Wacky fun in a sibling universe to BoJack Horsemen. A show that, like its predecessory, manages to tackle big truthful issues while being off-the-wall funny in a striking balance.

WTF. This season busted out of the gate as a real contender. Lizzy Caplan creates a fascinating and at times sympathetic portrait of mental illness in her rendition of an early Annie Wilkes (from Misery), and her layered relationship with her daughter forms a really fascinating center of the show. But then, it takes a 90 degree turn and sidelines that whole story for some hokey sci-fi bullshit that is not only less interesting, but makes Annie’s presence feel completely irrelevant. They tried to connect them a bit at the end, but it fell flat for me, and was up there with Rise of Skywalker for biggest mid-story disappointment of the year.

The second season felt at the same time more ambitious AND more safe. It built a strong, satisfying big narrative over 14 episodes that rarely felt like filler or misstep. But at the same time, the narrative was mostly retreading frequently tread Star Trek ground, like AI and time travel. It was impressive, fun, but not super innovative or fresh. Which is fine, but S1 I felt was trying to set a bar that this would not be your dad’s Star Trek show, and this season moved away from that a bit.

I wanted to rate it lower, as a childish reaction to the world’s consensus for how amazing this show is. It’s currently ranked at #2 among critics, which seems way too high to me. They say it’s Shakespearean. Sure, but frequently and VERY CLEARLY referencing Shakespeare does not a great show make. Others say it’s not even a drama, it’s a comedy. Sure, it’s funny, but it’s not THAT funny. And it’s clearly taking itself too seriously to be a comedy. It wants to delight us in the excesses and ghoulishness of its horrible, self-absorbed characters while at the same time _kinda_ making fun of them? It’s weird, because it’s too invested in making us care about the bonds and relationships between these characters to be able to say it’s skewering them. It’s basically like Arrested Development, but less funny, and with a Soderbergh handicam treatment. Anyway, while its point of view is crazy muddled, it is entertaining in a cheesy, soapy way. But so was most of Shakespeare.

Felt like the Vegas trip was a step in the wrong direction after a great second season. They backed off a bit from the strong character work they were doing to focus on more of how they could shake things up. There were still some strong moments, I just didn’t enjoy this season as much.

A cool, fun premise that results in two, at odds, Paul Rudds. The first four eps are classic, binge-worthy, edge of your seat romps that give a fresh take on a lived-in premise. The complications that come after that are hit-and-miss (though I was glad for the much-needed detour in Ep 5), and the ending felt just a bit clunky. But I liked that it was asking the questions it did, that it was smart, and well-paced, and that it exists.

While there was still a lot to love about the second season, the turns didn’t feel as fresh or earned as in the stunning first season.

A fun, painful finale for a fun, painful show.

A great send off for a great show.

Huh! There were some REALLY GREAT episodes in this, the final season. I liked that they tried something different with the finale, even though I didn’t really feel like it completely worked. Dom 4 eva.

I’m a little bit sick of the Hollywood insider humor, but this show managed to surprise. It was at times hilarious, and other times really quite empathetic about the effect Hollywood culture can have on people.

Afraid I have to have another thing about artist vs. art. As problematic as he was, I felt the lack of Louie CK in this season. I think Pamela Adlon has a strong voice, and she creates great slice-of-life tableaus that are raw and real. But Louie often balanced that with these transcendent moments of pathos that felt both unexpected and natural and earned. They were some of the strongest moments of both Louie and Better Things. Now, TV is a collaborative medium, and it is pure speculation to pick out one artist’s contribution to a work, but based on the data, it feels like a correlation to me. That said, it was a good, but not great, season.

A bit of sophomore-itis, but still very moving.

The lies were bigger and littler! Meryl! Not as great as the first season.

Super bingeable, just a couple shaky steps on the landing.

Much like Better Things, this first-half arc of the final season didn’t have those one or two big, risky episodes that made previous seasons stand out. That said, I appreciate the direction of the show, and what it has to say about the complicated nature of trauma and change. One could see the cynicism present in past seasons and predict that it will double-down on it in the final arc next year, but I’m going to go out on a limb and predict it will end on a note of positivity. If not, I’ll come back to this rating and dump its ass.

Bold choices. Wonderful musical numbers. Buttloads of attitude and creativity. Just a lot of fun.