As a recent college graduate, I am excited for the future but also kind of scared! It can be scary to leave what’s familiar and step out into an unknown future without knowing if all this unknown change will work in your favor. But just because the future is uncertain doesn’t mean it will be bad. It can even hold a lot of good you have never thought of! This is all shown in the Bluey special, “The Sign.”
The episode starts with the Heeler family planning to move, and poor Bluey is devastated to be away from all her friends. They’re moving because Bandit got a higher-paying job in another city, and he wants to provide the best life possible for his family. As for Chilli, she tries to support Bandit’s choice to move and encourages Bluey to be brave. However, she disagrees with Bandit’s choice to move.
At school, after Bluey’s teacher, Calypso reads a story, Bluey asks why stories always have happy endings. Calypso says she guesses it’s because life will give us enough sad ones. Bluey reveals that she’s moving to another city and will never see them again. Everyone is horrified by the news, and they all howl sadly together. In response to this news, Calypso reads the class a story about a farmer who encounters various strings of good and bad luck, and each time a situation looks like it will turn out one way for the farmer, it turns out differently! After the story, Bluey asks Calypso if the ending was happy or sad. Calypso explains, “It’s both.” Bluey says she doesn’t understand, and Calypso tells her everything will work out how it’s supposed to. Bluey takes this to mean her house won’t get sold.
One of the things I miss most about being little is that all the stories have happy endings. It’s comforting and gives you faith that everything will turn out alright. When you get older, however, you realize that life doesn’t always have happy endings. Life is more like that story about the farmer Calypso read. You can’t have a happy ending to life because life doesn’t truly end (except when you die, of course). Sometimes in life, you’ll get a happy ending; other times, you’ll get a sad ending. Sometimes, a situation will seem like a happy or sad ending, but then it will turn out completely differently than you expected. But they aren’t truly endings because there will always be more life left to live.
On the way home, Bandit remarks that Bluey seems to be in a good mood. Bluey replies that since Calypso said everything would “work out,” the dogs who were interested won’t buy their house. Bluey is swiftly proven wrong when they get a call from their real estate agent saying the dogs bought the house. Poor Bluey is crushed.
Bluey misunderstood what Calypso meant when she told her everything would work out how it was supposed to. Just because a situation “works out” doesn’t mean it’ll be how you wanted it to or envisioned it to be. Maybe a situation won’t work out how you originally wanted it to, but that just means it’ll make way for something better to happen! Conversely, sometimes, when you get the happy ending you wanted, you might realize that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and there are some problems you didn’t foresee.
Moving is not the only big change in Bluey’s life, though. There is another, happier change. Bluey’s “Fairy Godmother” Frisky and her Uncle Rad are getting married and having the wedding in the Heeler’s backyard! And even better, Bluey, Bingo, and their cousins, Muffin and Socks, get to be flower girls! Muffin goes to find Bluey to help show her how to be a flower girl, but with everything going on, Bluey isn’t in the mood. Bingo explains that Bluey doesn’t want Bandit to sell their house. Muffin then proposes a solution that is little kid logic at its finest: the “For Sale” sign means the house is for sale, so if you get rid of it, according to Muffin, the house won’t be for sale anymore. Bluey, Bingo, and their cousins immediately get to work trying to take the sign down, but since they’re so small and the sign is so big, they don’t have much luck. Frisky shows up and offers to help them take it down. Bluey is overjoyed, believing Frisky is helping them, when she’s actually taking it down for the wedding. Just as she’s about to help the girls take down the sign, she gets a call from Rad. She finds out that he made a decision for them to move after the wedding without involving her, and she is rightfully pissed. She goes off on him and gets in her car. Bluey asks about the sign, to which Frisky responds, “Leave it in Bluey. The wedding’s off,” and then drives away.
The girls run to Chilli and tell her what happened. Chilli calls Frisky, but there’s no response. Chilli won’t give up, though. She goes on a mission to find Frisky and talk some sense into her with the girls in tow. On their journey, various forms of good and bad luck befall the group. For example, Chilli gets pulled over by the police, but the policeman tells her that he gave Frisky a speeding ticket before, and she is headed towards the juice shop. At the juice shop, they cannot find Frisky, but Bluey finds a coin that becomes important later. They end up buying juice, but Muffin spills some in the car. However, while Chilli is cleaning the car, Socks spots Frisky’s car! While chasing Frisky, Socks must use the bathroom, so they lose Frisky. When they return to the road, they discover that a butterfly has gotten into the car, so they must pull over to let it out. They end up pulling over at a sign for a lookout where Frisky and Chilli used to go as teenagers to “think.” Chilli immediately knows that’s where Frisky is.
Turns out, Chilli’s right; Frisky is on the lookout, sitting at a gazebo, contemplating her life. The girls excitedly run up to Frisky and hug her. However, Muffin spots some binoculars, and all but Bluey runs off to try them. Bluey asks Frisky if she can return to the house now, and Frisky says she’s not. Bluey says she has to come back to take down the sign. Frisky and Chilli realize that Bluey was doing this because she thought it would keep them from moving. They explain to Bluey that it’s not how “For Sale” signs work. Bluey pleads to Frisky to tell Chilli not to make them move. Frisky asks Chilli if she’s sure she’s doing the right thing. Chilli snaps, and Bluey is surprised by this reaction. She explains how she was putting on a face to help Bluey be brave and thinks the move could be good for their family. Bluey responds that it could be bad, though. Chilli replies, “It could. I wish I could tell you which one it was gonna be for our family but I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.” At that moment, Bluey realizes what that story about the farmer meant. “We’ll see,” Bluey says. “Yeah, we’ll see,” says Frisky, and the three of them exchange a knowing smile.
At that moment, Muffin runs up to ask for a coin for the binoculars, and Bluey lends her the coin from the juice shop. She runs off to play with the other girls. Unfortunately, Bluey’s coin gets wedged in the slot, causing Bingo to remark that it wasn’t a very lucky coin. Bluey replies, “We’ll see.” As for Frisky, Rad finally finds her on the lookout, they reconcile, and the wedding is back on!
What I like about Bluey is that the adults also have their own issues to overcome. For example, Chilli does not want to move. When you’re Bluey’s age, you assume your parents are moving because they want to or are doing this to make your life harder. It never occurs to you that they might not want it themselves. They are just doing what they think is best for the family. Poor Chilli is trying to comfort Bluey and encourage her to be brave when she’s feeling pretty scared about the move. It sucks, but that is a reality of parenthood. While I understand why Chilli would have wanted to hide her fear of moving, I think it would have helped if she had told Bluey she was scared, too. That would have helped Bluey feel like she was not alone.
It can be scary when you make a huge life change, like moving, because you can’t be sure it’ll be a change for the better. When you make a big decision, you want assurance that you’re making the right choice and that everything will turn out alright. Chilli probably wants assurance that she’s doing the right thing by supporting Bandit’s decision to move, even though Bluey isn’t happy about it. Nobody can know for sure if they’re making the right decision. We need to face the future with a level of acceptance. We cannot guess what will happen, and predicting the future is pointless. You just have to let it play out.
The wedding goes off without a hitch. Frisky and Rad decide not to move, and Bluey’s grandparents show off their newfound flossing skills on the dance floor. The celebration is short-lived, as the Heelers begin moving out of their home the next day. However, when Bingo sees some of the movers, it finally dawns on her that when you sell your house, you must move out of it. Bluey finds Bingo attempting to take out the sign again and comforts her by telling her the story about the farmer.
Meanwhile, at the lookout, the couple buying the Heeler home wants to look through the binoculars, but neither has coins. Luckily, they find Bluey’s coin and manage to dislodge it. They see a house through the binoculars they like even better than Bluey’s house because it has a pool! They decide to buy this house instead. Upon hearing the news, Bandit rips out the sign from the ground with all his might, and his family rejoices. They later celebrate by having takeout in the empty living room.
Many people don’t like the ending of the special because they think the Heelers not moving negated the message of the special. I disagree, however. First, they foreshadowed the ending when Calypso said stories have happy endings because life will give us enough sad ones. I agree. We don’t need more sad endings. Life gives us enough of those already. Just because the story ended on a happy note doesn’t mean it’ll remain happy for the characters. The happy endings for the main characters were also beginnings that left them with new problems. For example, even though Bandit decides not to move, he turns down a job that could have made him a lot of money, and he and his family will have to deal with his unemployment. Frisky and Rad tied the knot, but they will have to work on their communication issues if they want their relationship to succeed. The main idea of the special is that there are no true endings in life.
In summary, change can be scary. It is scary not knowing what will happen and being unable to control it. But you have to keep an open mind about the future because while things might not work out how you wanted them to, they could still hold a lot of good you never thought possible.