S04E24 - Loud and Determined

"Loud and Determined" is the twenty-fourth episode and the finale of Season 4 of We Can Fix Pawbert. It follows "From Now On", with Pawbert Lynxley's first semester at GYU behind him and his field placement at ZRS finished. The episode covers a single day: November 26th, his twenty-eighth birthday, and the first he has ever spent free.

Synopsis

On November 26th, his twenty-eighth birthday and the first since his release, Pawbert Lynxley wakes alone at Pawthorne Mansion and finds the old dread gone. He pulls on his late mother Lillian's green sweater and joins the breakfast his pack is already cooking. Two video calls follow. His former therapist Dr. Fuzzby notes he answered without hedging, and his lawyer Nikki Bramble asks after his compliance, which he reports is clean. Guests arrive through the afternoon. Luther's parents, Maris and Harlan Pawthorne, bring cinnamon rolls Maris baked from a recipe she found that sounded similar to Lillian's. His former Snarlbucks coworkers return the green apron he left on his last shift, and his ZRS field supervisor Sorrel comes as a friend. Gary De'Snake, a blue pit viper and his first friend, asks permission to hug him, thanks him for defending reptiles against Lionheart, and gives him a drawing he made after they first met. That evening Pawbert tells the room about the years he spent making himself invisible and about his mother's phrase for him, loud and determined. He blows out a single green candle without making a wish. After the guests go and Nick and Judy fall asleep on the couch, Luther brings him upstairs, where Pawbert leads for the first time. Lying awake, he notices he has stopped listening for his fugitive brother and sister and has left that watch to the city. He sleeps, and dreams of Lillian, who welcomes him into her arms.

Plot

Pawbert wakes alone at Pawthorne Mansion on the morning of November 26th. The sheets beside him are cool, and Luther has clearly been up a while. He lies still and waits for the old panic, and it does not arrive. He is twenty-eight, and this is his first birthday as a free mammal. Under Milton's roof the date was something to survive, a day for making himself as small as he could and giving his father nothing to use. He takes his mother's green sweater off the chair by the window and pulls it on. For years the sweater worked as armor; this morning it is only warm.

Downstairs the kitchen is already running. Luther works the stove, Nick fights a bowl of batter he has overmixed, and Judy lays out fruit with the care she would give a case file. Pawbert offers to help twice, is refused twice, and is told to sit down instead. Judy asks how he feels; he says he does not know yet and asks her to try again that night. The pack eats together, Luther across from him without a plate of his own, and Pawbert is still learning how to take something he did not have to earn.

Two calls come in on the tablet once the dishes are cleared. Dr. Fuzzby, his former therapist, wishes him a happy birthday and then points out that he answered her opening question without hedging it, without any of the softeners he attaches to anything good in case someone later uses it against him. They talk about Lillian, who made occasions of birthdays, and about the years after her death when the day became something to get through. Nikki Bramble calls next, runs a short compliance check, confirms that his residence and schedule are clean, and then drops the professional register long enough to tell him he deserves a good birthday.

The doorbell starts and does not stop. Maris and Harlan Pawthorne arrive first. Maris hugs him before he can brace for it and hands a covered dish off to Luther in the same motion. Inside are cinnamon rolls, baked from a recipe she went looking for after Luther told her his mother used to make them. She is careful to say it is not Lillian's recipe, only one that sounded close, and that he should tell her if it is wrong. Then she tells him the Pawthornes missed his first twenty-seven birthdays and do not intend to miss another. Harlan shakes his paw, pulls him into a brief embrace, and welcomes him to another year.

The Snarlbucks crew arrives as a unit — Selma, Lane, Brim riding Lane's shoulder, Tara, and Mika. Their gift is the green apron Pawbert left behind on his last shift, saved so he can use it in his own kitchen. Brim reports that Lane threatened to cry if they did not bring it; Lane objects to the word "threatened." Sorrel comes next, dressed as a friend rather than a supervisor, and says Pawbert has built something worth showing up for. When Pawbert credits his teachers for the distance he has covered, Sorrel corrects him: he had teachers, but the learning was his own.

Gary De'Snake is the last to arrive, and it is the first time the two have been in the same room since Pawbert's birthday at the safehouse two years earlier. He stops himself at the threshold to ask permission before hugging, then wraps Pawbert in coils. He needs to hear that Pawbert is genuinely out, not visiting and not on a pass. Then he says what he came to say — that Pawbert fought for reptiles against Lionheart when doing so could have cost him, and that Gary knows exactly what Pawbert did before and what he was part of and has decided anyway that the mammal in front of him is worth celebrating. His gift is a drawing he made after the two of them first met and has kept ever since: a young lynx and a blue snake, side by side.

By evening the living room holds the pack, the Pawthornes, the Snarlbucks crew, Sorrel, and thirty-three feet of snake folded into the furniture without knocking anything over. Pawbert asks for the room and gets it. He tells them that four years ago he was certain he was having his last birthday, that he spent years trying to be small and quiet and useful enough to escape notice, and that he then met mammals who noticed him anyway. He reaches his mother's phrase for him — loud and determined — and admits he never believed her. Then he claims it out loud. Maris starts the applause, and Luther puts an arm around him and tells him he is proud.

Maris brings out the cinnamon rolls with a single green candle set in the center of the tray. The sight pulls up his mother's kitchen: flour, cinnamon, a paper crown of her own making, and her insistence that wishes deserve room to grow. Nick tells him to make a wish and Pawbert declines, because it has already come true. He blows the candle out. The rolls are close to his mother's without matching them, and the guilt he braces for while eating them never comes. The party breaks up in stages. Sorrel goes first, then the Snarlbucks crew, with Lane extracting a commitment to coffee, then Gary, who makes Pawbert promise to come and see the rebuilt Reptile Ravine. Maris and Harlan leave last, telling him he is family now and the door stays open. Nick and Judy fall asleep on the couch and are left where they are.

Luther brings Pawbert upstairs, where Pawbert leads for the first time. Afterward, lying in the dark, he notices something he has not said out loud: two warrants on his brother and sister are still open in a ZSI drawer, and he has stopped listening for them. That watch belongs to the city now. He admits he does not know how to do an ordinary life, and Luther tells him he will learn it the way he learned everything else, and that failing and starting over is no longer something he has to do alone. Pawbert says his mother would have liked Luther — would have called him too serious, then fed him cinnamon rolls while interrogating him about his intentions. Luther tells him Lillian knew he would find his way, because she raised him loud and determined and left enough of it behind for him to recover it. Pawbert thanks him for all of it, and Luther gives him the same single word he always gives. Then Pawbert sleeps, and dreams of his mother's kitchen, small and warm and lit like memory, where Lillian looks up from the dough she is folding, tells him he is loud and determined exactly as she always knew, and opens her arms.

Key Moments

• Pawbert wakes alone on his birthday and the old dread does not arrive
• He puts on his mother's green sweater as comfort rather than armor
• The pack cooks him breakfast and refuses every offer of help
• Dr. Fuzzby notes on a video call that he stated something positive without qualifying it
• Nikki Bramble runs a compliance check and tells him he deserves a good birthday
• Maris and Harlan Pawthorne arrive with cinnamon rolls Maris baked from a recipe she found that sounded close to Lillian's
• Maris tells Pawbert the Pawthornes missed his first twenty-seven birthdays and will not miss another
• The Snarlbucks crew returns the green apron Pawbert left behind on his last shift
• Sorrel arrives as a friend rather than a supervisor and corrects Pawbert's deflection about his teachers
• Gary De'Snake asks permission before hugging Pawbert, their first time in the same room in two years
• Gary credits Pawbert with fighting Lionheart's lies about reptiles and names him worth celebrating
• Gary gives Pawbert a drawing he made after the two of them first met
• Pawbert addresses the full room and claims his mother's phrase as his own
• Maris brings out the cinnamon rolls with a single green candle set in the center
• Pawbert declines to make a wish because it has already come true, then blows out the candle
• Gary leaves with a promise that Pawbert will visit the rebuilt Reptile Ravine
• Maris and Harlan tell Pawbert he is family and the door stays open
• Nick and Judy fall asleep on the couch and are left there
• Pawbert leads for the first time when he and Luther go upstairs
• Pawbert notices he has stopped listening for his fugitive brother and sister and has handed that watch to the city
• Luther tells him Lillian raised him loud and determined and left enough of it behind for him to find again
• Lillian welcomes Pawbert into her arms in a dream

Key Lines

Recurring Characters

• Maris Pawthorne (gray wolf) — Luther's mother; brings the cinnamon rolls
• Harlan Pawthorne (gray wolf) — Luther's father
• Selma (okapi) — Snarlbucks manager
• Lane (cheetah) — Snarlbucks friend
• Brim (mouse) — Snarlbucks friend
• Tara (gazelle) — Snarlbucks colleague
• Mika (red panda) — Artist friend
• Sorrel (capybara) — Pawbert's ZRS field supervisor
• Gary De'Snake (blue pit viper) — Pawbert's first friend; their first time in the same room since "Found Family"
• Dr. Fuzzby (quokka) — Video call; Pawbert's former therapist
• Nikki Bramble (badger) — Video call; Pawbert's lawyer
• Lillian Lynxley (lynx) — Pawbert's late mother; dream sequence

Locations

• Pawthorne Mansion — Master bedroom, kitchen, foyer, living room
• Dream sequence — Lillian's kitchen

Items

• Green sweater — Worn by Pawbert through the day; now comfort rather than armor
• Cinnamon rolls — Baked by Maris from a recipe she found that sounded similar to Lillian's
• Green candle — A single green candle set in the cinnamon rolls, as at his birthday in "Green Candle"
• Snarlbucks apron — The green apron Pawbert left behind on his last shift, returned as a gift
• Drawing from Gary — A young Pawbert and Gary together, drawn after they first met and kept ever since

End Credit Song

"Bella Notte" (From 'Lady and the Tramp'), Peggy Lee & Sonny Burke

In Lady and the Tramp the song plays over the shared spaghetti dinner, and its Italian title means beautiful night. The night is what it scores here. A day of doorbells, guests, and a single green candle winds down into quiet: the two of them upstairs, sleep, and then Pawbert dreaming his way into his mother's kitchen, where Lillian looks up from the dough and tells him "Loud and determined. Just like I always knew." The tune reaches back to Zootopia 2 as well, where an instrumental cut plays over Russ the Walrus's belly-ride ferry while Nick and Judy are on the run. A gag then, scored for two fugitives; here the full vocal version closes the birthday of a lynx who has stopped running.

Notes

• Season 4 ends with Pawbert aged 28, first semester complete, with friends outside the pack, and living at the mansion: a complete transformation from the frightened prisoner who arrived in "The Weakest Lynx."