For the rest of the summer, I will focus on completing a draft of my novel. I’m simplifying my newsletter by writing the same thing every week- a brief talk-through of an episode of television that I find interesting. I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll be back with essays in September.
Bluey is incredible. By now you know this even if you don’t have a kid to watch it with. You might even know that Bluey is famous for making adults cry. It certainly makes me cry.
My favorite episode of Bluey is season three episode forty-seven, Cricket. I watched it twice in a row just before writing this, and it made me cry both times!
It starts with a narrative hack, which is voice over. Voice over makes writing easier, because rather than coming up with clever, show-y not tell-y ways to let the audience know what’s going on, a disembodied voice lays it all out. Bluey’s dad, Bandit, narrates this one. It’s very helpful, because this isn’t a normal episode of Bluey, where Bluey and Bingo play a game with their parents. It centers around one of the secondary kids. Bandit begins, “Let me tell you about the time we tried to get Rusty out.”
Rusty is a recurring character on the show. He’s a good kid, like all the kids on Bluey (and in real life). The kind of kid who’s confident and self-assured, with an easy physicality. His dad is in the army, which is tough for Rusty, but he’s also really proud of him.
Bandit then drops us in the middle of a birthday party, where some of the dads are playing cricket with the kids (this is my only small dislike of the episode- why not let a sporty mum get in there too?). Bluey asks why they can’t play another game. She says that cricket is boring- it’s just hitting a ball in grass. Bandit responds, “cricket’s about more than that, kid.”
The episode has now given us its central question just a few seconds in: why are sports worthwhile? And narrator Bandit tells us why over the next few minutes.
Rusty gets up to bat, and Bluey tells her dad that he’s not gonna get Rusty out. Bandit doesn’t quite believe her. Rusty is a kid. Then, in Slumdog Millionaire-style, narrator Bandit explains all the ways that Rusty is prepared to handle whatever the dads have to throw at him. Rusty loves cricket. He practices all the time. He got good at one particular move after he hit his mom in the face with a tennis ball and had to have better aim. He got better at dealing with wild balls after playing at his friend’s house without grass. He had to play there because his dad was deployed and his mom was working a lot one summer. He even can handle a really fast-paced ball you wouldn’t normally throw at a kid his age, because he played with his older brother’s team. And that team had an ace pitcher. Rusty couldn’t handle his pace. But then his dad wrote him a letter saying, “Rusty, you’ll face harder things than a cricket ball. Back away and get out. Or stay in front and play a full shot.”
This is the first time I cry. That is good advice for kids, but that is also advice I need, right now in my life.
Then it cuts back to Bandit and the dads, gone from befuddled, to bemused, to totally impressed. Through the adults’ eyes, you get to realize that Rusty is not only good at cricket, but he’s great at it. A true talent. And man, I remember kids like that. Sometimes I was a kid like that. When a young person is just great at something, it’s really cool. I love how Bluey helps me feel that again. And also, the dads are funny.
Then, it’s lunch time. They all start walking away. But Bandit and the dads want one more shot to get this kid out. Rusty says he doesn’t mind playing one more instead of heading off to lunch. Then Bandit narrates, “Rusty would have played fifty more. He just loved cricket.”
Aaaaand I’m crying again. I’m crying right now, writing this, just thinking about the episode. Remember being a kid and loving something for the sake of loving it?
And then. And then. Rusty gets out. But only because he gives an easy one to his little sister. The dads technically defeat him, but only because Rusty let his little sister win. Good grief. That’s delicious. And a good comedy moment for the dads. Writing-wise, Bandit is the protagonist of this episode. He’s the one with the want: to get Rusty out. And he does! But this is the PERFECT false victory. The only way the dads could get him out, was if Rusty was helping an even smaller kid feel good. Slightly humiliating. Ugh, the comedic irony is just delicious.
And what a fantastic episode. It’s proven that sports are way more than just a ball and grass. They’re stories. Which is exactly why I love sports, and exactly why I’m hoping my daughter will want to enjoy sports with me one day.
But the episode ain’t done with me yet. Because if me imagining my daughter in a few years cheering at a game with me isn’t bringing me to the brink of tears again (it is), the episode knows what to do. It fast forwards in time, to an Australian cricket pitch, and has kid Rusty walk by grown-up Rusty, who is a pro cricket player on the national team. TEARS TEARS TEARS TEARS TEARS.
I’m a comedy writer. I can tell you how to write a joke. I have no idea how to make anyone cry. This feels like a magic trick to me. In the Vulture article I linked above, it states that the “most crying” episode of Bluey is one that also uses this trick of fast-forwarding to the future at the very end to make you cry. I have a slightly different take on why than that piece, though. I’m pretty sure it works because you imagine your own child growing up. Or you imagine yourself growing up and getting everything you wanted. It basically reminds you that we’re all gonna die, but in the most beautiful, sweetest way possible, and also maybe makes you feel a little bit sad that life isn’t this adorable but then- wait. Maybe it is? Why can’t life be more…Bluey? Maybe you just need to look at it through a Bluey lens.
I love the Bluey lens. I think my daughter would watch basically whatever I showed her. But I only show her Bluey. I love it. I love the way it makes the world look. I’m going to hang onto this and only this show with her as long as I can.
