Season 5

Complete listed story — includes the ending

1. The Light Bulb Scene

Well into the production of his new detective show and return to television, Philbert, anthropomorphic horse BoJack Horseman is having casual sex with his costar Gina Cazador and finds himself confused and aggravated by Flip McVicker, creator of Philbert. When BoJack takes offense to several scenes with unneeded sexuality, Flip writes a new scene where Philbert screws in a light bulb while naked. BoJack, not wanting to film any more nude scenes, tries to get his roommate Todd Chavez to infiltrate WhatTimeIsItRightNow.com, the website that streams Philbert, to send Flip an email prohibiting any further nude scenes; Todd obliges after his girlfriend, Yolanda Buenaventura, asks him to get a job, but he ends up becoming president of the website's ad sales and is unable to help BoJack. BoJack also admits to Princess Carolyn that he feels uncomfortable doing the show because Philbert reflects the worst parts of him, but both she and Flip promise that he and the character are separate people, so he films the scene. Mr. Peanutbutter picks his wife Diane Nguyen up from the airport, and hands over completed divorce papers.

2. The Dog Days Are Over

After Diane's therapist suggests she break her routine, she decides to go to a party at Mr. Peanutbutter's house but learns he is dating waitress Pickles Aplenty. She abruptly leaves for Hanoi, Vietnam, her family's country of origin, but finds herself out of touch with the culture. She quickly adapts to it and meets an American film crew member who does not believe she speaks English, a ruse she perpetuates until she accidentally speaks when a light falls next to her. Diane returns home to be given her signed divorce papers; she tells Mr. Peanutbutter that she is happy for him in his new relationship but breaks down crying in private.

3. Planned Obsolescence

BoJack discovers that Gina has a love for musicals and was always interested in singing, so he convinces Flip and Princess Carolyn to listen to her perform without telling her beforehand. She gives a mediocre performance and leaves embarrassed, and while she acknowledges that BoJack making her do it cleared up any ambiguity about her chances of succeeding, she asks him to not get involved in her personal life again. Mr. Peanutbutter convinces Pickles to watch the International Space Station being blown up with him despite her worries that they are moving too fast and accidentally admits that he still has feelings for Diane. Yolanda takes Todd to meet her hypersexual family, where her twin sister tries to seduce him by dressing as Yolanda, and her mother deduces that he is asexual and asks him to help her discover her own asexuality. After a mishap with a barrel of ancient lube leads to a fight, Yolanda comes out to her family as asexual and is accepted, but Todd breaks up with her after realizing she lied to her family about his credentials to make him look more impressive.

4. BoJack the Feminist

Diane is disturbed when Flip casts bigoted, misogynistic Vance Waggoner as Philbert's troubled partner. Mr. Peanutbutter is hurt that Princess Carolyn thinks he is not gritty enough for a reboot of Dog Day Afternoon, so he sets out to cause as much conflict as possible but only ends up helping everyone he meets. BoJack is hailed as a feminist icon after he expresses unrelated disgust at an award ceremony for Waggoner, which escalates when he says that choking women is wrong and becomes a sensation. Waggoner ducks any further controversy by proclaiming himself a feminist and drops out of Philbert, and Princess Carolyn brings in Mr. Peanutbutter to play his role. BoJack realizes that Philbert is perpetuating misogyny despite claiming to be a deconstruction of it and asks Diane to come on as a consultant, which she agrees to despite Flip's sexist attitude. Ana Spanakopita, Waggoner's publicist, meets with Diane to inform him that he has again been fired from his new film for bigotry but also plays for her the recording of BoJack admitting that he attempted to have sex with Penny Carson, his friend Charlotte Carson 's underage daughter, in New Mexico.

5. The Amelia Earhart Story

In 2007, Princess Carolyn, a young woman in Eden, North Carolina, falls for and is impregnated by the son of the wealthy family she cleans for. Her mother gives her her necklace and encourages her to marry into the family for the good of hers, but Princess Carolyn miscarries and instead leaves for Los Angeles to go to college. In the present, she returns to meet Sadie at a coffee shop, a teen mother set up to meet with Princess Carolyn who is looking to give her unborn child up for adoption. Through a series of phone calls, she learns that BoJack injured his back in a stunt accident on the Philbert set. After hanging out for a while, Princess Carolyn begins to alienate Sadie by snapping at people around them, despite the fact she tried to appear professional and sweet in front of her. Princess Carolyn tries her best to charm Sadie by sweet-talking her, but Sadie sees through the ruse and decides she is not a suitable candidate to adopt.

6. Free Churro

In a flashback, BoJack's father, Butterscotch Horseman, picks BoJack up from soccer practice after a depressed Beatrice Horseman, BoJack's mother, fails to get him, and Butterscotch spends the entire car ride complaining about her. In the present, Beatrice has died and BoJack speaks at her funeral, his eulogy eventually becoming about himself as he tries to deconstruct his warped views on love, the relationship between him and his parents, and his mother's last words, which he realizes were actually her reading the sign on the wall of the intensive care unit. BoJack comes to a realization that while he will never have the good relationship with Beatrice that he always wanted and that he does not understand what she wanted herself, she deserves the open casket that she requested and opens it, only to realize he was in the wrong funeral parlor the entire time.

7. INT. SUB

A married couple, Diane's therapist and a mediator for WhatTimeIsItRightNow.com, tell each other recent work stories where all the characters are changed to nonsensical versions of themselves. Diane's therapist tells her to give herself space from BoJack after she is unnerved by what she heard about him, and so BoJack tracks the therapist down and she convinces him to take her services, not specifying that he is actually agreeing to go to therapy. Diane is hurt when she finds out and stops seeing her therapist, only for BoJack to quit when he realizes that he was in therapy the whole time. Princess Carolyn requests a new office from Todd, but he is upset that she supposedly ate the last piece of string cheese in their apartment, leading to a fight that resolves when Todd finds his cheese and agrees to start paying rent. Diane confronts BoJack and becomes enraged when he says they are both equally unstable. She rewrites a scene so it reflects the circumstances of what Diane heard on the recording, something that only she and BoJack would understand.

8. Mr. Peanutbutter's Boos

The episode is told over four separate Halloween parties at BoJack's house, where at each party Mr. Peanutbutter takes a different partner. In 1993, he brings Katrina, his then-wife, who gets in a fight with him after he continually abandons her against his wishes. In 2004, he brings Jessica Biel, who fights with him after she sees BoJack dressed as a mummy, which invokes her fear of them. He takes Diane in 2009, where Diane, a big fan of BoJack, tries to talk to him just as he learns that Butterscotch died. Taking his reaction as a dismissal, she berates Mr. Peanutbutter for taking her to a party when he knows they make her uncomfortable, and he promises to never do it again. Todd, meanwhile, moves in with BoJack. In the present, Mr. Peanutbutter takes Pickles, but he upsets her when he cannot stop talking about his three ex-wives. Diane points out to Mr. Peanutbutter that his problem is his inability to mature as easily as his romantic partners often do, and she promises Pickles that she will be alright if she manages to get through the party.

9. Ancient History

Season one of Philbert wraps production, leaving Mr. Peanutbutter to ponder his next career move. Princess Carolyn is forced to meet with Ralph Stilton, her recent ex-boyfriend, when Mr. Peanutbutter pitches a show based on a copyrighted greeting card made by his company. She then learns there is a mother putting her almost born baby up for adoption. Ralph drives her to the hospital, but she is forced to tell him that she does not consider him a part of her life anymore, which inspires the mother to keep the baby. Emily, Todd's best friend from high school who he is now reconnecting with, creates a dating app for asexuals; while conversing with her, Todd notices she is distracted by her continuous stream of unfulfilling boyfriends, so he creates her a poorly designed sex robot named Henry Fondle, which she is put off by. Hollyhock, BoJack's estranged half-sister, comes to visit and disposes of BoJack's painkillers in a panic when she finds them, thinking he is attempting to drug her; this forces them to try and get more as BoJack claims he needs them, which leads to BoJack unintentionally committing to a relationship with Gina while trying to steal some from her house. BoJack and Hollyhock get caught in a sting operation during a drug buy and flee, during which Hollyhock jumps over a fence by boosting herself up on BoJack's back, making her realize he does not need his pills for pain. When she confronts him about this, an incensed BoJack tells her she can't understand the emotional pain he's been facing his whole life, and says the "one bad experience" she had with Beatrice is tame compared to what he endured. Before she departs, BoJack apologizes to Hollyhock and promises not to take painkillers unless he's injured again. After she leaves, BoJack gives into his withdrawal and impulsively drives into oncoming traffic.

10. Head in the Clouds

Two months later, BoJack has almost recovered from his broken arm, has increased his painkiller consumption, and has still not publicized his relationship with Gina. The day of the Philbert premiere, Princess Carolyn learns that Flip lifted a line in the show from a joke on a popsicle stick, and the two estranged joke writers come demanding compensation. Princess Carolyn instead fixes the relationship between the two and they sign a release form. While trying to get rid of Henry Fondle, Todd ends up taking him to work, and the robot becomes the CEO of the company by accident. At the premiere, Diane is put off by BoJack saying that the show made him feel better about the wrongs he has done and privately confronts him, getting him to admit to previously attempting to have sex with an underage Penny after a long argument. Diane leaves in disgust and accidentally untethers a giant Philbert balloon, while a shaken BoJack impulsively kisses a now successful Gina in front of a crowd. Henry Fondle orders a second season of Philbert. Mr. Peanutbutter drives Diane home, upset by Pickles not staying to watch the premiere, and Diane invites him inside after a tender conversation where she decides to quit the show.

11. The Showstopper

In the second season of Philbert, a series of strangulations start to occur. BoJack begins to hallucinate the runaway Philbert balloon and brief flashes of his everyday life being on a dark TV set, as well as a golden set of stairs leading up to a bright destination. When he receives a letter under his door that promises to expose his deeds (actually a Philbert advertisement), he begins to conflate his real life with Philbert's and investigates everyone close to him, including Diane, Princess Carolyn, and Charlotte Carson. He has a bizarre musical dream performed by Gina that questions the true motivation of his addiction to fame. Gina finds his stashes of painkillers and leaves him when he tries to take them back by force, while on the show, her character discovers Philbert is actually the one responsible for the stranglings. He starts to choke her, and BoJack does not stop when Flip ends the take, forcing Mr. Peanutbutter to pull him off as everyone watches in horror. BoJack flashes out of reality to the stairs and ascends them, finding himself in a crudely drawn empty space with the Philbert balloon floating above him.

12. The Stopped Show

Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane argue over whose fault it is that they had sex after the Philbert premiere two months prior but end up having sex again. After another argument, Diane seems to convince Mr. Peanutbutter to be honest with Pickles and rejects his offer to start another relationship, but he is unable to tell Pickles the truth and instead proposes to her. BoJack awakens unable to remember the previous night until Princess Carolyn shows him a video taken of it, having been leaked to the media. She sets up an interview with Biscuits Braxby, who softballs BoJack and Gina during their interview. Gina tells BoJack that she will not take action against him for the sake of her burgeoning career, but she never wants to interact with him again outside of their professional lives. Henry Fondle is ousted from WhatTimeIsItRightNow.com for his sexual misconduct, and Todd takes him out to a field to kill him with a taser. Philbert is cancelled as a result, giving Princess Carolyn the opening she needs to go to Eden, North Carolina just as Sadie gives birth to a female porcupine; Sadie gives it to Princess Carolyn for being the only prospective parent that was kind to her. BoJack asks Diane to write an article about all his misdeeds, but she instead takes him to a rehab clinic. He asks her why she is helping him after all he has put her through, and she tells him a story about a friend who abandoned her in high school, but who she still took care of when she went through a crisis. As BoJack walks inside, Diane waves to him before driving away.