Some people are meant to be with people. And others, like me, are just different.
Though it begins with an urban legend about a menacing, bird-obsessed weirdo from Gerald, told in his lyrical, multi-theory style, the bittersweet ending of Hey Arnold!‘s “Pigeon Man” hits with an unexpected and enduring emotional weight. It settled heavy around my heart when I was a child and still squeezes tight occasionally in adulthood. I remember my younger self, watching, aching with pain for Vincent.
Poor Vincent. This gentle, tired man, unable to fit himself into what the world expects of him. The quiet joy he finds among his birds was something so foreign to my churning child-anxiety brain; how soothing to think that he could find a little peace even living in his strange way. And how tragic that his brief and ultimately doomed return to society is so delicious. Now, he just knows what he’s missing. What he’s been missing.
Hey Arnold!‘s grounded, cool jazz atmosphere and poignant moments helped it stand out among its more irreverent contemporaries. That sophisticated touch extends to the voice casting. In addition to the stellar cast of literal (!) children who voiced the kids of Hilldale, the show often utilized guest stars with great fucking voices. The real emotional meat of this episode, the very marrow of it, is the intimacy cultivated between Lane Toran’s empathetic but naive Arnold and Vincent Schiavelli’s tender, weary Pigeon Man.
I was too young to understand the flurry of emotions that unfolded in my chest when Arnold turned to Pigeon Man and said, “Vincent?” No longer the legend. Just a man standing among broken cages and a lifetime of pain. Sometimes the only thing to do is to pack that pain up and carry it with you, to a new place. My heart understood in a way my brain couldn’t yet what it sounds like to ask a question you already know the answer to.
