A flashback shows Maya as a kid at her grandparents' place. Her grandparents talk about how she’s going to be given a jacket as an heirloom from her grandma's father. The jacket is a military one. This could probably be the reason why they gave it to Mymy when Mymy got adopted instead, as she’s into stuff like that a little bit. At least more than Maya is. Then, it cuts to her with her sisters at a park with hawfinches calling in the distance (when an episode is specifically centered around a sister, a certain animal is subtly present at one point. Maya has hawfinches, a bird described similarly to how Maya is. Mymy is cicadas: out of place in the Netherlands, loud and annoying, always bugging people (lol), and also rooted in Japanese culture since Mymy is Japanese. And Coco is dogs. Friendly and kind, and thinks everyone is her friend, but also naive or dumb (and can have outbursts, like how Coco has anger issues). Everyone likes them surface-wise, but if it’s not specifically your dog, you wouldn’t give it much thought seeing it abandoned and alone out in the streets. Like how Coco thinks everyone loves her, but there’s only a handful of people that truly care about her), with Maya being under a tree while Coco and Mymy are playing a Dutch game involving throwing something. Mymy is wearing the jacket (which she had been shown wearing before in past episodes occasionally, and keeping it in her room. But this episode is the episode that finally explains the jacket, which before would be thought of as just another piece of clothing Mymy has, which now shows all of that was foreshadowing for this episode. (P.S. The sisters usually don’t wear the same outfit and clothes each episode for realism and variety, which is why Mymy occasionally features the jacket in her outfit.) Also, in previous episodes, whether Mymy is wearing the jacket or if it’s in her room, if Maya is present, she would gaze or look at the jacket. Not every time it’s around, though. But this shows a subtle link between Maya and the jacket, which is foreshadowing for this episode and is explained in this episode.). Maya looks on with scorn. The sports object gets thrown and hits Maya comically. Mymy comes over, sweating from the jacket, to retrieve it and asks Maya what’s up, saying that she’s been feeling her stare a hole in the back of her head the whole time they have been here. Maya says it’s nothing, and as Mymy leaves, Maya brings up how the jacket was originally for her. Mymy offers it to her, saying how it’s too hot to wear it anyway, and Maya rejects it, saying so many of her clothes are already hand-me-downs as her gaze lingers on the jacket (most of Maya's clothes are hand-me-downs from Mymy and Coco. (Which is subtly shown in past episodes by the fact that most of Maya's clothes are hand-me-downs and how Maya feels resentment and unloved because of it. So the audience knows her grudge and hatred towards receiving hand-me-downs. Though she doesn’t honestly believe the jacket is one and is just saying this as a form of rejection to the jacket even though she wants it), making her feel like her parents don’t care for her compared to her sisters, which is kinda true in this regard. But the hand-me-downs are always recolored to suit Maya and made a size bigger in the case of Mymy's clothes, since she’s smaller than Maya. Showing that even though her parents rarely do buy her new clothing, which is not good, it still shows that her parents do love Maya since they put in the effort to make these clothes Maya's own clothes. But Maya doesn’t see that positive side. All she sees is that her parents don’t care enough about her to give her actual new clothing, yet buy Mymy and Coco new clothes. Feeling more so that her two adopted sisters are sucking up all the attention that should be hers since she’s the biological child). Mymy tries to be nice and be like, “But if you want it, it’s ok, you can have it,” and, “It’s not a hand-me-down. It’s yours. Oma said it was yours after all, right?” and Maya says, “I said no!” she says angrily. Mymy says okay, and as she walks away, Maya is still looking at the jacket with a sorta sad or melancholy look. Later, after more things happen (like there’s going to be more stuff between then and next. During this coco leaves the park for some reason leaving just mymy and Maya in the park), eventually Mymy offers it again, and Maya finally accepts it. But later, by herself while on a small stone bridge, enjoying the jacket and wearing it, she is somewhat happy, almost hugging it. But then, Maya suddenly gets intrusive thoughts being fed by her imaginary friends. And just like intrusive thoughts, it comes out of nowhere, feeds into itself, and gets worse the more it’s ruminated on (which show up in episodes before and after this, being basically Maya's own negative thoughts translated into them, her own mindset of ideal friends but twisted into her own self-hatred. Throughout the series, they start out as basically normal-ish, like in the official pilot Ongezellig episode, with them only being slightly antagonistic. But as the series goes on and as Maya slowly gets worse and worse, the more antagonistic and more like intrusive negative thoughts they become. The more they get like this, the more it shows their eyes. Kinda like progression, since the pilot episode never showed their eyes. But remember, at the end of the day, they are not real characters. They are Maya's own thoughts said through the lens of imaginary friends.) She thinks about how her grandparents don’t care about her, since from what she has seen, they didn’t even care enough to keep their promise with the heirloom, instead giving it to her sister. She thinks more about how no one else cares about her, and probably not even her parents, as she progressively gets more and more intensely rageful as her imaginary friends egg her on. As Maya thinks on how no one cares for her, each example gets approved by the imaginary friends as the thoughts get faster and feed into these thoughts. They say things like “Yeah,” and “They don’t,” and “Why should you?” The animation gets a little erratic and red as her expression gets angry, her pupils go small and jitter, and she looks around. She then throws the jacket into the river, and the imaginary friends are gone. Before she threw it, Maya says out loud, "Why would I care about this jacket when my grandparents don’t even care about me!" And then she throws it. Mymy comes back with ice cream, trying to be friendly to Maya, but sees the jacket in the river. Mymy snaps, talking about how she wanted to be nice and have Maya like her and try to make her happy. Mymy also says how she tried doing what Coco always tries to do, and how Coco tried to direct Mymy to make Maya happy. Since Mymy loves Maya just like how Coco does, she looked for help from Coco on how to help Maya in any way she could. (Which is shown in the last few episodes by showing background dialogue or dialogue between moments in previous episodes of Coco and Mymy talking about this and her asking for advice. But it isn’t directly stated or said that Mymy was getting advice on making Maya happy and trying to help her until now. And the three episodes before this have Mymy trying to be nicer than usual to Maya instead of having her usual teasing or bullying attitude; with there being a week or less between episodes, that means she kept this up for a month, and for it to just lead to nothing and no progress. Which, for Mymy, is very frustrating, showing that Mymy has been talking to Coco about this and has been trying from previous episodes. Which is the type of slow-burning, subtle foreshadowing that will happen a lot in this series.) And she also goes on about how Maya wanted the jacket, but then didn’t want it, and how it meant so much to her (which it did. Not just because it was a promise and memory of her childhood, but also because of the feeling Maya had that her grandparents cared about her enough to give her an heirloom, clinging to that thought of something meaningful passed down to her), and for her to just throw it into the river like an autist! And says, "What am I even supposed to do, Maya?!" She then also says a little on Mymy's part, saying she just wishes Maya would like her for once. But something slips. She also says how she wants anyone to like her. She wants people to like her in general, as everyone finds her annoying besides Kiki. Which is Mymy's unsociableness. Just like Coco's unsociableness is thinking everyone is her friend, when in reality she’s just popular and only has a handful of true friends that actually are her friends (Cleo and Yfki, and that one brown-haired girl kinda like Maya). Since Coco is very emotionally intelligent (not so intelligent in other ways), she knows this, but chooses to lie to herself and convinces herself otherwise as much and as convincingly as she can. When she lets that part slip out, she is looking a little away from Maya with watery eyes before catching herself from that confession. She quickly pivots and turns that into more anger, and then looks back at Maya with narrow, mad eyes. She then goes on to talk about how all of Maya's problems are caused by Maya herself instead of Mymy and Coco (which is technically not true, as Coco and Mymy have indirectly made Maya's life worse overall, but they never meant to) (and more mean Mymy-like things she says). During this, the ice cream (Maya's ice cream, and not the cone) falls onto the stone floor of the bridge because of her hand expressions. Then Mymy says, "Nothing I do is ever enough for you! Nothing anyone does is! I’m done with trying to make you happy! You can stay miserable for all I care!" In the middle of her saying the last part, she throws the cone into the river while in her angry rant. Kinda like how Maya threw the jacket into the river, but unintentionally linked. As Mymy is snapping at Maya, after the slip of Mymy saying how she just wants anyone to like her, Mymy starts stepping towards Maya, pushing her back a little dramatically against her shoulder, pushing her back and back more and more as she rants. All through this, through the whole rant and snap, Maya gets (I don't know what the emotion is called, but like a shocked, scared, sad expression, wide-eyed with tears in her eyes). Maya doesn’t say a word as Mymy rants. Mymy storms off after pressuring, talking shit, and snapping, dropping the ice cream she got for Maya. At first, Maya only gets angrier and sadder, thinking about how Mymy doesn’t know anything about how she feels or how Mymy and Coco are the cause of all her misery, basically rejecting what Mymy told her and deepening her thoughts on how everyone is out to get her. But then she thinks a little about how she did want the jacket so much, only to throw it away and not want it, as she looks at the jacket floating away. And then she looks at the dropped ice cream that was meant to be hers on the floor. And while looking at it, she thinks how Mymy was trying to be kind, and how she made Mymy mad and upset after Mymy tried to do something for her. Thinking this gave her a thought/vocal flashback of the time Coco gave her a Valentine’s Day card after she got nothing from anyone on Valentine’s Day. How Maya thought Coco was insulting her with it, until Coco later told Maya that was not the case and she just wanted to brighten Maya's day, and how she also gave everyone else a card so she wasn’t singling out Maya. During that time, Maya felt so guilty she skipped meals for three weeks straight. (All of that is official lore from Studio Massa, by the way. The whole Valentine’s Day stuff will be shown more and explained more in a previous or future episode, so the audience that doesn’t know about this official lore will still be able to fully understand the Valentine's story. Though it’s only mentioned here in this episode with those few audio flashbacks of Coco, so FYI, this doesn’t bloat the episode with the whole Valentine's explanation.) The vocal flashback is specifically of when Coco explained her intentions to her. And thinking of when Coco said, "I just wanted to be kind and make you happy, Maya. To brighten up your day!... you know me and Mymy lo-" Maya stops and flinches away in anger, as if physically dodging Coco saying love. (This thought only takes a few seconds and starts at Maya looking at something that would remind her of this memory, which is the ice cream, with both being similar, and to help pivot her gaze to the jacket to forward the plot. So this memory sequence fits well.) Not believing anyone, especially her sisters, love her... but the flinch and turn away made her look at the jacket again. And Maya has a rare moment of thinking about how she did something wrong, and she feels guilty for it. She feels extremely guilty and covers her face with her hands, almost crying. As guilty as she did during that Valentine’s Day and the three weeks after. I don’t want it to seem like Maya is fully realizing or accepting the thought that her sisters are not out to get her and how they just want her to be happy. But this should be just enough to have Maya go on a mad dash and search for the jacket to try and retrieve it as a sort of amends. She spots the jacket about to float away and quickly goes, “I HAVE TO FIX THIS!” She makes a mad dash to the jacket. Finding it on the other side of the drain, she tries to get it with a stick as it floats into the stream. Her leg sinks into the mud, and the stick breaks. And a goose snatches the jacket. She jumps to the other side of the bank, missing a little as she chases after it, having to get attacked by the goose as she has to snatch the jacket away from its goslings. But it makes her trip, dropping the jacket back into the water. She goes after it, going into the ditch, and sees it’s about to go into another drain. She tries to get it, but it’s too far for her arm to reach. She has to dunk her body into the water in order to reach it, just as it is about to get unsnagged from the rock holding it from drifting further. She gets it. She’s all wet and dirty, and so is the jacket. Mymy is on her phone texting Coco, waiting for Maya by the gate. Some of the texts are about how Mymy is giving up on Maya, being very mean about it, with Coco trying to convince her that Maya needs help. Especially these days (since Coco is emotionally intelligent—more so than Mymy, but that doesn’t mean Mymy loves Maya less—she would know that Maya is miserable and wishes to help). Coco tells Mymy to at least walk home with Maya so she doesn’t have to walk home alone at night (it’s late evening during the jacket chase scene), with Coco saying, "You love Maya, right?" Mymy sighs and agrees to walk Maya home. Though she has reluctantly agreed after she has already been waiting for Maya. Then Maya shows up. She brings it back to Mymy. Mymy is still pissed because the jacket is dirty. But this is far from being just about the jacket. She’s mad because of Maya's actions in the first place. About how she’s trying as hard as Mymy could, and yet Maya is still so hard to work with and so unmovable about her self-loathing and the hate she feels for her sisters. It isn’t about losing the jacket. But she does get a little less angry after Maya tries to say how she tried to get it back to make up for it, but is looking away, shaking, and almost crying. Mymy says, "Oh, so you think this is about the jacket?" And Maya says no as she shrinks back, looking away more, trembling, and almost crying. Maya struggles to say how she feels, going, "I ummm... I... I don’t know... uhh... I’m... sorr... I... didn’t know what to... How I could... I don’t know..." she says, progressively getting closer to crying and bawling her eyes out (stopping herself from saying sorry). But seeing this—that Maya gave it back not because she thought it was just about the jacket—Mymy says, "Wow. Can’t remember the last time you went out of your way for something like this before." Mymy forgives her very slightly. Mymy says, "Well, it needs to be washed. And you too. Let’s just go home, Maya." As Mymy gets up and walks away, Maya looks towards her after a little and wipes a tear from her eye, but still feels just as sad and guilty. The slight forgiveness does not stop Maya from feeling guilty and self-loathing for the rest of the episode. Though at the end, she thinks a little about how awful she feels. How she keeps on doing this. And she thinks about how she always hurts everyone around her who is trying to be nice and just makes things worse for herself. But before she can finish that thought, her imaginary friends come back. The girl one puts her hand on Maya's shoulder and says, "Wait, why should you even feel guilty about this? She doesn’t even care about you." She shakes her head no and thinks no, kinda fighting back against these intrusive thoughts for the first time. The other friend talks about how no one cares for her, not her parents or grandparents. Maya says nothing. But then they say how she would not have to deal with the pain of guilt, or any pain, if no one was there to make her feel it. And Maya starts to cave into this thought, looking down, saying, "I... I guess..." Making it clear she’s trying to reject the other thoughts, but the fact is that technically yes, she would not feel so awful right now if they never existed. Then they say none of this would have happened if she didn’t have sisters in the first place. And she shakes her head yes, and thinks to herself, saying, "Yeah, I wouldn’t..." Turning the energy of pain and guilt back into her usual train of thinking. During this, her grip tightens against herself, but slowly loosens as she caves into these thoughts. In the official pilot, Maya mentions how she’s stuck. Even though it’s played as a literal joke with her being stuck in her anti-Coco signs, I think she also truly means it as a metaphor for her emotions. So, I will play into the fact that she is stuck in this emotional loop, and also how she gets worse and worse throughout the series. And the episode ends showing Maya and Mymy walking home with a very late sunset. Though, after this episode, Maya would very rarely and occasionally be wearing the jacket (after it got washed, of course, and more commonly around winter or autumn. But I will only have her wear it in a handful of episodes out of hundreds, and only for one outfit if she changes outfits throughout the episode instead of wearing it the whole episode), but more often it will be seen in the background of her room or wardrobe. With her shyly and slightly hiding it with her arms while wearing it, or taking it off when around Mymy. Not out of fear or worry that Mymy would take it from her, which Mymy wouldn’t do, but out of the guilt (which is still there even after the imaginary friends turned the guilt into more resentment) and emotions from this episode she still can’t process. This isn’t treated as her not giving the jacket attention even though it was shown to mean so much to Maya. It isn’t treated as the jacket being an afterthought after showing the emotional weight of it. It’s showing that the fact Mymy still gave it to her, Maya still keeping it and accepting it, and even her wearing it (which is a big thing for Maya) even after all of that is a huge deal in the case of Maya. (And Mymy too, kinda, as it shows she forgave her enough to follow through with giving Maya the jacket.)