Fish Out of Water (BoJack Horseman)

"Fish Out of Water" is the fourth episode of the third season of the American animated television series BoJack Horseman, and the 28th episode overall.^[1] It was written by Elijah Aron and Jordan Young, and directed by Mike Hollingsworth, and was released in the United States, along with the rest of season three, via Netflix on July 22, 2016. Angela Bassett provides her voice in a guest appearance in the episode.^[2]

"Fish Out of Water"
BoJack Horseman episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 4
Directed by	Mike Hollingsworth
Written by	Elijah Aron Jordan Young
Featured music	"Sea of Dreams" by Oberhofer Score by Jesse Novak
Original release date	July 22, 2016 (2016-07-22)
Running time	26 minutes
Guest appearance
Angela Bassett as Ana Spanikopita
Episode chronology
List of episodes

The episode features BoJack travelling to a film festival in the ocean, where he wears an oxygen-filled bubble to continue breathing. Notably, the episode features less than three minutes of audible dialogue.^[3]

In 2017, the episode was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Animation at the 69th WGA Awards. The episode "Stop the Presses" from the same season won the award.^[4] The episode was also nominated for Best Animated Television Production at the 44th Annie Awards.^[5]

Plot

Ana Spanakopita sends BoJack to the world's biggest underwater film festival to promote Secretariat. Unfortunately, ex-Secretariat director Kelsey Jannings is also attending. Faced with the thought of seeing her, BoJack panics: not only will he have to have an awkward confrontation, he will have to do it underwater, where speaking is inhibited by his helmet. BoJack goes to the festival lobby where press events are underway. A group of fish journalists take his picture, so he poses for them—giving them the thumbs-up sign, not knowing that this gesture is offensive in Pacific Ocean City. He notices Kelsey sadly trying to drum up interest in her movie, so he tries to write her an apology note, but she disappears before he can give it to her. BoJack falls asleep on the bus, where he has to help a male seahorse give birth, and becomes stranded far from the city. As he starts his long walk back to the festival, he realizes that one of the baby seahorses clung to him, so he reluctantly decides to find its dad. Following many misadventures, he reunites the baby with its father, but it turns out that it was not missed.

The seahorse dad invites BoJack in for dinner and even offers him money, but BoJack declines. He leaves, depressed and envious of the seahorse family. BoJack catches a cab back to the hotel. En route, he writes a heartfelt apology note to Kelsey. He arrives too late to attend the premiere, so he returns to the hotel just in time for the afterparty, where he learns that Secretariat was a huge hit. As Kelsey leaves the party, BoJack runs after her cab, but by the time he reaches her window, his note has become runny and blurred. Kelsey speeds off without knowing what he wanted to say. As BoJack stands at a crosswalk, a man with a helmet yells at him by pressing a button on the collar. Realizing that he could speak the whole time, BoJack presses the button as he shouts, "Oh you have got to be kidding—".^[6]

Production

According to series creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the idea for "Fish Out of Water" came from the desire to do an episode that relies on visualization rather than dialogue.^[7] Supervising director Mike Hollingsworth had "always wanted" to do an underwater episode.^[7] The decision to do the episode in season three came early on into its production, but it was difficult to figure out how the characters would communicate with each other in an underwater setting.^[7] The crew eventually settled on having the characters speech be garbled.^[7] For inspiration, and to make sure they didn’t copy any of its humor, Bob-Waksberg watched the Futurama episode "The Deep South", which also takes place underwater.^[7]

Netflix was hesitant towards the idea, due to its differing approach from the series' usual structure.^[7] Netflix eventually came around towards the episode, and ended up "lov[ing] it".^[7] Due to the lack of dialogue, creating a script for the episode caused difficulties in its production.^[7] Writers Jordan Young and Elijah Aron wrote the script without any dialogue, instead writing "description and direction".^[7] Due to this, they could not figure out whether the episode was "10 minutes [long], or 50 minutes [long]".^[7] Hollingsworth acted out the script to see how long each story beat would be. Due to worries about the episode's length, a full act was removed, which Raphael says he "do[esn't] miss".^[7] To show that the episode takes place underwater, certain colors and background elements were prioritized.^[7] There was heavy discussion over whether the background fish should walk on the ground, or swim.^[7]

Reception

Critical reception

"Fish Out of Water" received critical acclaim, with many critics calling it one of the series' best episodes, and one of the best television episodes of 2016.^[8] Les Chappell of AV Club described the episode as "nothing short of a masterpiece, a culmination of both BoJack Horseman's unique animation style and its views on isolation and connection".^[8] Joe.ie's Rory Cashin called it "one of the greatest episodes of TV ever made".^[9] For Vulture, Jesse David Fox praised the episode as "a must-watch", noting that "the best part is, you don't have to have watched a single other episode of the series to love it".^[10]

Accolades

In 2024, Rolling Stone listed it as the 26th best TV episode of all time.^[11]