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That's too much, man!

—Sarah Lynn's catchphrase as Sabrina on Horsin' Around


Suck a dick, dumb shits!

—Sarah Lynn's catchphrase as an adult


I wanna be an architect...

—Sarah Lynn's final words, That's Too Much, Man!


Introduction

Sarah Lynn, born Sarah Himmelfarb (b. 1984, d. 2016), was a recurring character in BoJack Horseman. She was a troubled pop star and former child actress who played the Horse's precocious adoptive youngest daughter Sabrina on the fictional '90s TV show Horsin' Around.

She makes her most prominent appearances in Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 up to her death from a heroin overdose in That's Too Much, Man!.

Sarah Lynn's death becomes one of the main issues surrounding Season 6, which revolves around the events after her death and BoJack's involvement in them.

Physical Appearance

Sarah Lynn had light brown hair, pale skin, aqua-green eyes, and freckles on her cheeks and nose.

During present-day in the series, her hair is worn in a somewhat messy style with her bangs styled over to the left side, she wore red lipstick, had dark circles underneath her eyes, and she had a tattoo on her right arm of a green and blue snake twisted around one another.

She wore a button-down top with blue sleeves and trim, one side being lavender with white skulls, and the other side having a lavender and white striped pattern. She also wore black denim short shorts and yellow high top sneakers. She was about 5'4.[1]

In 2002, at age of eighteen, during the early part of her singing career, she wore an outfit in a similar style worn by pop stars such as Britney Spears during that era. She wore a white crop top that showed her midriff, aqua blue low-rise skinny jeans with hot pink thong straps that hung around her hips, and open-toed purple high-heels. She also wore pink lipstick and light pink eyeshadow.

As a child on Horsin' Around, she had shorter hair with bangs and her two front teeth stuck out. She wore a white t-shirt underneath pink short overalls with a pink headband and purple jellies with straps.

As a preteen, she wore a near-identical outfit but swapped her jellies for lavender floral sneakers, and the sleeves on her shirt are rolled up. She had more prominent lips along with no longer having her overbite, and her hair was worn in a shorter bob that went just above her shoulders.

Personality

As a troubled thirty-year-old pop star, Sarah Lynn appeared on the surface to be selfish, hedonistic, reckless, and self-centered, acting like a bratty teenager.

In the episode Prickly-Muffin, she makes a public scene in a furniture store by stabbing herself with a bayonet and defecating on a sofa. She also trashed BoJack's home while throwing wild parties and constantly took advantage of him.

She was often seen on her phone and was pretty irresponsible with her actions, such as in Prickly-Muffin when she had holes drilled in BoJack's wall for "a cocaine sex booth.” She also set his ottoman on fire without any motive whatsoever.

Other appearances show her acting erratically. Sarah Lynn was constantly seen taking drugs such as cocaine or drinking heavily in public. She is also seen crushing up a handful of pills and snorting them, or inhaling spray paint fumes with a paper bag. Besides her drug addiction, she is seen driving recklessly, as she painted her toenails on the steering wheel.

However, Sarah Lynn was lonely, troubled, and was obviously suffering from substance abuse. Most of the people in her life only wanted to be around her because they had an agenda or wanted something out of her. She was concerned about what people thought of her and did anything she could for attention and validation. As she told BoJack in That's Too Much, Man!, she wears her normal shirt because the company who made it paid her to, she says she didn’t even need the money, she was just glad someone still cared about her. The high she got from drugs gave her pleasure, and the only reason she tried going sober was to intensify her high once she went back to drugs again.

Sarah Lynn was quite intelligent and had a strong passion for architecture. She dreamed of being an architect her whole life, but this dream was not achieved due to being forced into a life of fame and substance abuse at a young age. At several points in the series, she uses architecture terminology and demonstrates her knowledge on the subject.

She doesn’t look back on aspects of her fame highly, questioning how her being on the show wasn’t child labor, since she was three and didn’t understand what she was getting into, and admitting how disgusting it is that every day she gets messages from male fans telling her she was the first girl they masturbated to.

Flashbacks to both her childhood and preteen years on the set of Horsin' Around shows her as an extroverted and happy child, however she did not have good parental figures, as her mother was a controlling stage parent who forced her into show business and shot down any of her dreams that were not related to fame (such as her dreams of being an architect). Her stepfather was a bear and a "photographer," and it is implied he sexually abused her as Sarah Lynn "knows what bear fur tastes like," as mentioned in Still Broken. He also home-schooled her, which isolated her from kids her own age.

The later seasons of Horsin' Around show Joelle openly showed resentment towards her, because of her popularity getting her more screen time, and rejected her attempts at friendship. In the present Sarah Lynn returns this, acting hostile towards her by insulting her weight and trying to attack her.

She looked up to BoJack off-screen as a father figure, even idolizing him to an extent, and flashbacks indicate that Sarah Lynn's self-destructive behavior is in part the result of BoJack neglecting, and negatively influencing her as a child, as he would with many other women in his life, and even right up until her untimely death. At the tender age of six, BoJack told her "The most important thing is, you've got to give the people what they want. Even if it kills you, even if it empties you out until there's nothing left to empty. No matter what happens, no matter how much it hurts, you don't stop dancing, and you don't stop smiling, and you give those people what they want."

Later, in 2007, BoJack visits her after one of her concerts. She is initially excited to see him, and while they talk, Sarah Lynn shows how stressful her fame is and how everyone around her is only there to get something out of her. Unfortunately, BoJack reveals that he only showed up because he wanted her to be on his new show, which saddens her and furthers reinforces the idea that people in her life are always going to use her. This ultimately sends her over the edge, and for the next few years, she turns to destructive behavior just for attention.

BoJack was also responsible for the first time she got drunk, at the age of ten, due to leaving his vodka in a water bottle sitting in his dressing room where she was getting her hair cut, he had sex with her when they were both drunk, and when she was sober for almost nine months he took advantage of the fact she was very ready to go off the wagon and went on a bender with her, that led to her death.

Sarah Lynn occasionally showed signs of being a kind, smart, and thoughtful person. She did care about the people close to her, like BoJack, but had difficulty showing it.

Her last words were "I wanna be an architect."

Background

History

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Sarah Lynn gets her rise to fame as Sabrina on Horsin' Around when she is just three-years-old

Sarah Lynn, born Sarah Himmelfarb in 1984, was forced by her mother at the age of three to be an actress in Horsin' Around. She played Sabrina, The Horse's youngest daughter.

She expressed interest in being an architect but was shut down by her mother Carol who said: "Mommy didn’t do what she did to the Star Search producer so that you could be an architect."

She was home schooled by her stepfather, a bear who is a photographer, which isolated her from kids her age. It is heavily hinted her stepfather may have sexually abused her.

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BoJack terrifying Sarah Lynn by telling her "You don't stop dancing, and you don't stop smiling, and you give those people what they want."

She admired and looked up to BoJack as a father figure, although he did not display much care towards her.

One day, in between takes, BoJack tells Sarah Lynn she is nothing without her fans, and if she is good to them they’ll be good to her. He also tells her no one else will ever understand her or love her as much as them. She has to give the people what they want, even if it kills her. While this quote may have been BoJack describing his own worldview, it seems to have affected Sarah Lynn and how she acted later in life.

On Horsin' Around, her character Sabrina was apparently a fan favorite, as of later seasons. After creator Herb Kazzaz was fired, most of the episodes' plots involved around her, much to the jealousy of co-star Joelle Clarke. She revealed a talent for singing, as a headline on People magazine revealed.

One day, a ten-year-old Sarah Lynn had Sharona, the hairdresser and makeup lady, cut her hair in BoJack’s dressing room, to his annoyance, because her stepdad was "being weird." He takes out his frustrations over the Herb situation on her, and Sharona calls him out in it as the two leave the dressing room, leaving a teary-eyed Sarah Lynn alone. BoJack left a water bottle filled with alcohol (which he got from Sharona) on the vanity, and Sarah Lynn winds up drinking it and getting sick. Danny tells BoJack when she is not on set, and that someone has to be held accountable as her mother might sue. BoJack lets Sharona take the blame and she gets fired.

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A teenage and more sexualized Sarah Lynn in her first music video for her first single "Prickly Muffin"

Following the show's cancellation in 1996, she became a successful pop singer in the early 2000s at the age of eighteen, with her debut album I Am Sarah Lynn, adopting a more sexual image while doing so.

At the height of her singing career in 2007, she had her own fragrance with Kevin Kline, branded Sarah Lynn's Stank.

However, fame began to take a toll on her, as she became stressed and depressed that the people around her began using her for her fame.

This came to a turning point at one of her concerts during her Sexually Confident Virgin Tour in December 2007. BoJack has just started his comeback show with Cuddlywhiskers, called The BoJack Horseman Show, which was being critically panned. After receiving the show's lowest ratings, Cuddlywhiskers decided they needed a big celebrity to guest star, and Jill Pill recommended Sarah Lynn. BoJack was not easy about this, as she was at the time “the world's biggest pop star," and he had never spoken to her since Horsin’ Around ended.

Cuddlywhiskers convinced him anyway, even saying BoJack "was like a father to her." BoJack then goes backstage at one of her concerts with a script and meets her, much to her excitement. She tells him how hard being famous is, and says she's “this close to falling off the deep end." She also states how everyone takes advantage of her due to her fame.

BoJack ends up revealing that he only came to visit her to ask her to be on his show. Sarah Lynn is saddened by this and tells BoJack to leave it next to a large pile of other scripts she was given. She then sadly asks him to leave.

This incident pushed Sarah Lynn over the edge and began her downfall. Her following albums tanked, and she became addicted to drugs and alcohol.

During the events of BoJack Hates the Troops, she met with Herb Kazzaz, who had rectal cancer. He told her to get sober and to get his book published when he dies.

By the time she turned thirty in 2014, people had lost interest in her in favor of younger stars such as "fourteen-year-old teenage dubstep wunderkind" Sextina Aquafina.[2]

Season 1

Sarah Lynn pills

Sarah Lynn about to take a bunch of pills

In Prickly-Muffin, BoJack, while at a furniture store with Todd, runs into her and her boyfriend Andrew Garfield. During this encounter, Andrew breaks up with Sarah Lynn, saying that when they started dating she was super popular but now that she's 30 and no one cares about her anymore he's uninterested.

Sarah Lynn starts having a public meltdown, swallowing a whole bottle of pills and stabbing herself with a bayonet that Todd was holding. She also defecates on a sofa (BoJack reveals this part to Diane when telling her about it). BoJack then checks Sarah Lynn into rehab.

However, later that day she shows up at BoJack's house after leaving rehab prematurely and patching up her stab wounds with duct tape. She asks BoJack if she could stay with him and he agrees.

Sarah Lynn takes advantage of this, throwing wild parties and trashing BoJack's house in the process. BoJack believes she just needs some love, and the two spend time together at the Santa Monica Pier. This leads to BoJack learning Herb Kazzaz has, as Sarah Lynn puts it, "ass cancer." BoJack then gives Sarah Lynn his TV Guide Award. The next day, BoJack learns Sarah Lynn sold his award to a pawn shop for drug money and it was purchased by Mr. Peanutbutter.

This leads to BoJack and Sarah Lynn having an argument, ending in them having sex. She later sets his ottoman on fire, but when BoJack confronts her about it, the fight leads to the two having sex again.

Diane and Todd convince BoJack to tell Sarah Lynn to move out as they feel that BoJack and Sarah Lynn are taking advantage of each other.

When BoJack tells Sarah Lynn she has to leave and get real help, she accepts while also saying she feels she's at a place where "she doesn't need to grow as a person and can constantly surround herself with sycophants and enablers until she dies tragically young."

In Downer Ending, she, BoJack, and Todd do large amounts of drugs in order to help BoJack rewrite his memoir. The drugs are provided by Sarah Lynn's doctor and alleged drug dealer Dr. Hu.

Season 2

In Still Broken, she and the rest of the Horsin' Around cast attend Herb's funeral. They all meet up in Herb's bedroom after the funeral, leading to hostility, especially between Sarah Lynn and Joelle.

They're all about to part ways when the blind executor of Herb Kazzaz's will delivers Sarah Lynn a floppy disk that is said to lead to "Herb's gold."

BoJack, Sarah Lynn, Bradley, and Joelle then go on a treasure hunt for Herb's gold to honor his dying wish. They go to Herb's old office and get into his computer, which only has an address for a storage locker in it.

2x03 Sarah Lynn HerbGold flashback

Herb and Sarah Lynn

At the storage locker, they find a briefcase labeled “Gold,” though it is empty and only has some bear fur inside. Sarah identifies it as bear fur by tasting it and mentions her stepdad was a bear. Joelle then reads a letter from Henry Winkler talking about a novel Herb wrote.

Sarah Lynn then remembers her conversation with Herb the past year asking her to publish his novel when he dies. They believe Henry Winkler murdered Herb for his book. However, when they go back to the funeral, Henry reveals he stole the book due to it was really "too terrible to publish" and would have made Herb a laughingstock.

Season 3

In Old Acquaintance, on New Year's Eve 2015, Sarah Lynn calls BoJack while driving and painting her toenails on the steering wheel. She asks if he's heard about the Horsin' Around sequel, Ethan Around, that Bradley is trying to get made. BoJack is surprised by this news and is offended Bradley had not contacted him yet.

He asks if this is just from her being high, and Sarah Lynn replies she's eight months sober. She only did it because she heard if you stop doing drugs for a long time, the high when you do them again is "incredible." BoJack pleads her to just stay sober, but Sarah Lynn groans and tells him to call her when he's ready to party. She then is heard crashing her car and BoJack hangs up.

In That's Too Much, Man!, on January 16, 2016, a happier and calmer Sarah Lynn is about to celebrate her ninth month of sobriety. She then gets a call from BoJack asking her if she wants to party. This was after BoJack had not been nominated for an Oscar and had a falling out with everyone he knew. She immediately accepts and downs a bottle of vodka.

BoJack comes over and they proceed to drink, do drugs, reminisce, and watch old episodes of Horsin' Around. However, BoJack begins to blackout.

After a few blackouts, during which Sarah Lynn asks to go to the planetarium twice only for BoJack to reject her as he thinks "dome-shaped buildings are dumb," they are thirty-one hours into their bender. They end up at an AA meeting because Sarah Lynn wants to get her nine-month sobriety chip.

BoJack gets fed up with all the boring stories so he goes up to the podium. He tells them a story about how he visited his friend Charlotte and how he tried to sleep with both her and her daughter Penny in Tesuque, New Mexico, and that he has no idea what happened to the family or the daughter afterward.

He has another blackout and comes to while recklessly driving a car. Sarah Lynn tells him that he shut down the AA meeting because he "bummed everyone out" and that she looked Penny up on Facebook. It appears that Penny is doing fine and she is now attending college in Oberlin. Sarah Lynn also tells him to try the 12-step program and to make amends to make himself feel better and get a clean slate.

However, these attempts fail due to both of them being high and drunk. They break into Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter's house and dress up like them after BoJack eats all their food while Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane watch. BoJack tries to apologize to Todd but ends up apologizing to a little boy who is dressed similarly to Todd.

BoJack also tries to apologize to Ana for two weeks, but blacks out every time before he can hear her tell why she does not want to be around him anymore. He also tries to apologize to Princess Carolyn by standing outside her apartment building on the roof of his car and screaming that "[he's] sorry." Princess Carolyn just sighs and goes back inside with her boyfriend Ralph, who turns to glare at BoJack.

After finally hearing Ana's story about the incident that happened to her as a young adult, BoJack has another blackout and wakes up in a car with Sarah Lynn. They are on the way to Ohio for BoJack to make amends with Penny and to see if he "messed her up." He demands that they turn the car around, but the two still end up at Oberlin's library. They spot Penny using the computer, and BoJack says that they should stop following her, but he blacks out again and wakes up later at night outside of a party that Penny is attending.

BoJack says that she seems fine and that maybe he did not ruin her. He agrees to drive them home after he pees but ends up bumping into a group of guys, knocking them over. This catches Penny's attention and she notices BoJack and begins to freak out, telling him that "he can't be here." Realizing BoJack came there to find her, she says "I was seventeen, I didn’t know any better!" The people around them start to recognize Sarah Lynn and BoJack and begin to take pictures of them. They leave as a frightened Penny disappears into the crowd.

Back in the car, Sarah Lynn tells BoJack that Penny was probably doing great before they showed up and that they should've just left her alone, as seeing BoJack probably opened old wounds, a comment that annoys BoJack. Sarah Lynn asks for a bottle opener and finds one in the glove compartment next to a pack of heroin nicknamed BoJack, which had been discovered by BoJack and Diane back in BoJack Kills.

She tells BoJack that they have to try it, as having a drug named after you is a big deal. He says he does not want to shoot heroin. Later, after the two have returned to Sarah Lynn's house in L.A., BoJack says that instead, "[they] can snort heroin like sophisticated adults."

After he snorts some heroin, BoJack blacks out again. During his blackout, he has a flashback to Thanksgiving 2007, when he and Cuddlywhiskers had a conversation about The BoJack Horseman Show's failing ratings and getting Sarah Lynn to guest star. BoJack's surroundings shake similarly to a subway car while he flashes back, getting more violent as it progresses, especially when Cuddlywhiskers tells BoJack he was "like a father to [Sarah Lynn]." BoJack then wakes up but falls over.

BoJack's next series of blackouts transition him and Sarah Lynn to different locations. While this happens, he reminisces about their time together on Horsin' Around. He tells Sarah Lynn he feels like she's the only one who understands him. He also tells her they can be friends because they're the only two people who knew each other before they were famous, and they like each other for who they really are as people.

BoJack continues this speech while the scene transitions to the two of them laying on a hotel bed at nighttime. BoJack says they do not want anything from each other, and he tells Sarah Lynn he loves her. She does not respond and he panics, but she comes to and complains about being bored.

She turns on the TV and discovers the Oscars are on, much to BoJack's surprise, as he learns just how long they were on the bender. Sarah Lynn wins the Oscar for "Best Original Song," which makes her overjoyed, then regretful as she was not there to receive it. She tells BoJack that "if someone had told [her] as a kid [she'd] win an Oscar, [she] wouldn't have believed it, but now [she] has," and then cuts herself off.

Sarah Lynn tells BoJack she does not like anything about herself and that everything about her is fake and "not her." She says even her shirt came from a company that paid her $8,000 to wear it. Despite not needing the money, she wears it because she likes that someone still cared about her enough to want her to wear their shirt. BoJack tries to comfort her, but Sarah Lynn begins to panic and thinks she and everyone else is doomed. BoJack calms her down and finally agrees to take her to the planetarium.

Sarah Lynn domes are so cool

Sarah Lynn's final moments in That's Too Much, Man!

The two are then seen in the planetarium, as silhouettes, watching a show. Sarah Lynn is impressed by the dome shape of the building, and she rests her head on BoJack's shoulder and says "I wanna be an architect."

The narrator says that their lives are but short flashes in a universe that is billions of years old. BoJack tells Sarah Lynn "there's nothing to worry about because it doesn't matter what you did in the past or how you'll be remembered. All that matters is this moment."

He asks if she agrees, but she does not respond. He nudges her, saying her name several times, but the screen just fades to black.

In Season 6 during BoJack's interview with Biscuits Braxby in Xerox of a Xerox, it is revealed BoJack, who in a panic wanted to cover his tracks, went out to the parking lot and called Sarah Lynn's phone for two minutes in order to make it look like she called him to come to the planetarium. BoJack then waited seventeen minutes to call 911, while Sarah Lynn, unknown to him, was actually still alive, albeit unconscious.

Sarah Lynn was dead by the time she got to the hospital on February 28, 2016, from a heroin overdose at the age of 31.

BoJack told her mother Carol and stepfather at the hospital she called him from the planetarium and sounded off, and he found Sarah Lynn passed out and called 911 but it was too late. Her mother was in utter agony and blamed herself, while her stepfather comforted her and told her it was not anyone’s fault. BoJack also lied to Officer Meow Meow Fuzzyface that he did not know where she got the heroin from.

As he leaves the hospital he tells himself he needs to make changes, but after he opens his car door and multiple beer bottles fall out he continues to chug their contents.

Sarah Lynn's death haunts BoJack, making him believe he is truly poisonous, which is how he describes himself in the following episode, That Went Well. He attempts to do a Horsin' Around reboot, Ethan Around, with Bradley, but when Chloe, the little girl in the show, tells BoJack her dream is to be like him, he panics, as she reminds him of Sarah Lynn, and flees the building.

Sarah Lynn's parents were devastated by her death, although her mother continued to profit off of her by using her image for marketing such as Pepsi and Geico commercials, and for attention and public sympathy.

Season 4

In See Mr. Peanutbutter Run, it is mentioned FX is making a biopic about Sarah Lynn called American Dead Girl: The Sarah Lynn Story.

In The Old Sugarman Place, two teenage girls at the hardware store named Tamara and Tamera ask BoJack very invasive questions about Sarah Lynn and his involvement in the circumstances surrounding her death. This is due to the fact TMZ reported BoJack took Sarah Lynn to the hospital and held her hand. They ask such questions as if she defecated after death, which hurts BoJack's feelings immensely. He is later seen watching the biopic while squatting in his grandparent's old summer home. In the biopic, he is played by Paul Giamatti.

In Stupid Piece of Sh*t, she is mentioned in BoJack's intrusive thoughts, as one of the people he let love him which led to them getting hurt (the other two people being Herb and Penny).

In What Time Is It Right Now, she is seen as her character Sabrina on Horsin' Around.

Season 5

In Head in the Clouds, BoJack and Diane get in an argument about his past shady behavior. At one point he claims he has suffered more than the people he has hurt because he has to live with the pain. Diane is shocked and repulsed that BoJack thinks he's the victim. She questions him about Sarah Lynn, and how her overdose was hard for him. BoJack tells her to shut up.

She tells him he was Sarah Lynn's only father figure when she came to him for help he had sex with her, and after she was sober he took her on a month-long bender and she died. But he's alive, with a living girlfriend, and a new TV show. Diane questions how all of that is hard for him, the "main character in this story."

In The Showstopper, she appears during BoJack's musical drug-induced hallucination, although technically BoJack hallucinates an actress portraying Sarah Lynn. Most other characters are played by actors in the musical number Don't Stop Dancing 'Til The Curtains Fall, sung by Gina Cazador. In the number, Gina grabs "Sarah Lynn's" hand, and she twirls away as the scenery changes to the planetarium show where she died.

Season 6

The intro has a few instances of imagery of the starry night sky from the planetarium where Sarah Lynn died, she appears as a little girl on the Horsin Around set, and the Griffin Obseravtory is also seen - representing how the way BoJack treated her is one of his biggest regrets, and how her death haunts him.

The beginning of A Horse Walks into a Rehab shows a flashback that reveals for the first time what happened after Sarah Lynn became unconscious in the planetarium.

While he is at rehab BoJack is having difficulty getting into it, until he sees Sarah Lynn's photo on the wall of other patients, which inspires him to try harder to get better.

When he has a panic attack at the party he accompanies Jameson to, one of the bottles of alcohol becomes the starry night sky. At the end of the episode, he takes a water bottle filled with vodka from another patient named Jameson. He keeps it with him, and a close up of it shows the night sky once again

A Little Uneven, Is All shows the incident where Sarah Lynn drank BoJack's vodka when she was ten-years-old, which explains why BoJack held onto Jameson's water bottle. BoJack remembers this moment when looking at the water bottle, revealing the reason he held onto it.

In A Quick One, While He's Away, at the Hollywoo Reporter, it’s revealed Sarah Lynn's mother Carol Himmelfarb-Richardson keeps calling the publication to get information about the details surrounding her daughter's death, but the editor in chief believes its an open and shut case about a pop star who overdosed.

This catches the attention of star reporter Paige Sinclair, who was about to quit as she is getting married and feels the newsroom is "no place for a domesticated woman, and she and another reporter, Maximillian Banks, decides to investigate it further, so she can end with the scoop of her career.

They interview Sarah Lynn's mother at Elefanté. Carol is telling Maximillian and Paige that she does not understand why her daughter would start using again. Paige asks if she suspects foul-play. Carol then plays a voicemail on her phone from Sarah Lynn, a month before she died: Sarah Lynn tells her she's making amends with someone else, and sarcastically apologizes for being such a disappointment and not being good enough for her, as she leans out the window and breaks whatever she drives by with a baseball bat.

Carol calls her daughter an angel, not picking up on the sarcasm, and says Sarah Lynn just wanted her mother to be happy. The reporters point out Sarah Lynn mentioned a "we" at the beginning of the recording: who's the other person?

Paige and Maximillian find their way to the building Sarah Lynn went to for her AA meetings, in wishes of finding someone who saw her there. Despite the program being anonymous, they are able to get people coming out of the building to reveal celebrities they’ve seen there.

Eventually, a bird man, who was seen speaking at the meeting BoJack and Sarah Lynn attended during their bender, confesses he saw Sarah Lynn a month before she died, and it was obvious she was using - but he also reveals a man was with her, and the man revealed he went to New Mexico to see a mother and daughter and had sex with one of them, but he cannot remember which one, and the girl's name was Penny Carson. The bird man feels the guy was weirdly proud of it and he told everyone to "look it up." Paige and Max are seen towards the end of the episode having ended up in New Mexico.

In Good Damage they manage to track down Penny and question her about BoJack and Sarah Lynn, even following her home when the mention of BoJack freaks her out. She admits she saw BoJack and Sarah Lynn at Oberlin right before the latter died, and they were both intoxicated.

In Sunk Cost and All That, Diane, Princess Carolyn, and Todd try to help BoJack figure out why the two reporters are after him, listing every bad thing he’s done on two whiteboards. At one point, Paige calls Diane questioning her about BoJack’s involvement with Sarah Lynn’s death, revealing the reason they’re after him, right before she hangs up.

Meanwhile, Paige and Max are at Elefino questioning Mr. Peanutbutter, and at one point he lets it slip BoJack once told him while he was drunk he was with Sarah Lynn at the planetarium when she died and he was the one who gave her the heroin.

Princess Carolyn says they can spin it, which Diane strongly disagrees with, and she starts to rant on how she felt bad for BoJack when Sarah Lynn died, but at the same time wondered about his involvement in it. BoJack admits to the both of them that he was with her at the planetarium when she died and gave her the heroin that killed her—which was unknown to everyone at the time, BoJack lied to the police that they split up and she called him from the planetarium where he found her dead.

Princess Carolyn says they’ll have him release an apology where he confirms certain parts of the story but denies other parts so that in everyone's head BoJack has apologized for the really bad stuff without legally implicating himself. Diane is disgusted by this and tells them they’re digging too deep. BoJack admits she’s right and he has to come clean.

However, Paige unexpectedly calls BoJack, saying they are running a story about Sarah Lynn and his relationship with her next Thursday, and BoJack denies everything she asks him. After BoJack hangs up Diane asks him what happened to being honest, and he says he did not think it would happen so fast. Princess Carolyn says they have a week to plan in order to minimize the damage.

In Xerox of a Xerox, BoJack is scheduled to go on Biscuits Braxby’s show to come clean about Sarah Lynn, mainly to act as damage control. Paige, in preparation for her wedding, while watching the news on TV, is upset the scoop of her career is being overshadowed by Biscuit's interview.

During the interview, BoJack admits he and Sarah Lynn were on a bender and gave the heroin that killed her, however he is painted in a sympathetic light, as he mentions being an addict and coming from a broken home and learning from television, and how he felt like “a Xerox of a Xerox of a person”.

BoJack's interview is a hit and he receives good publicity and public attention as a result. His interview is such a hit that Pinky Penguin asks BoJack to do a second interview- which he agrees to despite Princess Carolyn advising against it, as, like usual, the fame has gone to his head.

However, 6 hours prior Paige visits Biscuits and chastises her for making BoJack look sympathetic for views, and convinces her to go harder on BoJack - the two of them track down Doctor Champ, BoJack's therapy horse from rehab who he accidentally got to relapse, and since he’s not actually a licensed therapist but a therapy horse he spills them everything BoJack told him.

As such, the second interview is much harder hitting, and in response BoJack acts much more defensive which makes him look worse, and even at one point throws Sharona under the bus when he assumes she’s the one who told her about him getting Sarah Lynn drunk. Biscuits points out BoJack's pattern in abusing his position of power over women - in Sarah Lynn’s case he was responsible for the first time she got drunk when she was ten, which led to her becoming an addict, he slept with her (which BoJack himself blurts out shortly after saying she was like a daughter to him), and when she got sober he took her on a bender and gave her heroin that killed her, and the most damning information exposed is that after she went unconscious he called himself from Sarah Lynn’s phone then waited 17 minutes to call 911, which could have saved her life as she didn’t die until she got to the hospital.

Three months later, in The Horny Unicorn, BoJack is now a social pariah after the second interview, and it’s revealed he settles with Sarah Lynn's family for 5 million dollars for damages.

A few months later, in Angela, Angela Diaz invites BoJack over to her house, where she reveals there was going to be a BluRay release for Horsin' Around, but it was canceled due to his controversy. However, the streaming service Gronkle wants to release an altered version of Horsin' Around that edits out BoJack, and would be called "Around". She convinces BoJack to sign over his residuals to the show so he can be removed, both for the payout since he is now broke, and for Sarah Lynn's legacy - Angela even asks him "Doesn't she deserve to be remembered as more than the girl you killed?"

Sarah Lynn's appears in BoJack's dream in The View From Halfway Down, which takes place while BoJack is drowning in his pool after getting intoxicated in his old house. The other deceased party guests include Beatrice Horseman, Herb Kazzaz, Crackerjack Sugarman, Corduroy Jackson Jackson, Butterscotch Horseman in Secretariat's body, and Zach Braff

She gradually ages up until midway through the episode, representing how BoJack knew her through all the stages of her life - she is a little girl at the beginning of the episode where she arrives with BoJack to his mother’s house and when she goes to join the other party guests, she is a preteen when she and the other party guests chase the bird out of the house, she is in her late teens at the height of her singing career at the beginning of dinner and midway through dinner she becomes her thirty year old self.

At dinner all the guests are served what they ate before they died or something that ties into their death - Sarah Lynn is served a burger and fries with a fountain drink, it’s likely she and BoJack got fast food during their bender, and she also mentions her mother pointed out every carb she ate during her 2007 tour, meaning her meal could also represent the freedom she never had due to having to please everyone around her for any shred of attention.

The guests begin discussing their best/worst moments, and she says the best moment of her life was being asked for her autograph for the first time, although she was so young she didn’t know how to write her name so she just drew a squiggly line.

The topic of sacrifice is discussed, and Sarah Lynn claims she sacrificed her entire life for her fans.

She brings up the earlier discussed topic of best moment/worst moment and reveals her worst, the 2007 “Sexually Confident Virgin Tour" - her manager had leaked nude pictures of her on the internet to get more tour dates added and her mother pointed out every carb she ever ate, but it gave millions of fans a show they will not ever forget.

When Beatrice and Corduroy dismiss this, the latter bringing up Herb’s good deeds and being authentic, she gets defensive, saying she’s not a bad person and her art is world famous and meant a lot to many people, meaning she will be remembered.

Sarah Lynn is the first person to perform during the show. Her outfit is the same one she wore to Herb's funeral, albeit white and black instead of all black.

She dedicates her performance to BoJack, which leads a spotlight to appear over him. He tries to apologize about everything that happened with them, but she interrupts.

She performs a reprise version of Don't Stop Dancing, which begins as a simple piano number, then leads into an EDM style performance, sung over the tune of Prickly Muffin. The music ends, as Sarah Lynn continues to sing she walks over to a door leading to a black abyss. The last lyrics are "a song you taught me when I was small, don’t stop dancing....don’t stop dancing" - The last part she sings while staring into the abyss. This references BoJack telling her on the Horsin' Around set at the tender age of six that she should only care about her fans, and to always give them what they want no matter what, even saying the phrase "don’t stop dancing".

Sarah Lynn holds her breath and falls backward into the darkness behind the door frame and vanishes completely.

Filmography

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1987 Horsin' Around Sabrina

Discography

Title Year Known Tracks
I Am Sarah Lynn 2002 Prickly Muffin
Unknown Not Specified My Hinie Ain't So Tiny
Unknown Not Specified No, No, No (No Means Yes)

Episode Appearances

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

Season 6

Sarah Lynn is seen in the Season 6 Intro as a little girl on the Horsin' Around set.

Trivia

  • Sarah Lynn says the first words by any character in the pilot, she says "(Sigh)...Mondays" as her character Sabrina on Horsin' Around.
  • Her birth name was Sarah Himmelfarb before she changed it legally to Sarah Lynn.
    • The surname Himmelfarb is a generally Ashkenazi Jewish surname, implying that she may have been raised Jewish.
      • She also mentions that she does not want her body to be a temple because "she's been to Temple and it's boring." Using "Temple" in that context implies a Jewish service.
      • Her name is spelled "Helmulfarb" in Netflix's captions.
  • It is revealed in Xerox of a Xerox that Sarah Lynn did not actually die resting her head on BoJack's shoulder at Griffith Park Observatory, instead, she was passed out, but due to BoJack waiting seventeen minutes to call for medical help, and she died at the hospital.
  • Sarah Lynn is a parody of former child stars that took on more mature and sexual images once they reached adulthood, and/or later developed substance abuse problems or reputations for scandalous or erotic behavior as a result of the toxic entertainment business:
    • Examples could include Jodie Sweetin, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, and Amanda Bynes.
      • The Olsen twins starred as Michelle Tanner in Full House, which Horsin' Around parodies. Sarah Lynn's character, Sabrina, seems to be inspired by Michelle.
        • The former had their own fashion line, and Sarah Lynn had one when she was ten.
      • Sarah Lynn's music and outfits for the "Prickly Muffin" music video and interview with A Ryan Seacrest Type in the early 2000s are also strikingly similar to Britney Spears, especially to the outfits Spears wore in her video for I'm a Slave 4 U and her performance at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.
        • At one point in the video, she swings on top of a planet held up on a wire, similar to Miley Cyrus in her video for Wrecking Ball, where she swung around on an actual wrecking ball.
        • Like Britney Spears, Sarah Lynn competed on Star Search.
        • BoJack Horseman's composer Jesse Novak explained that the sound of Sarah Lynn's first hit Prickly-Muffin was his "take on early Neptune's production and a sort of stylistic cross between Toxic and Slave 4 U for the time period." Toxic and I'm A Slave 4 U are both songs by Britney Spears. [3]
      • In Prickly-Muffin, BoJack attempted to check Sarah Lynn into a Promises Rehab Center, the same one both Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan attended for drug and alcohol abuse.
      • She and Lindsay Lohan both have freckles.
      • An early draft of a script for Prickly-Muffin from BoJack Horseman: The Art Before The Horse notes that Sarah Lynn's videos and image as a teen reflects Christina Aguilera's Dirrty phase, and Sarah Lynn's behavior in the present reflects Miley Cyrus's from around that time.
      • Similar to Sarah Lynn, many former child stars, including Spears and Lohan, had stage parents who pushed them into the limelight.
  • Sarah Lynn's stepfather was a bear. It is heavily implied that she was sexually abused in her youth by him (before he married her mother) as she knew what bear fur tasted like and mentioned that he was a “photographer."
    • It is very likely he is a parody of Terry Richardson, a photographer, and alleged rapist. He is even designed to look like him.
    • He accepted her Oscar on her behalf.
  • Sarah Lynn wanted to be an architect growing up; however, her mother forced her to become a child actress. She references this several times during the series.
    Sarah Lynn Sings!!

    "Sarah Lynn Sings!!"

    • In the episode Prickly-Muffin, she says she wants to be an architect, but her mother criticizes her for not wanting to be an actress.
    • She is well-versed in technical terminology about architecture, which shows her passion for it.
      • In the episode, That's Too Much, Man! she comments on the playhouse Oxnard built for his son needing parallel joists.
      • Right before her death, BoJack takes her to the planetarium where she reveals she was only interested in going to the planetarium because the building is a dome.
      • Her final words were "I wanna be an architect."
  • Sarah Lynn's death was foreshadowed several times throughout the series, both in terms of her dying young and due to BoJack being a negative father figure and influence:
    • In Prickly Muffin, she nonchalantly predicts that she will die young as a result of her destructive behavior, albeit shrugging it off in the process.
      • Earlier in the same episode, right before she and BoJack have sex for a second time, BoJack says she has a serious drug problem, to which Sarah Lynn replies "The only drug I need is horse." "Horse" is a street name for heroin, and the heroin Sarah Lynn overdoses on was named after BoJack.
      • Also, her Prickly Muffin music video shown at the beginning of the episode takes place in the Griffith Park Observatory, the same planetarium her final moments take place in.
    • In Still Broken, while with BoJack and the rest of the cast of Horsin' Around at Herb's funeral, Sarah Lynn says they probably will never see each other again until the next funeral, to which Joelle and Bradley immediately look at BoJack. In this same exchange, she is the only one that does not predict that BoJack will die next. Instead, she states that she's "so high [she doesn't] know where [she's] looking," foreshadowing her drug-related death.
    • In That's Too Much, Man!, Sarah Lynn has a parody of the painting "Ophelia" in her bedroom, which depicts a woman drowning in a lake. Later in the same episode, BoJack sees that Sarah Lynn is passed out during their bender and attempts to wake her, fearing she's dead.
  • Sarah Lynn won an Academy Award for Best Original Song titled The Silly Banana Song (Love Theme) from the film The Nazi Who Played Yahtzee.
  • She overdosed on a strain of Heroin called "BoJack," which was nicknamed as such since horse is a street name for heroin, and it acts as a metaphor for how BoJack was a bad father figure and overall toxic influence on her, and was a direct cause in her untimely death, he even gave her the heroin she overdosed on.
  • Her music career was foreshadowed when a headline on a Person magazine during the intro to BoJack's interview on Charlie Rose gives her acclaim for her singing (during the Horsin' Around era.)
    • In this photo, she is seen with her usual Horsin' Around outfit, however, the color scheme has strangely switched from white, purple, and pink to green and blue. This outfit is never seen again.
  • Her emergency contact on her phone was the talking tree from the Disney film Pocahontas.
  • In A Quick One, While He's Away, Tawnie and Trey are seen watching the music video for Prickly Muffin. Trey makes a comment about how the video was filmed in a planetarium and Sarah Lynn died in a planetarium.
  • In The View From Halfway Down, during the dinner, Zach Braff serves Sarah Lynn a burger and fries. Everyone's meals are what they ate or encountered right before they died, although, Sarah Lynn is the only one out of all the dinner guests who does not have a firm connection with her food, although it could have been what she ate during her bender with BoJack, and it is mentioned that her mother pointed out every carb she ate during her 2007 tour.
  • Sarah Lynn is one of the few people outside of the main characters to make an appearance or be mentioned in every season of BoJack Horseman: The other people are Lenny Turteltaub, Erica, Charlotte Carson, Beatrice Horseman, Tom Jumbo-Grumbo, and Character Actress Margo Martindale.
  • She is one of the few characters in the show to have colored eyes as opposed to black pupils. The other characters include Charlotte, Penny, Irving, Judah, Vincent Adultman, Kevin, Alex, A Ryan Seacrest Type, Joelle, Jessica Biel, Lady in Green, Naomi Watts, Mila Kunis, Marisa Tomei, Corduroy Jackson Jackson, Courtney Portnoy, Sharona, Trip, and Beatrice (although this is due to her developing cataracts in her old age).

References

  1. latest?cb=20170730231319
  2. A Ryan Seacrest Type describes both of them as this in Prickly Muffin, rhetorically asking if anyone cared about Sarah Lynn anymore since she’s 30
  3. https://li.st/jesseno/my-favorite-songs-i-have-written-for-bojack-horseman-1LuS9IEirnHxMT9FrWlKYM