This is the third post about developmental psychology and Bluey. For background info on Calypso’s school and breakdowns of Jack, Rusty, and Coco, click here. For analysis of Indy, Winton, and Chloe, click here. Let’s move on to some other characters though…

Pom Pom the Pomeranian and Snickers the Dachshund: Physical Disability
The episode “Seesaw” is a fascinating parable about disability. Sad and embarrassed that she’s too small to enjoy the other kids’ games at the playground, Pom Pom retreats to her mom’s lap. Noticing Pom Pom’s sadness, Bandit introduces a new game where the other kids have to try and unseat him from the seesaw. Though there are a few close calls along the way, Bandit manages to rig the game so that Pom Pom is the deciding weight to unseat him, proving to the other children that people of all shape, size, and ability have value. “Pomeranians are a small but hardy breed!” becomes Pom Pom’s new catchphrase, and Bluey soon starts saying the same of her friend.

Similarly, in the episode “Typewriter,” we learn that Snickers the Sausage Dog is unable to sit like the other children because of his long shape. Like Pom Pom’s journey in “Seesaw,” Snickers learns to appreciate his body when his slender shape allows him to better hide in a thicket of bamboo while escaping the Terriers. While the episode doesn’t focus as heavily on Snickers’s feelings as “Seesaw” did on Pom Pom’s, the theme remains the same: people of all sizes, shapes, and ability have intrinsic value and are crucial to our world.

Mackenzie the Border Collie: Traumatic Flashback
Oof, this one is rough.

Mackenzie is one of Bluey’s most outgoing and impetuous friends. Short on patience but high on energy, Mackenzie often motivates an episode’s progress (as in “The Creek” and “Shops”) or can be seen zooming around in the background. The episode “Space” showcases a different side of Mackenzie though. While pretending to be astronauts with Rusty and Jack, Mackenzie keeps wandering off and insisting his playmates leave him behind (much to their confusion). Toward the end of the episode, we see that Mackenzie has developed a fixation on a particular tunnel on the school grounds and feels compelled to visit it often, even if it means disrupting a game. It turns out, whenever Mackenzie walks through this tunnel, he experiences a traumatic flashback to an incident where, as a toddler, he was left alone and unattended in a supermarket play area. At an age where Mackenzie desperately needed security, he momentarily lost it, and the experience haunts him years later. As Mackenzie relives the memory, we see his terror and helplessness; we see him shrink back into a toddler and call for his mom only for her not to answer. He is utterly alone.

For such a cheerful show, it’s a very jarring scene. The show’s famously tranquil music even cuts out abruptly, and for just a moment, Mackenzie’s confused “Mum?” is the only sound we can hear.

Thankfully, Calypso finds Mackenzie in this vulnerable state and talks him back to the present. While so many of Calypso’s interventions involve pairing up children for therapeutic play, the severity of Mackenzie’s pain requires an adult, so Calypso intervenes directly. In a show already full of powerful statements on parenting and childhood, Calypso’s words here stand out: “You don’t have to keep coming back to this place.” After all, that’s what trauma is. Traumatic events unmoor us from time and pull us back like a black hole to places we don’t want to be— places where we were harmed, places where we are frozen, places where we needed help and it didn’t come. Calypso gently steps into this memory with Mackenzie and then, with the help of some of the other students, brings him back into his game of astronauts.

If there’s one criticism I have of Bluey, it’s that healing for the kids often happens very quickly— almost magically. Jack’s ADHD is alleviated by his friendship with Rusty in a single episode. Rusty and Indy learn their big life lessons from each other in a single game. Winton’s low self-differentiation is eased with one creative activity. But Mackenzie’s woe is different, and the show seems to acknowledge it’s different. One of the things I love about “Space” is the implication that this is just one of many instances where Calypso will intervene and help Mackenzie. The episode implies Mackenzie has come to that tunnel many times in the past, and while there’s healing in this particular encounter, it seems like this won’t be the last time Mackenzie visits the tunnel. He’s still processing. He’s still figuring out what that traumatic experience told him about the world and himself, and he’s still exploring how to rewrite that narrative. Trauma work requires a lot of trust and a lot of time, and I appreciate the ways in which the Bluey team recognize this.

This episode hits me hard for a lot of reasons. While I’ve spent a lot of time studying trauma for work, I have some firsthand experience here too. When I was about Mackenzie’s age, my older sister was in the hospital for over a year before her death, and during that long stay, there were a few times where I wound up alone in hospital spaces. Though I still visited hospitals often after that (usually to see my dad at his office), there was always someone with me. It would be about fifteen years before I was alone in a hospital again, and when that happened, the experience caught me off guard.

A friend of mine was recovering from surgery and asked me to come visit her in the hospital, and, while on my way to her room, I was briefly alone in an elevator. When the elevator doors closed, it was like my twenty-something self faded, and I was suddenly six years old again. The metal elevator car was instantly larger and louder and brighter, and I completely forgot why I was there. When the doors finally opened again, I had to sit on a bench for a minute and catch my breath before going to my friend’s room. Even though I work in hospitals now, I’m still a little cautious when riding solo in an unfamiliar elevator for the first time because I have had that experience a small handful of other times since then. An excellent therapist and a couple of really solid CPE supervisors have helped unpack those experiences and step with me back into the present.

One of my favorite aspects of Mackenzie’s story —one I relate to— is this theme of not approaching trauma alone. Whether it be with a therapist, a support group, or a kind Australian Shepherd, trauma is best approached with help.

[deep breath] Okay, we need something a little lighter before we close this out.

Mia and Captain: Adolescence
The episode “Barky Boats” introduces us to Mia and Captain, two preteens who come to Calypso’s school as older “buddies” to Bluey and Mackenzie, respectively. When Mia and Captain seem a little more interested in each other than in their buddies, Calypso takes the opportunity to teach a frustrated Bluey and Mackenzie about the wonderful world of teenage hormones. Calypso paints a picture of puberty as being different and scary but also exciting, and Bluey and Mackenzie quickly forgive their distracted buddies. Once again, Calypso uses relationships and games to teach deep themes and promote understanding.

In the final post (probably), we’ll wrap things up by looking at Bluey’s neighbor Judo, cousin Muffin, and the show’s title character herself.