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"But I love my dog teeth!" |
Army is the sixteenth episode of the second season of Bluey.
Synopsis
Jack is the new dog at school and the newest recruit in Rusty's game of Army. Jack struggles with following instructions and always forgets his hat, but Rusty will make a soldier of him yet.
Episode Recap
His day starts in the car ride to school. His dad and sister criticize him for forgetting his hat, and his inability to sit still or follow instructions.
They arrive at the Glasshouse school, and Calypso advises him to introduce himself to Rusty.
Rusty is playing army. Jack asks to play with him, but explains that he's not good at following instructions. Rusty barks a few orders, and Jack obeys immediately. Rusty says he can play.
Rusty explains that Jack can't just start in the army; he has to go through basic training first, and Rusty will be his drill sergeant. He issues Jack his spare hat and advises him not to lose it.
Jack explains the army stuff Rusty taught him - hand signals, doing push-ups, code names for locations, and dust-offs (helicopter evacuations). Jack says his favorite part was playing sentry duty - because all the other soldiers were counting on him. After sentry duty, Rusty shares some rations with Jack, and explains that he knows so much about the army because his dad's in the army - he's out on patrol right now, but he'll be home soon, and promised to bring Rusty some condensed milk.
Rusty and Jack encounter a brush turkey, and Rusty announces that they're outnumbered and surrounded. They need to call for a dust-off, and Rusty asks Jack for the code name for their location. Jack is able to remember it - Tango seven. However, the chopper can't make it to them, they'll have to run to an alternate landing zone. Jack is really good at running, because he's a Jack Russell.
They make it to the chopper (a treehouse). As they look out over the meadow, Rusty asks Jack why he came to this school. Jack says there's something (wrong/up) with him - he can't sit still, he can't follow directions, he can't remember things. Rusty remarks that he's good at playing army. The episode leaves it to the audience to note that playing Army involved all those things. They return to the school for pick-up time.
We cut back to Jack telling his mum about his day. His mum remarks that he went into a lot of detail. Jack asks if he can have his condensed milk now. His mom asks where he got it, and he says he got it from Rusty - his dad came back from patrol and picked him up at school.
Appearances
- The Russell Family:
- Jack (debut)
- Jack's Mum (debut)
- Jack's Dad (debut)
- Lulu (debut)
- Calypso
- Rusty
- Coco
- Rusty's Dad (debut)
- Bluey (cameo)
- Winton (cameo)
- Snickers (cameo)
- Bella (cameo)
- Pretzel (cameo)
- Chloe (cameo)
- Frank (cameo)
- Mackenzie (cameo)
- Mackenzie's Dad (cameo)
- The Terriers (cameo)
- Honey (cameo)
Trivia
- This episode was shown on April Fools' Day.
- Incidentally, this aired a year after "Pirates".
- This episode debuts Jack and his family.
- This is the first episode where Bluey has no lines.
- This episode is theorised to take place during The Adventure, as evidenced by Princess Chloe riding Bluey as a horse in the background. However, Bluey's bindle is missing - it may be a different game of Princess.
- This is the second episode where it focuses on one of Bluey's friends, in this case Jack and Rusty.
- This is the second episode where on the title card, a child, other than Bluey or Bingo, says "This episode of Bluey is called [episode title]". In this episode's case, Jack says the episode's title.
- The Disney+ closed captioning miss-quotes Rusty's declaration of "LZ (pronounced 'El-Zed' and meaning 'Landing Zone') is no good!" as "Owl's Head is no good!"
- It also accidentally called Jack, Chuck, in the beginning of the episode. Along the lines of "Hey, Chuck, ooh!" by his mum.
- The bird Rusty and Jack encounter while on patrol is an Australian brushturkey. In spite of the name and the physical resemblance, they are not related to North American turkeys.
- Rusty's cry of “Get to the chopper!” echoes the iconic quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in the first film of the Predator franchise.
- During the scene where Rusty and Jack are sitting in the helicopter (treehouse), the music playing is reminiscent of Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth"
- Long Dog: This version of the long dog is a dull coloration of the original toy wearing an army hat. It is visible on the right side of the screen on the table with the vase of flowers, at both the start and end of the episode.
- Joe Brumm stated in an interview[1] that this episode was inspired by the work of child psychologist Lev Vygotsky, in particular an experiment where children were asked to stand still as long as they could, and then remember a list of food items. Then, the experiment was repeated, but the children were told to stand still because you're the sentry for those kids playing army, and to remember a list of food items because we're playing shopping. In the context of a game, the children performed much better.
- This is the second Series 2 episode to have regional differences. In the Australian version, Jack says, "There's something wrong with me", but in the Disney+ edit, he says, "There's something going on with me."
- When this episode aired on Disney Channel in the US, it was paired with Fancy Restaurant and Stumpfest.
- On the official website's page for this episode, Rusty is in his play military uniform.[2]
References
- ↑ https://www.blueypod.com/e/bonus-ep-aka-joe-brumm-in-2021/ relevant part begins at 36:30
- ↑ https://www.bluey.tv/watch/season-2/army/