Freedom In The Forest

Barney recovering Ron from water rapids.

**Freedom In The Forest** or **Signal Not Found** is the 11th scene in *Ron's Gone Wrong*. Barney escapes to the forest to protect Ron from being hunted by Bubble. It is one the emotional high points of the film, as it's a moment of freedom and fun where Ron no longer needs to be hidden or be the perfect B-bot. They just need to be together.

## Description

### Freedom.

The scene begins with a still birds-eye shot of Nonsuch. Suddenly, Barney and Ron are together bolting up a hill hollering as they enter a forest, soaring in the explosive joy of the moment. The soundtrack "Freedom the Forest" starts. The boy holds tight to his scooter as his buddy propels, veers, and judders between the towering sequoias at full speed.

Soon they tumble into a pile of golden leaves and bask peacefully in autumn haze. They get up, kick up leaves, and fool around a bit. Barney picks up a twig and playfully challenges Ron to a duel. His buddy naively as ever lifts a tree trunk causing the boy to yell and laugh as he's chased around.

Ron falls and begins sinking into a pit of mud, Barney's laughter turns to mild concern. The bot counts down what percent of him is above the surface: "You have 0.85 friends!... You have 0.7 friends!... You have 0.2 friends..." The kid gets splattered with mud as he tries pulling him out.

### "Tell me something about you?"

In the next cut, the two walk up to a fork in the path. Barney reflects on lessons of friendship learned earlier and asks Ron to choose, "two way street, right?" only to be led off an entirely different unbeaten path and launched off the top of a cliff with water rapids below. Here, Barney is clearly challenged in ways he's never been before, as trust in his friend visibly forces him to muster the courage to jump off the cliff with him.

They climb out the water. Barney, still alarmed, is asked whether he had to choose the path he likes. He replies that, no, he didn't — it's clear to him now friendships are messy and don't follow one way. "But seriously, off a cliff?!" he coughs. Now they walk off with a firetower in the distance. The soundtrack twinkles, and low, pretty, sunlight casts the two. In a quite serious and solemn moment, Barney asks "hey, Ron, tell me something about you? I never asked." He touchingly replies:

### "Stay with me. Forever."

Cut to the two at the top of the fire lookout tower, the day has entered twilight and the sky is deep purple. Barney tips the contents of his rucksack out to find a chocolate bar, which he "shares" with Ron, who goes onto notice the boy has tipped out a pile of unshared friend invites from earlier in the film. "You have not shared 29 friend invites." Barney says he knows. "If you don't ask, they can't say no..."

Barney reflects on his sixth birthday. He explains Savannah and Rich were there back then, just because they lived nearby. This is a mediation on how easy human friendships used to be before B-bots, and that now friendships are not the same as it is between him and Ron. His buddy asks how long will they be out in the forest. The boy supposes forever. The bot projects his internal friendship board like a searchlight into sky and updates the card "Stay with me" to "Stay with me. Forever."

Barney asks Ron if he knows any stories. Ron generates a story largely consisting of the letter "A", "The awesome adventures of Absalom of Addis Abbaba and his android, Alan". As Barney falls asleep, Ron glows as a nightlight.

### "Savannah unfriended me?"

Over at Bubble HQ, the technicians are monitoring B-bot communications across Nonsuch to find leads to Barney's whereabouts. The dominant conversation is that of Savannah as "poopgirl". Savannah is understood to have unfriended a number of people, causing a cascade of others unfriending and blocking people under midst of regret and guilt over what ensued at the playground riot.

In Savannah's bedroom, her B-bot torments her with a musical version of the poopgirl footage that went viral. This shows that all B-bots are fundamentally naive, not just Ron, delivering a commentary on how algorithms don't hit the mark when it comes to recommending things that are good for our own happiness and welfare. She gets a knock on the door, it's Graham and Donka, who asks if she's seen Barney around. We know she has, she saw him off at the end of the previous scene.

Graham is unsure of how to address Savannah, referring to her as Barney's "fellow children", but Donka is forthright in calling her Barney's friend and harks back to her at his sixth birthday party. Savannah apologetically insists she doesn't know, and closes the door.

Graham and Donka sit in their truck and reflect on where everything went wrong. "I work around the clock selling novelty junk, just, to try to give him a life" he says regretfully, going onto ask himself why Barney didn't confide his loneliness to him. Donka, in an almost out-of-character moment, offers old age wisdom that actually be comprehended: "Sometimes, kid protect adult." Her son doesn't think that's right.

### "A bird has commented on your face!"

The next morning, it seems things are turning out less than perfect in the forest. Barney is heard screaming through the wilderness, jumping and aimlessly swatting, then locks eyes on Ron staring at him. The boy explains he saw a spider on him! Literally "this" big, his hands gesturing the size of a coin. The bot says, "a bird has commented on your face." The kid searches his face and wipes bird muck off his forehead, "where even are we?"

The bell rings over at Nonsuch Middle School, where non-school apps are banned on B-bots, to the dismay of pupils. It's recess, and Rich discovers that Jayden has blocked him on the Bubble network. Savannah, whose B-bot is still randomly popping off with updates about the poopgirl phenomenon, approaches Rich. "You have ruined my life." Rich is confused. Savannah continues, admitting she knows where Barney is — out in the woods.

*End of scene.*