know, though, Diane is moral and ethical, almost fatally and annoyingly so, and this isn’t an easy pill to swallow.
In an interview with the Every Animal Girl company, Diane can barely stomach to learn that the two best friends who just want to see themselves represented in the toys (necky girls for the win!) have been bought out by the huge conglomerate Whitewhale and will soon have their factory outsourced.
After the interview, Guy invites Diane to hang out with his friends that evening, giving her his jacket for warmth. Their chemistry is pretty adorable and unlike most of the guys Diane ends up with who tend to send her on a self-destructive spiral.
That is, until his son unexpectedly shows up to the party and Guy asks Diane to sneak out of the bathroom window to avoid having them meet.
Even worse, Stefani calls Diane with the horrible news that her feel good video made an impression with Whitewale which has bought out Girl Croosh, now a brand called Spronk. It’s amazing how in a few lines of dialogue, BoJack Horseman can so quickly and easily skewer the very real media landscape and environment of consolidation.
The subtle satire becomes more overt during Diane and Guy’s new employee orientation with Whitewhale, which features Ollie the Oligopoly and Vert the Vertical Integration cartoons illustrating how Girl Croosh came to be part of the Whitewhale family.
After realizing that Whitewhale bought Girl Croosh to kill Diane’s “feel-good” story, Guy suggests they do one last video before they quit and the company takes away their passwords.
While working on the case, it seems like Diane has finally met her match in Guy. When she becomes crazy and conspiratorial, he tells her she’s glowing. They fist bump after each interview and never hesitates to lend her his jacket.
But as it often happens, everything comes undone with a simple gesture and an overstepping of boundaries. Unwilling to buy a coat for the Chicago cold, Guy buys one for Diane instead. Picking a fight, Diane asks if this is his way of saying she should move to Chicago.
“No. Sometimes a coat’s just a coat,” he tells her, but then further provokes her by asking why she won’t let herself feel good. This is a fundamentally different character question than the one at hand for BoJack.
While BoJack can’t be better, and thus can’t be happy, Diane constantly punishes herself in an attempt to take the moral high ground, and thus punishes those around her. It’s an incisive bit of writing that can only be done through excellent character development over the course of six seasons.
The last few minutes of the episode are pretty brutal as Mr. Whitewhale reveals they can do whatever video they wants, but it doesn’t matter because he can get away with anything, including murder (Congress just passed a bill letting rich people kill legally).
It’s a bit of a heavy-handed point to make, but one that underscores the kind of battles that Diane has frequently come up against throughout the show. Whenever she has tried to speak up against something, there is always a powerful man or institution to quiet her back down.
While she is self-punishing, it’s no wonder why. No matter what she does, nothing changes–and why should this be any different in her romantic or interpersonal relationships? It’s not surprising then when Diane leaves Guy behind in Chicago.
Throughout the episode, BoJack’s letters to Diane from rehab are heard through voiceover, ranging from his typical mundane tirades to a poignant recognition that he should have gone to rehab a long time ago.
When Diane finally returns to Los Angeles and reads the letters, BoJack’s realization that he had been holding himself back from being happy for so long impacts her similar issue, another reminder that Diane and BoJack are the same in so many ways.
The episode closes with Diane calling Guy to tell him she wants to give it a go in Chicago. Only time will tell how that pans out for her and what BoJack will think once he gets home…
Next. BoJack Horseman season 6 episode 2 review: Princess Carolyn does it all. dark