Relationship Spotlight: BoJack Horseman & Todd Chavez (BoJack Horseman)

BoJack Horseman dropped the first half of its final season last month, which of course got me thinking about BoJack Horseman again (and asexuality in the media – when the show wraps up in January, there will be no confirmed aces on TV anymore.) And while all of BoJack’s major relationships on the show are important in different ways, my sentimental favorite will probably always be BoJack and Todd (a few spoilers.)

Before we get to into it, I have a few things to acknowledge. First, BoJack and Todd’s relationship has changed a lot over the course of the series, and in the most recent season, they spend very little time together, in no small part because BoJack is in the midst of a very personal journey. Second, another reason for the changes in their relationship is their serious baggage. BoJack has done some truly terrible things to Todd, and as happy-go-lucky as Todd often is, that only goes so far, and the series has seen some major riffs between them.

Looking at the series overall, though, there’s a lot to love about BoJack and Todd. In a weird way, they remind me a little bit of Blackadder and Baldrick, with Todd as the everpresent quasi-dogsbody BoJack spends much of his time being annoyed by. We’re introduced to Todd as BoJack’s roommate, although we later find out he actually crashed a party at BoJack’s house once and just never left. He sleeps on BoJack’s couch and is constantly told by BoJack to clean up his shit (seasons later, we discover that BoJack’s house has a second bedroom he never told Todd about.) This places Todd in an odd position in BoJack’s life. He’s constantly in the way and taking up space in a manner that’s purposefully impermanent, with BoJack projecting the notion that he’s way past ready for Todd to get out of his hair, but that’s not the truth of the situation.

In truth, BoJack needs Todd, destructively so (their first major falling-out occurs when Todd learns that BoJack sabotaged a big break for Todd in order to keep Todd dependent on mooching off of BoJack.) Despite all BoJack does to demean Todd and all his weary irritation at Todd’s whacky hijinks, BoJack needs Todd’s chaotic-good friendship in his life. Todd is one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to hitting his limit with BoJack – BoJack really has to screw things up before Todd is done with him – but whenever he does reach that point, BoJack suddenly realizes what he stands to lose. BoJack’s apologies to Todd are often dramatic and involve big gestures. Honestly, the beats tend to be similar to big rom-com declarations, albeit with a lot more zaniness. I mean, Lloyd Dobler just held up a boombox. BoJack saves Todd from a cultish improv group at sea!

And in the midst of all the effed-up stuff, there’s just so much fun. I like how BoJack can be begrudgingly cajoled into having a good time with Todd sometimes, and when they really get into the shenanigans, it’s just off the wall. One of my absolute biggest laughs from season 1 comes in the middle of BoJack’s climactic bender, in which he and Todd are so out of it they’re not sure whether they’re holding guns or brooms but decide the only way to figure it out is to see if they can shoot each other. “Let them eat guns!!!”

Asexual Sighting: Todd Chavez (BoJack Horseman)

It was a while back that I caught wind that a character on BoJack Horseman, an animated Netflix original series with talking animals that delves into the nature of fame and the seemingly-futile pursuit of happiness and fulfillment (phew!), had an ace coming-out arc.  Unfortunately, it fell off my radar in a “so many shows, so little time” way, but I recently decided I wanted to take another tour through the few asexual characters I’ve encountered and figured I’d better add any new ones I can find to the list (within the next month or so, I should have another new ace from a show called Sirens.)  A few Todd-related spoilers.

First up, who’s Todd?  We meet him as the titular BoJack’s roommate – kind of.  Todd is a cheery but aimless 20-something who fell in with BoJack, a former sitcom star who’s been living off his residuals for 20 years and desperately trying not to be irrelevant, a handful of years ago.  Todd found his way to a house party at BoJack’s one night and never quite left; he sleeps on the couch and frequently irritates BoJack with his messiness, mooching, and harebrained schemes that take up lots of space around the house.

And for two-and-a-bit seasons, that’s pretty much who Todd is.  He’s lovable but dim, a nonchalant freeloader, a kooky ideas man who supplies plenty of B-stories with his crazy business ventures with frequent partner Mr. Peanutbutter (such as a Halloween store that’s only open in January,) and an incurable optimist as an answer to BoJack’s relentless negativity.  Other than his goofy side plots, he doesn’t get a ton of his own stories, but when he does, they’re usually about his relationship with BoJack and whether either of them is good or bad for the other.

In season 3, though, Todd gets a minor arc of his own that has very little to do with his patented “has this ever happened to you?” sales pitch.  A chance encounter reconnects him with Emily, an old friend from high school, and between the flashbacks we get of them and their present reacquaintance, we start to see that, how fast and furiously as Todd falls into friendship, romance and sex are another ball game for him.  As teenagers, it’s clear (probably to everyone but Todd) that Emily has a crush on him, and their first scene together shows her torturing herself by pestering him with questions about “who he likes.”  When he offers a safe but halting answer, Emily groans that “everybody likes Kimber,” thinking, Why do you have to go for the obvious pretty girl? when, for Todd, the answer is really that he was on the spot and threw out the first plausible name he could think of:  Who do I like?  Guys like Kimber – I suppose I do, too.  While the two eventually start dating, Todd is plainly uncomfortable at the prospect of having sex, and when they meet up again as adults, Emily’s insinuation that they pick up where they left off sends him into an unarticulated panic.

Matters get more complicated (although this arc does stay largely in the background of the season – to be honest, I was a little disappointed not to get more of it,) and it culminates in Emily bluntly asking Todd if he’s gay, confessing how confused she’s been by his apparently-mixed signals.  Todd, beautifully, replies, “I’m not gay.  I mean, I don’t think I am, but… I don’t think I’m straight, either.  I don’t know what I am.  I think I might be nothing.”  And to her credit, Emily immediately reassures him that that’s okay – I’m sure she’s bummed that their relationship won’t go where she wants it to, but I think it’s also a relief for her to know that it “isn’t her” and understand why it was she couldn’t get a read on how he felt about her.  It’s a really nice portrayal of a presumably-aromantic ace accidentally (and largely unknowingly) getting himself into a mess with a sexual who thinks he’s sending her signals he’s not aware of.  It’s respectful to the feelings of both and resolves gently, with friendship.

That last point is an important one.  One of the best things about Todd is that he’s such a devoted friend – not always the best friend, since he can be blithely obtuse and, although always well-meaning, he doesn’t always have the intelligence or ability to back his good intentions.  However, his friendship and loyalty is fierce.  This is especially true with BoJack, who has to do some seriously terrible things before Todd confronts him about how he treats Todd, but it applies to virtually anyone Todd comes into contact with for a decent-ish length of time.  Back in season 1, when Diane is working as BoJack’s ghostwriter, he wonders why they don’t “hang out” just the two of them, he and Mr. Peanutbutter make a fine hapless pair together, and he often assumes everyone to be as friendly and welcoming as he is.  One of my favorite sideplots of his is when he discovers a runaway “food” chicken from a slaughterhouse and, amidst his determination to help her escape recapture, guilelessly declares her “the best friend I ever had!”  I love that an aro ace character is so into friendship; as a fellow aro ace, that really resonates with me.

I think Todd is a great new entry to my meager list of asexual characters.  He’s a major supporting character whose storylines are often just about fun and humor, with tons of great lines and endearing moments.  Before this coming-out arc, any hints of romance for his character have been entirely ignored outside of a few mild references in the first couple of episodes, so this development is well within the bounds of his characterization.  And though I still have an admitted soft spot for the likes of Sheldon and Sherlock, the first ace-ish characters I came across, I always appreciate seeing one who doesn’t fall into any sort of “socially-abrasive ace” stereotype.  On the contrary – Todd is warm and loving, along with enthusiastic, dumb, lazy, creative, and mishap-prone.  In other words?  He’s entirely his own character who “just happens to be” asexual, and in my book, that’s pretty much always a good thing.  I hope we see more of him understanding his sexuality in season 4, alongside his usual antics, one-liners, and supportive friendship.