BoJack Horseman season 6 episode 12 review: 17 minutes

As the final season of BoJack Horseman continues, BoJack is forced to reckon publicly with his involvement in Sarah Lynn’s death for the first time.

The final season of BoJack Horseman continues with “Xerox of a Xerox,” an episode that opens with the Hollywoo news breaking the news about BoJack’s involvement with Sarah Lynn’s death, including that he’s about to sit down in an exclusive tell-all interview.

In Chicago, Guy asks Diane how she’s feeling about it. She says she’s done but quickly spiels off that she knows exactly how it’ll go.

Smash cut to Princess Carolyn and BoJack prepping for the interview, exactly how Diane called it. She tells him they’ll tape it on the Philbert set to convey that they’re shooting it in the open honest, vulnerability of his home. The irony of the “honest lie” foreshadows the interview itself.

During the interview, Bojack is honest and tells the truth, but expects immediate forgiveness for “doing the right thing” by admitting guilt. Because of this, he quickly gets defensive about details such as where the heroin came from. And defensiveness is not a good look.

Still, BoJack is earnestly sorry and that comes through when the interviewer, very Katie Couric style, asks BoJack if it was his rock bottom. He says no because he’s learned there’s always something worse ahead.

Instead of waiting for rock bottom to get clean, BoJack learned had to do it for himself, saying, “Eventually, I decided to stop waiting for something to change me and I decided to change myself.”

A recurring theme throughout the episode is whether the old BoJack is the same as the new BoJack. BoJack’s explanation of the acting he did in his daily life just to attempt to be human inspires the episode’s title, as BoJack explains, “I felt like a Xerox of a Xerox of a person.”

BoJack feels victorious after the interview, maybe a little too much so. Princess Carolyn is nervous, though, knowing they’re walking a fine line when she tells him, “You’ve definitely gotten your 10,000 hours in when it comes to apologizing.”

Back in Chicago, Guy tells Diane it’s okay if she wants to watch BoJack’s interview–he is her best friend after all. But Diane is moving forward with her life and leaving BoJack behind, a choice that is heartbreaking but necessary for many complicated friendships.

She tells Guy that BoJack is in the past and pivots by throwing in Guy’s face that she still hasn’t met his son, so Guy, sweet and nonchalant as ever, agrees to it.

Shockingly, the interview goes better than BoJack or Princess Carolyn could have predicted. As it always goes with BoJack Horseman, for a brief shining moment, it looks like BoJack will get everything he wants.

But then the network calls, saying they want to do a part two for the ratings and the alcoholic horse flies too close to the sun. Princess Carolyn says they shouldn’t push it, but BoJack is, of course, loving the attention, and says they have to.

Part two doesn’t go nearly as well for BoJack, unfortunately. That dogged Philadelphia Story reporter Paige had gotten to the interviewer and given her all the dirt she collected on BoJack and then some, hitting BoJack hard and establishing a pattern of abuse toward women throughout his life.

Diane, still avoiding writing, turns on the end of the interview as BoJack is asked to answer if he is indeed the same person who is the one who’s hurt all of these people, whether or not he meant to. And BoJack says yes.

Diane’s tiny, surprised frown says it all–pride in his honesty, while still being hurt and fed up with his actions.

Taking Princess Carolyn’s advice to enjoy the last few hours of his life before it changes forever, BoJack goes to The Laugh Shack comedy club. In the alley outside, there’s a horse outline that Herb had traced of BoJack before he got on Horsin’ Around.

The most heartbreaking moments of BoJack Horseman are the ones that mirror beginnings and endings, parentheticals on what has happened in not just BoJack’s life, but the lives of everyone around him.

BoJack wasn’t always a surly, broken addict. The painted outline is a permanent reminder that he was once as innocent as Sarah Lynn. But life, addiction, and Hollywood got the better of them both.

Whether BoJack can ever mediate a better version of himself that might closer resemble that younger, softer BoJack, is something the last four episodes of BoJack Horseman will have to answer.

All episodes of Bojack Horseman are now streaming on Netflix.