The View From Halfway Down

"The View from Halfway Down"
BoJack Horseman episode
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 15
Directed by	Amy Winfrey
Written by	Alison Tafel
Produced by	Eric Blyler Richard Choi
Original release date	January 31, 2020 (2020-01-31)
Running time	26 minutes
Guest appearance(s)
Zach Braff as Famous Actor Zach Braff Brandon T. Jackson as Corduroy Jackson-Jackson Wendie Malick as Beatrice Horseman Lin-Manuel Miranda as Crackerjack Sugarman Kristen Schaal as Sarah Lynn Stanley Tucci as Herb Kazzaz
Episode chronology
← Previous "Angela" Next → "Nice While It Lasted"
BoJack Horseman (season 6)
List of BoJack Horseman episodes

"The View from Halfway Down" is the fifteenth episode of the sixth season of BoJack Horseman , an American animated comedy-drama series. The penultimate episode of the series, it was released alongside seven others on Netflix on January 31, 2020, with Amy Winfrey directing and Alison Tafel writing. The episode places titular character BoJack Horseman in a vivid near-death experience, in the form of a dinner party and talent show featuring important figures from his life who have died. It was widely praised for its use of symbolism, animation style, and numerous callbacks to prior episodes.

Plot

Bojack and a child-age Sarah Lynn arrive at the front door of a large house. They are unceremoniously greeted by a young Beatrice Horseman, who invites them inside and asks for their help shooing a stray bird out of the house. Inside, Bojack finds a reprieved Herb Kazzaz, as well as Crackerjack Sugarman, Corduroy Jackson Jackson, and Zach Braff struggling to catch it. After successfully chasing it out, Bojack and the others are informed by Beatrice of the start of their scheduled dinner party, where each guest is served a meal reflective of a pivotal time in their life. As the guests discuss the best and worst parts of their lives, Sarah Lynn ages progressively, and a variety of existential perspectives are shared and debated. Throughout the meal, BoJack becomes increasingly bothered by a black tar-like liquid dripping onto him from the ceiling. A new arrival, introduced as BoJack’s father Butterscotch, takes the physical appearance of BoJack’s childhood idol, Secretariat and joins them at the table. Soon afterward, BoJack suddenly coughs up a large amount of the black liquid onto the dinner table which amuses his company. As the meal reaches its end, Beatrice invites the guests to a show in the next room. Bojack bids them all farewell, certain that he will imminently awake from the dream he believes he's in.

Now alone at the dinner table, BoJack is surprised to find himself still there. In the next room, a dark theatre, Herb welcomes the party guests as he begins hosting a talent show in which they are each due to perform. Bojack notices a dark, ominous door located in the back area of the stage. Up first, Sarah Lynn performs a reprise of “Don’t Stop Dancing ‘Til The Curtains Fall”, followed by her plummet into the apparently bottomless, infinite blackness on the other side of the door. Following Corduroy’s aerial silk act and similar disappearance into the darkness, an uneasy BoJack heads out to the balcony for a cigarette with Butterscotch/Secretariat, where the two manage to bond and form closure. Looking down, BoJack notices the silhouette of a horse floating in a swimming pool.

Back in the theatre, Bojack begins to panic. He inadvertently pushes Zach Braff through the dark door as his roller skating routine begins. Starting to remember details of his bender from the previous episode, Bojack recalls that he went into his old house's swimming pool and called Diane. Secretariat then performs a poem that expresses regret over his suicide, fearing the impending door as it moves incrementally closer, until his abrupt fall in ends his performance mid-sentence. Now highly disturbed, BoJack tries to escape. Unable to leave the theatre, Herb chimes that BoJack isn't dreaming, but mentally processing his own death, and that he should tranquilly accept his fate. Performing next is Beatrice, who ribbon dances to a musical number performed by Crackerjack on trumpet. Their performance concludes with a Crackerjack paratrooper-style dive through the door while tied to Beatrice, who gets consumed by the tar created from his exit. With only two people left, Herb introduces Bojack as the next performer. In a final conversation, Herb muses of mortality, telling BoJack there is no “other side,” before submerging into the blackness and leaving Bojack alone in the theater.

Standing at the microphone, Bojack suddenly sprints from the stage in a desperate attempt to escape. The black tar has now begun to consume his surroundings, rapidly growing and in fast pursuit. As he runs back through the house, he feverishly searches for a phone. To his horror, he watches as the bird he expelled from the house earlier becomes swallowed by the tar. He successfully finds a landline in the kitchen and seemingly manages to reach Diane. As they talk, BoJack remembers that, in real life, after getting out of the pool to call her, his call actually went to voicemail. He then returned to the pool where he presumably drowned. Finally succumbing to this, Bojack's projection of Diane’s voice calmly agrees to stay on the phone with him as the tar engulfs his body.

During the credits, rather than any music, a flatlining heart monitor is heard; however, partway through, it starts beeping normally.

Reception

"The View From Halfway Down" received widespread critical acclaim, and has been called one of the best episodes of the entire series. The A.V. Club 's Les Chappell gave it an A rating, writing that the episode "[slots] firmly in the pantheon of A-grade BoJack Horseman penultimate installments... [and] continues that second-to-last episode trend of impossibly finding a darker place to take the series, and it takes BoJack right with it." ^[1] Vulture.com 's Scott Meslow awarded the episode four stars out of five, noting that the theme of drowning in a swimming pool has long been alluded to in the series' opening sequence, in which BoJack's friends look down on him in his pool. ^[2] The Chicago Reader 's Taryn Allen called the episode "one of the best – potentially the best – episodes of the entire series", praising the callbacks to earlier episodes and the pacing. ^[3]

References

1. "BoJack Horseman's excellent penultimate episode gazes long into the abyss". TV Club.
2. Meslow, Scott (February 2, 2020). "BoJack Horseman Recap: That Sinking Feeling". Vulture.
3. Allen, Taryn. "BoJack Horseman's penultimate episode secured its legacy". Chicago Reader.

External links

• "The View From Halfway Down" on IMDb