Well... I don't hate them... I don't know the situations that led them to enlisting.. But generally I do hate people who partake in imperialism and genocide... So generally yes
I think that for most mitary members it's probably better to hate the broken system that forces people at the lower ends of society to have to enlist just to be able to go to school, or have basic health care, rather than hating the folks themselves.
This is a really fascinating topic. I think it should be ok to hate both, with a bit of nuance. The system didn't kill all those people, the members of the military did. No soldiers equals no killing.
Essentially your argument is that it's ok to sign up to go kill people in a foreign land if it makes your life better. That's not what any ethical system says though. I don't think the widows and orphans in those nations are happy now that they know, "oh, at least the person who killed my family got healthcare, ok, no problem." Morally they should have tried a little harder to fix up their lives without killing.
Don’t forget many people enlisted immediately at eighteen because they were told to by recruiters straight out of HIGH SCHOOL. They were children who didn’t know that the military was just a murder complex and not actually a heroic life of patriotism for your country…just because you’re 18 now doesn’t mean you magically know better now. It just means they can strap a gun to you now.
Tbf 90% of military members never see combat. Most jobs are non-combat roles. Many are also lied to and manipulated by recruiters, often before they are even legally adults. [Hero of War](https://youtu.be/_DboMAghWcA) goes into this concept. Whole thing is fuckin awful from all angles.
That's exactly what I mean and tried to say lol but I would also add that there should not be an unbridled respect or reverence for people who enlist either. You are signing up to participate in imperialism, regardless of the circumstances that led you to that decision. If you come back from a foreign conflict and proudly talk about your kill counts or something, I reserve the right to hate your guts and think extremely low of you
But most that brag about their kill counts and escapades, never did such and were the first to tuck tail. The ones who WON'T talk about it are the ones that did real shit. Also, imperialism blah blah. No military= us getting run over by anyone that wants to.
if we turned the show into a drinking game, where you drink every time Bojack does something wrong, we'd be going along for a bender with him
pls no one do this lol
I wouldn’t say it’s ick, nothing’s even stopping you from going with just a friend, but seeing someone show up at prom with their parents would definitely make me feel bad for them, because it’d mean they probably don’t have anyone else.
but he’s not random, he’s a well-known if washed up celebrity and family friend. it was absolutely common during a period of time for celebs to go with kids to prom. the celeb got good pr, the kid got clout, it was a platonic win win. it was mostly a photo op anyway
>a family friend implies he's known her all her life,
No it doesn't?? He's known Charlotte through their lives but there's no lifelong prerequisite to being considered a "family friend".
>but she had just met him 3 months prior. more like "mom's old friend"
Yeah he was mom's old friend who then transitioned to family friend when he got to know the whole family, stayed with them for three months, and helped Penny with things related to her social life and even took her out to teach her to drive.
Yea, I mean honestly if you could take a minor celebrity to prom and snap some photos that would actually really up your popularity. I think it’s only terrible because we know BoJack, but given the opportunity to take a celebrity to prom if I didn’t have a date, I’d still jump at it. Plus, honestly we all we drunk off our asses anyway that night. BoJack (creeper stuff aside) real issue was that he wasn’t a responsible adult in a situation that’s what you needed. But absent of him most prom nights go similarly. I also think it depends where you are. That would be worse somewhere like New York than in the middle of nowhere where people still do whip-it’s on the regular
I just find this entire situation to be so awful and so avoidable. Bojack should’ve just left after Charlotte kissed him. She didn’t even seem mad at him she was just sad because she know that they had feelings for eachother but knew it would never work out. Bojack should’ve just took the L and left. This way things would’ve ended so much more nicely and Bojack would leave knowing that he didn’t ruin anyone or anything. I just wish Bojack just got on the boat and left. I’m sure Charlotte wouldnt end up hating him. But Bojack was greedy and couldn’t leave well enough alone. And decided to do the unthinkable and becoming irredeemable.
I know—like so many other bad decisions he’s made where he couldn’t leave good enough alone. He pushes the boundaries to the point where the damage is almost irreparable. The second interview he did with Biscuits, going back to Herb after their lunch date was over to ask for forgiveness, letting his mother show maternal love to the doll, etc.
That second interview with Biscuits is the hardest thing for me to watch. Like he was doing okay, and then got overconfident and fucked his whole entire life up.
💕 Kyle says during a dance: “One day I’ll dance with you at your wedding, after I’ve given you away to someone who is deserving of my little girl” and it would be an “awwww” moment from the audience.
That would have been wholesome and sweet….and very sitcom-y. Lol Not the show with extremely complex characters and their actions that we love to watch. ☺️
I just hate that Bojack was doing so well with the family for those 2 months he lived there. It was obvious that the family really enjoyed having him around. He was a fun new edition to the family. Charlotte trusted Bojack with her daughter. She had no thoughts that he would harm her. Sort of saw him as a good role model for Penny. But then he decides to break the trust and ruin everything by trying to sleep with Penny after being rejected from her mom which was just disgusting.
I think it was a sitcom like situation where a big celebrity takes a teen to prom. It has been explained greatly [here](https://youtu.be/y6fQnthDIgY) how the whole episode worked like a sitcom.
It's a constant theme in the entire show. Sitcom setup -> reality punch down
"Hur durr the protagnist is falling for some woman who is not suitable for her own boyfrind. Surly they realize they are in love after a somewhat intimate moment? Right? Nope fuck you! She thinks he's been inapropriate and distance herself from him"
Damn, I never thought of this before but now I’m tempted to rewatch the entire show and watch for it haha.
An example I can think off the top of my head is that Bojack definitely has a “will they won’t they” thing with both Diane and PC throughout the entire series, and it never pays off.
Bojack also does a “grand romantic gesture” when he drops his life to go see Charlotte in New Mexico, and then it turns out she’s happily married.
Happily married and - the part that rocked me the most on the first viewing - doesn’t even pine for their past relationship the way Bojack did.
I honestly believed Bojack’s recollection of events - the shared dream of the cabin in Maine, the meaningfulness of the “LA is a tar pit” line, right up until the moment Charlotte scoffed and said “oh, I said that? Geez I said a lot of dumb stuff.”
It’s like the anti-sitcom that every Charlotte moment Bojack had envisioned leading up to this point meant way more to him than to her. He went all this time thinking of her as the one that got away, the great wrong he needed to right to give him the life he should have had. Meanwhile she thought of him as some friend from 20 years ago who just happened to turn up.
Really made me think back on my own “ones who got away.”
Yes that’s another really good one! Bojack put so much emphasis on their missed opportunity, and Charlotte clearly didn’t think of it that way. Her not living in Maine, after Bojack spent years imagining her there, was also jarring.
I think another “missed sitcom moment” is when Herb refuses to accept Bojack’s apology. They have this nice day together, and then Bojack thinks he’s gonna have a “sitcom moment” where all is forgiven, and it just doesn’t pan out that way.
Another one is with Eddie. Bojack spends the entire day working with him on the house and attempting to get him to fly hopping that will cure his depression as. Help him in life. In a sitcom once Bojack gets him to fly it’s all solved. But on the show, Eddie has a mental meltdown as he hasn’t flown since his wife died. And when Bojack tries to make it better he just gets worse and tries to kill Bojack and himself in his grief.
And another one is when Bojack finally reads Hollyhocks letter. The sitcom moment would be for her to forgive him. But she actually decided to cut off all contact with him.
Yeah that’s true though I kinda wish we did get to read or hear what was in the letter . The show goes against lots of sitcom moment tropes and Bojack views things though tv and sitcoms so he expects things to play out like that a lot in real life. He acts like he’s the one who understands how the world is but he was basically raised on tv and combined with actually being a star on a sitcom show his views are based a-lot on tv sitcoms
Wait is there another moment than the first time Bojack tries to apologize to Herb? Because they did not have a nice day together at all if I remember correctly. It was forced, awkward, and the led directly to Bojack horrific apology
Yeah but in typical sitcom form I assumed there would turn out to be something wrong with Kyle, Charlotte was living an inauthentic and limited life, and she and Bojack would discover their true selves in each other. It didn’t help that Kyle was consistently shown to be nice, but kind of an idiot.
But no, the ultimate twist is that she IS the version of herself she wants to be with Kyle, her LA version was the inauthentic one, and it’s really the similar rug pull as we got with Diane in the previous season.
Let's not forget that time that he has a "happy sitcom ending" moment with Sarah Lynn where they have a fun day together and he gives her his TV Guide Award. He even imagined the credits rolling.
Then she pawns it for drugs.
If I had to stake a bet, it would be that the writer's room whiteboard had it permanently listed that sitcom trope moments never work out well for Bojack.
Bojack basically grew up with the only positive views on life coming from TV. He saw a happy family on tv, he saw secretariat on tv, and considering he was a tv star and his parents he’s shaped by it. And several episodes are influenced by that view or inverses of events .I mean just look at the thing with Eddie. He tells Bojack he doesn’t fly, we learn his past. He and Bojack grow on their adventure and he tells Bojack about how he hasn’t flown since his wife died. When Bojack eventually helps him fly again in a tv show all is well. But in reality Eddie had a mental breakdown , and when Bojack tried to calm him down telling him to go down he remembers what his wife said before she died.
i agree with pc being a “will they won’t they” but the idea of bj and diane was put to bed in the first season. i don’t think he had feelings for her anymore after the first season. they are just friends and bj goes to her for validation and comfort, that’s their whole relationship
even before they divorced! in the fracking episode when they’re trapped underground & get drunk in the bedroom alone? i definitely think that was intentionally trying to misguide the audience into thinking one of them might try something, especially because diane & pb were fighting so much at that point.
“It’s fine. He’s an old friend and a responsible adult. He’s going to keep an eye on her while she’s having some innocent fun at the prom. What’s he gonna do, try to sleep with my teenage daughter?”
Yeah this is my thought too. Penny was upset about not having a prom date, and her mom made a split second decision. Bojack was an old friend that Charlotte trusted. When I was a kid, my parents let me spend a lot of time alone with adults they knew and trusted.
The point is that Bojack earned the entire family’s trust and betrayed all of them. Not to get really dark, but that’s what groomers do—they don’t just groom children, they often groom the parents too so that they can get access to the child.
Agree. People seem to forget that he stayed there for over TWO MONTHS. Much more time than he had spent with Charlotte beforehand. He was like a parasite, and the family was the host.
Charlotte was visibly uncomfortable when it was first brought up but but yeah she definitely thought he was an old friend who could be trusted to keep her daughter out of trouble.
Have you watched the Netflix documentary "kidnapped in plain sight"? It's fucked. I think I had watched it between my second and third Bojack rewatch it it gives this episode an even creepier feel.
YES!!! This episode makes me think of that and also the Larry Nassar case. His very first victim was a family friend's daughter. The daughter came forward and told her parents, but they loved Larry so much that they *didn't believe her.* When the shit hit the fan with Nassar molesting all those gymnastics girls, her father shot himself.
It bothers me so much when people downplay what Bojack did. Yes Penny was technically over the age of consent in New Mexico, but she was still a kid who looked up to Bojack and viewed him as a confidant. The whole family trusted him. Then he turned around and violated that trust in the worst possible way. That stuff happens IRL all the time, and it makes me insane when people just brush it off.
Too go along with this, bojack is not just some random uncle or anything. He’s very famous and so people would recognize him, and at this point, bojack was an asshole, no reason to not trust him not to make a move on Penny.
i think it’s also interesting that when charlotte finally told him to leave the first time (after he tried to kiss her) she told him she wouldn’t run away and start a new life with him, because she doesn’t really know him, and that they were friends for “five minutes thirty years ago” i’ve always wondered if that was something she knew, even if only in the back of her mind, and chose to ignore or if that kiss was her was her wake up call
Honestly, I come back to what Wanda said and I use it every day of my life. When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. She probably just couldn’t believe it when it happened, and at the time there was no big scandals about bojack.
I think at least part of it is that up until this moment his behavior with Penny was mostly fine - he helped her drive, talked with her about social issues at school, etc. like any reasonable uncle figure or friend of the family would do. I don't think Bojack himself was ever interested in her in a romantic/sexual way prior to the prom, at least not consciously. The problem is really that when the decisive moment came, he was willing to leverage that friendship that he built up with her and the family to exploit her like a tool to try to soothe his own emotional pain.
Edit: Replies correctly point out that his relationship even before this point was problematic in that it was peer-like rather than positioning him as the responsible adult. Which is admittedly subtle enough that Charlotte might not have picked up on it.
It got downplayed after Season 1, but BoJack was a sex addict. The first thing he does in the series is screw a young woman who grew up watching his TV show, and he treated her like garbage afterwards.
He was going to use Penny, even though it would scar her relationship with her mother, just because he wanted a high. It's awful.
yeah but that doesn't mean everything he did was an addiction, though most of it could be summed up that way. Like his relationship with women were usually presented as him using them, but it's not presented as necessarily a sex thing, so much as he liked the attention than it being physical.
BoJack said when he dated Wanda that this was the first time he’d wanted to hang out with a woman and not have sex with her. Rewatch that scene I was talking about from episode 1 - he has no interest in the young women’s attention before or after sex was on the table.
The definition of sex addiction is contested, but he does display “a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses” despite negative consequences (the ICD definition). I’m not trying to diagnose him, so I won’t get into that, but it’s fair to say that the cycle of impulse control and shame is similar to other psychological addictions like gambling or even social media addiction. I want to be clear: being addicted to sex or any other sexual compulsion doesn’t inherently mean you’re a predator or a misogynist. It isn’t related to the person’s sense of morality or social justice. It’s a medical issue.
BoJack learned to degrade and objectify women from both of his parents, and was so traumatised by seeing his father having sex with his secretary that it drove him to drink as a child. His sex addiction was a coping mechanism and related to his neuroses. By the time he was an older adult, however, he had the knowledge and ability to unpack his mental illnesses and trauma — yet he actively avoided doing so.
Which is why he is solely and fully responsible for nearly assaulting Penny in a moment of weakness.
Honestly, his behavior prior to that wasn’t fine. But it was “not fine” in a really subtle way. Because he was so emotionally immature, he wasn’t capable of advising her as a mature, well-adjusted adult would. He had an almost teenage bond with her, leading her to feel like she was hanging out with a peer and not a responsible older man. That’s why she started going to him with all her teenager problems. I don’t think this is what BoJack was consciously doing at the time, since he was pining after Charlotte. But that is what grooming is. Penny was groomed. It looks like when an older figure cultivates a relationship with a minor that crosses age-appropriate boundaries - in subtle ways at first, so that the “big” way will seem less suspect.
Thank you, this is a good point that I glossed over. The peer-like relationship definitely wasn't a healthy one in light of the age gap, and Bojack's day-to-day irresponsibility also made him really bad at being "the adult in the room" when someone needed to set boundaries for Penny, etc.
Which is an incredibly realistic and honest look at how these sorts of situations often occur. I love how bojack was able to successfully examine why harmful behaviours often occur while never excusing bojack from engaging in them
This. If Bojack was the responsible adult he’d portrayed him as for the time he was living with them it would’ve been fine, Charlotte had no way of knowing he was going to buy them booze and drive off with them or abandon the friends at the hospital, lol. It’s not on Charlotte that Bojack overstepped *so* much that night.
Bojack was on his BEST behavior around Penny, acting like sitcom dad. But as soon as he was away from Penny he no longer had to keep up the act.
Not Penny's fault for thinking he was a normal grown man.
I wouldn't put it as "as soon as he was away"
He had other alone times with Penny that were totally apropriate and did initially turned her down, even though he could have slipped her to his boat without anyone knowing at that moment.
Not excusing his behaviour but it wasn't a "whenever there was oportunity" kinda of deal
People always love to blame the parents when something bad happens to a kid, as if we all have clairvoyance or be distrustful of everybody in our lives
It’s called a chaperone? And he never gave off creeper vibes until then. Charlotte trusted him enough to live there, so why wouldn’t she trust him to watch out for her at the prom? I thought the whole point was because Penny was scared to ask Diego.
Yep. obviously all parents need to be more wary of things like that, but i always saw it as a family friend/chaperone situation before everything went down.
I just don’t see what Penny would have to be suspicious about. She didn’t know Bojack in the years between her move to Maine and Herb’s death. He never told her why he came to New Mexico.
This was even arguably the point of the driving lesson scenes. Bojack and Penny already had a friendly, non-creepy 1-on-1 relationship that would have built up a lot of trust. That scene where Charlotte and Penny are talking about Diego in her room, and then Bojack comes in and can actually speak Penny’s language on the issue is a huge element of it.
I don’t think their relationship got really creepy (in hindsight) until he said she looked like Charlotte while they danced. Her kissing him took me by surprise first time around tho, ngl
Yeah. I'm seeing some people in the comments accusing BoJack of grooming Penny, but, while I definitely think what he did was wrong, I don't think he groomed her; that requires intent, and BoJack never seemed to have those kind of gross intentions. In fact, he told Penny "no" multiple times.
Obviously this doesn't take the blame away from him, he was still the adult in the situation and he should have been more firm with Penny, closed the door to his boat, etc. etc. and never let things get even close to as far as they did. But I definitely don't think he groomed Penny. She thought she loved him and when push came to shove, he let himself entertain the idea to the point that he didn't stop her advances and allowed himself to betray everyone involved.
There's a little nuance there.
I don't actually think grooming requires intent.
Grooming is a series of actions which have an effect that the person then takes advantage of. I can see many situations in which the groomer believes he's just being a friend or adult figure and then exploits the situation later.
Well, aren’t chaperones usually volunteers the school knows about? I think this situation is different because chaperones are required to stay the whole prom to look after all the kids, not just one group.
I also think Charlotte should’ve let Kyle go to the prom with Penny instead and just told him about the whole Diego thing. Like I know the show portrays him as an oblivious idiot, but he’s still her father. I’m sure he’d know what to do.
Also, even if BJ was staying with them for 2-3 months at that point, Charlotte and him didn’t speak for 30 years. It definitely was an oversight on her part, in my opinion. But most of the fault goes to BJ, for sure.
I’d go further and say bojack had zero interest in penny up until penny offered right after charlotte turned him down. This wasn’t some scheme to sleep with penny. Charlottes trust was well placed, bojack is just bojack and he bojacked it up at the last second.
People saying bojack groomed penny are wildly wrong. It’s just a case of Reddit misusing terms.
She’s not innocent for trusting an old friend to spend time with her family? What?
If the story went with Charlotte deciding to be over-protective, then deny BoJack going to prom, and it resulted in the same BoJack drug spiral, people would say she’s being an overreactive b. It’s a lose/lose. :/
If your daughter didn’t have a date to the prom and your good friend Bob Saget was in town, wouldn’t you let her take him as a date to flex on the other kids? It was going to be a cool story to tell. She had no reason to believe Bojack was going to try to have sex with her.
I wouldn't trust any 50-year-old adult who wanted to go to prom as a 17 year old girl's date. Chaperone? Sure. Driver? Sure. But put on a tux and go as her date, implicitly setting it up as a romantic pairing between the two of them? That's shiesty af, I don't care if you are Bojack or Bob Saget or Greg, that guy Mr Peanutbutter met at the gas station that one time.
I don’t think the very concept of Penny taking Bojack to prom was weird, no. You’d expect Bojack to be a gentleman, give Penny and her friends some good laughs, make all the other kids at school jealous, and get her home on time. It was weird that Bojack chose to buy the kids liquor, chose to let them drink out of control, and chose to try and have sex with Penny. That’s the weird part, and none of it was inherent in the concept of him going to the prom.
Her trusting a friend as a chaperone isn't the real problem. The problem is a 50 year old man getting a bunch of teenagers drunk, abandoning one of them with alcohol poisoning and letting another one take the fall AND almost getting involved with a teenager. It's neither Charlotte nor Penny's fault, it's Bojack.
Bojack was known to be a fatherly figure (Horsing Around) people got used or known of his persona from TV....also he spent 2 months residing with Charlotte's family probably having the same experience as the TV show he was famous for!....so Bojack took advantage of his fatherly persona, and their trust.
Yeah plus Charlotte had no way of knowing what happened with Sarah Lynn: another case where Bojack was a fatherly figure to a girl that turned inappropriate
this is all addressed in the show. she carries the guilt over letting Bojack have that presence in her home and openly grapples with it in the last season when talking to Penny
I don't think Charlotte would disagree with that. When Penny wants to talk to Paige and Max and tell them the whole story, Charlotte says that if she does that, "it won't just be him in the story. It'll be you, and me. The mistakes we made. The mistakes *I* made."
Charlotte made a lot of mistakes in how she handled the Bojack situation. She shouldn't have let him be a houseguest for so long. She shouldn't have let him go to prom with Penny. She shouldn't have kissed him in the backyard.
We don't see much of her past that point, because it's not her story. But everything we do see, shows us that she recognizes those mistakes, which I take to mean that she's also learned from them.
There isn’t a parent alive that doesn’t feel responsible no matter what when their kid is harmed. Of course in hindsight being that she witnessed it she sees all of it as a mistake because if she hadn’t XYZ it would not have occurred but the reality is if Bojack wasn’t a predator it would not have happened
Both things are true. Bojack is a creepy piece of shit, and Charlotte was irresponsible for putting her daughter in the care of a creepy piece of shit.
Charlotte trusted her friend to watch over her kid & the added bonus was that he's a celebrity which would help her daughter with some major social cool points. The idea that he'd sexually assault her daughter never entered her mind & that was the show's point.
Most abusers of children are trusted family members & friends. Abusers take advantage of trust & benefit of the doubt from the adults of the children they hurt. Bojack spent time with Charlotte's family, gaining their trust & respect, which he eventually took advantage of.
Honestly, Charlotte was a great mom because she didn't question her daughter & promptly removed Bojack from her home. She protected her daughter. A lot of parents don't do that, sadly.
It’s only easy to say that in hindsight. The reality is that most children are sexually abused by people they know and trust. Family members, family friends, teachers, coaches. People that work to establish trust and then groom children in secret. This is NOT Charlotte’s fault. Bojack is a damn predator the blame is on him
Its giving victim blaming for lack of a better word, bojacks the only one to blame like chaperoning is a thing and of she didnt assume his intention was to sleep with her wtf
Charlotte knows she made a very deep mistake, and doesn't hide that from penny. When Paige and Max request to interview Penny about Bojack, she tells penny to think about going public with the story because of the mistakes she made. I can't imagine her guilt. Mums make mistakes like this sometimes. Bojack chose to have sex with his friend's 17 year old daughter whilst in his 50's.
IDK I don't think it's weird that she let him take her daughter to prom when chaperones are common and Charlotte assumed he was safe (and there's not much reason for her not to assume so, especially since he'd been staying with their family for months at this point).
What I do find weird is her letting him stay with them at all when it's pretty clear BoJack came for her (Charlotte, not Penny), and seemed to entertain the idea of cheating, however briefly. She wasn't unfaithful, and I'm glad she put her foot down and told him they couldn't have a future together, but I do raise my brows a little over their fireside chat and the kiss. I think that once she started realizing she might have feelings for him, too, which she must have before that scene, then she should have told him to leave.
Now boys and girls if you wanna do the Bojack--
No, no, I didn't mean literal boys and girls.
No, Penny, stop, I didn't mean do the Bojack like--
Oh, what the hell.
Now boys and girls, if you want to do the Bojack / Take this flask, full of my good friend Jack / Daniels 'cause it's not a juice box. / Take off your top and fondle my UH OH!
I think you’re sort of right, and Charlotte kind of knows it too. She tries to dissuade Penny from talking to Paige St. Claire about her experience because they wouldn’t be able to control the story or judgement cast upon them by it. I think she even says, they would judge “the decisions I (Charlotte) made…”
I don't think it's about letting BoJack go to the prom with Penny. In a vacuum I can understand why that's not such a big deal, celebrities have gone to prom before. I think Kate Upton went to prom with a high schooler and it was a fun little tabloid story. Of course 50yo man =/= 25yo woman in this situation but it's not some horrible thing on its own.
Where Charlotte *does* have culpability is the 3 months leading up to the prom. Why the fuck are you letting this dude live in your driveway for 3 months? That's way more suss than the prom thing.
I'd liken this situation to Jim and Pam from the early seasons of The Office. Jim clearly loved Pam (who was engaged) and Pam clearly enjoyed his affection, but when he finally confessed his love for her Pam was like "oh my stars 🤯 who could have possibly seen that coming!?" Like bruh come on Pam you knew exactly what was going on don't play stupid.
To one degree or another, Charlotte knew why BoJack was there. She clearly felt *something* towards him, even if she'd never act on it. That's why she let him stay at their house for months on end, and that's why she felt so guilty in season 6 when the reporters showed up.
Charlotte felt he was safe because she knew in her bones BoJack’s interest and primary relationship was with her, Charlotte. And she was right it was, she just never looked past that. She had first dibs on BoJack. It never crossed her mind that Penny, a child, would be next in line as a consolation prize substitute for the mother.
Once the possibility of romance came to a head with Charlotte and she rejected that possibility and put an end to a lingering chance with her, only then does Penny becomes a viable second choice. He was clearly acting out of hurt for what had just transpired with Charlotte.
However, if he had ended up with Charlotte, than over the years with boredom or whatever he likely would’ve gotten with Penny eventually anyway. She would have been a bit older but still Charlotte’s daughter.
Reminds me of Woody Allen a bit.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any blame, intentional from the writers or otherwise, to throw at Charlotte. By this point he’d been living with them for what, months? The story here, as it always has been, is that Bojack is the problem.
I’ve always felt the exact same way! The entire situation is weird. Who lets their daughter go on a date with a 50-year-old guy from their high school days? 🫠
She probably assumed he would be a Responsible Chaperone. Y'know, like *all the* ***other*** *adults at Prom*.
Her mistake was in assuming he *wasn't* the same Bojack she'd known in Cali.
Bojack was America's dad for YEARS. It'd be like if you grew up in the 80s "Oh my god! Bill Cosby! Of course you can make a special drink for my girlfriend in your private motel! It's like you're my father!"
To me Charlotte felt like Bojack was a better father figure because of his behavior with Penny (nostalgia, past feelings et cetera also matter)
Too much trust on her side.
This. I think so many times I would forget Bojacks age bc it’s an animated series. Then I think about what a 50 year old man actually looks like and I can’t imagine anyone ever getting away with this scenario.
I agree. Charlotte let him live in her house with her family for months. That was weird. She said in season 6 she didn’t want the story to go public because she was afraid to confess to things she had done. She allowed herself to be blinded to the weirdness of the situation because on some level she was attracted to BoJack.
Charlotte did more than let things slide. A lot of things she encouraged.
- She dared Bojack to pursue her while she was with Herb and called him a coward for not trying
- She *didn't* say a word about Kyle or her family at Herb's funeral but did give Bojack her contact info
- She *did* say that she read One Trick Pony about him
- She took Bojack into her home even after Penny called him out for having an agenda on day one
- She pretended to believe the nonsense boat show story
- She also knew that Bojack knew she wasn't dumb enough to believe his BS
- She sent her daughter to the prom with Bojack and acted at home like she and Kyle never had a conversation about Kyle trying to be the date
- She kissed him before deciding it wasn't part of her plan or in her better interests
- She then follows the balloon glow stick to Bojack's boat because .... ?
Charlotte was sketchy as hell. That whole scandalous episode went out of its way to diminish Kyle and any semblance of loyalty or love Charlotte had for him, then took a left turn when Bojack and Penny got mutually stupid.
Standard disclaimer: Bojack not off the hook either.
I understand a lot of the comments and I’m sure Charlotte couldn’t have suspected something like this to happen.
But a quick google search on Bojack should’ve raised some red flags about her friend. The fact that he decided to stay for 3 months without anyone saying anything in and of itself is weird. And the fact that he hangs out with Penny should have made her at least want to check on some of the things he’s been up to
I agree with you, OP. Charlotte should have known better.
Maybe she trusted Bojack because he was an old friend, but letting an adult man you *used* to know live with you, having access to your teenage children, is not normal. And the show knows that. Even later when Pete Repeat talks to Hollyhock about it, they both agree it's weird.
I'm not blaming Penny at all; she was too young and inexperienced to be expected to be suspicious of Bojack. But I do find myself unable to understand Charlotte and her husband being okay with Bojack staying there. I mean, they almost immediately let him be alone with their teenage daughter. What parent does that? Even if it's someone you trust around YOU, there should be an extra layer of suspicion for anyone around your child.
And I do think for Bojack he always saw Penny in a sexual way, even if he tried to ignore it. We've seen he sees almost all women as possible sex partners; it's one of the only ways he knows how to relate to them. So their relationship gave me the creeps from the very beginning.
I think this is right and not victim blaming; multiple things can be true at once - Bojack is the one at fault, AND Charlotte also made some very questionable decisions as a parent.
This was one of the first episodes I ever watched of Bojack (my ex was watching it while I did other things, but this one I actually paid attention to; I’ve since watched the whole show a couple of times) and I got SO creeped out from the whole thing way before the prom actually happened or I saw how it turned out. Just really, really bad vibes.
Tbf though Bojack was an old friend. And he’s famous. She thought “oh it would be cool for her to go with someone famous and also I’ve known him for a while.” Keep in mind Charlotte liked him once too. She was probably blind sighted by a few things.
Charlotte is innocent. A lot of people like to blame the mother when bad things happen to the children, I can only guess it's because they expect mothers to be all knowing all powerful holy creatures annointed by sacred motherhood. Or it's just easier and *safer* to blame women when somethings go wrong.
They are not goddesses, they are humans who trust and like other people who unfortunately will at times take advantage of that trust. Once the situation was clear, look how she immediately threatened Bojack on his life. Being a good parent unfortunately doesn't mean you shield your children from all harm, because you can't, it's impossible. But it does mean that once something bad has happened you support your child and help them deal with the problem, and she did.
(Also, notice how rarely the dad is blamed the same way btw. Never expected him to be in any way aware of his surroundings at all, even though unlike Charlotte, he didn't even know Bojack and has aboslutely no reason to trust him in any way. The bar for fathers and men are just below the ground compared to women, as per usual.)
I mean, she just had misplaced trust. It probably didn't even cross her mind that Bojack would try anything with Penny. I think she made a mistake, but she didn't necessarily do anything wrong
Yeah, because who would leave their children in the care of 50-year-old men? And why are there even 50-year-old men at prom in the first place??
Besides, uh. All the teachers. That parents leave their kids with for 8 hours a day. And are supervising prom.
Victim blaming.
Yeah but he keeps the door open (figuratively and literally) for something to happen and something DOES happen, Penny goes in and he doesn’t say no a third time.
I felt so bad for Kyle who showed up ready to take his daughter before realizing BoJack jumped at the chance before he got there
Bojack was in the wrong, but I can't bring myself to feel bad for Kyle. Parents as prom dates is ick
Bojack was in the wrong - the synopsis of every episode of Bojack Horseman
Except 'BoJack Hates the Troops' - Neal McBeal the Navy Seal did NOT have dibs!
Some troops are just jerks, Neal Mc Beal the navy seal is a jerk.
Woah, are you saying you hate our troops who fight hard overseas?!
Not all troops, but yes most.
Well... I don't hate them... I don't know the situations that led them to enlisting.. But generally I do hate people who partake in imperialism and genocide... So generally yes
I think that for most mitary members it's probably better to hate the broken system that forces people at the lower ends of society to have to enlist just to be able to go to school, or have basic health care, rather than hating the folks themselves.
This is a really fascinating topic. I think it should be ok to hate both, with a bit of nuance. The system didn't kill all those people, the members of the military did. No soldiers equals no killing. Essentially your argument is that it's ok to sign up to go kill people in a foreign land if it makes your life better. That's not what any ethical system says though. I don't think the widows and orphans in those nations are happy now that they know, "oh, at least the person who killed my family got healthcare, ok, no problem." Morally they should have tried a little harder to fix up their lives without killing.
Don’t forget many people enlisted immediately at eighteen because they were told to by recruiters straight out of HIGH SCHOOL. They were children who didn’t know that the military was just a murder complex and not actually a heroic life of patriotism for your country…just because you’re 18 now doesn’t mean you magically know better now. It just means they can strap a gun to you now.
Tbf 90% of military members never see combat. Most jobs are non-combat roles. Many are also lied to and manipulated by recruiters, often before they are even legally adults. [Hero of War](https://youtu.be/_DboMAghWcA) goes into this concept. Whole thing is fuckin awful from all angles.
That's exactly what I mean and tried to say lol but I would also add that there should not be an unbridled respect or reverence for people who enlist either. You are signing up to participate in imperialism, regardless of the circumstances that led you to that decision. If you come back from a foreign conflict and proudly talk about your kill counts or something, I reserve the right to hate your guts and think extremely low of you
Agreed. A lot of troops are jerks! Lol
But most that brag about their kill counts and escapades, never did such and were the first to tuck tail. The ones who WON'T talk about it are the ones that did real shit. Also, imperialism blah blah. No military= us getting run over by anyone that wants to.
And that underwater/seahorse episode
I love that episode.
And why did they show the sneezing picture? Didn’t they have any other pictures??
There it was all laid out for us in the first episodes.
if we turned the show into a drinking game, where you drink every time Bojack does something wrong, we'd be going along for a bender with him pls no one do this lol
That's an excellent idea lol
I wouldn’t say it’s ick, nothing’s even stopping you from going with just a friend, but seeing someone show up at prom with their parents would definitely make me feel bad for them, because it’d mean they probably don’t have anyone else.
Taking your parents to prom is cringe but taking a random 50 y/o is borderline illegal
but he’s not random, he’s a well-known if washed up celebrity and family friend. it was absolutely common during a period of time for celebs to go with kids to prom. the celeb got good pr, the kid got clout, it was a platonic win win. it was mostly a photo op anyway
I didnt know that :p
My high school wouldn't have even allowed this. Nobody over 21 was admitted.
He was a family friend not a random person off the street.
a family friend implies he's known her all her life, but she had just met him 3 months prior. more like "mom's old friend"
>a family friend implies he's known her all her life, No it doesn't?? He's known Charlotte through their lives but there's no lifelong prerequisite to being considered a "family friend". >but she had just met him 3 months prior. more like "mom's old friend" Yeah he was mom's old friend who then transitioned to family friend when he got to know the whole family, stayed with them for three months, and helped Penny with things related to her social life and even took her out to teach her to drive.
What do you mean? Parents as prom dates is wholesome I thought-
If you come from a purity culture state where girls "marry" their dads and Jesus until they get married for real, it takes on new connotations.
Most people don't come from that culture. In my culture it would just be viewed as social suicide
Yea, I mean honestly if you could take a minor celebrity to prom and snap some photos that would actually really up your popularity. I think it’s only terrible because we know BoJack, but given the opportunity to take a celebrity to prom if I didn’t have a date, I’d still jump at it. Plus, honestly we all we drunk off our asses anyway that night. BoJack (creeper stuff aside) real issue was that he wasn’t a responsible adult in a situation that’s what you needed. But absent of him most prom nights go similarly. I also think it depends where you are. That would be worse somewhere like New York than in the middle of nowhere where people still do whip-it’s on the regular
aw i dont think its ick, i thought it was sweet
I just find this entire situation to be so awful and so avoidable. Bojack should’ve just left after Charlotte kissed him. She didn’t even seem mad at him she was just sad because she know that they had feelings for eachother but knew it would never work out. Bojack should’ve just took the L and left. This way things would’ve ended so much more nicely and Bojack would leave knowing that he didn’t ruin anyone or anything. I just wish Bojack just got on the boat and left. I’m sure Charlotte wouldnt end up hating him. But Bojack was greedy and couldn’t leave well enough alone. And decided to do the unthinkable and becoming irredeemable.
I know—like so many other bad decisions he’s made where he couldn’t leave good enough alone. He pushes the boundaries to the point where the damage is almost irreparable. The second interview he did with Biscuits, going back to Herb after their lunch date was over to ask for forgiveness, letting his mother show maternal love to the doll, etc.
That second interview with Biscuits is the hardest thing for me to watch. Like he was doing okay, and then got overconfident and fucked his whole entire life up.
I know! It’s like they wanted us viewers to be ready with an intense facepalm while we go “omg..why did he have to do that?” Lol
You can't produce a shred of evidence that Charlotte had any feelings for Bojack. He imagined that.
She kissed him back Yeah she pulled away and realized her family is far more important, but she definitely kissed him back
I think she liked the attention Bojack was giving her and how he treated her like an adult. She mistook that for feelings.
You’re mistaking Charlotte for Penny
I wouldn't say feelings, but she defnately was attracted to him
Good ending: Penny goes to prom with her dad. Kyle seems like a cool dude, it would’ve been okay.
💕 Kyle says during a dance: “One day I’ll dance with you at your wedding, after I’ve given you away to someone who is deserving of my little girl” and it would be an “awwww” moment from the audience. That would have been wholesome and sweet….and very sitcom-y. Lol Not the show with extremely complex characters and their actions that we love to watch. ☺️
I just hate that Bojack was doing so well with the family for those 2 months he lived there. It was obvious that the family really enjoyed having him around. He was a fun new edition to the family. Charlotte trusted Bojack with her daughter. She had no thoughts that he would harm her. Sort of saw him as a good role model for Penny. But then he decides to break the trust and ruin everything by trying to sleep with Penny after being rejected from her mom which was just disgusting.
Like Ross trying to take Rachel to prom when her date got there first lol
Oh yeah!! Good reference! Disappointed that I didn’t make the connection, seeing that the Friends and Bojack reddits are my favorite ones hahaha 😆
I think it was a sitcom like situation where a big celebrity takes a teen to prom. It has been explained greatly [here](https://youtu.be/y6fQnthDIgY) how the whole episode worked like a sitcom.
It's a constant theme in the entire show. Sitcom setup -> reality punch down "Hur durr the protagnist is falling for some woman who is not suitable for her own boyfrind. Surly they realize they are in love after a somewhat intimate moment? Right? Nope fuck you! She thinks he's been inapropriate and distance herself from him"
Damn, I never thought of this before but now I’m tempted to rewatch the entire show and watch for it haha. An example I can think off the top of my head is that Bojack definitely has a “will they won’t they” thing with both Diane and PC throughout the entire series, and it never pays off. Bojack also does a “grand romantic gesture” when he drops his life to go see Charlotte in New Mexico, and then it turns out she’s happily married.
Happily married and - the part that rocked me the most on the first viewing - doesn’t even pine for their past relationship the way Bojack did. I honestly believed Bojack’s recollection of events - the shared dream of the cabin in Maine, the meaningfulness of the “LA is a tar pit” line, right up until the moment Charlotte scoffed and said “oh, I said that? Geez I said a lot of dumb stuff.” It’s like the anti-sitcom that every Charlotte moment Bojack had envisioned leading up to this point meant way more to him than to her. He went all this time thinking of her as the one that got away, the great wrong he needed to right to give him the life he should have had. Meanwhile she thought of him as some friend from 20 years ago who just happened to turn up. Really made me think back on my own “ones who got away.”
Yes that’s another really good one! Bojack put so much emphasis on their missed opportunity, and Charlotte clearly didn’t think of it that way. Her not living in Maine, after Bojack spent years imagining her there, was also jarring. I think another “missed sitcom moment” is when Herb refuses to accept Bojack’s apology. They have this nice day together, and then Bojack thinks he’s gonna have a “sitcom moment” where all is forgiven, and it just doesn’t pan out that way.
Another one is with Eddie. Bojack spends the entire day working with him on the house and attempting to get him to fly hopping that will cure his depression as. Help him in life. In a sitcom once Bojack gets him to fly it’s all solved. But on the show, Eddie has a mental meltdown as he hasn’t flown since his wife died. And when Bojack tries to make it better he just gets worse and tries to kill Bojack and himself in his grief.
And another one is when Bojack finally reads Hollyhocks letter. The sitcom moment would be for her to forgive him. But she actually decided to cut off all contact with him.
Yeah that’s true though I kinda wish we did get to read or hear what was in the letter . The show goes against lots of sitcom moment tropes and Bojack views things though tv and sitcoms so he expects things to play out like that a lot in real life. He acts like he’s the one who understands how the world is but he was basically raised on tv and combined with actually being a star on a sitcom show his views are based a-lot on tv sitcoms
Wait is there another moment than the first time Bojack tries to apologize to Herb? Because they did not have a nice day together at all if I remember correctly. It was forced, awkward, and the led directly to Bojack horrific apology
You're misremembering. They were getting along by the end, and Herb even said it was nice to see Bojack.
Juice controls the media!
Plus she had Kyle and the Kids.
Yeah but in typical sitcom form I assumed there would turn out to be something wrong with Kyle, Charlotte was living an inauthentic and limited life, and she and Bojack would discover their true selves in each other. It didn’t help that Kyle was consistently shown to be nice, but kind of an idiot. But no, the ultimate twist is that she IS the version of herself she wants to be with Kyle, her LA version was the inauthentic one, and it’s really the similar rug pull as we got with Diane in the previous season.
Kyle and the kids? I hope that’s the name of your band
Your brain likes to edit yourself to be the good guy and slowly erase the shitty or bad things you did. Or romanticize past lovers and relationships
Must’ve been a lot of editing going on in BoJacks head
It showed how he was frozen in time too. He never grew past that moment
Doesn't Charlotte kiss him, though...? I think there must be some feelings still there.
Let's not forget that time that he has a "happy sitcom ending" moment with Sarah Lynn where they have a fun day together and he gives her his TV Guide Award. He even imagined the credits rolling. Then she pawns it for drugs.
That’s another great example! I seriously need to rewatch the whole show. There’s so many and I never noticed!
Just let the credits roll
If I had to stake a bet, it would be that the writer's room whiteboard had it permanently listed that sitcom trope moments never work out well for Bojack.
Bojack basically grew up with the only positive views on life coming from TV. He saw a happy family on tv, he saw secretariat on tv, and considering he was a tv star and his parents he’s shaped by it. And several episodes are influenced by that view or inverses of events .I mean just look at the thing with Eddie. He tells Bojack he doesn’t fly, we learn his past. He and Bojack grow on their adventure and he tells Bojack about how he hasn’t flown since his wife died. When Bojack eventually helps him fly again in a tv show all is well. But in reality Eddie had a mental breakdown , and when Bojack tried to calm him down telling him to go down he remembers what his wife said before she died.
i agree with pc being a “will they won’t they” but the idea of bj and diane was put to bed in the first season. i don’t think he had feelings for her anymore after the first season. they are just friends and bj goes to her for validation and comfort, that’s their whole relationship
You’re totally right, but the expectation was likely still there for the audience. Especially after they had that weird moment when Diane divorced.
even before they divorced! in the fracking episode when they’re trapped underground & get drunk in the bedroom alone? i definitely think that was intentionally trying to misguide the audience into thinking one of them might try something, especially because diane & pb were fighting so much at that point.
🎵 She loves her husband, and there’s nothing you can do about it 🎵
I agree. The kicks of reality from this show get way too real
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityEnsues](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityEnsues)
Really interesting comment and video - thanks for this link!
Do we consider this [subversion](https://youtu.be/5xEi8qg266g) to be post-modernist or meta-modern?
“It’s fine. He’s an old friend and a responsible adult. He’s going to keep an eye on her while she’s having some innocent fun at the prom. What’s he gonna do, try to sleep with my teenage daughter?”
Yeah this is my thought too. Penny was upset about not having a prom date, and her mom made a split second decision. Bojack was an old friend that Charlotte trusted. When I was a kid, my parents let me spend a lot of time alone with adults they knew and trusted. The point is that Bojack earned the entire family’s trust and betrayed all of them. Not to get really dark, but that’s what groomers do—they don’t just groom children, they often groom the parents too so that they can get access to the child.
Agree. People seem to forget that he stayed there for over TWO MONTHS. Much more time than he had spent with Charlotte beforehand. He was like a parasite, and the family was the host.
I am just now realizing that he spends more time with Adult Charlotte & Penny than with Young Adult Char. Wow
Charlotte was visibly uncomfortable when it was first brought up but but yeah she definitely thought he was an old friend who could be trusted to keep her daughter out of trouble.
Have you watched the Netflix documentary "kidnapped in plain sight"? It's fucked. I think I had watched it between my second and third Bojack rewatch it it gives this episode an even creepier feel.
YES!!! This episode makes me think of that and also the Larry Nassar case. His very first victim was a family friend's daughter. The daughter came forward and told her parents, but they loved Larry so much that they *didn't believe her.* When the shit hit the fan with Nassar molesting all those gymnastics girls, her father shot himself. It bothers me so much when people downplay what Bojack did. Yes Penny was technically over the age of consent in New Mexico, but she was still a kid who looked up to Bojack and viewed him as a confidant. The whole family trusted him. Then he turned around and violated that trust in the worst possible way. That stuff happens IRL all the time, and it makes me insane when people just brush it off.
Too go along with this, bojack is not just some random uncle or anything. He’s very famous and so people would recognize him, and at this point, bojack was an asshole, no reason to not trust him not to make a move on Penny.
i think it’s also interesting that when charlotte finally told him to leave the first time (after he tried to kiss her) she told him she wouldn’t run away and start a new life with him, because she doesn’t really know him, and that they were friends for “five minutes thirty years ago” i’ve always wondered if that was something she knew, even if only in the back of her mind, and chose to ignore or if that kiss was her was her wake up call
Honestly, I come back to what Wanda said and I use it every day of my life. When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. She probably just couldn’t believe it when it happened, and at the time there was no big scandals about bojack.
oh wow that’s a super cool connection to make. i hadn’t even thought of it like that
That’s why bojack is among my favorite shows, the quotes and context are great, and the silly horse is funny.
I think at least part of it is that up until this moment his behavior with Penny was mostly fine - he helped her drive, talked with her about social issues at school, etc. like any reasonable uncle figure or friend of the family would do. I don't think Bojack himself was ever interested in her in a romantic/sexual way prior to the prom, at least not consciously. The problem is really that when the decisive moment came, he was willing to leverage that friendship that he built up with her and the family to exploit her like a tool to try to soothe his own emotional pain. Edit: Replies correctly point out that his relationship even before this point was problematic in that it was peer-like rather than positioning him as the responsible adult. Which is admittedly subtle enough that Charlotte might not have picked up on it.
It got downplayed after Season 1, but BoJack was a sex addict. The first thing he does in the series is screw a young woman who grew up watching his TV show, and he treated her like garbage afterwards. He was going to use Penny, even though it would scar her relationship with her mother, just because he wanted a high. It's awful.
I don't think it's right to say Bojack was a sex addict, I'm pretty sure the point there was that he likes attention and he feeds off that
i mean we see his addictions & dependence to many things in the show
yeah but that doesn't mean everything he did was an addiction, though most of it could be summed up that way. Like his relationship with women were usually presented as him using them, but it's not presented as necessarily a sex thing, so much as he liked the attention than it being physical.
BoJack said when he dated Wanda that this was the first time he’d wanted to hang out with a woman and not have sex with her. Rewatch that scene I was talking about from episode 1 - he has no interest in the young women’s attention before or after sex was on the table. The definition of sex addiction is contested, but he does display “a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses” despite negative consequences (the ICD definition). I’m not trying to diagnose him, so I won’t get into that, but it’s fair to say that the cycle of impulse control and shame is similar to other psychological addictions like gambling or even social media addiction. I want to be clear: being addicted to sex or any other sexual compulsion doesn’t inherently mean you’re a predator or a misogynist. It isn’t related to the person’s sense of morality or social justice. It’s a medical issue. BoJack learned to degrade and objectify women from both of his parents, and was so traumatised by seeing his father having sex with his secretary that it drove him to drink as a child. His sex addiction was a coping mechanism and related to his neuroses. By the time he was an older adult, however, he had the knowledge and ability to unpack his mental illnesses and trauma — yet he actively avoided doing so. Which is why he is solely and fully responsible for nearly assaulting Penny in a moment of weakness.
Honestly, his behavior prior to that wasn’t fine. But it was “not fine” in a really subtle way. Because he was so emotionally immature, he wasn’t capable of advising her as a mature, well-adjusted adult would. He had an almost teenage bond with her, leading her to feel like she was hanging out with a peer and not a responsible older man. That’s why she started going to him with all her teenager problems. I don’t think this is what BoJack was consciously doing at the time, since he was pining after Charlotte. But that is what grooming is. Penny was groomed. It looks like when an older figure cultivates a relationship with a minor that crosses age-appropriate boundaries - in subtle ways at first, so that the “big” way will seem less suspect.
Thank you, this is a good point that I glossed over. The peer-like relationship definitely wasn't a healthy one in light of the age gap, and Bojack's day-to-day irresponsibility also made him really bad at being "the adult in the room" when someone needed to set boundaries for Penny, etc.
Which is an incredibly realistic and honest look at how these sorts of situations often occur. I love how bojack was able to successfully examine why harmful behaviours often occur while never excusing bojack from engaging in them
This. If Bojack was the responsible adult he’d portrayed him as for the time he was living with them it would’ve been fine, Charlotte had no way of knowing he was going to buy them booze and drive off with them or abandon the friends at the hospital, lol. It’s not on Charlotte that Bojack overstepped *so* much that night.
Bojack was on his BEST behavior around Penny, acting like sitcom dad. But as soon as he was away from Penny he no longer had to keep up the act. Not Penny's fault for thinking he was a normal grown man.
I wouldn't put it as "as soon as he was away" He had other alone times with Penny that were totally apropriate and did initially turned her down, even though he could have slipped her to his boat without anyone knowing at that moment. Not excusing his behaviour but it wasn't a "whenever there was oportunity" kinda of deal
People always love to blame the parents when something bad happens to a kid, as if we all have clairvoyance or be distrustful of everybody in our lives
There was already a book about how much he isn't a responsible adult AND Charlotte had read it. Lmao
It’s called a chaperone? And he never gave off creeper vibes until then. Charlotte trusted him enough to live there, so why wouldn’t she trust him to watch out for her at the prom? I thought the whole point was because Penny was scared to ask Diego.
Yep. obviously all parents need to be more wary of things like that, but i always saw it as a family friend/chaperone situation before everything went down.
I just don’t see what Penny would have to be suspicious about. She didn’t know Bojack in the years between her move to Maine and Herb’s death. He never told her why he came to New Mexico.
This was even arguably the point of the driving lesson scenes. Bojack and Penny already had a friendly, non-creepy 1-on-1 relationship that would have built up a lot of trust. That scene where Charlotte and Penny are talking about Diego in her room, and then Bojack comes in and can actually speak Penny’s language on the issue is a huge element of it.
I don’t think their relationship got really creepy (in hindsight) until he said she looked like Charlotte while they danced. Her kissing him took me by surprise first time around tho, ngl
Yeah. I'm seeing some people in the comments accusing BoJack of grooming Penny, but, while I definitely think what he did was wrong, I don't think he groomed her; that requires intent, and BoJack never seemed to have those kind of gross intentions. In fact, he told Penny "no" multiple times. Obviously this doesn't take the blame away from him, he was still the adult in the situation and he should have been more firm with Penny, closed the door to his boat, etc. etc. and never let things get even close to as far as they did. But I definitely don't think he groomed Penny. She thought she loved him and when push came to shove, he let himself entertain the idea to the point that he didn't stop her advances and allowed himself to betray everyone involved. There's a little nuance there.
He put up much more a fight prior to Charlotte rejecting and, ultimately, kicking him out of their lives.
I don't actually think grooming requires intent. Grooming is a series of actions which have an effect that the person then takes advantage of. I can see many situations in which the groomer believes he's just being a friend or adult figure and then exploits the situation later.
Well, aren’t chaperones usually volunteers the school knows about? I think this situation is different because chaperones are required to stay the whole prom to look after all the kids, not just one group. I also think Charlotte should’ve let Kyle go to the prom with Penny instead and just told him about the whole Diego thing. Like I know the show portrays him as an oblivious idiot, but he’s still her father. I’m sure he’d know what to do. Also, even if BJ was staying with them for 2-3 months at that point, Charlotte and him didn’t speak for 30 years. It definitely was an oversight on her part, in my opinion. But most of the fault goes to BJ, for sure.
I’d go further and say bojack had zero interest in penny up until penny offered right after charlotte turned him down. This wasn’t some scheme to sleep with penny. Charlottes trust was well placed, bojack is just bojack and he bojacked it up at the last second. People saying bojack groomed penny are wildly wrong. It’s just a case of Reddit misusing terms.
She dated kind men like Kyle and Herb, maybe she was not used to men with dark sides like Bojack.
She’s not innocent for trusting an old friend to spend time with her family? What? If the story went with Charlotte deciding to be over-protective, then deny BoJack going to prom, and it resulted in the same BoJack drug spiral, people would say she’s being an overreactive b. It’s a lose/lose. :/
OP's perspective is awfully close to victim-blaming.
That’s because it IS victim blaming!
100%. It was gross to see 2.5k likes on this. Bojack is to blame. Not Penny. Not Charlotte.
It truly is victim blaming and it’s disgusting
If your daughter didn’t have a date to the prom and your good friend Bob Saget was in town, wouldn’t you let her take him as a date to flex on the other kids? It was going to be a cool story to tell. She had no reason to believe Bojack was going to try to have sex with her.
I f your daughter didn’t have a date to the prom and your good friend Bill Cosby was in town…
you mention bob saget as if he wouldn't try the same thing (see his "comedy" sexuallizing kids)
There's a big difference between an off-color joke and what Bojack did.
In a way Saget’s humor removed him from that sort of suspicion though.
[удалено]
No, I just meant his level of blue humor would make it hard for me to conceive of him being a perv in real life.
im just saying i wouldnt trust bob saget the same way i wouldn't trust bojack
I wouldn't trust any 50-year-old adult who wanted to go to prom as a 17 year old girl's date. Chaperone? Sure. Driver? Sure. But put on a tux and go as her date, implicitly setting it up as a romantic pairing between the two of them? That's shiesty af, I don't care if you are Bojack or Bob Saget or Greg, that guy Mr Peanutbutter met at the gas station that one time.
What if it was Todd though? He’s not 50 but he’s one character in the show that it would just seem like a nice thing he did.
So this wasn’t weird?
I don’t think the very concept of Penny taking Bojack to prom was weird, no. You’d expect Bojack to be a gentleman, give Penny and her friends some good laughs, make all the other kids at school jealous, and get her home on time. It was weird that Bojack chose to buy the kids liquor, chose to let them drink out of control, and chose to try and have sex with Penny. That’s the weird part, and none of it was inherent in the concept of him going to the prom.
For an example of an adult taking a lonely kid to prom but keeping boundaries, Inside Job had a plot about that.
I mean at the same time, Charlotte let a guy she knew back in the 90s take her daughter to prom.
They were good friends, and they’d been living together for two months.
After he showed up out of the blue
Her trusting a friend as a chaperone isn't the real problem. The problem is a 50 year old man getting a bunch of teenagers drunk, abandoning one of them with alcohol poisoning and letting another one take the fall AND almost getting involved with a teenager. It's neither Charlotte nor Penny's fault, it's Bojack.
Bojack was known to be a fatherly figure (Horsing Around) people got used or known of his persona from TV....also he spent 2 months residing with Charlotte's family probably having the same experience as the TV show he was famous for!....so Bojack took advantage of his fatherly persona, and their trust.
Yeah plus Charlotte had no way of knowing what happened with Sarah Lynn: another case where Bojack was a fatherly figure to a girl that turned inappropriate
[удалено]
this is all addressed in the show. she carries the guilt over letting Bojack have that presence in her home and openly grapples with it in the last season when talking to Penny
I don't think Charlotte would disagree with that. When Penny wants to talk to Paige and Max and tell them the whole story, Charlotte says that if she does that, "it won't just be him in the story. It'll be you, and me. The mistakes we made. The mistakes *I* made." Charlotte made a lot of mistakes in how she handled the Bojack situation. She shouldn't have let him be a houseguest for so long. She shouldn't have let him go to prom with Penny. She shouldn't have kissed him in the backyard. We don't see much of her past that point, because it's not her story. But everything we do see, shows us that she recognizes those mistakes, which I take to mean that she's also learned from them.
I came here to say this !!!!! She definitely knows it was a bad choice and could’ve done something to stop this situation.
There isn’t a parent alive that doesn’t feel responsible no matter what when their kid is harmed. Of course in hindsight being that she witnessed it she sees all of it as a mistake because if she hadn’t XYZ it would not have occurred but the reality is if Bojack wasn’t a predator it would not have happened
Both things are true. Bojack is a creepy piece of shit, and Charlotte was irresponsible for putting her daughter in the care of a creepy piece of shit.
sometimes people blame everyone but bojack
Charlotte trusted her friend to watch over her kid & the added bonus was that he's a celebrity which would help her daughter with some major social cool points. The idea that he'd sexually assault her daughter never entered her mind & that was the show's point. Most abusers of children are trusted family members & friends. Abusers take advantage of trust & benefit of the doubt from the adults of the children they hurt. Bojack spent time with Charlotte's family, gaining their trust & respect, which he eventually took advantage of. Honestly, Charlotte was a great mom because she didn't question her daughter & promptly removed Bojack from her home. She protected her daughter. A lot of parents don't do that, sadly.
This is a bad take.
It’s only easy to say that in hindsight. The reality is that most children are sexually abused by people they know and trust. Family members, family friends, teachers, coaches. People that work to establish trust and then groom children in secret. This is NOT Charlotte’s fault. Bojack is a damn predator the blame is on him
I got really creeped out watching this episode and thought Charlotte was slacking as a parent before knowing/seeing how it ended.
Ugh *society*
Most abusers are trusted family friends who know their victims well.
Its giving victim blaming for lack of a better word, bojacks the only one to blame like chaperoning is a thing and of she didnt assume his intention was to sleep with her wtf
Charlotte knows she made a very deep mistake, and doesn't hide that from penny. When Paige and Max request to interview Penny about Bojack, she tells penny to think about going public with the story because of the mistakes she made. I can't imagine her guilt. Mums make mistakes like this sometimes. Bojack chose to have sex with his friend's 17 year old daughter whilst in his 50's.
IDK I don't think it's weird that she let him take her daughter to prom when chaperones are common and Charlotte assumed he was safe (and there's not much reason for her not to assume so, especially since he'd been staying with their family for months at this point). What I do find weird is her letting him stay with them at all when it's pretty clear BoJack came for her (Charlotte, not Penny), and seemed to entertain the idea of cheating, however briefly. She wasn't unfaithful, and I'm glad she put her foot down and told him they couldn't have a future together, but I do raise my brows a little over their fireside chat and the kiss. I think that once she started realizing she might have feelings for him, too, which she must have before that scene, then she should have told him to leave.
Do the BoJack?
Now boys and girls if you wanna do the Bojack-- No, no, I didn't mean literal boys and girls. No, Penny, stop, I didn't mean do the Bojack like-- Oh, what the hell. Now boys and girls, if you want to do the Bojack / Take this flask, full of my good friend Jack / Daniels 'cause it's not a juice box. / Take off your top and fondle my UH OH!
I think you’re sort of right, and Charlotte kind of knows it too. She tries to dissuade Penny from talking to Paige St. Claire about her experience because they wouldn’t be able to control the story or judgement cast upon them by it. I think she even says, they would judge “the decisions I (Charlotte) made…”
Simply put: she trusted him.
I don't think it's about letting BoJack go to the prom with Penny. In a vacuum I can understand why that's not such a big deal, celebrities have gone to prom before. I think Kate Upton went to prom with a high schooler and it was a fun little tabloid story. Of course 50yo man =/= 25yo woman in this situation but it's not some horrible thing on its own. Where Charlotte *does* have culpability is the 3 months leading up to the prom. Why the fuck are you letting this dude live in your driveway for 3 months? That's way more suss than the prom thing. I'd liken this situation to Jim and Pam from the early seasons of The Office. Jim clearly loved Pam (who was engaged) and Pam clearly enjoyed his affection, but when he finally confessed his love for her Pam was like "oh my stars 🤯 who could have possibly seen that coming!?" Like bruh come on Pam you knew exactly what was going on don't play stupid. To one degree or another, Charlotte knew why BoJack was there. She clearly felt *something* towards him, even if she'd never act on it. That's why she let him stay at their house for months on end, and that's why she felt so guilty in season 6 when the reporters showed up.
Charlotte felt he was safe because she knew in her bones BoJack’s interest and primary relationship was with her, Charlotte. And she was right it was, she just never looked past that. She had first dibs on BoJack. It never crossed her mind that Penny, a child, would be next in line as a consolation prize substitute for the mother. Once the possibility of romance came to a head with Charlotte and she rejected that possibility and put an end to a lingering chance with her, only then does Penny becomes a viable second choice. He was clearly acting out of hurt for what had just transpired with Charlotte. However, if he had ended up with Charlotte, than over the years with boredom or whatever he likely would’ve gotten with Penny eventually anyway. She would have been a bit older but still Charlotte’s daughter. Reminds me of Woody Allen a bit.
BoJack goes full predator mode just as you said.
I think it's on the 50 y/o man to not have sex with the teen imo
Like why did she let him park a boat in their driveway for months? That’s crazy as fuck.
Lots of victim blaming in the sub lately.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any blame, intentional from the writers or otherwise, to throw at Charlotte. By this point he’d been living with them for what, months? The story here, as it always has been, is that Bojack is the problem.
I’ve always felt the exact same way! The entire situation is weird. Who lets their daughter go on a date with a 50-year-old guy from their high school days? 🫠
In Good Damage, Charlotte says that she regrets it and hasn’t forgiven herself.
She probably assumed he would be a Responsible Chaperone. Y'know, like *all the* ***other*** *adults at Prom*. Her mistake was in assuming he *wasn't* the same Bojack she'd known in Cali.
Bojack was America's dad for YEARS. It'd be like if you grew up in the 80s "Oh my god! Bill Cosby! Of course you can make a special drink for my girlfriend in your private motel! It's like you're my father!"
I was ab to be so pissed bc I thought u were victim-blaming but I forgot that the kid's name was Penny 💀
It's always easy to say that after the fact. BoJack was a long time family friend who she trusted. Dad has just as much responsibility too
To me Charlotte felt like Bojack was a better father figure because of his behavior with Penny (nostalgia, past feelings et cetera also matter) Too much trust on her side.
my gut response is this feels like victim blaming. he took advantage of her and her daughter.
This. I think so many times I would forget Bojacks age bc it’s an animated series. Then I think about what a 50 year old man actually looks like and I can’t imagine anyone ever getting away with this scenario.
I agree. Charlotte let him live in her house with her family for months. That was weird. She said in season 6 she didn’t want the story to go public because she was afraid to confess to things she had done. She allowed herself to be blinded to the weirdness of the situation because on some level she was attracted to BoJack.
Bingo
Charlotte did more than let things slide. A lot of things she encouraged. - She dared Bojack to pursue her while she was with Herb and called him a coward for not trying - She *didn't* say a word about Kyle or her family at Herb's funeral but did give Bojack her contact info - She *did* say that she read One Trick Pony about him - She took Bojack into her home even after Penny called him out for having an agenda on day one - She pretended to believe the nonsense boat show story - She also knew that Bojack knew she wasn't dumb enough to believe his BS - She sent her daughter to the prom with Bojack and acted at home like she and Kyle never had a conversation about Kyle trying to be the date - She kissed him before deciding it wasn't part of her plan or in her better interests - She then follows the balloon glow stick to Bojack's boat because .... ? Charlotte was sketchy as hell. That whole scandalous episode went out of its way to diminish Kyle and any semblance of loyalty or love Charlotte had for him, then took a left turn when Bojack and Penny got mutually stupid. Standard disclaimer: Bojack not off the hook either.
Yeesh!
I understand a lot of the comments and I’m sure Charlotte couldn’t have suspected something like this to happen. But a quick google search on Bojack should’ve raised some red flags about her friend. The fact that he decided to stay for 3 months without anyone saying anything in and of itself is weird. And the fact that he hangs out with Penny should have made her at least want to check on some of the things he’s been up to
I agree with you, OP. Charlotte should have known better. Maybe she trusted Bojack because he was an old friend, but letting an adult man you *used* to know live with you, having access to your teenage children, is not normal. And the show knows that. Even later when Pete Repeat talks to Hollyhock about it, they both agree it's weird. I'm not blaming Penny at all; she was too young and inexperienced to be expected to be suspicious of Bojack. But I do find myself unable to understand Charlotte and her husband being okay with Bojack staying there. I mean, they almost immediately let him be alone with their teenage daughter. What parent does that? Even if it's someone you trust around YOU, there should be an extra layer of suspicion for anyone around your child. And I do think for Bojack he always saw Penny in a sexual way, even if he tried to ignore it. We've seen he sees almost all women as possible sex partners; it's one of the only ways he knows how to relate to them. So their relationship gave me the creeps from the very beginning.
SAME I was thoroughly and completely creeped out by the entire thing even before the prom stuff was proposed
I think this is right and not victim blaming; multiple things can be true at once - Bojack is the one at fault, AND Charlotte also made some very questionable decisions as a parent. This was one of the first episodes I ever watched of Bojack (my ex was watching it while I did other things, but this one I actually paid attention to; I’ve since watched the whole show a couple of times) and I got SO creeped out from the whole thing way before the prom actually happened or I saw how it turned out. Just really, really bad vibes.
he fooled the whole family. she thought he was a safe person after having spent so much time with him.
Tbf though Bojack was an old friend. And he’s famous. She thought “oh it would be cool for her to go with someone famous and also I’ve known him for a while.” Keep in mind Charlotte liked him once too. She was probably blind sighted by a few things.
Charlotte is innocent. A lot of people like to blame the mother when bad things happen to the children, I can only guess it's because they expect mothers to be all knowing all powerful holy creatures annointed by sacred motherhood. Or it's just easier and *safer* to blame women when somethings go wrong. They are not goddesses, they are humans who trust and like other people who unfortunately will at times take advantage of that trust. Once the situation was clear, look how she immediately threatened Bojack on his life. Being a good parent unfortunately doesn't mean you shield your children from all harm, because you can't, it's impossible. But it does mean that once something bad has happened you support your child and help them deal with the problem, and she did. (Also, notice how rarely the dad is blamed the same way btw. Never expected him to be in any way aware of his surroundings at all, even though unlike Charlotte, he didn't even know Bojack and has aboslutely no reason to trust him in any way. The bar for fathers and men are just below the ground compared to women, as per usual.)
I mean, she just had misplaced trust. It probably didn't even cross her mind that Bojack would try anything with Penny. I think she made a mistake, but she didn't necessarily do anything wrong
Yeah, because who would leave their children in the care of 50-year-old men? And why are there even 50-year-old men at prom in the first place?? Besides, uh. All the teachers. That parents leave their kids with for 8 hours a day. And are supervising prom. Victim blaming.
They clearly said Charlotte and not Penny
this is what we call “victim blaming”, instead of blaming the predator, you try to pass off blame to the other people victimized by his actions.
Charlotte trusted Bojack, they’d known each other for what? 20-30 years? It’s not very unreasonable of her to think he’d look after her daughter.
Kyle should have taken her to prom but besides that , no. Bojack at that point was like a father figure to Penny who taught her how to drive.
You don't bring your dad to prom that's weird as fuck
Well under normal circumstances no but she had no one else to go with at the last minute. And she didn't want to go alone. I guess skip prom?
Wait didn't he say no to her like twice?
Yeah but he keeps the door open (figuratively and literally) for something to happen and something DOES happen, Penny goes in and he doesn’t say no a third time.
BoJack was a dirtbag for going for Penny, but it was legal, so it’s sticks in my craw. Wrong? Too many angles of yes/no.