5 possible reasons outer space replaces alcohol in BoJack Horseman

A list of five reasons outer space replaces alcohol to BoJack in BoJack Horseman season 6.

If you’ve watched the newest season of BoJack Horseman, you’ve seen it: outer space replacing alcohol as BoJack stares into a water bottle or handle or another object that is supposed to have his drink in it.

Season 6 started out showing outer space with BoJack saying the words, “Sarah Lynn,” the name of an actress who worked on Horsin’ Around with BoJack and who died from a heroin overdose that BoJack witnessed.

Space has also made its way into the intro of the show, serving as the backdrop for BoJack’s house. The show first featured space specifically filling a beverage in the newest season about halfway through the first episode, where BoJack is at a party and appears to be overwhelmed by his environment.

He looks at a “Grey Moose” bottle until it turns into space. There is no concrete explanation for why the show chose that as an artistic choice, but it certainly provokes some analysis into why the writers did it and how it encapsulates BoJack’s relationship with alcohol.

Here are some possibilities:

Space is a symbol for the oblivion in which BoJack will reach if he keeps drinking

The show has alluded to all the negative effects that drinking has had on BoJack in his relationships with other people and how he views himself, but one issue the show hasn’t delved into much is how it affects BoJack’s long-term health.

If he keeps drinking, that will presumably lead to some consequences for his body and lifespan, so it’s possible the show is trying to point that out.

Space is often seen as an endless sort of nothing, similar to death, and if that’s what it means, BoJack is looking into his drink like he’s looking into an endless void, one free from Earth and life as he knows it.

Space represents Sarah Lynn

Sarah Lynn died at a planetarium. BoJack and her were looking out at space projected onto a dome as a narrator said the words “Our lives are but the briefest flashes, in a universe that is billions of years old.” BoJack tries to talk to her shortly after and receives no response. Maybe, BoJack is seeing space because he now associates it with Sarah Lynn and he can’t get her death out of his head. When he looks at alcohol and it turns into space, he’s thinking about Sarah Lynn.

Space is unknowing

Maybe the show is suggesting that space can be a mystery. BoJack staying sober could lead to him mending friendships and restoring order in his work life, whereas drinking keeps things interesting in his life for better or — in many cases — worse.

As many creatives have expressed and what Leslie Jamison writes so clearly here: “I wanted to understand my drinking as part of a story about the kind of creativity that had to happen past the boundaries of comfort.”

Drinking isn’t a comfort for BoJack, but rather, something that brings his life a sort of exciting chaos. Willing or unwilling, he takes part in the unknowingness that alcohol causes him.

Space is boundless and so is BoJack’s addiction

The space BoJack sees might be something he can’t escape. As the show so clearly points out in the latest season, BoJack started drinking at a young age, surrounded by parents whose behavior encouraged it.

When he was a kid, he likely saw alcohol as a confidence booster. One flashback in season 6 showed him having the confidence to kiss an actress on set and another showed him telling jokes at a party. He clearly had consequences that stemmed from alcohol, but he has also used drinking as a way to cope throughout the show.

BoJack started drinking young, and he gets confidence from being drunk. It’s a crutch for him when he’s going through tough times. This all makes for an addiction that could go on forever if he lets it.

Simply a daring choice in a show that has plenty, and we shouldn’t look into it all

This is by far the least fun explanation, but at the end of the show, it could very well be the most possible one.

From the way Princess Caroline uses drawn-out rhyming to talk sometimes or how, for the longest time, no one besides BoJack could see that Vincent Adultman was three children stacked on top of each other, BoJack Horseman doesn’t shy away from making interesting decisions within the show, which don’t come with explanations and, eventually, the viewer doesn’t even need them. If that’s the case, fine. At least it was fun to think about.

BoJack Horseman season 6 is the final season of the series. The final episodes will be added to Netflix on Jan. 31, 2020.