The ancient philosophy behind Bluey's blockbuster episode The Sign

At its heart, like all the very best children's shows, the creator Joe Brumm has made a series that entertains and engages the adults as much as the children. Much of the plot of each seven-minute episode centres around the games the two puppies play with each other and their friends (inspired by Brumm watching his own daughters play and interact with each other), often overseen by Bandit, the world's most hyper-present and effusive dad.

But alongside more genuinely laugh-out-loud moments than in most primetime comedies or sitcoms, it contains more serious elements too – snapshots of parenting situations that will be painfully familiar to any guardians or caregivers, as well as inferences to momentous life events like death, marriage, miscarriage and infertility. However, lest that sound bleak, these are all presented through the colourful gaze of two little dogs dressed up as blanket-clad old grannies, or singing a made-up song about a "poor little bug on a wall, ding ching". It's this enmeshing of navigating an adult world with the joyous, surreal excitement of childhood which has led to the show being called "the best television series in the world" by The Guardian, and landed Bluey an International Emmy award in 2019.

Many families, like my own, discovered the show during lockdown, and the new episodes couldn't come quick enough. But the third series, which premiered in Australia in 2021 and in the US and UK in 2022, was split into batches, and has been stretched out across more than two years in some parts of the world. The two new episodes, Ghost Basket, which premiered last weekend, and The Sign, are expected to be its finale, unless the Bluey team have any more surprise episodes up their sleeves for this season.

Rumours of a 28-minute special episode first began on Reddit last spring. Ludo, the production company that make Bluey stayed schtum until the November announcement, when it was confirmed with a title, The Sign, and a teaser trailer on the official Bluey website. With the confirmation from its makers, then the speculation began in earnest about what would happen in it to justify its extended length. "I actually think we're getting a character death, and I think it's Grandpa Bob," suggested a fan in one Bluey Reddit subgroup, while another person said of the episode's name: "I think The Sign is a 'plus sign' on a pregnancy test for Rad and Frisky [Bluey and Bingo's respective uncle and godmother]". Another commented: "The Sign is more likely going to be the wedding episode, and if not that then it might be about the Heelers either moving or going on vacation or something."

Some of these theories were spot on: in The Sign, the Heelers do sell their house and plan to move away (initially), as first revealed in Ghost Basket. There is also a wedding between Rad and Frisky – almost jeopardised when another family member puts their foot in it. While another older relative makes a welcome return, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment revealing the happy news that Bluey's aunt Brandy is pregnant (following the suggestion that she had fertility issues in the emotional episode Onesies) is likely to make some adult viewers well-up. Oh and happily for any Muffin fans – myself included – Bluey's cousin and a young agent of chaos is once again at the front and centre of the action.

But what viewers won't have predicted will be how much this episode draws from Taoist philosophy, an ancient Chinese belief system based on trying to exist in harmony with the universe. When Bluey sadly tells her classmates she's moving away (cue cute howlings from all the pups), her ever-Zen teacher Calypso reads a story called The Farmer. The story follows a series of events happening, and each time, the neighbours tell the farmer that it's "good luck" or "bad luck". Every time, the farmer simply replies to each situation: "we'll see", and the story then ends seemingly abruptly.

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"Is it a happy or sad ending?" asks Bluey afterwards. "It's both," says Calypso. "I don't understand," says Bluey. "Everything will work out the way it's supposed to, Bluey," she replies. The story is actually an old tale first that originated in the Huainanzi, an ancient Chinese text dating back to 139 BC, and it reminds people that we have no control or no real way of knowing whether events that happen to us are "good" or "bad", in the grand scheme of things.

All we can be certain of is that change is inevitable, as young Bluey and Bingo find out in this particular episode, but being open to change and trusting that things will work out for the best is the best way to tackle it. Mirroring the story of the farmer, the idea of "luck" runs throughout The Sign, with Bluey finding a "lucky coin" that initially jams a public look-out telescope ("not so lucky coin," her companion notes), but in a twist of fate later effects momentous change in the dogs' favour, so that the sheepdog buyers of their family home pull out.

The concept of the butterfly effect is also represented literally, with the reappearance of a blue butterfly called Flappy – a callback to an earlier season three episode called Slide, where Bingo and her friend Lila rescue a caterpillar, which eventually transforms into a butterfly. Flappy turns up in Chilli's car, while she and the puppies are searching for a missing Frisky. The creator Joe Brumm had previously hinted at this moment on the Behind Bluey podcast when discussing Slide, saying "there is a little connection to a later episode and so it's a very special episode in the context of season three.”

In Slide, when the butterfly lands on Bingo and Lila's paws, Lila says: "That's lucky!", and in The Sign she is proven correct, when the reappearing butterfly leads the search team to find Frisky, further encapsulating the theory that we can't ever really know how events will pan out, but sometimes fate leads you to the right place.

Of course, this isn't the first Bluey episode to get deep and meaningful, as borrowings from philosophy and reflections on what it means to be alive are regularly peppered throughout the series. Second season episode Sleepytime – regularly cited as the best Bluey episode of all time – saw Bingo drifting off into her subconscious and out into the cosmos, as her mum (as the Sun) told her she'll always be there and will always love her. Then there was season three episode Puppets in which the Unicorse toy – brought to life by Bandit – asks Bluey, just before her bedtime: "How can you be sure that you're not a puppet?" – then after she falls asleep, the fourth wall is broken, showing Bluey being drawn into the scene by an animator. "Wow, that was a weird dream!" she says, when she wakes up.

Speaking on the How Other Dads Dad podcast, Brumm claimed that "There's not meant to be any education in Bluey", adding: "there's no lessons to learn. It's entertainment". However The Sign, like the rest of the series, says otherwise. While the weightier issues of life that feature throughout the cartoons perhaps often go over younger viewers' heads, what the show does unite all ages in is its reminder to take a step back from everything and wonder and bask in in the miracles of everyday life.

The final few minutes of The Sign affirm this. After a series of unexpected events, but ultimately as a result of Bandit listening to his family, the Heeler family end up staying in their house in Brisbane – a twist that will please many fans, who were worried about them moving away. In a climactic scene, they sit around a makeshift dinner table, laughing and really engaging with each other as a euphoric song (Lazarus Drug, by Meg Washington, who also voices the teacher Calypso in Bluey) plays in the background. "I'm everything and everyone who is or ever was / And You're nothingness, but shining / and everywhere at once / You're everything where everyone who is or ever was, forever", the lyrics run, carrying on the episode's ruminations about how we're all interconnected, and that can help us to live in harmony. It's incredibly heartwarming and once again highlights that it's not a dog's life, it's truly transcendental TV.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today progamme last week, Bluey producer Sam Moor confirmed The Sign is "not the end" for the series. And now we've had this blockbuster episode, may the show get more ambitious still? Speaking to Deadline, Brumm said the experience of making the extra-long episode could potentially propel him into making a feature-length Bluey film at some point: "I'm loving going longer on The Sign, and I'd love to try to go longer - I definitely would not rule that out." Will the legions of ardent fans get lucky? We'll see.

The Bluey episode The Sign is available now on Disney+ in the UK and US, and screens today on Disney Junior and Disney Channel in the US

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