Spoilers follow for the Bluey season-three finale, “Surprise.”
Last week, Disney+ streamed a very special television event. It was like the moon landing, White Walker battle, and “Who Shot Mr. Burns” arc combined. That supersize, 28-minute episode of Bluey, titled “The Sign,” dealt with Bluey’s mounting dread about the Heeler family selling their impossibly nice Brisbane house and moving to a new city — until its final moments, when Bandit changed his mind. As critic Kathryn VanArendonk wrote about the episode, this would be disappointingly unrealistic for an average episode of the acclaimed children’s cartoon, but “as a way to transition the series into a new phase, ‘The Sign’ is like so much of Bluey: perfect and devastating.” But “The Sign” wasn’t a series finale. It wasn’t even a season finale. On Sunday, April 21, the nation’s children, parents, and childless adults who just really appreciate good TV woke up to a new season-three episode of Bluey called “Surprise!”
The episode is lovely, as always. Bingo wants to play house with Bandit, but Bluey wants him to play a game of Surprise, which basically amounts to her attacking him with some sort of Nerf-cannon thing she borrowed from a friend. Bandit goes back and forth between his children while also sneaking away to catch glimpses of an Aussie competing in a wheelchair race on TV. It’s a pleasant episode and return to form after last week’s big swings, with a nice message about disability awareness paralleled by a speech that Bandit gives to Bingo’s “baby,” Fernuken, whose tennis-ball head keeps falling off his stubby cooler (that’s “koozie” to you lot) body.
And then, in the episode’s final minute, the show pulls one of its classic time-jump stunts to give viewers a peek at the characters’ future, and this might be the most consequential one the show has ever had. At the beginning of the episode, Bluey asks Chili what having a baby is like. Later, when Bandit collapses in the kitchen, exasperated from dual-play time, Chili points and says, “That’s what having kids is like!” At the end, we see Bluey all grown up, popping in to visit Chili and Bandit at the same old house on the hill, although now they have such futuristic technological innovations as … a Roomba. “Can you believe your dad almost sold it?” Chili says, referring to the events of “The Sign” before mentioning that Bingo is out back. The pair head toward the backyard as the doorbell rings. Bandit answers, echoing an earlier scene of Bluey ambushing him while playing Surprise. This time, a new cattle dog puppy is smiling and waiting to attack.
Which means, oh my God, it’s Bluey’s kid! Rather, it could be Bingo’s kid, although everything about the way this episode and this scene are structured signal this being a Bluey baby. For all the attention “The Sign” has gotten, this feels like way bigger news! What’s an almost house sale compared to an actual Blueby?
The Blueby, as I’ll be calling it, looks a lot like Muffin with some more floof like Uncle Radley and one floppier ear like Uncle Stripe. You can look at this cute cartoon puppy holding a gun and say, Aw, cute! Or you can be like so many Bluey adults online and start speculating about Bluey’s baby daddy. Some people who think too hard about shipping dog-children have decided the father is Mackenzie, Bluey’s border collie school chum. Others think the dark floppy ear is long-awaited proof that Bluey is in for some kind of Before Sunrise love affair with Jean-Luc, whom we know she reunites with in the future thanks to “Camping.” Fans have decided these are the two most likely candidates, although Reddit user WatchAndFern has come up with a really compelling third option: “Or maybe sometimes people meet and have babies with someone they haven’t met when they were 7 years old.”
What could this mean for future time jumps in the much-hoped-for fourth season, as Bluey voice actors and audiences alike grow older and the show has to figure out how Bluey and Bingo will age along with them? What could this mean for the relentless forward marching greyhound race of time itself? There’s only one way to solve this: a Mamma Mia! situation.
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