S04E11 - Front Lawn

"Front Lawn" is the eleventh episode of Season 4 of We Can Fix Pawbert. The pack confronts a media siege at the mansion gate, and the Pawthorne parents systematically dismantle it.

Synopsis

The pack returns home from Saturday errands to find reporters surrounding the mansion gate, led by Bree Vantage. Luther uses an overgrown service entrance to access the property. Pawbert's phone floods with messages after someone sells his number. Maris and Harlan arrive and dismantle the siege through phone calls and direct confrontation. Pawbert later writes a reflection paper comparing how the Lynxley and Pawthorne families wield privilege.

Plot

The episode opens on a Saturday afternoon with the pack returning from ordinary errands—hardware store, grocery shopping, a stop at the nursery where Pawbert bought a fern. The car conversation is light, with Nick debating popcorn quality and Judy defending her chocolate consumption. As they approach the mansion, Luther notices something wrong. The gate swings open, and reporters pour from hiding spots—behind hedges, from parked vans, from across the street. Bree Vantage from the Zootopia Enquirer leads the charge, shouting questions about Pawbert's rehabilitation through the car windows.

The pack is trapped. When reporters spot Nick and Judy in the back seat, the feeding frenzy doubles in intensity. Two inter-species scandals for the price of one. Questions about snake venom, blood money, same-sex relationships, and inter-species police couples overlap and drown each other out. Pawbert tries to answer calmly, following the approach that worked with Bree at GYU, but every response spawns more aggressive questions. The press is not interested in answers—they want reactions, mistakes, footage they can use. Luther orders windows up and backs the car away, refusing to drive through the crowd and become part of their story.

Luther remembers a service entrance his parents had built decades ago for contractor access, unused for fifteen years. He navigates the overgrown path while branches scrape the car, pushing through vegetation until they reach a rusted secondary gate. The code still works. They emerge behind the garage, invisible from the front of the house, but the press remains at the main gate, setting up lights and equipment for a longer siege. Inside the mansion, curtains are drawn and lights kept low. The house feels less like a home and more like a bunker.

Pawbert's phone begins flooding with messages—press outlets requesting comment, harassment from unknown numbers, someone asking about a podcast appearance. Someone sold his phone number for fifty dollars. The fragile normalcy he has been building can be bought that cheaply. Luther takes the phone and sets it face-down, warning Pawbert not to read the messages. When Pawbert argues that the reporters are technically telling the truth about his crimes, Luther draws a crucial distinction: they are not telling the truth, they are telling a story. The truth includes everything Pawbert did after his crimes—testimony, prison, accountability, choosing to come back when he could have run. The press is not interested in that version.

Luther's phone buzzes: his parents are here. Maris and Harlan Pawthorne drive through the main gate without slowing, forcing reporters to scatter. They emerge from their car and begin systematic dismantling. Maris confronts reporters directly, leveraging her board positions at companies that advertise with their publications, mentioning foundation grants for journalism ethics, asking if she should make calls. Harlan works the phones from beside the car, speaking with editors by first name, requesting retractions, reminding them of relationships. One by one, reporters receive calls and texts from their outlets. The aggressive postures deflate. Equipment gets packed up. Within an hour, retraction texts begin arriving on Pawbert's phone.

When Pawbert asks why they would intervene for someone who is not even officially family, Harlan's answer is simple: Pawbert makes their son happy, which makes him family. Maris adds that the paperwork is optional—he is theirs now, whether he likes it or not. She blocks the worst offenders from Pawbert's phone and helps process the flood of messages. Dinner follows, with the six mammals gathered around the table, conversation flowing from detective novels to police training protocols. Pawbert absorbs what family is supposed to look like—mammals eating together, talking about nothing important, without calculation or measurement of worth.

In the tag, Pawbert sits in the library writing a reflection paper for his UNDSWUS 55 class. The prompt asks about privilege operating in different contexts. He writes about living inside two wealthy families: the first taught him that love has a price, the second showed him it does not have to. He examines how the same resources—wealth, connections, social capital—can be wielded completely differently depending on the values of those holding them. The Lynxley privilege was a weapon; the Pawthorne privilege is a shield. His essay articulates the season's central theme: that power can protect instead of control, and there are other ways to be family. Luther reads over his shoulder and encourages him to write whatever he needs to say. Pawbert curls against him on the couch, still waiting for something to go wrong. Luther tells him it will not.

Key Moments

• The pack returns from Saturday errands to find reporters camped at the mansion gate
• Bree Vantage leads the media siege; reporters swarm the car with accusations about Pawbert's crimes
• Reporters discover Nick and Judy in the back seat and escalate to inter-species relationship questions
• Luther backs the car away and navigates to an overgrown service entrance unused for fifteen years
• The pack enters the mansion through the back, treating it like a bunker with curtains drawn
• Pawbert's phone floods with messages after someone sells his number for fifty dollars
• Luther draws the distinction between telling the truth and telling a story
• Maris and Harlan arrive and drive through the gate without slowing
• Maris confronts reporters directly, leveraging board positions and foundation grants
• Harlan makes phone calls to editors, producing retractions
• Retraction texts arrive on Pawbert's phone within hours
• Harlan explains that Pawbert makes their son happy, which makes him family
• Maris tells Pawbert the paperwork is optional—he is theirs now
• The pack and Pawthornes share dinner together
• Pawbert tells Luther he is not used to being protected; Luther tells him to get used to it
• Pawbert writes a reflection paper comparing the Lynxley and Pawthorne families' use of privilege

Key Lines

Locations

• Luther's car — Cold open conversation and media siege
• Pawthorne Mansion — Gate (media siege), service entrance, living room, kitchen, library
• Service road — Overgrown, unused for 15 years; branches scraping the car; rusted secondary gate

Items

• Fern plant — Pawbert's nursery purchase; clutched during siege
• Retraction texts — From editors, produced within hours of Pawthorne intervention
• UNDSWUS 55 reflection paper — Comparing Lynxley and Pawthorne approaches to privilege
• Service entrance code — Still functional after fifteen years; establishes backup access

Notes

• Pawbert's essay articulates the season's central theme: that wealth and influence can be used to protect rather than to control.
• Bree Vantage returns from Open Enrollment, escalating from solo ambush to organized media siege.
• The episode timeline is approximately Week 10-11 post-release (Saturday, four days after E10).
• Roopert Murdock, the owner of the Zootopia Enquirer mentioned by Maris, is a nod to Rupert Murdoch, the real-world media mogul. The Zootopia Enquirer itself references the National Enquirer, the American tabloid known for celebrity gossip and sensationalist journalism.