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Massive spoilers ahead about the endings ofThe Good PlaceandBoJack Horseman.
In a great cosmic coincidence,The Good PlaceandBoJack Horsemanended their runs within the same 24-hour period last week.
The NBC sitcom about a squad of faulty misfits attempting to reinvent the afterlife aired itsseries finaleThursday night.
The synchronicity of the moment has not gone unnoticed.
To solve that problem, Michael creates a door that functions as a final exit.
Tahani decides to stick around and train to become a Good Place architect.
Its an appropriately sweet and uplifting ending to a show that was optimistic at its core.
But its also one that takes the edge off of death.
Schur and his writers showed their characters the same generosity with regard to their own endings.
You could say this is BoJacks version of a good place or a bad place.
Its just your brain going through what it feels like it has to go through.
Whatever it is, BoJacks afterlife doesnt look anything like the one onThe Good Place.
But likeThe Good Places next-to-last episode, this one also introduces the door-to-death concept.
You fall through a final portal and you disappear forever.
The prospect of death is not peaceful for BoJack.
Its scary and unexpected, not the nice transition that it becomes for Jason or Eleanor onThe Good Place.
Which version is more accurate?
For some people, death might be a tranquil passage.
For others, it can be as jarring and wrenching as it is for BoJack.
Its fair to say what Eleanor famously said onThe Good Place: All humans are aware of death.
So were all a little bit sad.
Its also fair to say whatBoJack Horsemanis essentially saying: All humans and anthropomorphized animals are aware of death.
So were all a little bit terrified.
Death never seems scary onThe Good Placebecause, from the jump, everyone on the show is already dead.
That show wasnt built to convey how scary death is, and thats okay.
That wasnt its job.
You wont really know whats going to happen to you, she warns him.
Thats what makes it special, Michael says.
I wont exactly know whats going to happen after I die.
Theres nothing more human than that.
BoJack Horsemanreaches a thematically similar conclusion, though the tone of its final moments is much more melancholy.
In its more low-key way, the last moments ofBoJack Horsemanalso place an emphasis on the banal.
Lifes a bitch and then you die, BoJack says to Diane, who disagrees.
Sometimes, she says, lifes a bitch and then you keep on living.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
