When BoJack drops by the grocery store to buy breakfast, he runs into trouble with a seal who called dibs on the last box of breakfast muffins. Out of spite, BoJack tosses the muffins into his cart and buys them, then eats all twelve them on the way home.
As it turns out, the seal was a Navy SEAL, and uses that angle on MSNBSEA to spin the argument into the story of a blowhard celebrity disrespecting our proud troops. Before he knows it, BoJack calls in and makes an ass of himself on live TV, revealing that he ate all twelve muffins because of his "missing goddamn self-respect."
That's not the end of it, though—because he's so afraid of opening up to his new ghostwriter Diane, he decides that focusing on the muffins thing is a better use of his time. He continues to call in to MSNBSEA and argue against Neal McBeal the Navy Seal, getting so mired in the debate that he offhandedly says that "I'm sure some of the troops are jerks." Which turns all of America against him.
It's up to BoJack to find a way to reconcile with Neal on live TV—and, maybe, to open up a little to Diane.
"BoJack Hates the Troops" contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: BoJack briefly dips into Will Arnett's LEGO Batman voice when yelling angrily at Pam.
- Ambiguous Syntax: Neal McBeal the navy seal, or Navy SEAL?
- Big Eater: BoJack eats an entire box of twelve muffins on his drive home from buying them.
- Big "NO!": BoJack's response when an Alpha Bitch tries to defend her actions.
- Bowel-Breaking Bricks: When BoJack starts shouting at the blonde girl in the bar, one of her girlfriends, a chicken, lays an egg in shock.
- Brick Joke: Mister Peanutbutter insists on naming his show "Mister Peanutbutter and Jelly", despite the Jelly part making zero sense. Towards the episode's end, it turns out that one of his crew members is called "Jelly" by her friends. Also doubles as a Contrived Coincidence.
- Comically Missing the Point: After BoJack unleashes a pretty brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech on a girl who's been making fun of him at the bar, the girl's only takeaway is "You think I'm pretty?"
- Dumbass Has a Point: BoJack gets mad at Pam, a young woman who invites her friends over and they arrive a bit afterwards to take pictures of BoJack, while he just sits at the bar and mopes. While she is a Dumb Blonde, she DOES flat out ask him that if she and her friends were bothering him, then why didn’t he just leave. BoJack replies that he didn’t think of that, and now he felt stupid.
- Flashback Cut: When BoJack is asked about his parents, he flashes back to a scene of his Hilariously Abusive Childhood.
- Furry Reminder: The chicken lady dropping an egg.
- Also, Tom on the news blows water out of his blowhole to emphasize how mad he is about this whole troop scandal.
- Jerkass Has a Point: BoJack's reasons for starting and continuing the feud with Neal are beyond petty, but his point about how the troops are as varied as any other group of people, with some of them being heroes and some of them being jerks, is actually extremely reasonable. Likewise, some of the things he's absolutely not saying during his final interview are at the very least perfectly valid points of view, in contrast to his usual rationalisations and delusions.
- Before that BoJack was acting rude towards Neal by stealing his muffins but in all fairness Neal just left them among the vegetables in good view instead of putting them in a cart or carrying them with him. A thing that BoJack points out more than once.
- Noodle Incident: This marks the first appearance of the File Photo of BoJack, which depicts him sneezing on Marisa Tomei.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Tom Jumbo-Grumbo refers to the muffin incident as "stealing a meal from Niel McBeal the Navy SEAL".
- Shout-Out: During Tom Jumbo-Grumbo's newscast, one of the headlines on the ticker at the bottom of the screen reads "Government declares war is good for absolutely nothing, says it again.
" - What Happened to the Mouse?: Mister Peanutbutter's reality show is never mentioned again.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: At one point, a news broadcast about a major education bill that's being voted on by Congress gets interrupted by the ongoing controversy of BoJack's comments on the American troops.
