What’s the Deal With ‘Bluey’s “Space” Episode? Joe Brumm Shares His Insights

Bluey has garnered a reputation for exploring sophisticated themes and emotions. However, sometimes the show gets so cerebral that audiences are left scratching their heads. And that’s okay! Good art should challenge you, even if it’s a kids’ show. Still, if you need a little help wrapping your head around the episode “Space,” we’ve got you.

In “Space,” three of Bluey’s classmates decide to pretend they’re space explorers. Jack, Rusty, and Mackenzie head out to a rowboat in the middle of the field by their school. But after their ship takes off, Mackenzie starts getting lost over and over again. Finally, while the crew is in hypersleep, Mackenzie changes course for a black hole.

When they get there, Mackenzie tells his crewmates that he has to go through the black hole alone. Once inside, he finds himself transported back to a memory from when he was little: he’s at an indoor playground, and when he comes out of a slide, he can’t find his mother. Luckily, his teacher Calypso tells him that his mom is just on the other side of the play structure. Mackenzie hasn’t been abandoned—he just got mixed up for a minute.

Then Calypso says something interesting: “You don’t have to keep coming back to this place.”

Mackenzie, healed from the trauma of thinking he was abandoned, is able to go back to his ship.

Many viewers have interpreted Mackenzie’s plight as a very mild form of PTSD: the experience of getting lost in the play structure traumatized him enough that he finds himself stuck there, unable to move on.

Series creator Joe Brumm has also shed some light on the episode. Speaking on the Gotta Be Done podcast, Brumm explained that he’d been learning about how teachers and other people who work with children can help them move on from traumatic experiences. “I read a lot about play therapy and how … you can get stuck in reliving something,” he said. “[Play therapy] can appeal to a kid, and sometimes if they’ve had a car accident or something like that, their games tend to get stuck.

“I thought that was a lovely little story with Mackenzie and his mates,” Brumm explained. “They give him that space to be stuck in that, and then Calypso is there to be that person who just says, ‘you know what, you’ve seen this now,’ and she helps him to unhook from it a little bit.”

(featured image: Disney+)