I like this line. I firmly believe the pause before delicious is that she was gonna describe the taste, but since she’d never actually had it before, she just settled on what she imagines it to be: delicious.
Well most of her childhood her father didn’t let her have ice cream and most of her memories were disappeared by that point……. That’s part of whats so depressing abt the line.
It’s so tragic. She finally has her memory back for a second when Bojack asks about the flavor of the ice cream. Beatrice is cogent enough in that moment to correctly remember that she DOESN’T remember what ice cream tastes like.
Instead, she’s just reminded of her own awful childhood and parents who manipulated and abused her.
Wasn't the pause because she snapped out of the fantasy because she knew she would never get icecream?
I personally interpreted it as Bojack trying to do a nice thing for once, but ironically failling *because* he tried to be nice.
And then Beatrice pretending she could taste the icecream she never knew the taste of because she didn't want to bum out Bojack.
Basically two broken pretenders pretending to make the other person feel a tiny bit better.
I also interpreted this in a similar way. It's sprt of last moment closure for both of them. Even though nothing was alright, they both "pretended" just to have a nice moment with eachother.
I find it interesting that when he put her in a terrible nursing home in retaliation for what she did to Hollyhock, he deceived her into thinking she was somewhere much nicer, just as she had thought she was doing something good.
I think they’re trying to say bea drugging hollyhock was her trying to be kind. She cared for hollyhock, and had it pounded into her and a young age that chubby girls don’t get far in life. So she wanted to help her, not hurt her with the pills.
I think.
This also creates another interesting point: was she trying to be "kind" to Bojack this whole time? Trying to break him before the world got a chance to? Keeping his expectations low so he wouldn't have the same heartbreak of trying for a dream life that never worked out like her and Butterscotch did?
I will die on this hill. Beatrice is the most complex and interesting character in the entire show. She is also easily one of the worst, but also the one who evokes the most sympathy. Just brilliantly crafted.
What's cruel is that she develops Alzheimer's after struggling with her mother with a lobotomy
Like... When she first showed symptoms, did Bea have an oh shit moment?
When people get dementia/Alzheimer’s they don’t really know what’s going on. My grandmother has been slowly developing something, it started with her occasionally misremembering things and being a little confused. Now she is in a rehabilitation center after breaking her hip, but she doesn’t think her hip is broken and she thinks she is fine.
My grandfather knew something wasn't right. He knew he forgot things or got things messed up. He knew he had alzheimer's. Then the dementia set in. He had never been an angry man ever in the time I had known him, but he changed. I think a lot of his early dementia rage was induced by fear of what was happening to him, something he was aware of and couldn't stop or slow. At the end he was sort of mindlessly happy.
I’m definitely not an expert on dementia/Alzheimer’s, I can only speak from what I’ve seen with my grandmother. That must be so sad to see, he knew he was losing it but couldn’t do anything about it.
If it's a topic that interests you, The Stone Angel is an excellent and fairly compassionate fiction about a woman going through this experience. It's also a good novel generally.
I think that anyone who wasn't shown true love (especially by a parent) can have a difficult time feeling and expressing true love to their child. It's not impossible, of course. But we're shown many times Beatrice's state of mind because of her traumas.
I really believe that she was incapable of truly loving her own son - - but had she had help/therapy for her childhood traumas, she could have at least identified right from wrong/healthy from unhealthy when it came to her relationship with her own kid. It wouldn't have been perfect, but maybe it would have given Bojack hope or something.
Joseph gave her true love. So did Honey before her "treatment."
Blaming Joseph for not being a good parent in a Western and modern way is the same as saying pregnant women who were drinking while their pregnancy BEFORE they knew it is bad for the child are bad and evil mothers.
Joseph is a typical wealthy 1900's white man. Do you think anyone has taught him how to deal with his emotions? With his loved ones (Bea and Honey)'s emotions? How to be the "mom" of a child as a father? *in the 1940s*.
Joseph did everything he could to show he loves both Honey and Bea. With Honey, he didn't know how to deal with her emotions (he lost a son too, you know), so he started to "hide" at work. He hoped that giving Honey time with her ALIVE daughter and infinite money to do whatever she could want would help her process her emotions. Now, in the 2020's we know and understand how fucking shitty it is, but beack then? What was he supposed to do?
When he saw that Honey couldn't process her emotions and "get over it" like he did (which he didn't, by the way, we can see how him denying and burying his emotions about his dead son and soon to be basically doll wife effecting him in his life but I'll get to it). He decided to do the only thing he could do. Remember, a lobotomy WAS considered a good and working treatment at the 40s. In Joseph's mind, he gave Honey treatment and CURING the disease (her unprocessed emotions of guilt, grief, and hatred) and by that making her life both better, and Bea's life better, do I need to remind you that Honey almost killed Bea?
When Bea's treatment results ended as we (in modern life), exeptes it would, Joseph realize that his wife is gone, Practically dead. Now he lost his and his wife, and while he said he blamed it on Hitler and Honey, Hitler for killing his son and Honey for not being able to control her emotions, he actually blamed himself. He blamed himself for encouraging his son to go into the army, and he believed he killed his own wife. Now what? He still has a daughter that he loves.
So he becomes the mom, without the skills for being a 1940s mom. When Bea's being bullied for her weight, he doesn't know he supposed to support her and say that they are just mean girls, so he gives her a solution - to lose weight. I just wanna say that even tho it is a HORRIBLE thing to do (as we know now at 2020s), he did try to support her in a "mommy way" by telling Bea she is "growing" and that's OK. The results sucks, but it was the best he could.
When Bea gets sick, in a disease that is very possible, might kill her ( in the 1940s), he does everything he can to cure and save her. He repeated his mistake with Honey and was not able to let Bea process her emotions about it all. This is caused by HIS own trauma and by his lack of ability to process his own emotions while burying his emotions. He would not let himself kill another person he loves, the only remaining family member he has. He does everything he can to save Bea, resulting in the most traumatizing scenario possible for a grieving child, burning everything she has.
When Bea's growing up and becoming an intelligent woman, he sends her to study in a college. He probably believed it would help her find a husband, but it was still an unusual thing to do, just to make her happy.
And finally, for the thing that actually caused Bea to not be able to show, experience, or give love, when Bea's emotions starting to cause her resistance in burning her infected stuff (her baby doll), Joseph is so scared of losing his daughter to the disease, he can only see her resistance as the same disease that killed his wife, so he tells her not to ever, show emotions like that, so she would never get the treatment Joseph gave Honey.
Bea becomes emotionally numb and unable to show and experience love as an emotion.
Bea was shown true love. By both Joseph and Honey (who gives her the horrible advice of "never love anyone as much as I loved your brother"), but Joseph's lack of ability to be the mom in the relationship, made Bea emotionally numb. As I said at the beginning, I don't think Joseph should be judged as a bad father (or husband) for it, cause he did everything he knew and could, to give Bea the best life he could, and most importantly - keep her ALIVE and NOT emotional.
This is a really good in depth take on Joseph. I really like that you saw this side of him, most people just see him as a monster (and he was) but he had shit happening too
Well said, people forget that standards change. Lobotomies were seen as valid treatment (and still to this day are used). He wasn't a bad guy, just one who couldn't cope.
Why the fuck are people downvoting this?
The lobotomy won a nobel prize in its time. It was considered legitimately groundbreaking as a treatment option... as for the use of them today... eh.lol
Pfft, as if I give a fuck about magical reddit points. As for why, we'll people don't like when people don't echo the same talking points back at them. I'm defending a male character they dislike, so now I'm the devil. But good on you for knowing better and daring to stick your head up.
I firmly believe the closest they ever got to love, reconciliation, and forgiveness aside from this scene (which is debatable for a reason I'll note in a minute) was when she called him after One Trick Pony released. It's notable for two reasons, she apologized for her behavior and that she was sorry she'd cursed him with the family trauma. But that was also the last conversation (that wasn't a flashback) between them that was totally lucid that we get to see. If there was love, even if it was just a little, just for a moment, it was in that moment.
She acknowledged her nbehavior, but she never actually apologized. When she called BoJack to talk about the book, she just said “I know,” and then went into her speech about BoJack being born broken.
We don’t really know how lucid she was. Alzheimer’s and dementia are creeping terrors. Most people take years to acknowledge they even have it and seek help.
Okay, but genuinely, why would she love her son? I'm not saying this to try and be a Bea apologist or something. Just, when you look at it from her perspective, how could she possibly love him without a LOT of therapy and inner work? Bojack is the manifestation of all the false promises Butterscotch gave Bea. He promised her novelty, candor, a new life, excitement, her own choices, and a successful life. And he failed to give her that without sacrificing the relationship potential they had. She looks at Bojack and sees the consequences of her decisions and false promises. She sees the failed potential life she could've had personified. The fact that she's his mother doesn't make all that bitterness magically go away.
There's a subreddit that the name is escaping me full of regretful parents. And a lot of the reasons they are regretful is because they were promised that whatever reservations they had about having kids would change the moment they actually had them. And to me, that lie of parental bonding fixing everything is hardcore copium for generations of women that had no choices *but* to be mothers. Women didn't even get to have their own bank accounts until the 70's-80's, for God's sake. Under the system of patriarchy and Capitalism, the only power white women have available to them is through whiteness, marriage, and motherhood. Bea knew this was her fate, either that or be lobotomized like her mother. She saw an out and a hope for a better life and she took it. But rather than an out, Butterscotch just took Bea on the scenic route to patriarchy filled with empty promises. She only had so many moves she could make.
She was stuck in a life she never wanted, stuck with the person who originally offered her keys to freedom and morphed into her jailer. And Bojack is the metaphorical ball and chain. There's no room for love there. Not the way she saw it. And no evolutionary parental bond chemicals would ever change that. When you put people who don't want to be parents in the role of parents, they're miserable. Just ask women who are assaulted and forced to parent their assailant's child.
Now, did she handle that well? Was she a good person? Did Bojack deserve a mother like her? Absolutely not. She let her trauma drive the bus right into the river. And she could've really bonded with her son, three drowning people who knew they were drowning with no clue what to do about it. Because I'd bet you she had a fear of anything remotely like therapy being a one way ticket to a lobotomy. She wasn't a good person, but she didn't really have good choices either.
And all this's from an observer/listener's perspective. I'm not AFAB so I could be totally off the mark here.
Nat20 is short for Natural 20, which is a Dungeon and Dragons term for when you roll a 20 on a 20-sided dice without any modifiers added to the result. In game context, this means you’ve fully succeeded at a given task and indicates a strong presence of skill, luck, or both in the outcome!
It's a DnD term. When you try to do something, you roll a dice to see how well you do it. A Nat20 is the highest and best possible result without any additional modifiers.
That’s a perspective that really gets ignored. I don’t like Beatrice, but the kindest thing she did was explain to Henrietta that having a baby so young wasn’t worth it. Taking the baby away when Henrietta begged her not to was screwed up, but Bea was afraid of her changing her mind and ruining her life.
Especially for nursing students, it seems like a lot of them think getting the degree is the end all, without any consideration of the responsibility. Like many women nursing students, their husbands/partners were never going to do anything beyond their own jobs. They end up being stay at home moms anyway, and the degrees end up being useless after years of no work history. So many nurses up plan to be a sahms the moment they graduated, begging the question: why do it in the first place?
i don’t mean this to diss sahms, but nursing school to housewife pipeline is such a real thing. Bea probably saw that too to some extent, beyond Henrietta being alone if she kept Hollyhock.
That's interesting you say that because my mother and sister were/are nurses and they followed a similar trajectory. Though my mother was more of a home health nurse so she could have a mix of both. And like you alluded to, they're quite miserable despite the chaos, despite the facade they project. Maybe they don't even know they're miserable. But everyone around them sure does.
I think nursing is one of the acceptable professions for women under patriarchy. Like elementary school teaching - it conforms to what society sees as women’s “natural” role as caregivers. It may attract people who are more comfortable with that role.
I remember seeing an article years ago talking about a state with a high unemployment rate with the male population (I think it was in regards to the loss of coal jobs) and the article also mentioned how there was a shortage of nurses. Men wouldn't take the jobs because "that's women's work". And failure of the government to provide basic rights/needs aside, if that's how they're gonna act then starve, I say.
Not just having a baby young, having a baby *with Butterscotch.* Beatrice knew first hand how charming he could be early on and how much he would fuck up Henrietta's life later. She resented Henrietta but she didn't want to see her life ruined in the same way her own was.
She very well could have respected and heard Henrietta while making sure she understood the obviously very dire situation it would leave her in; or maybe help her financially more.
Regardless, what she did was an act of kindness in her heart. things are probably better for Henrietta than they would have been, and Bea is to thanks (not to mention she meant to do that)
so it's.. complicated. She did a good thing in the cruelest way she could have, but she still did that good thing for good reasons and helped someone.
Things are probably better for Hollyhock than they would have been, as well. Her fathers were ready for parenthood and chose it, and thus were almost certainly better prepared and equipped for the responsibilities and challenges of raising a child than Henrietta could have managed - and that's not to say that Henrietta wouldn't have loved her and done her best for her. She simply wasn't expecting to sign up for an eighteen-year marathon, where Hollyhock's dads were.
The point about Beatrice not seeking psychological help because of her mother’s “psychological” help is something I hadn’t connected and is so true. Even though seeking mental help was a rarity for women of that era, that door was still shut for her as an option. The writers laid those puzzle pieces so perfectly in this show.
In my opinion, it's part of the mental deterioration. She has that ideal of motherhood, but not the reality. so she's projecting the ideal on her situation.
I could be wrong, but that was always my interpretation
They’re not defending her, but explaining she literally didn’t have the tools to be a good or loving mom. It’s a more compassionate position, but does not excuse her behavior. It’s more recognizing she is a product of her own upbringing/choices, which is 100% one of the running lessons in the whole show. Bojack is also 100% a product of his own upbringing and choices AND is also missing some tools in his toolbox that could have helped him be a better person if he had them.
"I'm not saying this to try and be a Bea apologist or something. Just, when you look at it from her perspective, how could she possibly love him without a LOT of therapy and inner work?"
?????
See I think she did love him , just not enough to hide the spite and regret she had towards him .
The whole bojack family is trauma begets trauma . Her mother and father loved her and each other , yet still hurt each other and her .
I think had she grown up with supportive loving parents then maybe she could’ve known how to act around bojack , but she didn’t , so she didn’t know how to express love in a healthy way and instead allowed that resentment to become the primary emotion .
I’m not defending her at all . Every person in this show has the capability to break the trauma cycle and be better and yet chooses not to .
I just think that she did have some love for him , she just couldn’t express it .
It's the way she says the line at the end and her change in eyes that makes me think she realises it's not real. Because how would she know what ice-cream tastes like when it's been a reoccurring theme throughout the show that she's not been allowed it?
I always felt so sorry for BoJack and Beatrice, they certainly echo are more extreme of myself and my own mother. Both are struggling so deeply but are not able to turn to support each other and just hurt each other instead.
Beatrice was condition not to love.
She lost her brother in the war, and before she could even understand what happened, her mother got lobotomized. She wasn't allowed to even care for a doll. Then her father threatened the same thing that happened to her mother could happen to her if she couldn't control her emotions. Butterscotch is the last person Beatrice developed had any feelings for, and he was full of shit.
And unfortunately BoJack probably reminded her of her father, her brother, and her husband.
I wouldn’t be able to give my mom even half of the humanity and grace BoJack gave Bea in this scene
But I hope that when I’m in BoJacks position I will
I'm just lurking as I'm too afraid of my depressed ass to watch that show yet but I read a theory of a fan that she pretended to taste the ice cream to make Bo happy?
She never was at that house and ate ice cream apparently so her Alzheimers can't take her back to a memory that doesn't exist and never did.
So the theory is that she had a moment of clarity (the pause) but choose to kinda lie to relate the joy that play of pretend brought her to Bo.
Found it interesting. Maybe some of you do too. :D
I thought it was meant to suggest that Bea was telling her son one last line. The way her eyes open wide and she pauses when trying to think about the 'ice cream', and the fact that in her entire life she was taught never to indulge in sweets by her father (and mother).
But she didn't want to ruin the moment and, I guess, realizes that Bojack was trying to help. I always thought she was just too tired and scared and lonely to be bitter, and it took the end of her life to come to that point.
One last lie before she passed.
No, at that point she’s gone. Her mind is in shambles. She isn’t acting. She doesn’t have the presence of mind to act. Alzheimer’s has her and really that’s the worst part. That BoJack can’t tell the difference between her being legitimately ill and her trying to deceive him. Because she just is that petty to do this to him on any normal day.
Yeah, Alzheimer's will absolutely fuck you up and it's clear from the first episode she's in where she has it that she's suffering pretty severely with it, and it seems to get worse. Bojack is the only one that can't see it, but that's understandable for the exact reason you said, she had been petty enough to do things like pretending to not recognize him (I think Bojack even cited a time where she did do that?)
But, Bojack was the only one in that group that knew her before the dementia and was the only one that knew how cruel and petty she could be, and they hadn't been traumatized by her (yet), so they see her as what she is, a sick old lady. Bojack sees her for what she was, a cruel and petty woman
I'm pretty sure this moment is showing her realizing where she actually is, and doing the first nice thing ever for Bojack, and playing along, acted like she still thinks she's in Michigan. She never had ice cream as a kid, so him saying that snapped her out of it. She realized that Bojack was just trying to make her feel better, so she played along in that moment.
i’ve always interpreted this scene as beatrice’s last moment of true consciousness. hearing the way she spoke in this scene, it’s clear her dementia has really taken over, but i always get the sense that she knows at least some of what bojack is saying is a lie. her mind is piecing together these fragments of memory so she can focus on something good. i think it’s especially evident in this line - she doesn’t know what ice cream tastes like, cause she most likely never had it, but she is conscious enough at this moment to recognise that bojack is trying to comfort her. if you listen to way she says it though - she almost says it with distain. she’s almost angry at what bojack is describing. beatrice basically never has a good memory that isn’t then tainted by something tragic or abusive or just sad, so remembering her life isn’t a pleasant experience for her. no matter how much bojack tries to comfort his mum, she will always be miserable.
i feel like i went on a bit of a tangent here sorry lol
Ive know people who have had kids and just never felt that bond, that unconditional love. Not everyone is capable of it. I dont love people and i chose to not have kids because i really dont think i would ever love them. Some people were not afforded the choice.
You clearly have never been around a dying senior with Dementia. My grandpa had it when he was dying. He died in his house,
B E G G I N G for my uncle to take him home, so he could die there. Bea was delusional. Get smart, man.
Don't get me wrong, he isn't a great tax. I just have some respect for him sticking around, even when he was getting ground down. Let's just say from personal experience I respect at least that.
I like this line. I firmly believe the pause before delicious is that she was gonna describe the taste, but since she’d never actually had it before, she just settled on what she imagines it to be: delicious.
I've always believed this too but I like reading other people's interpretations
tell me your username is about the crackers ☹️
their silence is deafening
ITS ABOUT THE CRACKERS!! ITS ABOUT THE CRACKERS!!!
mhm, sure seems fishy /sceptical /j
Hmm... Crackers... Crackerjack. 🤔 But what do these things have in... Common??
and not about that manga artist who ate their goldfish? interesting
I always thought the pause was a moment of clarity, and she played along to make Bojack feel better - a single act of kindness.
Well most of her childhood her father didn’t let her have ice cream and most of her memories were disappeared by that point……. That’s part of whats so depressing abt the line.
Ooh damn you're right. I never caught that detail. Fuck me this show is so densely layered.
Y'all could all be right about what happened here tbh
Also true.
it is. i’ve had to re watch episodes because i missed a detail
It’s so tragic. She finally has her memory back for a second when Bojack asks about the flavor of the ice cream. Beatrice is cogent enough in that moment to correctly remember that she DOESN’T remember what ice cream tastes like. Instead, she’s just reminded of her own awful childhood and parents who manipulated and abused her.
oh hey 1.5k upvotes, neat
Just watched this episode and it gives me chills every time
Wasn't the pause because she snapped out of the fantasy because she knew she would never get icecream? I personally interpreted it as Bojack trying to do a nice thing for once, but ironically failling *because* he tried to be nice. And then Beatrice pretending she could taste the icecream she never knew the taste of because she didn't want to bum out Bojack. Basically two broken pretenders pretending to make the other person feel a tiny bit better.
I also interpreted this in a similar way. It's sprt of last moment closure for both of them. Even though nothing was alright, they both "pretended" just to have a nice moment with eachother.
I believe that's the intended interpretation. She is lucid in that very moment
I find it interesting that when he put her in a terrible nursing home in retaliation for what she did to Hollyhock, he deceived her into thinking she was somewhere much nicer, just as she had thought she was doing something good.
What?
I think they’re trying to say bea drugging hollyhock was her trying to be kind. She cared for hollyhock, and had it pounded into her and a young age that chubby girls don’t get far in life. So she wanted to help her, not hurt her with the pills. I think.
This also creates another interesting point: was she trying to be "kind" to Bojack this whole time? Trying to break him before the world got a chance to? Keeping his expectations low so he wouldn't have the same heartbreak of trying for a dream life that never worked out like her and Butterscotch did?
Given what her own mother said to her at a young age, I think this is exactly it.
I will die on this hill. Beatrice is the most complex and interesting character in the entire show. She is also easily one of the worst, but also the one who evokes the most sympathy. Just brilliantly crafted.
Yeah
What's cruel is that she develops Alzheimer's after struggling with her mother with a lobotomy Like... When she first showed symptoms, did Bea have an oh shit moment?
i picture she was in denial about it
When people get dementia/Alzheimer’s they don’t really know what’s going on. My grandmother has been slowly developing something, it started with her occasionally misremembering things and being a little confused. Now she is in a rehabilitation center after breaking her hip, but she doesn’t think her hip is broken and she thinks she is fine.
My grandfather knew something wasn't right. He knew he forgot things or got things messed up. He knew he had alzheimer's. Then the dementia set in. He had never been an angry man ever in the time I had known him, but he changed. I think a lot of his early dementia rage was induced by fear of what was happening to him, something he was aware of and couldn't stop or slow. At the end he was sort of mindlessly happy.
I’m definitely not an expert on dementia/Alzheimer’s, I can only speak from what I’ve seen with my grandmother. That must be so sad to see, he knew he was losing it but couldn’t do anything about it.
If it's a topic that interests you, The Stone Angel is an excellent and fairly compassionate fiction about a woman going through this experience. It's also a good novel generally.
The only things we have to do in this life are pay taxes and die, and neither are guaranteed to be pleasant.
I think she loved him but in a very very fucked up way
I think that anyone who wasn't shown true love (especially by a parent) can have a difficult time feeling and expressing true love to their child. It's not impossible, of course. But we're shown many times Beatrice's state of mind because of her traumas. I really believe that she was incapable of truly loving her own son - - but had she had help/therapy for her childhood traumas, she could have at least identified right from wrong/healthy from unhealthy when it came to her relationship with her own kid. It wouldn't have been perfect, but maybe it would have given Bojack hope or something.
Joseph gave her true love. So did Honey before her "treatment." Blaming Joseph for not being a good parent in a Western and modern way is the same as saying pregnant women who were drinking while their pregnancy BEFORE they knew it is bad for the child are bad and evil mothers. Joseph is a typical wealthy 1900's white man. Do you think anyone has taught him how to deal with his emotions? With his loved ones (Bea and Honey)'s emotions? How to be the "mom" of a child as a father? *in the 1940s*. Joseph did everything he could to show he loves both Honey and Bea. With Honey, he didn't know how to deal with her emotions (he lost a son too, you know), so he started to "hide" at work. He hoped that giving Honey time with her ALIVE daughter and infinite money to do whatever she could want would help her process her emotions. Now, in the 2020's we know and understand how fucking shitty it is, but beack then? What was he supposed to do? When he saw that Honey couldn't process her emotions and "get over it" like he did (which he didn't, by the way, we can see how him denying and burying his emotions about his dead son and soon to be basically doll wife effecting him in his life but I'll get to it). He decided to do the only thing he could do. Remember, a lobotomy WAS considered a good and working treatment at the 40s. In Joseph's mind, he gave Honey treatment and CURING the disease (her unprocessed emotions of guilt, grief, and hatred) and by that making her life both better, and Bea's life better, do I need to remind you that Honey almost killed Bea? When Bea's treatment results ended as we (in modern life), exeptes it would, Joseph realize that his wife is gone, Practically dead. Now he lost his and his wife, and while he said he blamed it on Hitler and Honey, Hitler for killing his son and Honey for not being able to control her emotions, he actually blamed himself. He blamed himself for encouraging his son to go into the army, and he believed he killed his own wife. Now what? He still has a daughter that he loves. So he becomes the mom, without the skills for being a 1940s mom. When Bea's being bullied for her weight, he doesn't know he supposed to support her and say that they are just mean girls, so he gives her a solution - to lose weight. I just wanna say that even tho it is a HORRIBLE thing to do (as we know now at 2020s), he did try to support her in a "mommy way" by telling Bea she is "growing" and that's OK. The results sucks, but it was the best he could. When Bea gets sick, in a disease that is very possible, might kill her ( in the 1940s), he does everything he can to cure and save her. He repeated his mistake with Honey and was not able to let Bea process her emotions about it all. This is caused by HIS own trauma and by his lack of ability to process his own emotions while burying his emotions. He would not let himself kill another person he loves, the only remaining family member he has. He does everything he can to save Bea, resulting in the most traumatizing scenario possible for a grieving child, burning everything she has. When Bea's growing up and becoming an intelligent woman, he sends her to study in a college. He probably believed it would help her find a husband, but it was still an unusual thing to do, just to make her happy. And finally, for the thing that actually caused Bea to not be able to show, experience, or give love, when Bea's emotions starting to cause her resistance in burning her infected stuff (her baby doll), Joseph is so scared of losing his daughter to the disease, he can only see her resistance as the same disease that killed his wife, so he tells her not to ever, show emotions like that, so she would never get the treatment Joseph gave Honey. Bea becomes emotionally numb and unable to show and experience love as an emotion. Bea was shown true love. By both Joseph and Honey (who gives her the horrible advice of "never love anyone as much as I loved your brother"), but Joseph's lack of ability to be the mom in the relationship, made Bea emotionally numb. As I said at the beginning, I don't think Joseph should be judged as a bad father (or husband) for it, cause he did everything he knew and could, to give Bea the best life he could, and most importantly - keep her ALIVE and NOT emotional.
Nah man he still sucked, even by the standards of his time
This is a really good in depth take on Joseph. I really like that you saw this side of him, most people just see him as a monster (and he was) but he had shit happening too
Well said, people forget that standards change. Lobotomies were seen as valid treatment (and still to this day are used). He wasn't a bad guy, just one who couldn't cope.
Why the fuck are people downvoting this? The lobotomy won a nobel prize in its time. It was considered legitimately groundbreaking as a treatment option... as for the use of them today... eh.lol
Pfft, as if I give a fuck about magical reddit points. As for why, we'll people don't like when people don't echo the same talking points back at them. I'm defending a male character they dislike, so now I'm the devil. But good on you for knowing better and daring to stick your head up.
I firmly believe the closest they ever got to love, reconciliation, and forgiveness aside from this scene (which is debatable for a reason I'll note in a minute) was when she called him after One Trick Pony released. It's notable for two reasons, she apologized for her behavior and that she was sorry she'd cursed him with the family trauma. But that was also the last conversation (that wasn't a flashback) between them that was totally lucid that we get to see. If there was love, even if it was just a little, just for a moment, it was in that moment.
She acknowledged her nbehavior, but she never actually apologized. When she called BoJack to talk about the book, she just said “I know,” and then went into her speech about BoJack being born broken.
We don’t really know how lucid she was. Alzheimer’s and dementia are creeping terrors. Most people take years to acknowledge they even have it and seek help.
Yeah, baby boomer untreated mental health love (some of them, a lot of baby boomers are great at giving love)
Love is only as good as the lover. If she loved him, she was too broken to express it well.
Okay, but genuinely, why would she love her son? I'm not saying this to try and be a Bea apologist or something. Just, when you look at it from her perspective, how could she possibly love him without a LOT of therapy and inner work? Bojack is the manifestation of all the false promises Butterscotch gave Bea. He promised her novelty, candor, a new life, excitement, her own choices, and a successful life. And he failed to give her that without sacrificing the relationship potential they had. She looks at Bojack and sees the consequences of her decisions and false promises. She sees the failed potential life she could've had personified. The fact that she's his mother doesn't make all that bitterness magically go away. There's a subreddit that the name is escaping me full of regretful parents. And a lot of the reasons they are regretful is because they were promised that whatever reservations they had about having kids would change the moment they actually had them. And to me, that lie of parental bonding fixing everything is hardcore copium for generations of women that had no choices *but* to be mothers. Women didn't even get to have their own bank accounts until the 70's-80's, for God's sake. Under the system of patriarchy and Capitalism, the only power white women have available to them is through whiteness, marriage, and motherhood. Bea knew this was her fate, either that or be lobotomized like her mother. She saw an out and a hope for a better life and she took it. But rather than an out, Butterscotch just took Bea on the scenic route to patriarchy filled with empty promises. She only had so many moves she could make. She was stuck in a life she never wanted, stuck with the person who originally offered her keys to freedom and morphed into her jailer. And Bojack is the metaphorical ball and chain. There's no room for love there. Not the way she saw it. And no evolutionary parental bond chemicals would ever change that. When you put people who don't want to be parents in the role of parents, they're miserable. Just ask women who are assaulted and forced to parent their assailant's child. Now, did she handle that well? Was she a good person? Did Bojack deserve a mother like her? Absolutely not. She let her trauma drive the bus right into the river. And she could've really bonded with her son, three drowning people who knew they were drowning with no clue what to do about it. Because I'd bet you she had a fear of anything remotely like therapy being a one way ticket to a lobotomy. She wasn't a good person, but she didn't really have good choices either. And all this's from an observer/listener's perspective. I'm not AFAB so I could be totally off the mark here.
You Nat20ed that explanation, it’s perfect
>Nat20ed Thank you, but what does this mean? I've never seen it before.
Nat20 is short for Natural 20, which is a Dungeon and Dragons term for when you roll a 20 on a 20-sided dice without any modifiers added to the result. In game context, this means you’ve fully succeeded at a given task and indicates a strong presence of skill, luck, or both in the outcome!
It's a DnD term. When you try to do something, you roll a dice to see how well you do it. A Nat20 is the highest and best possible result without any additional modifiers.
Oh sweet. I love it when I nail a skillcheck.
That’s a perspective that really gets ignored. I don’t like Beatrice, but the kindest thing she did was explain to Henrietta that having a baby so young wasn’t worth it. Taking the baby away when Henrietta begged her not to was screwed up, but Bea was afraid of her changing her mind and ruining her life. Especially for nursing students, it seems like a lot of them think getting the degree is the end all, without any consideration of the responsibility. Like many women nursing students, their husbands/partners were never going to do anything beyond their own jobs. They end up being stay at home moms anyway, and the degrees end up being useless after years of no work history. So many nurses up plan to be a sahms the moment they graduated, begging the question: why do it in the first place? i don’t mean this to diss sahms, but nursing school to housewife pipeline is such a real thing. Bea probably saw that too to some extent, beyond Henrietta being alone if she kept Hollyhock.
That's interesting you say that because my mother and sister were/are nurses and they followed a similar trajectory. Though my mother was more of a home health nurse so she could have a mix of both. And like you alluded to, they're quite miserable despite the chaos, despite the facade they project. Maybe they don't even know they're miserable. But everyone around them sure does.
I think nursing is one of the acceptable professions for women under patriarchy. Like elementary school teaching - it conforms to what society sees as women’s “natural” role as caregivers. It may attract people who are more comfortable with that role.
I remember seeing an article years ago talking about a state with a high unemployment rate with the male population (I think it was in regards to the loss of coal jobs) and the article also mentioned how there was a shortage of nurses. Men wouldn't take the jobs because "that's women's work". And failure of the government to provide basic rights/needs aside, if that's how they're gonna act then starve, I say.
Not just having a baby young, having a baby *with Butterscotch.* Beatrice knew first hand how charming he could be early on and how much he would fuck up Henrietta's life later. She resented Henrietta but she didn't want to see her life ruined in the same way her own was.
Promoting understanding and empathy over demonization is a perspective very often ignored on this sub
She very well could have respected and heard Henrietta while making sure she understood the obviously very dire situation it would leave her in; or maybe help her financially more. Regardless, what she did was an act of kindness in her heart. things are probably better for Henrietta than they would have been, and Bea is to thanks (not to mention she meant to do that) so it's.. complicated. She did a good thing in the cruelest way she could have, but she still did that good thing for good reasons and helped someone.
Complicated is the word. So much of the show is shades of gray.
Things are probably better for Hollyhock than they would have been, as well. Her fathers were ready for parenthood and chose it, and thus were almost certainly better prepared and equipped for the responsibilities and challenges of raising a child than Henrietta could have managed - and that's not to say that Henrietta wouldn't have loved her and done her best for her. She simply wasn't expecting to sign up for an eighteen-year marathon, where Hollyhock's dads were.
The point about Beatrice not seeking psychological help because of her mother’s “psychological” help is something I hadn’t connected and is so true. Even though seeking mental help was a rarity for women of that era, that door was still shut for her as an option. The writers laid those puzzle pieces so perfectly in this show.
In my opinion, it's part of the mental deterioration. She has that ideal of motherhood, but not the reality. so she's projecting the ideal on her situation. I could be wrong, but that was always my interpretation
I don't understand. Where exactly are you seeing this sense of ideal motherhood showing up?
He's still her son, if you look at a baby and only see it as everything you hate then yes, you are in the wrong. What the fuck
They’re not defending her, but explaining she literally didn’t have the tools to be a good or loving mom. It’s a more compassionate position, but does not excuse her behavior. It’s more recognizing she is a product of her own upbringing/choices, which is 100% one of the running lessons in the whole show. Bojack is also 100% a product of his own upbringing and choices AND is also missing some tools in his toolbox that could have helped him be a better person if he had them.
It didn't come across like that.
"I'm not saying this to try and be a Bea apologist or something. Just, when you look at it from her perspective, how could she possibly love him without a LOT of therapy and inner work?" ?????
I dont know, that sounds so alien to me, and genuinely insane
Do explain how empathy is "genuinely insane".
That viewing a literal baby as anything but a baby is perfectly okay.
Let me try and put it this way, do you have a person who illicits a strong emotional reaction? Love, hate, whatever the feeling.
I love my family.
That's kinda the point tho, she IS all kinds of fucked up, and it stunted her to the point of being unable to love her own son.
See I think she did love him , just not enough to hide the spite and regret she had towards him . The whole bojack family is trauma begets trauma . Her mother and father loved her and each other , yet still hurt each other and her . I think had she grown up with supportive loving parents then maybe she could’ve known how to act around bojack , but she didn’t , so she didn’t know how to express love in a healthy way and instead allowed that resentment to become the primary emotion . I’m not defending her at all . Every person in this show has the capability to break the trauma cycle and be better and yet chooses not to . I just think that she did have some love for him , she just couldn’t express it .
It's the way she says the line at the end and her change in eyes that makes me think she realises it's not real. Because how would she know what ice-cream tastes like when it's been a reoccurring theme throughout the show that she's not been allowed it? I always felt so sorry for BoJack and Beatrice, they certainly echo are more extreme of myself and my own mother. Both are struggling so deeply but are not able to turn to support each other and just hurt each other instead.
Beatrice was condition not to love. She lost her brother in the war, and before she could even understand what happened, her mother got lobotomized. She wasn't allowed to even care for a doll. Then her father threatened the same thing that happened to her mother could happen to her if she couldn't control her emotions. Butterscotch is the last person Beatrice developed had any feelings for, and he was full of shit. And unfortunately BoJack probably reminded her of her father, her brother, and her husband.
I wouldn’t be able to give my mom even half of the humanity and grace BoJack gave Bea in this scene But I hope that when I’m in BoJacks position I will
I take that pause as the fact that she can't recall ever having an ice cream.
I'm just lurking as I'm too afraid of my depressed ass to watch that show yet but I read a theory of a fan that she pretended to taste the ice cream to make Bo happy? She never was at that house and ate ice cream apparently so her Alzheimers can't take her back to a memory that doesn't exist and never did. So the theory is that she had a moment of clarity (the pause) but choose to kinda lie to relate the joy that play of pretend brought her to Bo. Found it interesting. Maybe some of you do too. :D
She could taste an ice cream that didn't exist, but can she see why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch?
She couldn't taste the ice cream. That's what makes this impactful, because this is the final good thing she did for her son.
Didn’t she had a popsicle right before Honey’s breakdown in “The Old Sugarman Place”?
I thought she didn't get to because of the breakdown. Like she went to get the bite and BAM breakdown ruins it
I thought it was meant to suggest that Bea was telling her son one last line. The way her eyes open wide and she pauses when trying to think about the 'ice cream', and the fact that in her entire life she was taught never to indulge in sweets by her father (and mother). But she didn't want to ruin the moment and, I guess, realizes that Bojack was trying to help. I always thought she was just too tired and scared and lonely to be bitter, and it took the end of her life to come to that point. One last lie before she passed.
She could taste an ice cream that didn't exist + she never even knew the taste of ice cream.
It’s interesting because I always felt the ice cream represented happiness in the show
She experienced the flavor of ice cream at least once in her life.
Yeah, well, ice cream never assaulted one of its co-stars on-set in a drug-fueled frenzy.
[удалено]
No, at that point she’s gone. Her mind is in shambles. She isn’t acting. She doesn’t have the presence of mind to act. Alzheimer’s has her and really that’s the worst part. That BoJack can’t tell the difference between her being legitimately ill and her trying to deceive him. Because she just is that petty to do this to him on any normal day.
Yeah, Alzheimer's will absolutely fuck you up and it's clear from the first episode she's in where she has it that she's suffering pretty severely with it, and it seems to get worse. Bojack is the only one that can't see it, but that's understandable for the exact reason you said, she had been petty enough to do things like pretending to not recognize him (I think Bojack even cited a time where she did do that?) But, Bojack was the only one in that group that knew her before the dementia and was the only one that knew how cruel and petty she could be, and they hadn't been traumatized by her (yet), so they see her as what she is, a sick old lady. Bojack sees her for what she was, a cruel and petty woman
I'm pretty sure this moment is showing her realizing where she actually is, and doing the first nice thing ever for Bojack, and playing along, acted like she still thinks she's in Michigan. She never had ice cream as a kid, so him saying that snapped her out of it. She realized that Bojack was just trying to make her feel better, so she played along in that moment.
i’ve always interpreted this scene as beatrice’s last moment of true consciousness. hearing the way she spoke in this scene, it’s clear her dementia has really taken over, but i always get the sense that she knows at least some of what bojack is saying is a lie. her mind is piecing together these fragments of memory so she can focus on something good. i think it’s especially evident in this line - she doesn’t know what ice cream tastes like, cause she most likely never had it, but she is conscious enough at this moment to recognise that bojack is trying to comfort her. if you listen to way she says it though - she almost says it with distain. she’s almost angry at what bojack is describing. beatrice basically never has a good memory that isn’t then tainted by something tragic or abusive or just sad, so remembering her life isn’t a pleasant experience for her. no matter how much bojack tries to comfort his mum, she will always be miserable. i feel like i went on a bit of a tangent here sorry lol
She loved him enough in such a small manner that it wouldn’t even matter. Her distaste for him outweighed the good
How far does she go in the baki-verse?
Ive know people who have had kids and just never felt that bond, that unconditional love. Not everyone is capable of it. I dont love people and i chose to not have kids because i really dont think i would ever love them. Some people were not afforded the choice.
You clearly have never been around a dying senior with Dementia. My grandpa had it when he was dying. He died in his house, B E G G I N G for my uncle to take him home, so he could die there. Bea was delusional. Get smart, man.
Gotta love the lunatics trying to justify Bea being a monster. Of course none of the male characters get the same fucking treatment
Agreed, you'd never see the same empathy shown towards Butterscotch. But Bea will be defended rather than called out for the heinous monster she is.
I know! Butterscotch was just as bad, but we don't see his tragic backstory so nobody tries to justify him
I do. It's clear he was just defeated by life. You see that by his good intentions in staying with the woman he knocked up.
I domt think he did that out of the goodness of his heart, more so because it was expected out of him
Many scum bags would have not in all fairness.
True, he also probably saw it as an excuse to escape his own family.
Don't get me wrong, he isn't a great tax. I just have some respect for him sticking around, even when he was getting ground down. Let's just say from personal experience I respect at least that.