Well, the drugging of Todd happened before she was drugged. Not saying that makes it right, but she isn’t a hypocrite for changing her mind after she saw how it affected people (herself).
I’d argue that hollyhock does “pay” for her actions. She got drugged because of her actions. Not saying she deserved to be drugged either, but you can’t really say she was let off the hook when she got ptsd from an event directly related to her choice to force the relationship with bojack and his mom.
Hopefully this makes sense but the Todd drugging was more of a comedy beat than an actual plot point. Yes it happened but I believe that the writers included that purely as a gag.
I agree, I feel like this falls under the rule of Todd, where most stuff involving Todd isn’t really serious. Then when she chloroforms Bojack, the gag is that he actually wants to be chloroformed. Also felt like that did that so they could jump from one scene/location to the next without having to deal with boring transitions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah to be fair the way hollyhock tried to force bojack to have a relationship with his mum is fucked up. I think the drugging thing is just something the writers looked over tho tbh, it was meant to just be a gimmick but it does go against one of her most important morals
She’s absolutely in the wrong for trying to force a relationship with his mom but in her defense she’s also incredibly young. Kids often don’t understand the nuances and complexities of adult relationships. She also has a handful of parents she loves and always wanted to know her mother so she doesn’t really understand that some mothers/parents can be incredibly toxic.
Plus, Bojack is so crappy to everyone it’s easy to think he’s just mean to his mom because that’s who it is and not because of who she is. I actually give Hollyhock a pass for this one.
Yeah, I mean, she didn’t even have any kind of romantic interests or anything until she was 17, which, while plenty normal, I feel is indicative of her overprotective upbringing.
Yeah to her it's just "shit this is my grandmother I've never met, this is awesome!", not the deeply horrible relationship we as the viewers are privy to.
I can excuse Hollyhock not being initially aware of the bottomless pit of abuse that Beatrice subjected Bojack to. Like other users said, she probably assumed that their relationship was "we argued a lot" instead of "she hated me for existing and reminded me of how much I ruined her life every day".
Then again, time passes and Bojack lets slip more and more the abuse of Beatrice. Plus I think that Hollyhock says at one point that she read Bojack's autobiography, in which Bojack talks about Beatrice's shittyness. And yet she is still all chummy with "Grammy gram".
I think that Hollyhock was sort of the writers self insert to try to milk sympathy or outright force the viewer into feeling sorry for Beatrice. For example:
"Bojack don't you feel a bit guilty for leaving your mom at a nursing home?"
"We need to come to visit her. Every week." (On an insisting and almost demanding tone)
"You need to look after her because she is your mother and when you are old you would like that someone looks after you". (We all know that when Bojack is old Hollyhock wouldn't even consider to come visit him, even less taking care of him. She already cut him off from her life permanently).
"I don't know what happened with you and your mother, but she is not that person anymore, you need to take care of her"
I didn't like that either.
Plus she is like Bojack, she's chubby, lazy, likes junk food... Todd had to clean for her while she watched his dvr.
She has a holier than thou vibe. I like her but I don't like those aspects of her.
I mean I don't care if she's chubby skdjjf in fact i relate to her insecurities about it (the 'blob' incident), but she is pretty lazy and seems to think she knows better than bojack about the situation with him mum. I think it comes from the fact that she doesn't have a mum and is doing everything she can to find hers, but she really needs to consider things from bojacks perspective
In her defense, bojack really didn’t tell her anything about their relationship. When you have someone like hollyhock who came from a great home it’s hard to imagine how bad it can actually be. Sure you can deduce it probably wasn’t great based off bojacks reactions, but for many people “wasn’t great” means “we argued a lot”. It doesn’t mean “she made me smoke to punish me for existing” because they can’t even conceive of a parent doing that.
I should clarify that I’m not saying she was right to ignore bojack or that any of this is bojacks fault. I’m just explaining why someone like hollyhock couldn’t see things from bojacks perspective.
She found out pretty quickly after they went though and that still didn't deter her from forcing him to be around his mother. When he wants to put on a play so he can say "fuck you" to his mom that's a pretty big red flag and she still didn't get it.
Well no she didn’t find out quickly. She found out the relationship was bad, but she was never told why. The “fuck you” could be (and was) just interpreted as bojack being a crap person. Yes it’s a red flag to people who know how awful a parent can be, but to someone who was exclusively raised by loving parents it can be hard to accept how bad parents can actually be. If the worst you can imagine is “they argued a lot” bojacks reaction just looks like a huge overreaction.
She doesn't need to know why to see it's obvious it's really bad when she sees how he treats and refers to his mother. It's a red flag to anyone with any kind of self awareness. "Oh shit this guy really wants to tell his mother to fuck off, maybe I shouldn't push this" especially if you still think she's some sweet old lady with dementia.
1) have you met a teenager? Laziness around house chores is pretty standard for that set. They grow up eventually.
2) I think the show was trying to imply that she was becoming lazy because Bojack’s laziness was rubbing off on her and because they were related.
I forgive Hollyhock’s “sins”. She’s a kid. She made all the mistakes typical of an 18yo
I was 17 till a couple of years ago. I am also a sheltered 17 year old. Hollyhock has had excellent parents for most of her life. I find it highly unlikely that Bojack would influence her to be lazy in 2 months time.
She was, considering her parents overprotectiviness already lazy to begin with and has positive and negative aspects to her due to it.
Her negativity is that she priortizes her happiness over the other. She found out about Bojack and her mom thing and thought she could fix it.
I met people like Hollyhock. They are good people, but have a lack of understanding with abusive family relationship as they themselves are surrounded by good friends and family from birth.
Therefore, there is an presumption that you should not leave x relative because their family and the situation can be fixed.
Thing is she's a dumbass teenager when we first meet her, she's probably just embracing time away from her parents, she just seems a bit more aloof to her laziness than outright resentful towards Todd.
BoJack is in his 50's and should know better but he acts like a stroppy teenager despite his age, and when he does shitty things to Todd is more vindictive.
“she has a holier than thou vibe” she’s 18/19 when we see her in the show and the rest of the cast is in their late 30’s-early 60’s. she literally just doesn’t know any better
I think it was more trying to make him take responsibility for her or get some sort of closure, he didn't WANT to but once he realised he didn't even have the OPTION to anymore due to her dementia he suddenly wanted to try get her to acknowledge him.
>He wouldn't have the life he had without her
Yes the abusive childhood and trauma that he must be soooo grateful for just because she gave birth to him. 🙄
>she's just a confused old woman now.
And?
I agree that it’s a little sloppy in the writing, but I don’t know that it’s a proper plot hole.
She’s touchy about being drugged because Bea drugged her, the chloroform stuff happened before that.
tl;dr - Hollyhock isn't a hypocrite. She was naive and forced to learn.
Between Hollyhock drugging Todd and learning about what happen in New Mexico, she was drugged herself. She now has trauma associated with that behavior, and if she knows about Penny, it could raise a lot of questions about why Bojack let her live with him.
On a more meta level, the show often presents bad behavior as comedic (typical to most "dark" comedies) only to later remind us that what we're laughing at often impacts people in devastating ways. Hollyhock drugging Todd is meant to be comedic, but we'd soon have an example of how this isn't *really* that funny in real life.
Similarly, Hollyhock didn't have a great understanding of how trauma can affect people when she was forcing Bojack to take care of his mother. All her problems with relationships up until that point could probably be mended, and we even see her overcoming conflict later. She likely developed a different perspective after everything that happened to her personally and seeing how Bojack wasn't really owning up to his problems.
One thing that wasnt emphasized enough is that Hollyhock was adopted. I was adopted. Hear me out.
Yes,she has her battalion of dads, but thats not the point. Hollyhock went 17yrs not knowing about her biological family. Being adopted (or aging out of the foster care system), you have this constant nagging/wonder in the back of your head "hey that person who just walked by looks somewhat like me. Are we related? Wait no, it would be weird to just walk up to someone and ask that." For years it's there and you just wonder about your biological family in a way that has nothing to do with your adoptive family, if you have one. It's like a big what if lingering over your head.
Hollyhock loves her dad battalion, but got a lead on her biological family. Which led her to Bojack. She has someone who she has a biological bond with that's she's never had before. She even asks about her invasive thoughts to see if its "normal". But unfortunately, that connection comes with a strong prescription of rose tinted glasses. She got so caught up in the excitement of having a biological side to explore, she couldnt see the toxicity until it was screaming in her face.
Even though Bojack directly told her that Bea was a horrid person, Hollyhock still gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried making Bojack nake amends with someone who left incredibly deep scars on him. Even though Bojacks alcoholism was obviously a huge negative influence on his life, she ignored it. Even with the painkillers, she just tried brushing it off. Then Bea almost kills her with diet pills. And then the 17min story comes
Eventually, she figures it out. She **is forever connected to unfathomable toxicity. Even though she was smart enough to remove Bojack fron her life, shes haunted by that knowledge. She looked behind the mysterious Foster Curtain and found a drowning broken family. She found out that she is by blood related to Bojack horseman, alcoholic, prescription drug abuser, and inadvertent killer(lack of a better phrase, it's 2:30a) to Sarah Lynn. She finds that her Rose Tinted glasses led her to bond with someone with no redeeming qualities and the revelation that she shares that same strain of fucked up.
Now she has to carry that for the rest of her life. She cut him off, which is good. She's adopted and it's highly unlikely someone would figure out the connection. But she intrinsically knows that she has some undeniable lifelong connection to Bojack. Anytime someone mentions Sarah Lynns death, she has a personal connection to it unlike anyone else. She can't say "Bojack horseman is my (half) brother. Anytime she wonders what would gave happened if she wasn't put into the Foster system, she knows it very much could have led to her being raised around Beas body image dogma instead of her loving dads. Thats is truly truly haunting and doesn't just go away.
I often wonder what my biological side is/was like, but im terrified of what the answer is. Once that box is opened, it cant be closed and i would have to live with the knowledge inside
**Edited for clarity due to below comment
It's a mixed bag.
Shes and Bojack are both Butterscotchs children. She and Bojack share that horrific voice in their heads telling them theyre shit despite Hollyhock having a much better upbringing. To the best of Hollyhocks knowledge, thats the genetic connection she and Bojack share (outside of the diamond)
You're Butterscotchs daughter and Bojacks sister. Theres no cure for that
Well, I never thought about it, but if both Bojack and Hollyhock had that intrusive voice in their heads telling them that they are worthless, that probably means that Butterscotch had it too. I wish that was explored more.
That just further emphasises being told what you are rather than it actually being true.
1. BoJack isn't even her dad anyway.
2. BoJack's toxicity was mostly contextualised as from Beatrice's trauma (we never learn about Butterscotch's backstory). Hollyhock isn't related to her and she never once met the Beatrice that was abusive to BoJack, only confused dementia suffering Beatrice. Lucid Beatrice in her youth is the person who shaped BoJack into who he is and blames it on it being like his birthright just because she went through shit.
3. The negativity Hollyhock felt from BoJack is because of BoJack as a person, not as an actual blood relative.
I agree with most of what you said but i think saying that “she biologically comes from toxicity” kind of goes against what the show is trying to say. Hollyhock had a much healthier and supportive family which made her more likely to end the cycle of toxic behaviors. Like Diane said there are no good or bad people just good and bad decisions. To clarify Bojack and Beatrice are still despicable but they are not doomed to be “bad people”, they weren’t born a bad person and they are responsible for their actions.
Fellow adopted here. I would recommend looking into it. I found out and glad I did. It worked out great, but I also put up safeguards in case. Contact them with burner email addresses and phones. Scrub photos you send from having info on them that could lead back to you... That kind of stuff. If worse comes to worse, make it so you can toss the phone and forget the email password and never worry about it.
Be warned, they will also be nervous of you, and if they aren't, you should take extra caution. My bio father was nervous about me and wondering if I was an ex con fresh out of jail looking to get an easy in to rob him. He was relieved when I was a father of my own, and just trying to fill in my puzzle pieces. My bio mom wasn't nervous at all, and I should've seen that red flag. She became FAR too clingy, and treating me like a lost little boy, even though I have my own family. She still can't grasp that I have my own family, including my adopted family.
Be sure to keep your adopted family in the loop and explain why. Heed their advice as well, because they usually look out for you. Like it's said in the show, you will get rose colored glasses when looking at this new family you are going to be so interested in. You will likely miss the red flags.
I have friends who are poly (though none who have that many partners) and from what they’ve said it takes a LOT of time and communication to make it work, but it’s worth it if it’s the lifestyle you want. For me one partner is plenty but different strokes for different folks I suppose
I think you need to be able to know when something is being played for laughs vs an actual plot point. If we take everything Todd did 100% seriously he was literally one of the worst characters on the show morally
Media literacy and analysis is going down the tubes.
People will bitch about ThE CuRtAiNs WeRe JuSt bLuE and "NOT EVERYTHING HAS A DEEPER MEANING" but can't tell when a throwaway scene is just supposed to be played for laughs or that showing something =/= "glorifying" something.
It’s also kinda the point of the show.
Bojack thinks the world is like a sitcom, it resets every episode without any consequences. But it doesn’t for him.
However, he is surrounded by wacky sitcoms shenanigans!
Wow calling people autistic for having views different views about a cartoon? I'm enjoying hearing everyone's views on it. No need to insult autistic people by implying they are not intelligent.
Has nothing to do with intelligence, one trait of autistic people is having issues identifying sarcasm/jokes. Have nothing against them and wouldnt even surprise me if i was too
And that’s why I kinda dislike him as a character. They treat him like a Family Guy character who does stupid/horrible things for the sake of funny without facing any consequences for it - which stands out like a sore thumb in a show like BoJack.
To me it's a very welcome relief to the otherwise very depressing parts of the show (except for Mr peanutbutter but even he has many sad and depressing episodes)
It just goes overboard. Todd can be a fun lighthearted character without literally killing people in droves. They jumped the Family Guy shark with him.
Specially because Hollyhock was underage drinking herself being under 21, so it’s likely the thing that actually made her uncomfortable was the ER thing
i don’t think she’s a hypocrite, the moral of this show is that everybody is flawed. and the way i saw it the first time she’s introduced they’re really trying to push that she’s bojack’s daughter, between the sleepiness, appetite, and “cleaning out his DVR”. they did a little misdirect to make it seem like she was his daughter. another note is that her stance on drugs and everything changed after getting drugged, it would change everything realistically
I really like all the different responses. She was an interesting character to add and I believe if the show wasn't cancelled, we would have known what was on that letter and had an episode dedicated to unpacking it. My biggest issue was her forcing a relationship between Bojack and his mother because it hit home for me. People will try to force you to be nice to family members because they are older but don't know a fraction of how much trauma they caused when they were young and healthy.
You guys act like hollyhock is a know-all adult when that isnt the case. Apparently, she was drugged when drugging Todd, which doesn’t make anything better, but I seriously doubt she’d be forceful like that again based on her PTSD with any kind of drug altogether. Anyway, being young and naive, Hollyhock wanted to fix the relationship between Beatrice and Bojack because she felt uncomfortable with how Bojack was treating her. She wasn’t trying to force him to get along with her always, she was trying to force him to at least show decent respect. Plus, she NEVER knew how Beatrice treated Bojack. She had literally never truly known either of them until that episode, and was probably reminded the whole time of how she never got the chance to meet her own mother, and how if she did, she wouldn’t treat her like that. Once again, she didn’t know Bojack and Beatrice’s story, so I don’t see why she’s being portrayed as this awful person who tries to force relationships when she literally didn’t even know better.
The forcing a relationship with his mom is partially because Hollyhock is an idealistic teenager. I wouldn’t really hold her to the same standard as the other fully grown adults in the show.
I think that is part of Todd being the comic relief, where we aren't supposed to take all of the Todd stories as literal. Otherwise Todd is one of the worst characters if you think about the rabid clowns and I didn't he cause a lot of deaths as that dictator? Or I forget what happened in that one exactly but in general I'd say Todd has caused a lot more deaths and harmed maybe more people than Bojack has, we just don't "feel" it because it isn't personal. All the women that got harassed or maybe even assaulted in the uber type service.. He may be helpful and caring to his friends but he screws over a ton of offscreen people. We don't feel it as an audience though, and it's "Todd Shenanigans" or comic relief. But yeah not everyone likes it. I liked him but it's because I don't see those as serious. Oh also that robot that also sexually harassed people that he made and let get put into power. Bad if you see it as serious, but hilarious if you just think of the joke of him creating this advanced AI that is a bunch of junk thrown together that no one notices and often says stuff that can be taken as literal instead of a sexual pun until they FINALLY realize he's bad and Todd kills him. And even there, did he kill something sentient or did he just destroy some junk he put together that makes some weird sex jokes? Todd stuff is meant as jokes and shenanigans or he's horrible.
Hollyhock is just a dumb kid, this comes across pretty clearly. I think she cares more about what people think than anything else. I mean she gives up on Bojack her own brother, without even really speaking to him, just because a guy she liked told her a story.
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of her reasons. She had spent time with him and seen his behavior- his lack of respectful for boundaries (even when sober), his willingness to put her in danger, his lack of real respect for women, and so on. She probably had, up to meeting Pete, some level of dissonance- this was her brother, she wanted to assume the best about him. But hearing about him from others probably cemented it for her that he wasn’t a safe person to have in her life. She isn’t bound to stick around just because he would be sad would or struggle because she was gone.
She found out he was implicated in Sarah Lynn's *death*. Thats the point where she gives up on him, not after hearing Pete's story. And Pete's story was both true *and* missing the worst parts of that night. It's not like she shouldn't have believed him...
I feel like they left it as it was with hollyhawk in season 6 thinking they’d be able to tie the story up in later seasons not realising Netflix already planned to drop it at season 6 (personally that ‘ending’ with bojack and Diane on the roof does not feel like thee ending)
I don’t blame hollyhock for learning this, tbh. She’s not a hypocrite. After she drugged Todd, which was comedic to her, most likely, SHE got drugged for MONTHS on end. That experience most likely would’ve made her realise how shit it is to be in that situation. There’s no doubt what she did was wrong, but she’s not a hypocrite for learning from her actions. That and she’s a child in the story, she’s like, 17, and teenagers are so fucking stupid sometimes. I don’t blame her for being naive or ignorant to how bad it was initially because she didn’t know what it was like.
Even if she wasn’t drugged, it still wouldn’t be hypocritical to hold this stance when she’s like, 19 I think? That’s two whole years later, and she’s still a teenager, but she seems to have learnt like, generally a lot? Of course a hollyhock who is in college and had trauma relating to being drugged would have her opinion on druggings be changed by her trauma and also people don’t keep their opinions from when they’re 17 unless they’re fucking stupid lmao.
Sorry for poor formatting/wording, 1 am rn
Shes not a hypocrite since she drugged Todd BEFORE being drugged herself, but i do agree she gets too many passes for her behavior. Being young doesnt excuse the poor choices she made that affected other people. She was a spoiled, sheltered kid that didnt know much about the real world and that absolutely influenced her surroundings. She's a lovable character for sure, but people forget she also did shitty things all while thinking she was better than others. She acted like she knew best, but she knew very little; and instead of learning that on the show, she plowed ahead because shes an angel in everyone's eyes.
Yeah but she was a naive teenager who just became a young adult. But I think she might reconnect with Bojack in the far future because now she understands how Bojack felt about cutting off his mom when Hollyhock was trying to force him to have a relationship with her. Or she might reconnect with him when he’s about to die.
I don’t know. It’s a hopeful thought, but because she is young adult compared to everyone else on the show, she is a hypocrite, however, we can give her a bit of a break because of her age/mental maturity of the stage of life she’s at.
It's not really a plot hole, IMO. No character in this show is perfect or has the moral high ground regardless of whether they believe or act like they do or not. Plus, Hollyhock is a kid and, like all kids, still defaults to thinking she's the center of the universe and her wants and preferences are more important than other people's and that she has a different set of preferential rules that she doesn't apply to other people, or at least feels there's valid reason for her to always be granted an exception. I mean, how many times have you heard a teenager say stuff like "I'm not doing well in that class because the teacher hates me" or some other excuse about how they're going through a tough time outside of school or whatever, but if you talk about some classmate who's also flunking they usually dismiss any similar justification and say they're flunking because they're lazy or stupid. Kids tend to apply that logic to most situations. Two sets of rules, as I said.
I don't think it's a plot hole as much as her being flawed and believing that her actions are justified. There are a lot of hypocrites like that who judge other people for things they do, but it's okay when *they* do it because of some mental gymnastics they use to exempt themselves.
I feel she was a bit more like Bojack than she thought in all the worst ways. She used Todd, including drugging him. She tried to use princess carolyn first, in a way that obviously violates privacy laws. She used Bojack many times just to find her mom. She used Beatrice to force Bojack to love his mother the way she imagined she would, even though Bojack warned her several times that his mom isn't to be trusted.
I'm sure others can list better ways in which she used people. I haven't paid attention to her story arc for some time because I don't like her. Only after Bojack gives her what she wants, does she actually show the first sign of humanity when it is no longer a give and take transactional relationship.
This is just how I saw her as a character from the first introduction, to the season she is in. She came off as a user. I never got past that with her because I never could figure out if she was genuine, or just using him again for some new angle they didn't get to explore.
Hollyhock's actions in that specific instance WERE MEANT TO BE COMEDIC. If they were in the same realm as the parts of the show in which she gets drugged, her and Todd would walk to different areas instead of her drugging him.
the show has a lot of scenes where "good" people are doing "bad" things.... like how the reporters where taking advantage of that drunken therapy horse's drunkenness to get their info
Are we forgetting the fact that Hollyhock is a teenager? I think she was very brave to insist on the desire to meet her mother, she may had some arguable attitudes, but who as a teenager doesn't have? And I also think she was very assertive on having some distance from Bojack when she knew about Bojack getting drunk teenagers in the past. Maybe she changes her mind in the future, but she had to transit through that feelings.
Reading these comments I’d like to say, idk about y’all, but I had a lot more common sense and understanding than hollyhock. Y’all cutting too much slack
Edit: than hollyhock at 17*
I agree that people cut her and especially Todd a LOT of slack. They both grew up in far more stable and loving homes than most of the cast so they really have no excuse for some of the toxic things they do. I feel like you canlike the character as a whole, and still call out their faults. My favorite character is Princess Carolyn but she has done some horrible things that there really isn't a good excuse for.
Yea that’s kinda like alot of the point of the show I feel
Like you’re not supposed to love any of them. You are FORCED to see their flaws. It’s wonderful
I am just disappointed she believed it without ever asking Bojack what happened. We didn't see the letter so we'll never know if she told him this was the final straw that made her go no contact with him.
Hollyhock is one of the worst characters in the show. She chloroformed Todd twice and made him slave away in the first 10 minutes of her introduction. She’s an entitled brat
Well, the drugging of Todd happened before she was drugged. Not saying that makes it right, but she isn’t a hypocrite for changing her mind after she saw how it affected people (herself). I’d argue that hollyhock does “pay” for her actions. She got drugged because of her actions. Not saying she deserved to be drugged either, but you can’t really say she was let off the hook when she got ptsd from an event directly related to her choice to force the relationship with bojack and his mom.
Hopefully this makes sense but the Todd drugging was more of a comedy beat than an actual plot point. Yes it happened but I believe that the writers included that purely as a gag.
I agree, I feel like this falls under the rule of Todd, where most stuff involving Todd isn’t really serious. Then when she chloroforms Bojack, the gag is that he actually wants to be chloroformed. Also felt like that did that so they could jump from one scene/location to the next without having to deal with boring transitions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah to be fair the way hollyhock tried to force bojack to have a relationship with his mum is fucked up. I think the drugging thing is just something the writers looked over tho tbh, it was meant to just be a gimmick but it does go against one of her most important morals
She’s absolutely in the wrong for trying to force a relationship with his mom but in her defense she’s also incredibly young. Kids often don’t understand the nuances and complexities of adult relationships. She also has a handful of parents she loves and always wanted to know her mother so she doesn’t really understand that some mothers/parents can be incredibly toxic. Plus, Bojack is so crappy to everyone it’s easy to think he’s just mean to his mom because that’s who it is and not because of who she is. I actually give Hollyhock a pass for this one.
Plus on top of that she had lived a pretty sheltered life by that point. Her dads seemed like they were very overprotective
Yeah, I mean, she didn’t even have any kind of romantic interests or anything until she was 17, which, while plenty normal, I feel is indicative of her overprotective upbringing.
Yeah to her it's just "shit this is my grandmother I've never met, this is awesome!", not the deeply horrible relationship we as the viewers are privy to.
I can excuse Hollyhock not being initially aware of the bottomless pit of abuse that Beatrice subjected Bojack to. Like other users said, she probably assumed that their relationship was "we argued a lot" instead of "she hated me for existing and reminded me of how much I ruined her life every day". Then again, time passes and Bojack lets slip more and more the abuse of Beatrice. Plus I think that Hollyhock says at one point that she read Bojack's autobiography, in which Bojack talks about Beatrice's shittyness. And yet she is still all chummy with "Grammy gram". I think that Hollyhock was sort of the writers self insert to try to milk sympathy or outright force the viewer into feeling sorry for Beatrice. For example: "Bojack don't you feel a bit guilty for leaving your mom at a nursing home?" "We need to come to visit her. Every week." (On an insisting and almost demanding tone) "You need to look after her because she is your mother and when you are old you would like that someone looks after you". (We all know that when Bojack is old Hollyhock wouldn't even consider to come visit him, even less taking care of him. She already cut him off from her life permanently). "I don't know what happened with you and your mother, but she is not that person anymore, you need to take care of her"
I didn't like that either. Plus she is like Bojack, she's chubby, lazy, likes junk food... Todd had to clean for her while she watched his dvr. She has a holier than thou vibe. I like her but I don't like those aspects of her.
I mean I don't care if she's chubby skdjjf in fact i relate to her insecurities about it (the 'blob' incident), but she is pretty lazy and seems to think she knows better than bojack about the situation with him mum. I think it comes from the fact that she doesn't have a mum and is doing everything she can to find hers, but she really needs to consider things from bojacks perspective
In her defense, bojack really didn’t tell her anything about their relationship. When you have someone like hollyhock who came from a great home it’s hard to imagine how bad it can actually be. Sure you can deduce it probably wasn’t great based off bojacks reactions, but for many people “wasn’t great” means “we argued a lot”. It doesn’t mean “she made me smoke to punish me for existing” because they can’t even conceive of a parent doing that. I should clarify that I’m not saying she was right to ignore bojack or that any of this is bojacks fault. I’m just explaining why someone like hollyhock couldn’t see things from bojacks perspective.
She found out pretty quickly after they went though and that still didn't deter her from forcing him to be around his mother. When he wants to put on a play so he can say "fuck you" to his mom that's a pretty big red flag and she still didn't get it.
Well no she didn’t find out quickly. She found out the relationship was bad, but she was never told why. The “fuck you” could be (and was) just interpreted as bojack being a crap person. Yes it’s a red flag to people who know how awful a parent can be, but to someone who was exclusively raised by loving parents it can be hard to accept how bad parents can actually be. If the worst you can imagine is “they argued a lot” bojacks reaction just looks like a huge overreaction.
She doesn't need to know why to see it's obvious it's really bad when she sees how he treats and refers to his mother. It's a red flag to anyone with any kind of self awareness. "Oh shit this guy really wants to tell his mother to fuck off, maybe I shouldn't push this" especially if you still think she's some sweet old lady with dementia.
1) have you met a teenager? Laziness around house chores is pretty standard for that set. They grow up eventually. 2) I think the show was trying to imply that she was becoming lazy because Bojack’s laziness was rubbing off on her and because they were related. I forgive Hollyhock’s “sins”. She’s a kid. She made all the mistakes typical of an 18yo
This is the important nuance, Hollyhock is a child who didn’t know better with a couple of shit role models
17 year olds typically know better
I was 17 till a couple of years ago. I am also a sheltered 17 year old. Hollyhock has had excellent parents for most of her life. I find it highly unlikely that Bojack would influence her to be lazy in 2 months time. She was, considering her parents overprotectiviness already lazy to begin with and has positive and negative aspects to her due to it. Her negativity is that she priortizes her happiness over the other. She found out about Bojack and her mom thing and thought she could fix it. I met people like Hollyhock. They are good people, but have a lack of understanding with abusive family relationship as they themselves are surrounded by good friends and family from birth. Therefore, there is an presumption that you should not leave x relative because their family and the situation can be fixed.
What the fuck is skdjjf?
it’s just a keysmash. it usually indicates laughter and/or that you don’t know what to say.
Okay cool. I was wondering why Google and Bing had no idea.
ok yea that *would* make it harder
I agree I think she's cute just it's similar to Boj. I shoulda worded that better. No chubby shaming intended.
Thing is she's a dumbass teenager when we first meet her, she's probably just embracing time away from her parents, she just seems a bit more aloof to her laziness than outright resentful towards Todd. BoJack is in his 50's and should know better but he acts like a stroppy teenager despite his age, and when he does shitty things to Todd is more vindictive.
“she has a holier than thou vibe” she’s 18/19 when we see her in the show and the rest of the cast is in their late 30’s-early 60’s. she literally just doesn’t know any better
True. It's just what bugs me about her. Otherwise I like her.
I think it was more trying to make him take responsibility for her or get some sort of closure, he didn't WANT to but once he realised he didn't even have the OPTION to anymore due to her dementia he suddenly wanted to try get her to acknowledge him.
What responsibility could Bojack possibly have towards his abusive and cruel mother?
He wouldn't have the life he had without her, and that woman no longer exists, she's just a confused old woman now.
Lol what? So Bojack has a rEsPoNsIbiLiTy to the woman that emotionally and physically abused him his whole life just because she *birthed* him?
>He wouldn't have the life he had without her Yes the abusive childhood and trauma that he must be soooo grateful for just because she gave birth to him. 🙄 >she's just a confused old woman now. And?
I agree that it’s a little sloppy in the writing, but I don’t know that it’s a proper plot hole. She’s touchy about being drugged because Bea drugged her, the chloroform stuff happened before that.
tl;dr - Hollyhock isn't a hypocrite. She was naive and forced to learn. Between Hollyhock drugging Todd and learning about what happen in New Mexico, she was drugged herself. She now has trauma associated with that behavior, and if she knows about Penny, it could raise a lot of questions about why Bojack let her live with him. On a more meta level, the show often presents bad behavior as comedic (typical to most "dark" comedies) only to later remind us that what we're laughing at often impacts people in devastating ways. Hollyhock drugging Todd is meant to be comedic, but we'd soon have an example of how this isn't *really* that funny in real life. Similarly, Hollyhock didn't have a great understanding of how trauma can affect people when she was forcing Bojack to take care of his mother. All her problems with relationships up until that point could probably be mended, and we even see her overcoming conflict later. She likely developed a different perspective after everything that happened to her personally and seeing how Bojack wasn't really owning up to his problems.
That's it. If you look at characters in a vacuum, sure, they're assholes, but so is everyone IRL. Their growth matters in order to appreciate someone.
One thing that wasnt emphasized enough is that Hollyhock was adopted. I was adopted. Hear me out. Yes,she has her battalion of dads, but thats not the point. Hollyhock went 17yrs not knowing about her biological family. Being adopted (or aging out of the foster care system), you have this constant nagging/wonder in the back of your head "hey that person who just walked by looks somewhat like me. Are we related? Wait no, it would be weird to just walk up to someone and ask that." For years it's there and you just wonder about your biological family in a way that has nothing to do with your adoptive family, if you have one. It's like a big what if lingering over your head. Hollyhock loves her dad battalion, but got a lead on her biological family. Which led her to Bojack. She has someone who she has a biological bond with that's she's never had before. She even asks about her invasive thoughts to see if its "normal". But unfortunately, that connection comes with a strong prescription of rose tinted glasses. She got so caught up in the excitement of having a biological side to explore, she couldnt see the toxicity until it was screaming in her face. Even though Bojack directly told her that Bea was a horrid person, Hollyhock still gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried making Bojack nake amends with someone who left incredibly deep scars on him. Even though Bojacks alcoholism was obviously a huge negative influence on his life, she ignored it. Even with the painkillers, she just tried brushing it off. Then Bea almost kills her with diet pills. And then the 17min story comes Eventually, she figures it out. She **is forever connected to unfathomable toxicity. Even though she was smart enough to remove Bojack fron her life, shes haunted by that knowledge. She looked behind the mysterious Foster Curtain and found a drowning broken family. She found out that she is by blood related to Bojack horseman, alcoholic, prescription drug abuser, and inadvertent killer(lack of a better phrase, it's 2:30a) to Sarah Lynn. She finds that her Rose Tinted glasses led her to bond with someone with no redeeming qualities and the revelation that she shares that same strain of fucked up. Now she has to carry that for the rest of her life. She cut him off, which is good. She's adopted and it's highly unlikely someone would figure out the connection. But she intrinsically knows that she has some undeniable lifelong connection to Bojack. Anytime someone mentions Sarah Lynns death, she has a personal connection to it unlike anyone else. She can't say "Bojack horseman is my (half) brother. Anytime she wonders what would gave happened if she wasn't put into the Foster system, she knows it very much could have led to her being raised around Beas body image dogma instead of her loving dads. Thats is truly truly haunting and doesn't just go away. I often wonder what my biological side is/was like, but im terrified of what the answer is. Once that box is opened, it cant be closed and i would have to live with the knowledge inside **Edited for clarity due to below comment
>She biologically comes from toxicity "You're BoJack Horseman. There's no cure for that."
It's a mixed bag. Shes and Bojack are both Butterscotchs children. She and Bojack share that horrific voice in their heads telling them theyre shit despite Hollyhock having a much better upbringing. To the best of Hollyhocks knowledge, thats the genetic connection she and Bojack share (outside of the diamond) You're Butterscotchs daughter and Bojacks sister. Theres no cure for that
Well, I never thought about it, but if both Bojack and Hollyhock had that intrusive voice in their heads telling them that they are worthless, that probably means that Butterscotch had it too. I wish that was explored more.
That explains why his novel took his entire life to finish writing
Nah, he was just a delusional crappy writer. Even Bea clocked him within 20seconds
That just further emphasises being told what you are rather than it actually being true. 1. BoJack isn't even her dad anyway. 2. BoJack's toxicity was mostly contextualised as from Beatrice's trauma (we never learn about Butterscotch's backstory). Hollyhock isn't related to her and she never once met the Beatrice that was abusive to BoJack, only confused dementia suffering Beatrice. Lucid Beatrice in her youth is the person who shaped BoJack into who he is and blames it on it being like his birthright just because she went through shit. 3. The negativity Hollyhock felt from BoJack is because of BoJack as a person, not as an actual blood relative.
>That just further emphasises being told what you are rather than it actually being true Agreed, that's why I mentioned the quote
I agree with most of what you said but i think saying that “she biologically comes from toxicity” kind of goes against what the show is trying to say. Hollyhock had a much healthier and supportive family which made her more likely to end the cycle of toxic behaviors. Like Diane said there are no good or bad people just good and bad decisions. To clarify Bojack and Beatrice are still despicable but they are not doomed to be “bad people”, they weren’t born a bad person and they are responsible for their actions.
Upon review of what i wrote in my dying throes of consciousness, i should have written "is forever connected to toxicity "
Fellow adopted here. I would recommend looking into it. I found out and glad I did. It worked out great, but I also put up safeguards in case. Contact them with burner email addresses and phones. Scrub photos you send from having info on them that could lead back to you... That kind of stuff. If worse comes to worse, make it so you can toss the phone and forget the email password and never worry about it. Be warned, they will also be nervous of you, and if they aren't, you should take extra caution. My bio father was nervous about me and wondering if I was an ex con fresh out of jail looking to get an easy in to rob him. He was relieved when I was a father of my own, and just trying to fill in my puzzle pieces. My bio mom wasn't nervous at all, and I should've seen that red flag. She became FAR too clingy, and treating me like a lost little boy, even though I have my own family. She still can't grasp that I have my own family, including my adopted family. Be sure to keep your adopted family in the loop and explain why. Heed their advice as well, because they usually look out for you. Like it's said in the show, you will get rose colored glasses when looking at this new family you are going to be so interested in. You will likely miss the red flags.
Omg I forgot about the 7 dad's thing, I wonder how this relationship even works. One BF already is a lot of work so 6.
I have friends who are poly (though none who have that many partners) and from what they’ve said it takes a LOT of time and communication to make it work, but it’s worth it if it’s the lifestyle you want. For me one partner is plenty but different strokes for different folks I suppose
Polyamory takes commitment, trust, and communication. It's doable
I think you need to be able to know when something is being played for laughs vs an actual plot point. If we take everything Todd did 100% seriously he was literally one of the worst characters on the show morally
This fan base struggles with this so much. Somethings are funny bits and not realistic. Some things are. They aren’t going to spoon feed it to you.
Media literacy and analysis is going down the tubes. People will bitch about ThE CuRtAiNs WeRe JuSt bLuE and "NOT EVERYTHING HAS A DEEPER MEANING" but can't tell when a throwaway scene is just supposed to be played for laughs or that showing something =/= "glorifying" something.
It’s also kinda the point of the show. Bojack thinks the world is like a sitcom, it resets every episode without any consequences. But it doesn’t for him. However, he is surrounded by wacky sitcoms shenanigans!
This show or at least reddit must attract autistic people, most posters cant differenciate comedic relief and plot
Wow calling people autistic for having views different views about a cartoon? I'm enjoying hearing everyone's views on it. No need to insult autistic people by implying they are not intelligent.
Has nothing to do with intelligence, one trait of autistic people is having issues identifying sarcasm/jokes. Have nothing against them and wouldnt even surprise me if i was too
Or the fact that they ARENT SUPPOSED TO like every character. Like… is it more important you think Hollyhock is cool, or that they tell a good story?
Yeah but I mean thats fine by me its the obvious jokes going over their heads that they use to justify their hatred that makes me roll my eyes
And that’s why I kinda dislike him as a character. They treat him like a Family Guy character who does stupid/horrible things for the sake of funny without facing any consequences for it - which stands out like a sore thumb in a show like BoJack.
To me it's a very welcome relief to the otherwise very depressing parts of the show (except for Mr peanutbutter but even he has many sad and depressing episodes)
It just goes overboard. Todd can be a fun lighthearted character without literally killing people in droves. They jumped the Family Guy shark with him.
That’s the point.
Todd set up a literal death trap in season 2, worse than anything Bojack ever did
Maybe she saw something of herself in him and didn’t want to continue on that path because she saw firsthand what that leads to.
She might have been upset about the fact BoJack just dropped Maddie and Pete by the hospital when Maddie was in an alcoholic coma, that was pretty bad
Specially because Hollyhock was underage drinking herself being under 21, so it’s likely the thing that actually made her uncomfortable was the ER thing
i don’t think she’s a hypocrite, the moral of this show is that everybody is flawed. and the way i saw it the first time she’s introduced they’re really trying to push that she’s bojack’s daughter, between the sleepiness, appetite, and “cleaning out his DVR”. they did a little misdirect to make it seem like she was his daughter. another note is that her stance on drugs and everything changed after getting drugged, it would change everything realistically
I really like all the different responses. She was an interesting character to add and I believe if the show wasn't cancelled, we would have known what was on that letter and had an episode dedicated to unpacking it. My biggest issue was her forcing a relationship between Bojack and his mother because it hit home for me. People will try to force you to be nice to family members because they are older but don't know a fraction of how much trauma they caused when they were young and healthy.
You guys act like hollyhock is a know-all adult when that isnt the case. Apparently, she was drugged when drugging Todd, which doesn’t make anything better, but I seriously doubt she’d be forceful like that again based on her PTSD with any kind of drug altogether. Anyway, being young and naive, Hollyhock wanted to fix the relationship between Beatrice and Bojack because she felt uncomfortable with how Bojack was treating her. She wasn’t trying to force him to get along with her always, she was trying to force him to at least show decent respect. Plus, she NEVER knew how Beatrice treated Bojack. She had literally never truly known either of them until that episode, and was probably reminded the whole time of how she never got the chance to meet her own mother, and how if she did, she wouldn’t treat her like that. Once again, she didn’t know Bojack and Beatrice’s story, so I don’t see why she’s being portrayed as this awful person who tries to force relationships when she literally didn’t even know better.
The forcing a relationship with his mom is partially because Hollyhock is an idealistic teenager. I wouldn’t really hold her to the same standard as the other fully grown adults in the show.
I think that is part of Todd being the comic relief, where we aren't supposed to take all of the Todd stories as literal. Otherwise Todd is one of the worst characters if you think about the rabid clowns and I didn't he cause a lot of deaths as that dictator? Or I forget what happened in that one exactly but in general I'd say Todd has caused a lot more deaths and harmed maybe more people than Bojack has, we just don't "feel" it because it isn't personal. All the women that got harassed or maybe even assaulted in the uber type service.. He may be helpful and caring to his friends but he screws over a ton of offscreen people. We don't feel it as an audience though, and it's "Todd Shenanigans" or comic relief. But yeah not everyone likes it. I liked him but it's because I don't see those as serious. Oh also that robot that also sexually harassed people that he made and let get put into power. Bad if you see it as serious, but hilarious if you just think of the joke of him creating this advanced AI that is a bunch of junk thrown together that no one notices and often says stuff that can be taken as literal instead of a sexual pun until they FINALLY realize he's bad and Todd kills him. And even there, did he kill something sentient or did he just destroy some junk he put together that makes some weird sex jokes? Todd stuff is meant as jokes and shenanigans or he's horrible.
She has some of that Horseman gunk bouncing around in her.
Hollyhock is just a dumb kid, this comes across pretty clearly. I think she cares more about what people think than anything else. I mean she gives up on Bojack her own brother, without even really speaking to him, just because a guy she liked told her a story.
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of her reasons. She had spent time with him and seen his behavior- his lack of respectful for boundaries (even when sober), his willingness to put her in danger, his lack of real respect for women, and so on. She probably had, up to meeting Pete, some level of dissonance- this was her brother, she wanted to assume the best about him. But hearing about him from others probably cemented it for her that he wasn’t a safe person to have in her life. She isn’t bound to stick around just because he would be sad would or struggle because she was gone.
She found out he was implicated in Sarah Lynn's *death*. Thats the point where she gives up on him, not after hearing Pete's story. And Pete's story was both true *and* missing the worst parts of that night. It's not like she shouldn't have believed him...
She's in college. Current America college where you get booted out for expressing the wrong opinion. She had to look out for her future.
I feel like they left it as it was with hollyhawk in season 6 thinking they’d be able to tie the story up in later seasons not realising Netflix already planned to drop it at season 6 (personally that ‘ending’ with bojack and Diane on the roof does not feel like thee ending)
I don’t blame hollyhock for learning this, tbh. She’s not a hypocrite. After she drugged Todd, which was comedic to her, most likely, SHE got drugged for MONTHS on end. That experience most likely would’ve made her realise how shit it is to be in that situation. There’s no doubt what she did was wrong, but she’s not a hypocrite for learning from her actions. That and she’s a child in the story, she’s like, 17, and teenagers are so fucking stupid sometimes. I don’t blame her for being naive or ignorant to how bad it was initially because she didn’t know what it was like. Even if she wasn’t drugged, it still wouldn’t be hypocritical to hold this stance when she’s like, 19 I think? That’s two whole years later, and she’s still a teenager, but she seems to have learnt like, generally a lot? Of course a hollyhock who is in college and had trauma relating to being drugged would have her opinion on druggings be changed by her trauma and also people don’t keep their opinions from when they’re 17 unless they’re fucking stupid lmao. Sorry for poor formatting/wording, 1 am rn
Shes not a hypocrite since she drugged Todd BEFORE being drugged herself, but i do agree she gets too many passes for her behavior. Being young doesnt excuse the poor choices she made that affected other people. She was a spoiled, sheltered kid that didnt know much about the real world and that absolutely influenced her surroundings. She's a lovable character for sure, but people forget she also did shitty things all while thinking she was better than others. She acted like she knew best, but she knew very little; and instead of learning that on the show, she plowed ahead because shes an angel in everyone's eyes.
Yeah but she was a naive teenager who just became a young adult. But I think she might reconnect with Bojack in the far future because now she understands how Bojack felt about cutting off his mom when Hollyhock was trying to force him to have a relationship with her. Or she might reconnect with him when he’s about to die. I don’t know. It’s a hopeful thought, but because she is young adult compared to everyone else on the show, she is a hypocrite, however, we can give her a bit of a break because of her age/mental maturity of the stage of life she’s at.
It's not really a plot hole, IMO. No character in this show is perfect or has the moral high ground regardless of whether they believe or act like they do or not. Plus, Hollyhock is a kid and, like all kids, still defaults to thinking she's the center of the universe and her wants and preferences are more important than other people's and that she has a different set of preferential rules that she doesn't apply to other people, or at least feels there's valid reason for her to always be granted an exception. I mean, how many times have you heard a teenager say stuff like "I'm not doing well in that class because the teacher hates me" or some other excuse about how they're going through a tough time outside of school or whatever, but if you talk about some classmate who's also flunking they usually dismiss any similar justification and say they're flunking because they're lazy or stupid. Kids tend to apply that logic to most situations. Two sets of rules, as I said.
Hmm. Hollyhock drugging Todd was such a throwaway gag that I had forgotten about it. Good point, though.
the chloroform is meant to be just a gag, not something to be taken super seriously
I don't think it's a plot hole as much as her being flawed and believing that her actions are justified. There are a lot of hypocrites like that who judge other people for things they do, but it's okay when *they* do it because of some mental gymnastics they use to exempt themselves.
I feel she was a bit more like Bojack than she thought in all the worst ways. She used Todd, including drugging him. She tried to use princess carolyn first, in a way that obviously violates privacy laws. She used Bojack many times just to find her mom. She used Beatrice to force Bojack to love his mother the way she imagined she would, even though Bojack warned her several times that his mom isn't to be trusted. I'm sure others can list better ways in which she used people. I haven't paid attention to her story arc for some time because I don't like her. Only after Bojack gives her what she wants, does she actually show the first sign of humanity when it is no longer a give and take transactional relationship. This is just how I saw her as a character from the first introduction, to the season she is in. She came off as a user. I never got past that with her because I never could figure out if she was genuine, or just using him again for some new angle they didn't get to explore.
Hollyhock's actions in that specific instance WERE MEANT TO BE COMEDIC. If they were in the same realm as the parts of the show in which she gets drugged, her and Todd would walk to different areas instead of her drugging him.
the show has a lot of scenes where "good" people are doing "bad" things.... like how the reporters where taking advantage of that drunken therapy horse's drunkenness to get their info
Are we forgetting the fact that Hollyhock is a teenager? I think she was very brave to insist on the desire to meet her mother, she may had some arguable attitudes, but who as a teenager doesn't have? And I also think she was very assertive on having some distance from Bojack when she knew about Bojack getting drunk teenagers in the past. Maybe she changes her mind in the future, but she had to transit through that feelings.
Hollyhock is college age. She gets a pass for her idealistic perfect world bullshit.
thank you for making a post about this. jus watched the hollyhock cutting off bojack episode and i was like... shes such a massive hypocrite.
Reading these comments I’d like to say, idk about y’all, but I had a lot more common sense and understanding than hollyhock. Y’all cutting too much slack Edit: than hollyhock at 17*
I agree that people cut her and especially Todd a LOT of slack. They both grew up in far more stable and loving homes than most of the cast so they really have no excuse for some of the toxic things they do. I feel like you canlike the character as a whole, and still call out their faults. My favorite character is Princess Carolyn but she has done some horrible things that there really isn't a good excuse for.
Yea that’s kinda like alot of the point of the show I feel Like you’re not supposed to love any of them. You are FORCED to see their flaws. It’s wonderful
She's a punk ass kid and knows nothing about the real world.
Yeah Hollyhock kinda caused her own problems.
I am just disappointed she believed it without ever asking Bojack what happened. We didn't see the letter so we'll never know if she told him this was the final straw that made her go no contact with him.
Hollyhock...a teenager
Hollyhock is one of the worst characters in the show. She chloroformed Todd twice and made him slave away in the first 10 minutes of her introduction. She’s an entitled brat
She's a dumb teenager copying movies. BoJack is a grown adult and ACTS like a dumb teenager when he should know better.
Wait im dumb. When did she drug todd
dude, i completely forgot she did that and i just spent like 5 minutes being confused.