"Hey, you know what I do when I have a really, bad, awful, terrible day?"
— Princess Carolyn
Far in the future, Princess Carolyn's great-great-great granddaughter tells her classmates about one bad day her ancestor experienced. She also throws in a subplot about BoJack and Diane trying to get Hollyhock's adoption papers from the LA Courthouse.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: It turns out the whole scenario of Princess Carolyn's great-great-great granddaughter telling her class about her was all an elaborate escapist fantasy she often uses to cheer herself up. By the end of the episode, it seems she's not going to be able to conceive a child.
- Artistic License – Geography: Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine comes from the territory of the eponymous town in France. It's not an Italian wine.
- Artistic License – Medicine: The laughing gas used in dental medicine, nitrous oxide, is used, well, to make the patient laugh and prevent anxiety crisis. It doesn't put the patient to sleep. Plus, it needs a constant application, a single inhalation wouldn't be enough to make lose consciousness to someone, even a child. However, professional clowns shouldn't exerce professional medicine in first place, and all was Todd's idea, so there is a chance they weren't using nitrous oxide.
- Art Shift: The sequence about the (supposed) brief history of Princess Carolyn's family is done using cut-out animation of photos of real cats.
- Celebrity Paradox: Both George Clooney and his counterpart on the series, Jurj Clooners, are mentioned by two background characters.
- Contrived Coincidence: Princess Carolyn is trying to avoid bringing up the miscarriage while at Sandro's...cue the triple entrances of Carrie Underwood, Carey Mulligan, and Mariah Carey note , and the very Italian-American Sandro refers to them all as "Miss-a-Carey".
- Decoy Backstory: What seems to be the backstory of Princess Carolyn's great-great-great granddaughter turns out to be All Just a Dream.
- Despair Event Horizon: With everything piled on her so far, the revelation that her necklace she had fixed is actually worthless leaves her in tears when she returns to her car.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Even in her own imagination nobody understands Princess Carolyn's insistence that an agent and a manager are different things.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When Ralph furiously asks Princess Carolyn why she didn't tell him about her previous miscarriages, she responds by bringing up this trope.Princess Carolyn: Are you kidding? I don't want you looking at me like that! (Ralph stares at her pityingly) Like that!
- Downer Ending: By the end of the episode, Princess Carolyn has lost a client, an unborn child, her assistant, her boyfriend and her family heirloom necklace is revealed to be worthless. All in a single day. What's more, her descendant "Ruthie" turns out to be a coping mechanism she used to deal with all this. Even BoJack is confused about this.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Whattimeisitrightnow.com appears among the images of clocks shown in Ruthie's presentation.
- Flooded Future World: Ruthie lives in an underwater city with the rest of civilization after the ice caps melted and the water levels rose.
- Foreshadowing:
- Princess Carolyn getting the news of her miscarriage, as well as the fact that her priceless family heirloom is a fake, is a subtle hint that the Framing Device is really a solace fantasy for Princess Carolyn.
- One of Ruthie's classmates is administered a drug labeled "Future Adderall". What looks at first like a sight gag turns out to be a hint that this isn't really the future.
- Framing Device: The episode begins with Princess Carolyn's great-great-great granddaughter telling her class about her great-great-great grandmother.
- Funny Background Event: As a result of the Framing Device, we see that Hollywoo is flooded (with water up to the sign itself) and that it's a "chilly" 127 degrees Celsiusnote !
- It's All About Me: Princess Carolyn is determined to have a kid by herself without any external help and only considers herself as if the potential father doesn't matter in any way at all. Naturally this drives a wedge in their relationship. Ralph suggesting pursuing "other options" is enough for her to kick him out and break up with him on the spot.
- An Immigrant's Tale: Ruthie's account of her ancestors. They were successful back in The Old Country but had trouble finding work in America, gradually sold all their possessions to stay afloat, leaving Princess Carolyn's trademark necklace and the land-on-their-feet mentality.
- Jerkass Has a Point: It doesn't matter if Judah was trying to protect Princess Carolyn, her anger at him is justified. An employee lying to their employer about a business proposition is a bad move.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: The more Ralph and Princess Carolyn want to have a baby together, the harder it gets for them. She has been hiding successive miscarriages from him, and eventually her infertility is the downfall of their relationship.
- Malicious Misnaming: Princess Carolyn tells her rival Vanessa Gekko, "You look tired, Veronica."
- "Miss X" Pun: Princess Carolyn is dancing around the topic of her miscarriage, so of course the very Italian-American Sandro obliviously refers to Kerry Washington, Carey Mulligan, Carrie Underwood, and Mariah Carey all as "Miss [Carry]". (Or "Miss Carey, first name Mariah" in the case of the latter).
- MockGuffin: The necklace that Princess Carolyn wears was thought to be a family heirloom given to her by her grandmother. She then learns that it's actually a fake costume jewelry from a JCPenny, making it worthless.
- Poor Communication Kills: Ralph is upset when he learns that Princess Carolyn had a total of five miscarriages in her life, including one in this episode. Earlier, Princess Carolyn talks with Ralph on the phone, with him saying she makes everything so "easy" because she seemingly doesn't break under pressure (she did before the phone call). She eventually dumps him because she thinks he saw her as an "easy girlfriend".
- The Reveal:
- The episode's Framing Device is just a Happy Place of Princess Carolyn's that she goes to to cheer herself up on very depressing days.
- Princess Carolyn has another miscarriage and reveals that she's had three more besides the two we know about, for a total of five. She later learns that the chances of another pregnancy are pretty much zero at this point.
- Running Gag: In the Framing Device, the photos of BoJack and Diane and the same stock photos used for each respective character: The sneezing on Marissa Tomei photo and the sandwich eating photo, respectively.
- Spiritual Adaptation: Not officially, but it is very similar stylistically and story-wise to the How I Met Your Mother episode "A Symphony of Illumination". In that episode, the framing device is that Robin is telling her future children a story from before they were born. However, in the present Robin learns that she is infertile, and eventually it's revealed that the future children are imaginary, and Robin in the present is imagining telling them a story to console herself.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Lampshaded. Since Ruthie is supposed to be telling a story about Princess Carolyn, her robot teacher considers the side story of BoJack and Diane an unnecessary B-plot.
- Wham Line: "I imagine my great-great-great granddaughter in the future talking to her class about me."
