5x02 The Dog Days Are Over

[9.1/10] If there’s one thing I consistently admire about BoJack Horseman, it’s the show’s creative use of structure. Framing this entire episode as a “listicle”, and using that setup to jump back and forth in time, across continents and situations, is exceedingly creative, and allows the show to play fast and loose with the timeline and with Diane’s emotional state, in a way that pays both comedic and character-based dividends.

I like how the show uses Diane’s trip to Vietnam (and the lead-up and aftermath to it) to explore her cultural heritage, the difficulty of divorce, her newly awkward friendship with BoJack, and much much more. “The Dog Days Are Over” splits the difference between spoofing the “woman finds herself overseas” tropes and deploying them with more earnestness than most tearjerkers can manage.

As usual, there’s some traditional movie parodying being done here (Lost in Translation in particular comes to mind), but there’s also some real feeling, both of being separated, of being aimless, and being in an emotionally fraught place. You have some standard travel and silly animal gags, from the hilarious American family who can’t understand that Diane is from L.A., to the importance of the almighty screen to “AmeriCrane Airlines,” to the “executive grip” with whom Diane pretends to be a non-understanding native speaker.

The latter gag is mostly played for laughs, but there’s also a persistent theme in the episode of Diane trying on different “costumes” and personae in the hopes that she’ll find one that fits the new her post-Peanutbutter. The way that plays out over the course of the episode, from traditional Vietnamese garb, to a kicky new look for Mr. PB’s party, to more psychological changes in presentation is very well done.

After she was mostly absent in the premiere, it’s nice to get some focus on Diane here, connecting her sense of directionlessness in her life with a sense of unfamiliarity and the unknown being in a foreign country. The episode isn’t subtle about how starting a new phase in your life is like being in an unfamiliar place, and that the idea of breaking habits isn’t an easy one no matter where you are, but it does these things well, so it works.

“The Dog Days Are Over” also introduces Mr. PB’s new flame well, and uses the timeline shenanigans to deliver the maximum emotional punch for Diane’s discovery of the courtship. But it’s also hopeful, that Diane is, in her own words, “going through some shit” right now, but also surviving it, even if she doesn't necessarily know waht direction she wants her life to take from here.

It’s one of those BoJack episode that treads the line between comedy and drama well, with plenty of well-observed bits and good laughs, but also telling a touching story of a young woman overcoming her divorce while also making fun of movies and T.V. shows about women overcoming their divorce. It’s a tightrope to be sure, but the balance of humor and sentiment is nigh-perfect, with just enough profundity to rise above the clichés.

Overall, an early favorite for the best episode of the series.

«The real reason you go to Vietnam is because you accidentally see your soon-to-be ex-husband kiss someone else. And you realize he will never do that to you again. And it break you heart, again... after your heart was so broken that you thought it could never get any more broke. You thought it was safe, but it still, somehow, finds a new way to break. Because, even though, you’re the one who asked for this, now that you’ve got it, you’re completely adrift with no compass, or map, or sense of where to go, or what to do. So you go to Vietnam, you think you might find community, a connection to something bigger, but... you don’t. [...]. You learn that you can survive being alone».
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«La Vera ragione per andare in Vietnam è perché vedi per caso il tuo futuro ex marito che bacia un’altra [...]. E ti rendi conto che lui non lo farà mai più. E questo ti spezza il cuore, dopo che il tuo cuore era stato spezzato tante volte e credevi non potesse mai più spezzarsi. Pensavi fosse al sicuro, e invece trova ancora un nuovo modo per spezzarsi. Perché anche se sei stata tu a volerlo, ora che l’hai ottenuto, sei completamente alla deriva, senza una bussola, o una mappa, o un’idea di dove andare o cosa fare. Così vai in Vietnam. Ti illudi di poter trovare una comunità, un legame con qualcosa di più grande, ma... non le trovi. [...] Impari a sopravvivere anche da sola».