Butterscotch, Better Understood:

I'm not going to tell you that Butterscotch Horseman was "not so bad".

I'm going to tell you that he was not bad AT ALL.

BoJack's Father devoted his entire Life to his Craft, to his Vision, to his Passion, to his Calling, and to his Honour. When all was said and done and his honour came under fire, he died a Gentleman's Death, like Alekandr Pushkin did. Perhaps his writing was not Ibsen, but it wasn't Herb Kazzazz, most probably. Butterscotch didn't write a novel on a WHIM; he LIVED it, he lived THROUGH it, and he DIED for it.

This persistence he imbibed within his son. It's not enough to try. You can't take shortcuts. You persist, even if things are difficult. By all accounts, he was an IDEAL Father, and perhaps he is the only solid Father Figure in the Series.

BoJack's Mother was another case. As wife, she failed, consistently denouncing her own husband's work, emasculating him at every corner, leaving him with nothing but his own devices to lend Meaning to Life's Struggle. This was not a Struggle SHE had ever had to feel; not only was Survival something alien to her, but she felt quite ENTITLED to it.

Butterscotch did not. He knew that Living was a Burden, and, like any Beast of Burden, he would bear it. He would not go down without a fight, nor would he get up in the morning with no Reason. Butterscotch possessed what MOST of BoJack Horseman's anti-heroes lack: a PURPOSE. Not content to live in comfort, he would rather live in poverty of body than to live in poverty of Spirit. Beatrice attempted to convert him, and the consequences were by far more damaging.

BoJack's narcissism and his nihilism stem from Beatrice. Where Butterscotch would represent hard work and suffering with good intent and valour, Beatrice was something else: Escape. She ran away from Corbin Creamerman with Butterscotch, and once the two were "hitched" she ran away into indulgence, self-entitled fantasy, and spite. She saw survival as the Point of Living since she was a raging narcissist afraid to die. She NEEDED an entire Season just to justify her bad behaviour. Why was Butterscotch never explored to such an end? Because he needed no such alibi; his Life, his Word, and Deed were One. The Dad had VIRTUE, while the Mom had mere emotion and conceit.

Beatrice failed as a mother just as surely as she failed as wife, yet Butterscotch would never blame her. This we saw within the introduction to her Eulogy in Season Five. So much was then revealed about the hero's Father, at his Mother's funeral ("allegedly") that it's logical that fans would hope to learn more on the point of Butterscotch in Season Six.

That BoJack finally would read his Father's Novel seemed a longshot, but wherefore? In retrospect, the show is not complete without it. This one Magnum Opus was his Father's Legacy, his Life, the reasons for the son's Despair, as well as, probably, the explanation. BoJack has not just the PRIVILEGE of Butterscotch's words in print; he has the OBLIGATION to attend to it, for he's the last man in the Horseman Line. The Sartrean approach of living by one's own invention has not served him well; he is still looking for that One, Big Thing that Makes It All Make Sense: his Legacy. But what if that same Legacy had BEEN there, from the very start? Who is he NOT to read his Father's Novel? The man Lived and DIED for it.

The Final Season feigns Atonement with the Father by combining Butterscotch with Secretariat. Though this is quite surreal, consistent thereby with the show's aesthetic merit, it is also not believable nor satisfying as a Near-Death Dream. Secretariat was NOT a better Father Figure. Secretariat taught BoJack not to fight, but rather how to run away. Butterscotch was fight, but Secretariat was flight. Secretariat died young, (23 years BoJack's junior, at the start of the series) and he gave up his honour long before he gave his Life. Above all: Secretariat had no real relationship with BoJack, save for that which BoJack saw THROUGH THE T.V. SCREEN. So much of BoJack's self-entitlement comes through that tube that it is not at all surprising that he has not read a book in years and, trying to compose a book, he fails.

His father did not fail. If Diane Nguyen serves as an antidote to televised toxicity by writing, so did Butterscotch. While growing up with literary genius is hard, it is a bitter pill to swallow for a reason. Did the families of Hesse, Marx, or Salinger not read their fathers' catalogues? Of course they did, and it leant meaning to that suffering which had been necessary for success and, as such, Meaningful Existence: Happiness worth Dying For.

BoJack asks, "why would I give him that?" Yet reading his Father's Novel was not a favour from Son to Father. At any rate: if Diane's own writing career fails artistically, it shows that disowning the Father's Legacy is really another way to put the Cart before the Horse.

It's a shame the show was canceled. Even out of rehab, BoJack had a long, LONG ways to go before the finish line. We were only halfway down.

[({R.G.)}]