Top 10 Saddest BoJack Horseman Moments

Season 3 proved to be a particularly traumatic time for our equine protagonist (more on that later). As the season finale comes to a close, BoJack drives away from Los Angeles, plagued by guilt and loneliness. For a moment, it seems he may wreck his car, but he stops himself when he sees a group of running horses. The meaning of the scene is left ambiguous, but it appears BoJack finds some sort of meaning or inspiration for the vehicle and decides to go on with his life. It’s much less clear-cut than some of the other more emotionally resonant moments of the series, but it will stick with you nonetheless.

BoJack reaches one of his lowest moments after his opioid addiction spirals into an assault on his coworker and girlfriend, Gina. Neither comes out unscathed, and once again BoJack is wracked with guilt and wants to confess and pay for his actions. Gina, however, knows that if the truth of the matter was public knowledge, it would overtake the career she’d worked so hard to establish. Reluctantly, he agrees, and Gina laughs her way through an interview that’s painful to watch. Most upsettingly, the audience knows that Gina has a point and that she’s sacrificing much of her self-worth in order to maintain her lifelong dream.

For much of BoJack’s adult life, he viewed his old friend Charlotte as the one that got away. Following a rough breakup, he surprises Charlotte, who now has a family, at her home in New Mexico. When she rejects his advances, he finds himself nearly hooking up with her underage daughter, Penny, with whom he’s also grown close. Charlotte catches them and demands that he leave their family alone, and the one that got away is gone forever. It’s an emotionally fraught scene, since, while we feel for BoJack after he loses something he thought he could always come back to, his actions with Penny are indefensible. He’s aware of this, as this is something that he still hasn’t been able to forgive himself for.

Fans of “BoJack” got a rare burst of hopefulness for Princess Carolyn when a Season 4 episode used a future descendant of hers to tell the story. We should have known better, though, as PC’s situation throughout the episode just gets worse and worse. First, she discovers that her assistant lied to her, then her doctor tells her she miscarried, and finally she breaks up with Ralph. After all this hardship, the real gut punch comes at the end of the episode, where she reveals that Ruthie is a figment of her imagination that she turns to for comfort after a bad day. It was a tragic bump in the road for our favorite feline, but certainly not the end of the road.

Hollyhock injected a lot of zany energy into the show’s fourth season, but we really fell in love with her when she showed her more somber side. After an episode that depicts BoJack’s depressed, self-loathing inner monologue, he finally sits down to talk to her. She reveals she has the same voice in her head, but BoJack lies to her that it will go away when she gets older. This is the moment when he realizes how much of himself he sees in her, which frightens him, but strengthens his resolve to protect her. There’s a certain irony to the fact that BoJack learns to care by seeing himself in another person, but we’ve all gotta start somewhere.

Todd is one of the most lovable and consistently absurd characters in the series, which makes it extremely jarring when he delivers a cutting speech to one of his best friends. After pointing out that many of his seemingly selfless actions are actually quite selfish, he points out, quite brutally, that it’s not enough for him to just apologize for what he does. The scene turns from comical to intense unexpectedly, and some profound voice work from Aaron Paul sells this heel-turn. It’s a pivotal moment that challenges BoJack, and the audience, to reckon with some uncomfortable truths.

BoJack’s mother, Beatrice, was always particularly cold towards her son, but Season 4 showed us that she suffered even worse injustices in her youth. Beatrice’s mother becomes distraught after the death of her son, Crackerjack. In typical Horseman fashion, she has a mental breakdown, which results in an accident that almost kills both her and Beatrice. Beatrice’s cruel father responds by having her mother lobotomized, making her a shell of her former self. In one fell swoop, she loses both her brother and her mother, and promises to never love anyone like her mother loved Crackerjack. While this doesn’t justify Beatrice’s treatment of BoJack, it does contextualize it, and gives us empathy for her when we thought she was simply a villain.

The relationship between BoJack and his onscreen daughter, Sarah Lynn, was never a healthy one. Sarah Lynn’s adult life has been one of addiction, breakdowns, and public scrutiny, and instead of acting as a father figure, he encouraged her behavior. It almost feels inevitable in hindsight that BoJack would indirectly cause her death when he convinces her to break her sobriety and go on a bender with him. After knowing her for almost all of her life, she dies with him, and he can’t help but see himself as the poison that corrupted her life. For better or worse, it’s one of his defining moments on the series, and he still struggles with her memory.

After a long bout with dementia, Beatrice sends Hollyhock to the hospital, and BoJack responds by placing her in an old folks’ home, hoping to never see her again. She gets a moment of clarity and understands what’s going on, and though he’s insisted he doesn’t care what happens to her, he remains with her for a moment. Unable to leave her in cruelty, he grants her comfort by illustrating a lovely scene to leave her with. It displays how much he’s grown and the compassion he’s learned from the events of the series, as well as bringing a close to his mother’s arc with an unexpected gentleness.

Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

BoJack’s Letter
“Fish Out of Water”

Princess Carolyn’s 40th Birthday
“Say Anything”

BoJack Confronts Diane
“Downer Ending”

Herb Refuses to Forgive BoJack
“The Telescope”

“BoJack” has never been a show that’s afraid to try new things. This impeccable episode consists almost entirely of a single monologue by BoJack as he delivers a eulogy for his mother. Some awkward jokes give way to a reflection on his life and his ideals, and he spends twenty minutes talking through his complicated grief. The episode never forgets to be a dark comedy, even dealing with these heavy themes, and Will Arnett’s phenomenal performance guides us through the emotional journey. It has everything we love about the show wrapped up in one tight scene, and it proves that the most human character on television is actually a horse.