Director:

Amy Winfrey

Writers:

Raphael Bob-Waksberg (creator), Joanna Calo

Stars:

Will Arnett, Amy Sedaris, Alison Brie |

by Mary Cox

“Ruthie”

I can’t be alone in thinking that the handling of Princess Carolyn’s miscarriage was somewhat tasteless. We see her suffer yet another huge, profound disappointment in her life, one which ultimately ends her relationship with Ralph and sends her spiraling into alcoholism and depression, and how do they decide to frame this information? Puns and cheap jokes based on the accents of “foreigners.” Tacky.

Bad taste aside, the plot line about Princess Carolyn’s family heirloom was a decent metaphor for the artificiality of the lies we tell ourselves about the past and the future, which does seem to connect to this season’s greater theme of all things being swept away by the passage of time.

I could live without the somewhat uninspired sub-plot where Bojack and Diane try to track down Hollyhock’s birth certificate at the county courthouse. If DMV-type jokes are the “groundbreaking” territory this series aims to cover, Bojack might as well be doing a stand-up routine about airplane food.

The ending of “Ruthie” does kind of pull back around to a more tonally reasonable place, but this season has generally struggled a little when it comes to balancing comedic and dramatic moments, like how it stumbled over Bojack’s grandmother’s lobotomy. At the very least, “Ruthie” gives us clarification that inter-species relationships end up with babies that are either one animal or another, clearing up some of the mystery surrounding Hollyhock’s parentage.
 

*****
“Mary Cox is an entertainment writer from the United States. Her hobbies include making good beer and bad decisions, watching drag queens fight on the internet, and overanalyzing everything. Mary one day hopes to be the person shouting “World Star” in the back of a Waffle House brawl video. She is currently tolerating life in Toronto. You can follow her on Twitter at @M_K_Cox”t