BoJack Horseman season 6 episode 4 review: Everyone loves a (surprise) wedding

In the fourth episode of the final season of BoJack Horseman, a classic Mr. Peanutbutter party reveals secrets and tests relationships.

In the fifth season of BoJack Horseman, Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter solidified their divorce and he quickly moved on to a new relationship with Pickles the pug. But it wasn’t long before the exes backslid and slept together as they both worked to move on from the relationship.

In the fourth episode of the final season, Todd throws Mr. Peanutbutter and Pickles a surprise wedding, inviting everyone from Mr. Peanutbutter’s much more morose elder brother, Captain Peanutbutter (voiced by the great Weird Al Yankovic) to Pickles friends’ the Ilanas.

Thus begins a trope of BoJack Horseman, the Mr. Peanutbutter Hollywood house party, which is as close as an animated show can get to a bottle episode. Like a live-action series, though, this format serves the series well, throwing all the characters together and allow conflicting to boil to a head.

In order to get them out of the house, Todd bought Mr. Peanutbutter and Pickles tickets to the play adaptation of Angels in the Outfield, but it may or may not have actually been Angels in America…

Just as the couple returns, Pickles live-streaming all the while on Tweedfeed, Mr. Peanutbutter can no longer take the guilt and blurts out, “I cheated,” at the exact same time their guests yell, “Surprise!”

Rather than hiding to jump out and surprise the couple, the guests must instead hide from the awkward fight. What ensues is another classic BoJack Horseman setpiece:  a series of zany visuals in the foreground while a very serious conversation occurs in the background.

Hiding from Pickles is relatively easy as she’s crying and live-streaming to her “Pickles pack” the whole time. Meanwhile, Mr. Peanutbutter is also hiding from Pickles and attempting to give her space.

The bulk of the guests leave as soon as they can, but Princess Carolyn’s baby, now named Ruthie, has disappeared and she and Todd work to locate her in the chaos.

The characters shift and rearrange like a game of Tetris as they try to hide from the fighting couple while also return Ruthie to Princess Carolyn.

Princess Carolyn is frustrated–she shouldn’t have had to bring Ruthie at all, but another nanny quit and she blames Todd for being so weird (a fair point). Todd reveals to Princess Carolyn he doesn’t trust any of the nannies to take care of the baby.

Finally, Princess Carolyn suggests Todd, who is out of work once again, to be Ruthie’s full-time nanny, which honestly might be his calling, and their weird little family is pretty sweet.

Meanwhile, BoJack is still technically in rehab, but was allowed out for one night only to attend the surprise wedding. Diane, wanting to say goodbye before moving to Chicago, tracks him down and follows him to Mr. Peanutbutter’s party.

It goes to show how much BoJack and Diane’s friendship is at the core of everything in this show. She’s willing to crash her ex-husband’s wedding just to see BoJack and tell him goodbye.

They work and move together to utilize Mr. Peanutbutter’s smart house features as well as commenting on the Tweedfeed stream to relocate the couple and get them to talk. Earlier iterations of the two of them would have sabotaged the two or simply given up their hiding spot and embarrassed them.

At one point, they hide under Pickles’s bed together as BoJack processes the news that Diane is moving to Chicago. At first, he reacts as he always has, by hitting Diane where he knows it’ll hurt her most and asking what guy she’s moving there for.

But by the time they’re ready to leave the house, Diane tells him, “I need to know you’re okay. I can’t go to Chicago if I don’t know you’re okay.” And Bojack replies, “That’s not a friendship. It’s a hostage situation.” It’s a heartbreaking exchange, but one that shows how much he’s grown.

Before rehab and therapy, BoJack would have seized the opportunity to keep Diane at his side, to bring her down with him and insist they both be miserable together. But in his attempts to finally be better, BoJack lets her go and insists she go to Chicago.

Ultimately, Mr. Peanutbutter and Pickles decide to reconcile, even though she’s upset that she has to be mad at him and upset for what he did.

The show has proven time and time again, though, that Mr. Peanutbutter does not have the best track record with women, so it’ll be interesting to see if Pickles is the one who can make him change…

BoJack Horseman is currently streaming on Netflix.