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BoJack Horseman Recap: The Good Guys

Bojack Horseman

Old Acquaintance
Season 3 Episode 8
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Alison Brie as Diane, Paul F. Tompkins as Mr. Peanutbutter, Weird Al Yankovic as Captain Peanutbutter.

Bojack Horseman

Old Acquaintance
Season 3 Episode 8
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Alison Brie as Diane, Paul F. Tompkins as Mr. Peanutbutter, Weird Al Yankovic as Captain Peanutbutter. Photo: Netflix

If you met them in real life, you wouldn’t like the liars, cheaters, and misanthropes of BoJack Horseman. They may be the protagonists, but as “Old Acquaintance” demonstrates, they’re not the good guys.

On New Year’s Day, Rutabaga Rabitowitz and his wife attend couple’s counseling. They seem to have worked everything out after his affair with Princess Carolyn, and Mrs. Rabitowitz is VERY pregnant. Rutabaga gets a call from Vanessa Gekko, now his partner at their new agency. David Pincher needs a star for his young-adult sci-fi franchise, Flight of the Pegasus, so Gekko-Rabitowitz are determined to land the part for Australian actor Chuff Hollister.

Across town, BoJack gets a call from Sarah Lynn about a potential Horsin’ Around spinoff called Ethan Around, which Bradley Hitler-Smith wants to develop. (It’s basically a riff on Fuller House.) BoJack is incensed that Brad would even think to do a spinoff without asking him to be in it. Against Ana’s wishes, BoJack calls Brad to say he wants to do the show. He immediately regrets it, of course. When Princess Carolyn pitches Flight of the Pegasus, he sees it as the perfect way to get out of Ethan Around.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane arrive at the Labrador Peninsula. They’re met at the airport by his brother, Captain Peanutbutter (Weird Al Yankovic). Although the Labrador Peninsula is full of happy dogs enjoying the unusually good weather, it’s clear that something is wrong with Captain P.B., who ominously tells Diane that life is their most precious resource.

Things are going much better for Todd and Cabracadabra back in Los Angeles. He even has a new idea for the app: If women love the safe space he’s created for women, shouldn’t he make it a safe space for men, too? What could go wrong?

Gecko-Rabitowitz desperately try to reach David Pincher, but everyone working for him is out of town for the holiday. Everyone, that is, except for his casting director’s assistant … who happens to be Princess Carolyn’s former assistant, Laura (Rachel Bloom). Over lunch, Princess Carolyn convinces Laura to put in a good word with Pincher, citing how she tried to get a promotion back in the day. Elsewhere, it seems Judah is a double agent (forgive the pun). He and Vigor owner Charley Witherspoon discuss a potential merger, and Judah promises that Princess Carolyn will come around to the idea.

Vanessa decides to try a new tactic: If they convince BoJack to pass on Pegasus, their client will still have a shot. It’s a tall order, so they send Kelsey Jannings to meet with him for another project. (It’s about a girl who loves … jelly beans?) After burying the hatchet, they acknowledge that they both have things the other wants. BoJack has the star power to help Kelsey make her movie before the rights expire, and she’s responsible for the best work of his career. Excited by the possibility, he tells Princess Carolyn he wants to do Kelsey’s project and the Pegasus films.

Brad tells BoJack that he’s selling his house and moving his whole family to Los Angeles so they can start pitching Ethan Around. BoJack tries to politely get out of it, but Brad reassures him that no obstacle is insurmountable as long as he truly wants to do the show. BoJack doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

Back on the Labrador Peninsula, Captain Peanutbutter once again depresses Diane with his existential musing. “It’s so cruel to let people love you,” he says. “All you’re doing is promising to one day break their hearts.” Not that Mr. Peanutbutter notices. He’s on a call with Todd — it turns out that men love safe spaces for women even more than women do. The only problem? Drivers are getting uncomfortable, since male passengers are rating them on “bangability.” Ever well-intentioned, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter decide to find drivers who are more comfortable around gentlemen … by going to a gentlemen’s club.

Princess Carolyn calls Vanessa to play some hardball (and rub the Pegasus news in her rival’s face). If Kelsey wants BoJack in her jelly-bean movie, she’ll have to work around his schedule or pay him more than she can afford. As soon as they hang up, Rutabaga excitedly tells Vanessa that he’s found something that’ll blow this Pegasus thing wide open. Moments later, he learns his wife is going into labor. Vanessa sends him off to the hospital.

At BoJack’s house, Todd throws a New Year’s party with Cabracadabra’s new driver, the Orca stripper from Whale World. He also tells BoJack that Emily left, and it’s seems that they both know what happened between them. Brad excitedly arrives at the party, ready to celebrate the future of Ethan Around, but Ana rejects him at the door and summarily DESTROYS him. (“You are not a television star. You have no talent and I am forgetting your face even as I’m looking at it.”)

On the Labrador Peninsula, Diane tries to convince Mr. Peanutbutter to talk to his brother. She’s sure that something is wrong. He insists that labs don’t talk to each other, and his stubbornness sparks a fight. Mr. Peanutbutter walks out, finding his brother outside. When he finally works up the courage to ask him what’s wrong, Captain Peanutbutter tells him that he has a twisted spleen — and he might not make it. Together, they howl at the sky.

Laura calls Princess Carolyn with sudden news: BoJack is out for Pegasus. It turns out that Rutabaga found an old email Princess Carolyn sent to Mr. Witherspoon, asking him not to promote Laura because she was too good of an assistant. At the same time, Kelsey tells BoJack she lost the rights to her movie, since Princess Carolyn asked for too much money and she couldn’t secure funding.

Judah tells Princess Carolyn that they’re going to have to make some serious budget cuts. She freaks out. As the new year begins, and fireworks explode on the horizon, she wonders why it seems like things go well for everyone but her.

Cut to the hospital, where Baxter and his wife celebrate their new babies. Vanessa excitedly bursts into the room, having landed their client the starring role in Pegasus. “Wow, you’ve gotta love a happy ending,” Baxter says. Seems like they were the good guys after all.

Other Thoughts:

  • Hell Yeah I Do — that would be a good title for a movie about marrying Satan!”
  • The title sequence now includes shots of Cabracadabra in action.
  • “Why did I make the cartoon tree from Pocahontas my emergency contact?” Grandmother Willow would be a great emergency contact, though.
  • “This is what Robert Downey Jr. must have felt like when he woke up on that stranger’s bathroom floor and found out he was going to be Iron Man!”
  • Diane, on Captain Peanutbutter’s existential crisis: “The kind of stuff you’d hear in a sad Creed song … or a happy Elliott Smith song.”
  • Mr. Peanutbutter thinks the human version of “all bark, no bite” is “all talk, and no shooting you with an assault rifle.” He’s not wrong.

BoJack Horseman Recap: The Good Guys