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Introduction

Stupid Piece of Sh*t is the 6th episode of Season 4 of the Netflix original series BoJack Horseman, and the 42nd episode overall. It premiered on September 8, 2017, along with the rest of Season 4.

Synopsis[]

Surrounded by family, BoJack spirals into self-loathing. Princess Carolyn and Rutabaga Rabitowitz plan Courtney and Todd's sham wedding.

Plot[]

BoJack lies in bed, calling himself a "stupid piece of shit" in his thoughts. These intrusive, self-hating thoughts continue as BoJack has breakfast, which consists of him eating cookies out of the package.

Hollyhock tells BoJack they need milk, with Beatrice saying it's "for the baby," and she asks BoJack if she could take the car.

BoJack gets more intrusive thoughts, but this time depicted with distorted animation and crude, cartoony drawings.

His thoughts tell him if Hollyhock leaves, he'll be stuck with his mom, and he doesn't want Hollyhock getting her grubby hands all over his car. However, another thought says she's his daughter and tells him he's a "shitty piece of garbage" for thinking that. BoJack further thinks over the consequences of either himself or Hollyhock leaving to buy the milk. If Hollyhock does leave, he's stuck with his mom. If he leaves, his mother will tell Hollyhock how terrible he is, and poison her against him.

BoJack blurts out that he'll get the milk. BoJack instead spends the day at a bar, his thoughts continue to berate him, and spiral out of control. He shows up at his house, ashamed of how he spent his day. Hollyhock answers the door, questions where he's been all day, and questions if he got the milk. BoJack only replies with "Uhhhh..."

The next day, BoJack, after waking up and internally calling himself a "stupid piece of shit" again. He goes downstairs where Hollyhock tells him Tina ended up getting the milk and is using it to make breakfast.

Beatrice tells BoJack, still referring to him as "Henrietta," that he should make a healthy breakfast for the baby. He pushes her in her wheelchair into the hallway and says he's leaving. BoJack passes up on Hollyhock's offer to eat breakfast with them. He then ends up just sitting in his car while parked on the side of Mulholland Drive, mentally bereaving himself for doing this, instead of spending time with his daughter and dying mother.

Princess Carolyn meets with Courtney Portnoy and Todd, who is her fake fiancée. Courtney, due to Ms.Taken having to be scrapped, tells Princess Carolyn that she's looking for new representation. Princess Carolyn is afraid that Courtney is firing her. Courtney tells her that she fired her agents, to Princess Carolyn's relief. However, her new agent is Princess Carolyn's ex Rutabaga Rabitowitz.

Rutabaga wants Courtney to have a big wedding. He wants the big event to happen the weekend before her movie drops, which happens to be the upcoming weekend. Todd shows doubt over actually wanting to get married. Princess Carolyn says that they can draw up a sham marriage contract, so he'll stay married for three years and get a huge payout at the end. Rutabaga says she's in charge of planning the wedding, as that's usually the manager's job.

BoJack arrives home, his inner thoughts still berating him as usual, to find Beatrice fawning over a baby horse doll. Hollyhock tells BoJack that his mom kept asking where the "baby" was, so she got her a doll.

BoJack scoffs at his mom of all people being into a baby doll and tells Hollyhock to not indulge in his mom's delusions. Hollyhock tells him he's not around a lot and it was getting depressing to look at her.

Todd tells his friends in his asexual alliance club about marrying Courtney. He thinks he shouldn't because he's asexual, but two of the members reveal that they're married—if they're not also aromantic, asexuals can get married, they just don't have sex. They tell Todd if the other person accepts him for who he is, he should go for it.

Beatrice is happily cooking eggs while holding her baby doll. Hollyhock sits at the counter, drinking coffee that Beatrice made for her, to which Hollyhock replies is "amazing."

Beatrice's treatment of the doll annoys and angers BoJack, due to her being a better parent to a doll than she was to him. Hollyhock tells him to let go of his grudge against his mom because she's a "sweet confused old lady" now. BoJack refuses to believe this.

After Beatrice scolds them for yelling in front of her "baby" and tells BoJack ("Henrietta") he's unfit to be a parent. He sarcastically asks, "where that insight was fifty years ago?" He takes the doll from her and starts tossing it around. BoJack then sarcastically asks if neglecting the baby—telling it for eighteen years how it embarrasses him and saying his life would have been better if it wasn't born would make him a great mother. Finally releasing his long-held resentment towards his mother's lifelong abuse towards him.

Beatrice tries to get the doll back and called him a worthless waste of her husband's jizzim. BoJack takes this as a sign that Beatrice does recognize him after all. BoJack then throws the doll over his deck, which leads Beatrice to scream in horror and start sobbing. BoJack is at first pleased with himself, congratulating himself on the "nice throw." Hollyhock, on the other hand, is ashamed of him. BoJack immediately feels regret.

Screen Shot 2019-03-17 at 8.37

BoJack's regrets

BoJack starts driving downtown, telling himself he has to get the doll back. He then winds up at the bar again. He thinks to himself he's making his daughter hate him. By his logic, this is good, because he hurts everyone who he lets love him—like Herb, Penny, and Sarah Lynn. He decides to go to Diane for help.

He shows up at Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter's house, but after Mr. Peanutbutter greets him and BoJack decides not to let Diane see him drunk and asking for help. As his mind berates him for doing so, he ends up asking Mr. Peanutbutter for help.

Princess Carolyn and Rutabaga are trying to get the wedding organized. However, Judah delivers the bad news that Meryl Streep is retiring and that her party is the same day as the wedding. They try to come up with a plan to have her postpone it, and they devise a plan to pitch her a film that she could direct—and play all of the parts in.

Mr. Peanutbutter and BoJack arrive back home so that Mr. Peanutbutter can get a sniff of a depressed Beatrice so that they can go find the doll. Mr. Peanutbutter follows the scent to a house down the street, as BoJack thinks about Mr. Peanutbutter with disdain. BoJack asks himself how he can live without a care in the world. BoJack rings the doorbell, and Felicity Huffman answers. Felicity has the doll but refuses to give it back. She then tells BoJack he's a "stupid piece of shit."

Diane and her friend Roxy are talking when Todd shows up and asks Diane for advice about getting married. She tells him that marriage is a lie as you can't promise someone that you'll be with them forever, but it's still a lie based on truth, and the belief is more important than the thing itself. Todd thanks her, because he now has a lot to think about.

BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter ring Felicity's doorbell again. BoJack tries to explain the situation to her, saying it's his mother's doll. She refuses to give the doll back, because of all the other things he's thrown over the railing over the years. This includes a mountain of regurgitated cotton candy. Mr. Peanutbutter tries to mend fences between the two and brings up that ether both actors. BoJack lies when Felicity asks if he's heard of her show, FHBA. He claims to have heard of it and agrees to be a guest host in exchange for the doll.

Rutabaga and Princess Carolyn's plan to sign Meryl Streep onto their project works, as Rutabaga traps her in a box with the contract under it.

BoJack and Mr. Peanutbutter go to the bar to celebrate getting the doll back. Mr. Peanutbutter asks about Hollyhock, and BoJack says that he's scared he's going to screw everything up and make her hate him, like what he always does.

Mr. Peanutbutter suggests to not do what he does to make people hate him. BoJack says that when he looks at Hollyhock and her innocence. He thinks about all the shitty things he's ever done, and he thinks he doesn't deserve that kind of love. Mr. Peanutbutter tells him that he doesn't know much about being governor, but what he does know is that everyone deserves to be loved.

Rutabaga and Princess Carolyn toast each other for their success. However, they get a call from Todd who says that he can't marry Courtney, because it would be a lie. Princess Carolyn accepts, and after he hangs up tries to figure out how to spin this.

However, Rutabaga says that they'll deal with it in the morning and that he has to go home to his family. Princess Carolyn begrudgingly accepts, and Rutabaga laughs at her reaction and said it's a good thing she's not a mother, because she would be "hilarious at it."

After he leaves, Judah comes in and tells her that people like Rutabaga are the reason he left his previous big agency. He assures Princess Carolyn that she's different from those people. He also reassures her she would be a wonderful mother. Judah leaves, and Princess Carolyn goes in her purse and pulls out a plastic bag that contains a pregnancy test that reads positive. She smiles and holds it close to her as Meryl Streep is heard struggling in the box next to her desk.

BoJack returns home drunk, and gives the doll back to his mom, who coldly replies, "about time, Henrietta." As Tina takes Beatrice to bed, BoJack sees Hollyhock sitting on his deck chairs. Hollyhock is lighting matches and throwing them into the pool.

BoJack tells himself to go talk to her, as his intrusive thoughts start up again. The voice tells him his poison is already in her and he'll destroy her like everyone else in his life. BoJack then angrily questions himself about what he's going to do to Hollyhock. BoJack for once ignores his intrusive thoughts, telling them to "shut up," and goes to talk to Hollyhock.

He tells her he got the doll back. She questions where he disappears to all day. He says he just drive around, sometimes he'll go to a bar, or just stop by the side of the road and stares into the distance. Hollyhock asks why and BoJack just shrugs.

She asks if he would rather do that than spend time with her. Hollyhock tells him in a frustrated tone she knows he didn't ask for a "dorky seventeen-year-old" and apologizes for being annoying. BoJack quickly reassures her that he likes having her here, and his shitty behavior is his own fault and not at all hers.

Hollyhock reveals that sometimes she has a tiny voice in the back of her head that says everyone hates her and they're not wrong to feel that way. BoJack says he knows what she means. Hollyhock then asks “That voice, the one that tells you you're worthless and stupid and ugly? It goes away, right? It's just, like, a dumb teenage-girl thing, but then it goes away?” BoJack responds by saying yes, they do go away.

Cast[]

Actor Character
Will Arnett ... BoJack Horseman
Amy Sedaris ... Princess Carolyn
Alison Brie ... Diane Nguyen
Paul F. Tompkins ... Mr. Peanutbutter
Aaron Paul ... Todd Chavez
Aparna Nancheria ... Hollyhock
Wendie Malick ... Beatrice Horseman
Diedrich Bader ... Judah Mannowdog
Fielding Edlow ... Roxy
Sharon Horgan ... Courtney Portnoy
Felicity Huffman ... Herself
Ben Schwartz ... Rutabaga Rabitowitz

Trivia[]

  • According to Bob-Waksberg, the episode was originally supposed to be told completely from Judah's perspective. However, the writer's room had a difficult time figuring out how this idea could sustain a whole episode and how Judah, who is almost always at Princess Carolyn's side, could organically interact with the rest of the show's characters. Bob-Waksberg realized that the most interesting brain to be in was BoJack's, and thus the episode centers around BoJack's inner thoughts.[1]
    • We had kind of established before—well established at this point—that BoJack is not a guy you want to be or a head you want to live in. We thought that it would be cool to really kind of push that and kind of explore what is it like to be living with that self-abuse all the time. How does that feel? And just kind of hear for an audience of no one, just himself, how hard he is on himself. How difficult it is to shut that voice out felt really interesting,” he said. “Allison did a really great job with that.”
  • The song that plays during parts of BoJack's inner monologues and during the end credits is "Blood in the Cut" by K.Flay.
  • Beatrice sings something similar to Beautiful Gals of '44, the song playing in the background in the first flashback to her childhood in The Old Sugarman Place, while making eggs for her baby doll, singing "Beautiful eggs of ‘44, for my baby want some more.
  • When BoJack is having "breakfast" it can be seen he is eating 'Choco-o's' which is clearly a reference to the real-life brand of cookies Oreo's.
  • The show BoJack is trying to remember the name of in the beginning of the episode is Suddenly Susan.

Intro Differences[]

  • Beatrice and Tina now appear in the living room and the kitchen.
  • Hollyhock has put a collage of photos of her and her dads on one of BoJack's deck windows.
  • Instead of Hollyhock eating a Pop-Tart, Beatrice gives her coffee in the kitchen.

References[]

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