How the final season of BoJack Horseman redefines success

The last 6 episodes of the final season had a lot of say about what it means to succeed for the main characters who had been struggling to stay afloat in the tar pit of LA. My favourite part of the final episodes was the ways in which they redefined ‘making it’ for the four characters all who wanted a piece of the Hollywood promise.

From the outside, BoJack is the most successful character in the show. He had his big break in his 20s, has the house in Beverly Hills, the car, the girls. He achieved his dreams young and ultimately, it destroyed his life. Being famous meant he never had to be accountable for his actions, being surrounded by people who only wanted proximity to his fame and success meant his addictions were always enabled, and his wealth meant his life was devoid of purpose and structure except what he could find for himself.

In the first half of the final season, we get a hopeful glimpse into what real success could look like for Bojack, but he squanders it by not being able to stay out of the spotlight. The final episode doesn’t give us a definite answer as to whether he’s able to be successfully sober and rebuild his life after jail, because neither of those things are ever final.

On the other end of the spectrum of conventual success is Todd, who spends most of the show nominally homeless, jobless, and without much purpose or direction. In the penultimate season, we start to see things pick up for Todd when he moves in with Princess Carolyn, who takes him under her wing (or maybe paws?) by giving him small responsibilities. If anything, Todd is PC’s practice run at motherhood, so it’s only fitting that her influence and the arrival of baby Ruthie helps Todd realise his calling; Hypeman for Baby, (aka childminder).

This isn’t the high-paying, centerstage career that most people in Hollywoo are chasing and explicitly defies his stepdad’s expectations for him, but in the final episodes we get to see Todd blossom into a mature and deeply caring individual after securing his version of success; a job that suits him and an apartment with his asexual partner, Maude.

Like Bojack, Princess Carolyn’s story arch is one about what it means to “make it”. After years of clawing her way up from the bottom, PC is already an established agent when we meet her and even launches her own agency midway the show’s run. But when she’s offered her dream role of heading up a Female-First production house from form boss Turtletaub, she realises that there’s no point in having it all, if you’re unable to enjoy any of it. For Princess Carolyn, maintaining her success means finally learning how to have boundaries. The boundaries to not to let work run her life and take time for Ruthie, by learning to say no opportunities and troublesome clients/relationships like Bojack.

My favourite success story arch, though, is Diane’s. If you’d told Diane of the early seasons what the future held for her, becoming a YA writer, moving to Texas with your husband, being overweight from anti-depressants, she would have had a classic Diane freak-out. At the beginning of of her LA years, she has a strong view of who she is and what she wants to be; she’s a serious writer and she wants to be the cool, sexy girl who gets invited to celebrity parties, even if she doesn’t really enjoy them. Over the seasons, I’ve really related to Diane’s struggle to find herself against a backdrop of internalised misogyny and the external pressures of womanhood, and the guilt she feels at not being immune to that.

Things in Bojack Horseman were rarely what they seemed, and the theme of success was no different. The main characters who got their happy ending didn’t get it by finally achieving their dreams, but by adapting their goals to better fit who they are and what they need. For each of them, this involves letting go of other people’s expectations of success and forging their own.

Bojack Horseman also showed us that being a success isn’t always a happy ending, in fact, it often isn’t even an ending. Because after you secure your dream job, or get married, or get the big break you’ve been praying for, you wake up the next morning and have to keep going.

Sometimes, success is a bitch, but then you keep on living.

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