Best BoJack Horseman Episodes: The 14 That Hit Hardest

Let me be straight with you. BoJack Horseman is sold as a comedy about a talking horse. It will also quietly break your heart.

This is my rundown of the best BoJack Horseman episodes, the ones that hit hardest and stuck with me long after the credits rolled.

Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the show ran for six seasons and 77 episodes. Somehow it used a cartoon horse to say more about grief and depression than most live-action dramas ever manage.

A quick note before we start.

I am not strictly ranking these best BoJack Horseman episodes one to fourteen. I have loosely arranged them from “great” to “the ones that wrecked me,” saving the best for last.

And if you have read my BoJack Horseman characters guide, you know I love the fan theory that the five leads are the five stages of grief. That lens shows up across these best BoJack Horseman episodes too, because so many of them are really about how we survive pain.

The Face of Depression (Season 6, Episode 7)

Fresh out of rehab, BoJack drives around the country trying to make amends with the people he has hurt.

He visits his old Horsin’ Around hairdresser Sharona, who gives him one last haircut. That moment reveals a small gut-punch: BoJack has been dyeing his hair the whole series, and it has been going grey for years.

Meanwhile Mr. Peanutbutter is touring the country as the public “face of depression,” which finally gives him the crossover episode with BoJack he always wanted. He gets so emotional he cannot stay in character.

What I love here is the quiet hope, and it is why this ranks among the best BoJack Horseman episodes of the final stretch. For once, BoJack looks like he might be getting better. Of course, the show does not let that last.

That Went Well (Season 3, Episode 12)

The Season 3 finale sits in the wreckage of Sarah Lynn’s death. BoJack is drowning in his part in it.

He gets a shot at a comeback, but her memory follows him everywhere. The episode ends with one of the show’s most haunting images.

BoJack drives down a desert highway, takes his hands off the wheel, and lets the car drift. Then he spots a herd of wild horses running free across the plain.

Their freedom stops him cold. It is the first real hint that under all the self-destruction, he wants to live. That single moment sets up everything in Season 4.

Escape From L.A. (Season 2, Episode 11)

BoJack runs away to New Mexico and moves in with Charlotte, an old flame from his stand-up days, and her family.

For a while it looks like the happy life he never had. He bonds with her teenage daughter Penny and stays for two months.

Then he crosses a line that cannot be uncrossed. Charlotte catches him about to sleep with the teenage Penny, and throws him out.

This is the episode that dares you to keep rooting for BoJack. It is deeply uncomfortable on purpose, and it is one of the best BoJack Horseman episodes at refusing to let its lead off the hook. Charlotte is voiced by Olivia Wilde.

Surprise! (Season 6, Episode 4)

Here is one the old internet summaries get wrong, so let me set it straight. Todd plans a surprise wedding for Mr. Peanutbutter and his fiancee Pickles.

It falls apart before it can even start. Right as the guests are hidden and waiting, Mr. Peanutbutter confesses to Pickles that he cheated on her with Diane.

What follows is a brilliant farce. The whole cast is stuck hiding around the house while the couple fights and trashes their friends, who can hear every word.

Underneath the comedy, two quieter things happen:

• Diane finally tells BoJack she is moving to Chicago, leading to his heartbreaking line that needing her to promise he will be okay is “not a friendship, that’s a hostage situation.”
• Todd proves he is great with Ruthie, setting up his job as her nanny.

It is proof the show could do a pure sitcom episode and still land a punch.

The Old Sugarman Place (Season 4, Episode 2)

After Sarah Lynn’s death, BoJack hides away at his family’s crumbling old summer home in Michigan.

He fixes it up with the help of a widowed dragonfly named Eddie, voiced by Colman Domingo. Their scenes are gentle and sad.

The episode weaves in flashbacks to his mother Beatrice’s childhood in that same house, and the loss that broke her family apart. Past and present rhyme in a way that quietly wrecks you.

This is where the show’s real subject comes into focus: grief, and how it gets handed down from one generation to the next.

Stupid Piece of Sh*t (Season 4, Episode 6)

This one puts you directly inside BoJack’s head, and it is not a nice place to be.

We hear his inner monologue, a cruel voice that calls him worthless from the moment he wakes up. The show draws his intrusive thoughts as messy, frantic scribbles. You can read more about the episode on IMDb.

The gut-punch comes at the end. Hollyhock, his half-sister, casually asks if that mean little voice in your head ever goes away.

BoJack, realizing she has it too, lies and tells her yes, it goes away when you get older. It is a small act of mercy and a devastating one, because we know he is lying.

Nice While It Lasted (Season 6, Episode 16)

The series finale is quiet on purpose. After the events of “The View From Halfway Down,” BoJack is in prison and gets a day out to attend Princess Carolyn’s wedding.

He shares one last conversation with each of the main characters. None of them tie up in a neat bow, and that is the point.

The final scene lands him on a rooftop with Diane, mirroring the very first episode. She has moved on. He is still figuring it out.

Some fans wanted a bigger ending. But like Bob-Waksberg said afterward, a tidy finish would have betrayed everything the show stood for. Life just keeps going, and that is the bittersweet truth it leaves you with.

Ruthie (Season 4, Episode 9)

This is Princess Carolyn at her lowest, and one of the best BoJack Horseman episodes the writers ever pulled off.

It is framed as a story told in the far future by her descendant, Ruthie, who promises it all works out. Then the floor drops out.

Over one brutal day, Princess Carolyn:

• Loses a major client.
• Finds out her cherished family heirloom necklace is fake.
• Fires her loyal assistant, Judah.
• Breaks up with her boyfriend, Ralph.
• Learns she has had her fifth miscarriage.

The twist is the knife. Ruthie is not real. She is a fantasy Princess Carolyn invents to survive the worst day of her life. If the cast really are the five stages of grief, this is bargaining laid completely bare.

Downer Ending (Season 1, Episode 11)

This is the episode where Season 1 stops being just a Hollywood satire and shows its teeth.

Unhappy with the honest memoir Diane wrote about him, BoJack tries to rewrite his own story. Instead he spirals into a wild drug bender with Todd and Sarah Lynn.

The trip turns into a surreal fantasy of the peaceful life he could have had. Then it ends somewhere much rawer.

BoJack begs Diane to tell him he is a good person, deep down. She does not answer. That silence is why it belongs among the best BoJack Horseman episodes, and it sets the tone for the entire series.

That’s Too Much, Man! (Season 3, Episode 11)

Sarah Lynn, voiced by Kristen Schaal, started the show as a one-note joke, a child star gone off the rails. By this point she has clawed her way to nine months sober.

Then BoJack pulls her back in for a month-long bender. It ends at a planetarium, with Sarah Lynn overdosing and dying beside him.

This is the first time BoJack’s actions carry a consequence he cannot talk his way out of. He literally calls for help too late.

It is one of the best BoJack Horseman episodes and one of the most devastating, a big part of why the show earns its name as one of the saddest comedies on TV.

The Showstopper (Season 5, Episode 11)

As his prestige show Philbert takes off, BoJack’s painkiller addiction drags him under.

The episode is built like a nightmarish musical number, blurring the line between his TV role and his real life. His hallucinations turn on him, feeding every insecurity.

It climaxes with BoJack, lost in a drug haze, strangling his co-star Gina on set while the cameras roll.

It is horrifying, and it is meant to be. This is the moment where you seriously wonder if he is past saving. The writing and the voice work are stellar throughout.

Free Churro (Season 5, Episode 6)

After his mother Beatrice dies, BoJack delivers her eulogy. That is the whole episode. One horse, one monologue, almost no cuts.

It should not work. It is spellbinding.

Why it is one of the best BoJack Horseman episodes ever made:

• Will Arnett carries the entire thing on his voice alone.
• It breaks the fourth wall so completely that it feels like BoJack is talking to you.
• It nails the messy, contradictory way we grieve people who hurt us.
• The free churro he keeps circling back to becomes a strange, perfect symbol for empty comfort.

This is the show at its most experimental and its most human. For a lot of fans, it is the peak.

The View From Halfway Down (Season 6, Episode 15)

For my money, this is the greatest episode the show ever made, and plenty of fans and critics agree.

After a relapse, BoJack finds himself at a strange dinner party in a house that keeps falling apart. Around the table are the dead people who shaped his life: his mother, Herb, Sarah Lynn, and more.

Slowly you realize what is happening. This is not a dream so much as a goodbye. BoJack is drowning in his pool, and this is the view from halfway down.

What makes it land:

• Every dead character gets one last, unforgettable moment.
• It handles the subject of death with rare honesty and zero cheap comfort.
• It pays off Charlotte’s Season 1 warning that L.A. is “a pretty town on top of black tar,” where you do not notice you are sinking until it is too late.

I have never seen anything else like it. It sits at the very top of any list of the best BoJack Horseman episodes, and it changed how I think about the whole series.

Time’s Arrow (Season 4, Episode 11)

If “The Old Sugarman Place” opened the door on Beatrice’s past, “Time’s Arrow” walks all the way through it.

The episode is told from inside Beatrice’s mind as her dementia takes hold. Faces are scribbled out. Rooms melt into other rooms.

Through the haze we finally see what made her so cold: losing her brother in the war, watching her father have her mother lobotomized, and a life where every choice was made for her.

By the end, you feel real sympathy for a character you spent three seasons hating. It does not excuse how she treated BoJack. It just shows you the trauma that got passed down. On craft alone, it is one of the best BoJack Horseman episodes the show ever produced.

Is BoJack Horseman Kid-Friendly?

No, and it is worth saying clearly. The talking-animal designs can trick you into thinking it is for children.

It is not as crude as Family Guy or South Park, but it deals head-on with addiction, suicide, and abuse. This is a show for adults.

Why These Episodes Stay With You

Heading into its final season, Netflix had already decided BoJack Horseman was ending. T

he show knew it was saying goodbye, and it used that to bring real closure to six seasons of tangled lives.

That is the thread running through the best BoJack Horseman episodes on this list.

Whether you read them through the five stages of grief or just watch them raw, they are all about the same thing: how we carry pain, and how we keep going anyway.

So here is my question for you.

Which BoJack episode hit you the hardest?

I have a feeling everyone’s answer says a little something about them.