5x12 The Stopped Show

[7.2/10] I’d argue that there’s been three major themes this season, and “The Stopped Show” digs into each of them.

The easiest is the complicated ripples of the #MeToo movement and the benefits of it, but also the unexpected consequences of it and the briar patch that is trying to dismantle hundreds of years of entrenched patriarchy. I’ll admit, I got a big laugh out of the reversal here, where Henry Fondle’s risque quotes have gotten him nothing but success, but his technical statements about “low battery” and whatnot are the things that get him fired for sexual harassment.

But what’s really interesting is what results. Philbert is shut down, which takes away work from women like Princess Carolyn and Gina. Whattimeisit.com downsizes because of the controversy, which results in a number of women being laid off. There’s a really interesting idea at play about fighting the good fight, which causes you to lose a few battles, in the hopes of winning the war.

You see that in the interactions with BoJack and Gina. BoJack wants to come clean and be taken to task for his actions in the prior episode, but Gina calls him off. She says she doesn't want him to do that, because while it would assuage his guilt, it would just label her as a victim, as a product of this incident, for the rest of her career. So she just has to swallow the pain and pretend everything is okay for the cameras, and instructs BoJack to do the same, so that she can be her own thing and have her own career rather than having to be “the strangled girl” for the rest of her life in showbiz.

I like the acknowledgement of that complexity, of how systems are reinforced by people trying to fight the system from both ends, how succeeding amid a system that devalues but also fetishizes women’s pain ironically means not making waves for some women who have the unfortunate choice of exposing their abusers or getting to continue their careers without being tagged as part of a scandal. It’s one of the most nuanced and complex takes on this climate I’ve seen, and I appreciate that part of the episode tremendously.

It ties into the second major theme of the season, which is the push and pull between understanding and accountability. You see it with Mr. Peanutbutter, who’s not used to having to be the bad guy, for having to accept responsibility for bad actions, and so he just avoids them, because he doesn't want to have to test Pickles’s capacity to forgive him.

And you especially see it with Diane and BoJack. What’s interesting is that in a season where both characters were struggling with how much understanding and how much accountability each deserves for their actions, they more or less end up on opposite sides here. BoJack is the one who wants to be taken down, punished for his mistakes, and exposed for the sins he’s committed, and Diane is the one who concludes that there aren’t good or bad people, just people, who wants BoJack to get help more than she wants him to get punished.

That ties into the third major theme of the season -- learning to seek outside help. The past season was very much about BoJack acknowledging he has a problem and taking admirable steps to address it. But much of this season has been about him thinking that’s enough, that he has things under control, when the truth is that he did, as Diane asked him so many times, need to talk about it.

BoJack needed therapy. He needed confidantes to help him through the death of his mother. He needed rehab. But he thought he could handle it himself rather than seeking help from elsewhere. It takes Diane, who seems to have at least somewhat resolved her complicated love/hate feelings about her self-proclaimed best friend, pushing him to make that happen. It’s hard to call it a happy ending, but for a finale that feels a little anticlimatic and light on resolution, it at least works as a grace note to the ideas the show’s been exploring for the bulk of the season.

There’s others bits and pieces here and there. The end of Whattimeisit.com means the end of Todd the executive. His tasering Henry Fondler and tossing away his suit feels more like a bland wrap-up than the conclusion of a story, but it’s amusing enough. The episode pays lip service to the work/motherhood balance that Princess Carolyn has been grappling with all season, but at least changes the status quo on that front here, as she gets her baby from the woman she met with in North Carolina. And Mr. PB proposes to Pickles in what feels more like a tease for some cheap drama than a legitimate ending to his story this season.

But maybe that’s the broader idea BoJack is playing with here -- that when it comes to things as varied as abuse and harassment, romantic entanglements, and self-medication and addiction, there aren’t really clean endings to be had. Nobody’s fully better or fully happy or fully ready for what’s to come at the end of “The Stopped Show.” There’s meaning in that very fact, and the sort of wide view the show takes to all the problems it depicts.

It’s not a perfect finale from a not quite perfect season, but it does what it needs to, and is messy in the way that real life can be. Season 5 of BoJack never quite hit the heights of prior seasons, but it still founds ways to make its audience laugh, and think, and consider some complex issues from unexpected angles as it put its characters through the usual hell. It’s easy to be inured to that tack five years in, but it’s still something impressive, that marks BoJack Horseman and its complex, funny animal melodrama as a singular series on television.