‘BoJack Horseman’s Underwater Silent Episode Has Elevated The Series Into Art

When we talk about adult animated comedies, we use a lot of adjectives. Funny, irreverent, and immature are the top three the come to mind, more often than not followed by sad. All of these descriptors and myriad of others have been used to describe Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, but one Season Three episode proves we need to add another word to that long list: beautiful.

The Season Three episode “Fish Out of Water” is an odd one. As part of his Oscars push, BoJack (Will Arnett) travels underwater to attend the Pacific Ocean Film Festival, showing us that the aquatic animals we’ve seen so far aren’t merely limited to land. It’s an episode that completely abandons all the sets and most of the characters we’ve grown accustomed to in order to follow one story: BoJack’s attempt to reconnect with his former director, Kelsey Jannings (Maria Bamford). However, save for two minutes of dialogue at the top of the episode and BoJack’s final exclamation, the episode is silent. Also? It’s almost overwhelmingly emotional.

BoJack is far from the only animated show or the only comedy to ever have a silent episode. It’s not atypical for children’s cartoons to have at least one episode that’s mostly musically driven, and Joss Whedon’s cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer notoriously had an all-silent episode. However, a dialogue-free episode in an adult animated comedy is bizarre. Historically, these types of sitcoms rely very heavily on their joke writing. What would South Park, Futurama, or Rick and Morty be without their constant rhythms of set ups and punchlines? In fact, a major reason audiences are drawn to these types of shows is because of the all-powerful nature of their jokes. In children’s cartoons, you’re limited by ratings, and in live action comedy, you’re limited by budget constraints and the laws of physics (as well as more ratings). But in adult animated comedies, there are practically no limits. If South Park wants George R. R. Martin to sing about wieners or if The Simpsons want to kill Bart in increasingly more disturbing ways, the magic of animation makes that possible (both of those things have happened, by the way). By taking away characters’ ability to talk, BoJack’s writers took a big gamble with this episode. Could BoJack still be BoJack without its rapid-fire wordplay? As “Fish Out of Water” overwhelmingly proves, the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

Already, this episode has been getting critical attention, which is impressive for a season that’s so smart and innovative, it has a overwhelming amount of good to choose from.  Vulture‘s Jesse David Fox has named the episode his favorite of 2016 so far. NME‘s Larry Bartleet said that “Fish Out of Water” is the one episode non-fans of the series should watch because it “encompasses everything that’s great about the show.” The Atlantic‘s David Sims praised the Lost in Translation parody as one of the highlights of Season Three. The Lost in Translations influences were later confirming in an interview the show’s creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, had with HitFlix‘s Alan Sepinwall. In that same interview, Bob-Waksberg also insightfully compared the physics of the underwater world to the stresses of the modern world. If you’re looking for a structurally, emotionally, and visually perfect example of 2016 television, it’s Season Three’s “Fish Out of Water.”

The episode’s lack of dialogue makes sense in context. Because BoJack is an air-breathing horse, he’s forced to wear a helmet to survive underwater while he attends POFF. While he’s at the festival, he sees Kelsey Jannings, his former director who was fired from Secretariat partially because of BoJack. She’s also one of the few people who has ever seen him give an authentic performance. Though their time together was brief, Kelsey knows BoJack, and he desperately wants to repair that connection. But as he’s trying to reach out to Kelsey, BoJack finds himself the unwilling guardian of a lost baby seahorse. It’s through that story arc that most of the episode’s sweet moments and beauty shine through.

“Fish Out of Water” serves as a much-deserved spotlight for one of BoJack’s lesser discussed strengths — its animation. Lisa Hanawalt’s character designs and the entire animation team’s attention to intricate details is unparalleled by almost any other animated show currently on the air. But because this is such a visually driven episode, audiences are given the rare opportunity to focus on how beautiful the show’s animation really is. It’s the little things that make this episode so captivating. Seeing how the anemones align with the episode’s bouncy music is fun, and visually, this episode is constantly in a state of fluidity, mimicking what it’s like to look through a tank. As you’re watching BoJack try and repeatedly fail to do what he does worst — repair yet another relationship he has destroyed — it’s hard not to become distracted by the episode’s heart-aching beauty.

But don’t think this episode is completely devoid of emotional weight or plot significance. After all, this is BoJack we’re talking about, one of the smartest, saddest, and most intricate shows ever created. BoJack’s adventure with the baby seahorse leaves him wistful, allowing him to finally put into words how he feels about Kelsey. It’s a bleak message that’s difficult to read, and you would imagine even more difficult to write. Once again, Kelsey has connected to BoJack’s most authentic self though she wasn’t even the room at the time. However, through a variety of circumstances out of BoJack’s control and his own incompetence, he’s unable to deliver this last perfect and poignant message.

BoJack has always been a show of extremes. Jokes and subplots that will leave you crying in joy are often counterbalanced with moments of intense sorrow. Keeping this formula in mind, the last moment of “Fish Out of Water” is a delightfully twisted mix of funny, sad, and frustrating. At the last minute, our alcoholic actor realizes that he had the ability to talk through his helmet the entire time. As he throws back his head and yells “Oh, you have got to be kidding — ” it cuts to credits, the show’s typical and ever-catchy ending song replaced by Oberhofer’s “Sea of Dreams.” Just like that, BoJack has reset itself and left its protagonist a little bit wiser and a little bit sadder while leaving us in awe of its beauty.

[Watch BoJack Horseman’s “Fish Out of Water” on Netflix]

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Photos: Netflix