Chilli and Bandit are lying in the living room, looking very groggy, when the girls enter. Bluey is pretending to be a captain and Bingo is pretending to be a tourist and they climb on Bandit's back, pretending he's a boat. The girls wonder what's wrong with their parents, and they respond that they're just tired from a late bedtime, but they seem cagey and the girls reveal that it's after a New Year's party, implying that they may be hungover instead.
The girls keep pretending Bandit is a boat, and Chilli is a whale. However, Bandit is too tired to cooperate with Bluey who wants "rough seas" in the game. He eventually caves in and sways around, then stops, and Chilli convinces him to pretend there are sharks and a tidal wave.
They then start pretending Chilli is a whale. When they offer to feed the "whale", Chilli asks for corn chips and sour cream. When they're disappointed at her inability to "jump", she puts a documentary about whales on TV. When the documentary talks about how there's nothing a female whale won't do for her young, Chilli decides to jump as a pretend whale after all. Then, the girls go into the other room, allowing the parents to sleep.
This episode provides examples of:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Bluey wears a sailor's hat.
- Alliterative Title: Whale Watching.
- Bittersweet Ending: Chilli and Bandit are still rather tired from the night before, but they're at least able to get some rest when Bluey and Bingo decide to play by themselves.
- The Cameo: Natalie Portman is the narrator of the whale documentary
- Dramatic Irony: When the girls wonder why their parents aren't as lively as usual, Bandit and Chili claim they're simply "sleepy". The rest of the episode is watching as the girls obliviously play with their (implied to be) hung-over parents, comically and blissfully unaware that the last thing Bandit and Chili want at the moment is loud noises and lively playtime.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After putting up with the girls' play time in spite of their lethargy and implied hangover, Chili and Bandit being left alone at last is framed as this.Bandit: Ahhh. Smooth seas.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: The tired, and probably hungover, Bandit and Chilli are illustrated with bags under their eyes.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Chilli and Bandit are heavily implied to be hungover from the New Year's party they attended the night before, but it's kept deliberately ambiguous as to whether they're actually hungover or they're just suffering from Sleep Deprivation.
- Furry Reminder: The girls are seen wagging their tails several times.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: The episode ends with Bandit and Chilli falling asleep.
- Hangover Sensitivity: Implied. Chilli and Bandit are too 'sleepy' to play with the girls, after a New Year's Eve party at Stripe and Trixie's. And they're also sensitive to loud noises, and Chilli is craving junk food and soda...
- Hypocritical Humour: Chilli eats corn chips while telling her daughters that corn chips are bad for them. Though she does handwave that "only whales" should eat this stuff.
- Innocently Insensitive: Chilli is offended when the girls cast her as a whale in their game, but it's just because, due to being an adult, she's much bigger than them. Besides, the girls have already picked Bandit (who is much larger than Chilli) to play as the boat.
- Not So Above It All: This episode sees Chilli — hungover (or possibly sleep deprived) alongside Bandit after a New Year's party — gorging on corn chips, sour cream, and lemon-lime soda, all while telling the girls that these things are bad for them and they shouldn't eat them.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Chili and Bandit meant for the whale documentary to get their kids' minds off the disappointing whale-watch. While it does just that, seeing the mother whale narrated as a good mother is what inspires Chili to realize her kids deserve a good whale watch, even if she's recovering from what's implied to be a hangover.
- Sleep Deprivation: Zigzagged. The kids in the audience are led to believe that Chilli and Bandit are just very tired after a late night, but it's heavily implied (such as Bandit's hesitation before complaining to be "sleepy") that they're actually hungover.
- Speak in Unison:
- The girls say, "Hooray!" in unison after Bandit reluctantly agrees to be their "boat".
- When Chilli turns the TV on, the girls say, "Yeah! TV!".
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: At being inspired by a documentary on the selflessness of mother whales, Chili (despite suffering what's implied to be a hangover) plays the part of a breaching whale. Afterward, the kids go off to play something else, giving Chili and Bandit what they wanted in the first place: the rest of the day to sleep off their implied hangovers.
- Threatening Shark: Discussed when Chilli has Bandit pretend sharks are snapping at the boat.
