By Jacob Huller

Special to the Chronicle

This past Friday, the long-awaited fourth season of “BoJack Horseman,” the animated story about a talking horse celebrity of the same name, hit Netflix with a total of twelve episodes.

The series, created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, centers around the titular BoJack Horseman voiced by Will Arnett, an anthropomorphic celebrity horse, and his struggles with being a past-his-prime former sitcom actor. The cast also includes Amy Sedaris as BoJack’s former agent and girlfriend Princess Carolyn (an anthropomorphic cat), Paul F. Tompkins as BoJack’s happy-go-lucky rival Mr. Peanutbutter (an anthropomorphic dog), Alison Brie as BoJack’s writer friend Diane (a human) and Aaron Paul as BoJack’s aloof friend Todd (also a human).

Originally debuting in 2014, “BoJack” takes place in a world in which humans and the rest of the animal kingdom live and work side by side, and many of the background gags revolve around the implications of that society. This is a world in which the fish population of the world have an entire undersea society, a horse can be a dad on a sitcom and a dog and a human can be in a romantic relationship.

None of it truly affects the story itself, but that just makes it even better. Not for a second does the show forget that it takes place in the world of humans and anthropomorphic animals, and yet at the same time it never dwells on the fact that a cat, a dog and a horse make up over half the main cast.

Over the course of its run “BoJack” has been heralded for its dark comedy, absurd scenarios, relatable characters and surprisingly depressing plotlines. The previous season – which premiered just over a year ago – ended on a notably bittersweet note, with BoJack running away from the success of being a major film star, cutting off everyone with whom he had surrounded himself and almost committing suicide.

BoJack’s story this time around focuses on him and his supposed daughter Hollyhock, who comes to him in search of her origins. If the previous season was BoJack reaching his lowest point, then this season is him beginning his slow ascent out of the darkness. He makes amends with his mother, apologizes to the people he wronged and all-in-all is on the road to getting better. It’s a long road and we even get to see BoJack’s daily thought process – namely informing himself multiple times that he’s terrible and going against his conscience.

However as BoJack overcomes his past struggles, other characters’ struggles progressively worsen. Following up on the threads set up last season, Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter’s marriage troubles become exacerbated by the latter running for governor of California and the former not liking many of his positions.

The election plotline allowed the writers to get in quite a few satirical jabs at politics (including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infamous tenure in said office). Though comically most of the focus is on the ridiculous series of events that gave Mr. Peanutbutter the ability to run for governor in the first place, the dramatic focus is on how it affects his and Diane’s marriage.

By the end of the season, while Mr. Peanutbutter (thankfully) doesn’t become governor, he and Diane are not any better than they were before. Mr. Peanutbutter is still as impulsive as ever, giving Diane a big gesture of love out of fear of her leaving him otherwise and Diane is too head-strong to ever compromise. The best part, however, is that it’s still portrayed as a real relationship. In the same episode as their marriage falling apart, both of them genuinely enjoy their time together while on vacation. They don’t hate each other; they just have personalities that don’t mesh much of the time.

Princess Carolyn last season, after failing as an agent, found love in a mouse and became a manager (which, as many point out this season, is basically the same thing as an agent). However she, like BoJack before her, ends up self-destructing her newfound happiness when she finds out that she can’t have a child like she’s always wanted. She even greenlights a project just because it has the same name as her nonexistent son. In many ways, Princess Carolyn acts as an anchor for the audience, because out of all the characters, she ends up in the least-outlandish or unrelatable scenarios – though that’s not to say she doesn’t dip her toes in creepy clown dentistry or underground insect orgies; again, makes just as much sense in context.

Todd is arguably the only one who gets through the whole season without emotional trauma of any sort. After coming out as asexual at the end of last season, it’s good that his arc here is one of self-discovery and becoming comfortable with himself, even going to an ace meet-up at one point. He spends much of the season wrapped up in wacky comedic subplots, which is both par for the course for him, and yet never gets old.

But the real star of this season, arguably, is not BoJack or any of the regulars, but his mother Beatrice. Throughout the series, we see glimpses of her being a bitter and cold woman, cruel to BoJack to no end, always kicking him when he’s down. In the fourth season, we finally get to see why. Growing up in the 1940s with a father who, as a “modern American man,” could not handle “womanly emotions” did not do her any favors.

During these flashbacks, the series does not pull any punches in showing the 1940s/50s/60s in the most negative light possible. Back then, inconsolable depression was simply “fixed” by a full-frontal lobotomy, which is what becomes of Beatrice’s mother. “What’s broken in a heart can never be repaired,” Beatrice is told, “but the brain, well we have all sorts of science for the brain!” a line that sent shivers down this reviewer’s back.

When we meet Beatrice again in the present, she’s suffering from severe dementia and doesn’t recognize BoJack in the slightest. BoJack’s only reason for sticking with her at that stage is, by his own admission, so he can jog her memory and curse at her for being such a terrible person.

In prior seasons of “BoJack,” the penultimate episode has been known to be the major gutpunch of the season to the audience – and this one was no exception. It tells the story of how BoJack’s mother and father met, and is one big deconstruction of the whole “star-crossed lovers run away together in act of rebellion” trope. Their marriage is utterly miserable, only held together by the existence of BoJack, whose own messed-up psyche is a direct result of that dysfunction.

It’s too early to tell how this season stacks up against the others, but above all else, it shows that “BoJack” can still make its audience laugh and cry just as it has done before.