Todd: I was at the office the other day, doing the “Hokey Pokey” with some work associates and I realized everyone misunderstands that song. Yeah, there’s way too much emphasis on the “hokey pokey” part.
BJ: That is what it’s all about.
Todd: No. That’s exactly what I mean.
BJ: That’s not what the song is saying.
…
Todd: “You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around.” You turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about.
BoJack: Yeah, I don’t know if the songwriters put that much thought into the existential significance of the lyrics. They literally rhyme “about” with “about.”
Todd: But isn’t the point of art less what people put into it and more what people get out of it? Is that the point of art?
BJ: Maybe.
Let’s throw away all the canonical endings, all we know, the hokey-pokey texts, and just try to understand what feels so wrong with series ending. It just feels off, as in the quote above “it’s more about what people get out of it”. I don’t know what you’ve wanted to film, folks, but i know what i’ve felt, sorry if this does not go in line with some canon.
First thing that goes off is the penultimate and last episode controversy. While View From Halfway Down is obviously a climax of everything, Nice While It Lasted is like turning the volume all way down, just to see same characters having a chit-chat after long time no see, and most of the episode, excluding last scene, is somewhat that doesn’t seem like worth taking screen time, disenchanting everything that previous episode has done. Madness, tragedy, inability to fix things you’ve done, loss of control, everything is just swapped for a beachy wedding where people find out that they’ve made their peace without any real emotions baked in, except for the last scene. I had to watch it several times just to explain to myself why does one need to go through all of this, why these long dialogues are important, where are the key points, until i started making up my mind. I just refused to go until i get some explanation of what’s going on after the all details crafted in The View From Halfway Down, no, something is missing and i must dig it up.
I believe that’s not only theme and surface of episode that is off, it’s off in many things inside, just as It Follows is off as a whole without any single particular thing being off too much, just as View From Halfway Down is off from the very beginning, and every viewer knows it long before the mystery curtain falls off the twist.
First thing is it’s sitcomish plot. Starting from sitcomish resurrection to being put into supermax jail but for fourteen months only (i thought if you go to supermax then you would have some serious term as well, no?), continuing to being released from such for one day just to attend a wedding. A fake one, set up by a person you have no close ties to anymore. Yeah, i’m totally buying it.
The next thing is all those little details that were placed there for some reason nobody explained that are somehow ruining this perfect sitcom and making us think it’s just a kind of delusion, just like previous episode. It begins with that beeping cardiac monitor in the very start of the episode being drawn over the shots from the very last scene. It plays no role in that funny “oh hey i woke up why i’m handcuffed” jokey sequence, it has been been placed there deliberately.
And, obviously, all those ambiguous lines and all those strange things popping up in dialogues, like “[i got into jail] for kind of everything”. This is where i lose patience and want just to continue with picking up all the odds i’ve seen.
It all starts with that joke right past prison gates:
PB: I sentence you to life… filled with my friendship!
BJ: If this is my only other option, I choose prison.
Which is both just a gag and a reference to previous episode. But that will become even more interesting as i’ll dig in.
PB: What are you in for again?
BJ: Officially, breaking and entering, but I think it was kind of for everything.
Is this line about everyone being tired with BJ or about that he’s serving his term as a punishment for all his sins he regrets so much?
BJ: I didn’t know I’d be going to a wedding in a year.
—
PB: When are you getting out for real?
BJ: Few months.
BoJack is there something nearly for a year, but doesn’t know when he gets out, while his term is fourteen months only. Later he will confess he is close to his previous sobriety record, so it’s not like he consciously decided to forget about time while serving his deserved term as a form of punishment, he is in fact counting the days.
Some other lines:
BJ: You think Diane’s gonna be there?
PB: Everyone’s going to be there. It’s the party of the year.
BJ: I haven’t talked to Diane since, uh…
…
PB: Okay, next stop: wedding!
BJ: I’m not ready for this. You gotta take me back to jail.
PB: What? Come on, Shawshank, you’re gonna be fine.
BJ: No, I can’t be around people. I can’t face them, I’m not ready.
PB: What do you think is gonna happen?
BJ: I don’t know! I never know. I just know that something bad
is gonna happen if I go to that wedding.
At this point every viewer is prepared for some disaster to sprawl out by the end of the episode. And BoJack suddenly panics like there is a something that doesn’t let him to talk to people.
But no disaster happens in this episode. Or does it, but we just don’t see it?
And why Diane should be at Princess Carolyne wedding? I understand why Todd-the-babysitter is invited, but Diane? When was the last time they were interconnected through some kind of work-related activities? At this point the only thing that relates Diane to all others is, well, BoJack himself.
Then they finally arrive at party, where Todd catches BJ on the way to the roof, to yet-again-sitcomishly save overwhelmed friend at party. During their dialogue BJ tells two things:
- He’s somewhat between afraid and inable to do any decisions for himself
- He feels like “routine is good for him” for reasons close to that of previous sentence
Then Todd tells his hokey-pokey theory in response to BJ being afraid of relapse. Todd gives a hint about ability to change and how it worked for him and his mother, but it’s kinda “you will be getting better and better each time”, while for BJ it is enough to happen just once, and it’s already a catastrophe. It kinda left me with a feeling that Todd had a need to share what’s going on about his relationships between him and his mother with BJ rather than actually help him with the problem.
Next, BoJack is back at the party to dance with Princess Carolyn. She says the party’s fake, Horny Unicorn is trending, so BJ is there just to blend in for overall hype. Getting someone from a jail who doesn’t even deserve to be a guest at real wedding is something… well... a bit over the top. To let the suspense flow in all directions, i’ll say that we don’t know who exactly let BoJack out of the jail. It is just implied it is Princess Carolyn, but there’s no evidence for that.
But hold on, PC says Horny Unicorn is trending. Then why everyone ignores BJ so that he is always alone at the party, and only Judge Clunky waves at him?
Then they have a bit of conversation about how BJ could have save day from sitcomish disaster, which ends in “but that didn’t happen”, so i couldn’t get why it there, and PC first offering BJ to return to business just to instantly drop “disregard this” and say it’s a bad idea. Again, there’s some ringing in the air that just prevents it from making up as a whole. There are just a couple of things that stand out:
PC: Think it over. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. Well, a decision.
…
BJ: …Someone who can look out for me, help me make the right decisions,
Decisions. Decisions again. BJ isn’t capable of doing any decisions himself.
BJ: Like, it would be time for the wedding and no one would know where to find you.
PC: No one but you, right?
BJ: Yeah.
BJ: And I’d find you in some special spot
BJ: And I’d say, “Come on, it’s time to go.”
BJ: And you’d say, “What am I doing, BoJack?”
PC: [chuckles] And then what, I’d run off with you?
BJ: No, I would talk you into going through with it, and it would be like a symbol of how much I’d grown, that I could let you go.
I don’t remember how many seasons ago BoJack tried last time to make it up with Princess Carolyn. I just don’t get it, that doesn’t fit in my head. Let you go? What?
And then the final scene, the only one with some emotions. But before i go there, i want to do a stop to highlight some things.
What are in fact Todd (explicitly) and Princess Carolyn (implicitly) do?
What is their role in this episode?
The answer is simple.
They prevent BoJack from going to the roof.
I believe that this is the key point. It was driving me nuts why those dialogues with Todd / Princess Carolyn had to take place. This is a recap from View From Halfway Down, but in a bit inverse state. BJ again is met with some external force directing the play. There is something to happen, there would be no way back, but it would be delayed up to the last moment, while it is kinda obvious what is waiting there, behind the door / on the roof. The only difference is that in previous episode BoJack denied it to the last moment, while everyone tried to hint him what’s going on, when in this one he knows what to do, but everyone prevents him from doing that.
And let’s review all these boring inconsistencies i’ve been throwing at you. I think you already know, if not feeling yourself, where i’m getting at.
BoJack is serving his term. He doesn’t know when he’s getting out. He got there “for kind of everything”. Everyone has to tell him something about changes in their life. Something‘s not allowing him to make decisions, like he’s not allowed to perform any actions, just talk. He’s afraid going at the party, talking to people, because there is a disaster to pop up. No, he’s not afraid talking to people, he does not talk to people. Nobody sees him at that party, except for Jurjalette Lumpy. But hey, about that last sentence:
Is he pointing (and waving seconds ago) at BoJack or Princess Carolyn?
The episode is called “Nice While It Lasted”, and it’s obviously not about Todd acting smart, and that name certainly means an end. And the thing that Todd says about endless loop of getting better… Well, the correct word i was looking for is “reincarnation”.
Yeah, you already know where it’s going, but no, it’s not BoJack’s personal purgatory as in other speculations. It’s not him going through something, it’s more like all of his acquaintances remember him because all of them grouped together, remembered what, or, more precisely, who connected all of them, and they dream of what they would have said to him, if he would be there. Just reverse everything. Like in that thoughts we all have when we dream up how would a conversation with somebody important go, “and I would say — Yes, an all-year opened Halloween store, and she would chuckle a bit smiling with her beautiful smile”, and it is actually not what’s going to happen but what we want it to be like — and just like that all characters imagine how their conversation with BoJack would go.
Hey, BoJack, i unraveled that problem of my relationships of women. I think i’m too selfish. But i’m always for buying you suit for a wedding should you have none.
Hey, BoJack, i’m finally making progress in restoring relationships with my mother. I wouldn’t believe it two years ago, but I, Todd Chavez, is not a lost cause. Turns out, I can change. And other can change for me. This is hard, but i thought that i always would be that clumsy pal winding up in strange stories, I in fact am something.
Hey, BoJack, your last creation is trending as nothing before. I wish you could get back, because sometimes I miss you in my job. I also was freaking out a bit before the wedding, but I, as Princess Carolyn, the smartest woman I know, was strong as always and managed to go through. Though I think what would have happen should I have could feet and it’s so stereotypically sitcomish that this role to find me and save the day is just for you. But I have to let you go.
And given it’s something a year after… May be it’s not a wedding at all, may be they all have gathered to remember him year after his death? Is that why Diane’s there?
In any case, there’s the last scene with Diane. Who’s the only one fully understands she’s talking to a ghost, whether imaginary or taken out of place where people go for kind of everything just for one day. Thus the flatline with same shots in episode intro.
Diane: I just came out here to smoke. You came to me.
But for some reason you’ve been there all the time, because BJ hasn’t spotted you even once on the first floor. Sitting until he appeared.
BoJack: I just wanted to talk to you.
BoJack: [stammers] I miss talking to you.
Diane: I wish I had my phone right now.
…
Diane: So I could play you the last voicemail you left me.
Diane: Did you remember that, that you left me a voicemail?
Because it’s me, Diane, that misses you, but that voicemail reminds me that you’re not real.
Diane: You were happy on the voicemail. You sounded happy. Or lightly sardonic, or glibly nihilistic, or however you’d describe that thing you get that’s the closest to the emotion normal people call happy.
BJ: I’m sorry…
Diane: And you were clearly intoxicated, and you were talking about swimming. “I’m going swimming,” you said.
“Since nothing matters anyway, and nobody cares about me, I might as well go swimming, right?”
BJ: I’m so sorry.
Diane: “Call me back if you don’t want me to go swimming. Otherwise, I’m just gonna assume you don’t care.”
First of all, what a nice way of telling you’re about to commit suicide by getting more intoxicated so you can happily drown. If you go swimming because nobody cares, then you’re certainly not up for just swimming. And if you’re happy about that… Well, looks like you’ve made up your mind and just checking if the last string to someone who cares still exist.
Diane: and then I woke up one morning and I had this voicemail.
…
Diane: For seven hours, I couldn’t get in touch with anyone, and I was sure you were dead, and it was my fault for leaving you, for feeling good, for not worrying. When I left for Chicago, you promised me you were gonna be okay, but I made you promise me that.
So he drowned somewhere in the evening / night, then in the morning she got the voicemail and for next seven hours, making it to at least twelve total, he was completely missing?
And regarding promise: there’s a silent pact between Diane / BoJack. What unifies them is their struggle to believe that they’re worthy of love and acceptance just by being themselves, they’re only coping with it using different methods. BoJack is scared shitless of opening up and showing vulnerability; thus he pretends like he doesn’t care and doesn’t need such thing, but at same time he strives for admiration as a star, which is just a substitute for real acceptance. Diane doesn’t cope with it as bluntly, but struggles as much, and when it comes to medications, she pretend she doesn’t need them because she’s afraid she could be worthy of herself only if she continues to look like she’s not broken.
And while Diane made more for BoJack rather than vice versa, he cared for her too. After making that promise, we see him flying to Chicago just to meet with her, check her out, thank her and clean up her place with all the care he can provide. We see him executing his part of pact. Diane, by this promise, is refusing to carry her part and denouncing the pact, but in fact it still applies, because, well, you can’t change that without changing the whole relationship.
Diane: I wish I could have been the person you thought I was, the person who would save you.
And blam, another ambiguous line.
BoJack: How’d you learn how to trust it? The happiness?
Diane: I didn’t. But I trust him.
Here starts another important thing. How their ways separated and Diane somewhat learned to work with her struggle, what BoJack failed to achieve.
Diane: But I was terrified of coming back here for the wedding. Seeing Mr. Peanutbutter. Seeing you.
BoJack: What’d you think was gonna happen?
The disaster we’ve been warned from the start of episode. It’s called “Nice While It Lasted” because something ends right with this conversation, whether you admit it or not.
Diane: I’m glad I knew you, too.
BoJack: “Knew,” huh?
Blam
BoJack: Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if this night was the last time we ever talked to each other?
Diane, why do you completely deny the possibility that you’re going to meet somewhere between flights in airport and would have a small talk?
Diane: No, I need to tell you: Thank you. And it’s going to be okay. And I’m sorry. And… [softly] thank you.
Thanks for what? What is going to be okay? OK, i can understand “thanks for having me as a friend”, but seriously, what’s going to be okay?
My theory is that when their ways parted, BoJack committed suicide, leaving a voicemail before that to the only person who could understand what’s he struggling with. This is when Diane changed, understanding that she certainly doesn’t want the same ending. Thank you for being that person I can relate to. I was angry at you, because you did that, but because of your deed now I see that this isn’t going ever happen to me. I’d better continue with meds, even though they make me gain weight. I miss you, I’d love to unwind that back, I didn’t live through that yet, but it’s going to be okay someday.
And those last lines, embracing the everything that feels off and my thoughts above, that directly spit out who took which path:
BoJack: Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? Life’s a bitch and then you die, right?
Diane: Sometimes. Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep living.
Blam <drops the keyboard>
So what, you’re saying that’s what actually happened? I saw interview with RBW where he told he has no intentions to kill BJ in the series.
No, I’m not saying that. What’s good about decent drama is that you have to unwind what has not been said. You get clues here and there, debug moments that seem wrong, ask yourself of why that particular scene was added. Such field for exploration is something that makes drama good and keeps your brain working.
Surely it may go wrong in at least three cases. A) you can make wrong assumptions B) you can twist the facts for benefits of your own theory (and i won’t deny i wish that my guess would be true, so i may be not so consciously making some things looking good) and C) there was a field left for interpretation without particular clues, which may be quite true and i see something which is not present. But everything above is just a theory i’m comfortable with and needed to spit out, OK?
Regarding the interview:
I don’t remember considering the possibility that BoJack would be dead…I know that it’s something people are anticipating, and I do like going right up that idea and exploring it. But as a storyteller, I felt like ending the show there was never something that was interesting to me. Originally, we were even going to end this episode with him waking up so you’d know he wasn’t dead…but I didn’t want to break the reality of this episode, which has BoJack in this state.
The fun thing that statement being the most close “no, he’s alive at the end” is “i don’t remember considering the possibility that BoJack would be dead”. While it really is quite assertive, he doesn’t explicitly state that BoJack is alive. He’s like “There are no newspapers in archive mentioning that”. Well, shame on you, people like me come in and make their own interpretations of your show.
But in the end, whether BoJack is alive or dead at the final episode is a subject for interpretations, speculations and own perception of this great drama. It’s a truth that is not a solid fact, but rather how one feels about what’s going on in last episode, and the answer is different for every viewer. From the very same RBW interview:
Although, there are people who work on the show who have asked me if the final episode is real, and if he died. Which is not necessarily an ambiguity I was thinking about what when we were writing it, but people are going to interpret it the way they’re going to interpret it! If that’s what your takeaway is, well, alright. What does that mean for you?
Hence the title.
