The Intricacies of Mr. PeanutButter (a BoJack rant)
By Ty
MAJOR NOTE: You should 1) definitely watch BoJack Horseman (it’s easily the best thing I’ve ever seen, has the most quotable of quotes, and characters to die for, as well as character development that’s beyond perfect and 2) you won’t understand a word I say here if you haven’t seen the show in its entirety so, watch out!! >:)
To come clean, Pickles Aplenty has to easily, easily be one of the most lighthearted, fun-loving, and wonderful character in Bojack horseman. She’s young comparative to the rest of the cast (most in late 30s to early 50s) with the exception of Todd who’s only two years older than her. Her eyes are full of wonder about a new world that she’s just gotten the opportunity to see, as, despite my prior notions, being in your twenties is an experience of finding yourself in a world you finally get to see outside of the shelter of your home. I love Pickles because she speaks to people who see joy in loving the world, something very much welcome I a depressing but wonderfully planned show like Bojack Horseman. Though, we only get to see Pickles Aplenty in the final season, Season Six and parts of season five. I find her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Peanutbutter, a character that I feel that once only served a purpose as a foil to Bojack’s painful cynicism now-turned a person, or labrador retriever, of his own who’s nearly fifty.
Pickles, like most in her generation, really enjoys using social media, as well as interacting with those that watch her content, whom she refers to as her “Pickle Pack” (I’m smiling as I write this because there was a tounge twister involving this where Mr. Peanutbutter said, ‘I understand your pickle pack is part of how you process pain’). They’ve been with her through “thick and thin”, being the thing that managed to make her better on the days when she felt oh so down, and being the ones to lift her up on the days she was happy. They were the ones who encouraged her to try new things, which, I believe in a way, speaks to the way that social media has become so ingrained into the minds, relationships, and lives of children in this generation (though that’s a topic for another day).
We first get a glimpse of who Pickles is when we meet her for the first time at Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter’s divorce conversation. Diane has a lot of trouble moving on, which she doesn’t reveal to him, but Mr. Peanutbutter appears to be having no trouble with it. This occurs in season five. Mr. Peanutbutter meets Pickles here for the first time, and both being dogs (Pickles a pug, Mr. Peanutbutter a labrador retriever) their personalities appear to click extremely well, which Diane approaches with light jealousy, though she can’t communicate this to her now ex-husband. Soon after these events, its revealed that Pickles and Mr. Peanutbutter are dating, which doesn’t seem to surprise Diane at all, though, it, understandably, still hurts to see.
One thing that I feel is important to note about the character Mr. Peanutbutter, to sum it up in simplicity, is that he was not brought up in a place that truly valued all emotion, as they consistently underscored happiness over all else, resulting in a man that does not truly understand what it means to hurt people, his partners, or how to help people in moments when they feel upset. Mr. Peanutbutter lacks the emotional depth to understand why he can’t do certain things, something we see very clearly in his relationship with Diane, which eventually leads to his ruin. He’s always happy, though, not because he’s a bumbling fool, in fact, he’s rather observant, but because he doesn’t know how to process pain or self-reflection, which is why, at the end of the series when he writes the memoir “Sad Dog” and truly taps into his own mind and understand that he needs to mature himself, is when he can finally start to grow. All of this occurs though, when Pickles has already broken up with him.
Pickles is a young girl, as stated before, only being around 25, while Mr. Peanutbutter is 50, something that is pointed out especially by Diane because it shows a clear depiction of Mr. Peanutbutter’s patterns.
In the season five episode, ‘Mr. Peanutbutter’s Boos’ we get to see that Mr. Peanutbutter has been in four long-standing relationships, one with Katrina, his ex-wife (dating 1993) who now deeply resents him, Jessica Biel (dating 2004), Diane Nguyen (married 2014), and Pickles Aplenty (started dating 2018 or so). He consistently, as Diane states, marries women in their twenties, when the world has yet to change them into the person they’ll be for a good amount of their lives. As I’ve stated before, when you’re twenty, not only are you changing as a person, but also the world around you seems to change, as you’ve finally, or probably, I’m not one to say, left the house to experience the world for yourself. Twenties is a time of change and of growth, not one of stability and stagnation, but that’s what it became for Mr. Peanutbutter became when he was that age.
As I’ve stated before, he lacks emotional maturity in the sense of emotional depth and understanding of others, something that relates back to the fact that he’s actually a rather selfish person, highlighted in his marriage with Diane. He only appears happy with something he’s done when its through the lens of himself, not the lens of his partner. Though he thinks he’s being a good boyfriend/husband to the women he is with, in truth, the things he does are only through the lens and criteria of himself. ‘Do I want this?’ is what he asks, rather than, ‘Does she want this?’. This is what happened with Katrina when they went to Bojack’s halloween party and she expressed multiple times how nervous she felt, and yet, Mr. Peanutbutter disregarded her words until her eventual outburst. Something similar occurred with Jessica Biel, as she saw a mummy at the party that she explained to Mr. Peanutbutter she did not want to see due to an issue with casting for a movie. This also happened with Diane, as, due to her mild form of social anxiety, she was rather nervous being around all of these “famous people”, but Mr. Peanutbutter disregarded that too. He never heard her when she spoke to him, nor did he ever try to hear Katrina, or Jessica, or Pickles.
This is the reason why Pickles ends up hiding in the bathroom at the party, because she understands how long standing this history of Mr. Peanutbutter bringing his girlfriends is, and she feels unwelcome being the fourth in a long line of women.
Another interesting thing to point out here is that when Mr. Peanutbutter notes how this party has been around since 1993, Pickles notes “That’s when I was born!”, which makes Mr. Peanutbutter hesitate for a second. Not only does this point out to him how long he’s been keeping up this charade of dating people he doesn’t understand, but also how long he’s been keeping up this consistent ‘dating women in their twenties’ thing, which goes to show how far the lengths of his immaturity go, as well as his inability to actually recognize the problems with himself.
If I keep talking about this, the article will never end, so I’m considering making or doing a part two of sorts to cover the rest of their relationship, so how does that sound? I really enjoy talking about Mr. Peanutbutter, as he’s one of the most interesting characters to me, and Pickles is an excellent way to analyze his blaring problems in an effective way!