The episode title card
Recital is the second episode of the fourth season of Bluey. It aired directly after 'Retirement Home' and before 'Musical'. In this episode, Muffin has a ballet recital coming up, but Trixie pushing her to practice harder leads to her friendship with Bandit becoming strained. The episode received positive reviews upon release. This episode also marks the first time anyone directly visits Crocodile Drunkee's.
Plot[]
One Sunday morning in Brisbane, Muffin is watching Cat Squad while eating the official Cat Squad Breakfast Cereal. However, Stripe hurries this up, because Muffin has to go to her Ballet Class. A bit later, Trixie picks Muffin up from class, where Muffin, upon getting home, reveals she has a recital on Saturday. Trixie doesn't really know what to do, and panickedly calls Chilli for help. Once the Heelers are gathered together, Trixie accesses the student portal for Muffin's school, to reveal that the recital is on Saturday. Trixie faints, only for Bandit to revive her with a tortilla chip. Thus incentivized, Trixie decides to place Muffin on a strict practice regimen, which Bandit has a bad feeling about.
Regardless, the practice regimen goes ahead as planned, with Muffin practicing outside of ballet class for five days. On Wednesday however, Bandit notices that this is running Muffin into the ground and wearing her out. But Trixie doesn't see this, and refuses to listen when Bandit presses concerns. The practice continues, until Muffin collapses from exhaustion on Friday evening, and Bandit has an argument with Trixie, where Trixie calls Bandit's parenting ability into question, and the two have a falling out. After this, a forlorn Bandit goes to Crocodile Drunkee's to forget his problems. Unfortunately, he loses track of time and passes out, needing to be driven home by Chilli.
The next morning, Muffin calls Bandit, Chilli, and her cousins, and pleads with them to come to her recital. Though Bandit is initially reluctant, thanks to some serious please faces on the cousins' part, he agrees. Before they head out though, Bandit talks to Trixie, who decides they should agree to disagree from now on after learning of Bandit's binge drinking escapade. At the recital, Muffin blows everyone away, and the content of the Ballet leads Trixie to see the error of her ways.
After the recital, Trixie congratulates Muffin, and apologizes to Bandit, asking if there's anything she can do to make it up to Bandit and Muffin. Subsequently, Muffin ends the episode by making Trixie write the sentence 'I will be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very nice to Bandit the Great and the Amazing Muffin from now on', while Stripe is sent on an errand to buy Cat Squad merchandise for Muffin, much to Muffin's delight and Alfie's apathy.