Popular kids show Bluey praised for introducing same-sex couple in season finale

The Australian kid’s TV show Bluey has become one of the most critically acclaimed shows of its genre since its debut in 2018.

Upon Bluey’s eventual arrival worldwide on Disney+ a year later in 2019, the show became incredibly popular among both children and adults.

The popular show details the life of Bluey, a seven-year-old blue healer, and her little sister Bingo, a five-year-old red healer, alongside a supporting cast featuring their friends and family.

The majority of the show features the two sisters getting into hijinks, playing pretend, and learning life lessons throughout each episode’s seven-minute runtime.

Bingo and Bluey smiling at each other (ABC Kids)

Now, three seasons and over 150 episodes into its existence, Bluey has not only garnered praise for being a tremendous kid's TV show but also for its inclusivity in the final episode of season 3.

In the most recent episode of the series, the show made reference to its first same-sex couple, with a friend of Bluey's - a chihuahua named Pretzel - noting that he has two moms in an anecdote about his pet guinea pig.

“When my guinea pig ran away, my mums told me he might come back, but he didn't,” was the exact line stated by Pretzel in the 28-minute long Season 3 finale entitled The Sign - an episode lasting four times as long as most episodes do.

While this reference is widely acknowledged as something of a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, it is also considered a step forward for LGBTQ representation and the normalization of same-sex couples appearing within kid’s television.

“Pretzel having lesbian moms still makes me happy,” said one user on X (formerly Twitter).

“Bluey pulling out the representation.”

Others shared personal anecdotes as to why such a small line meant so much to them.

“As a person who lived with his mom and her gf at one point in time, I think this is great,” another user explained on the Elon Musk-owned site.

Bluey sitting in class next to her friends, Pretzel and Terrier (Disney)

Unsurprisingly, the response to this subtle line wasn’t exclusively popular, with some criticizing the inclusion of a same-sex couple as being forced and unnecessary, despite the subtle nature of the reference.

These critics could not stop the groundbreaking episode from being among the most popular in the show’s history.

The Sign currently sits as the highest-rated episode of the Australian show to date, garnering a rating of 9.9/10 on IMDb four days after the episode first aired.