“Here Comes the Sun”
Where'd You Go Bernadette“Here Comes the Sun” turns a song on a car stereo into a shifting sign of Bernadette Fox and Bee Branch’s closeness. Bernadette sings it with open hope and says it reminds her of Bee; later, as Bee’s anger breaks into the same song, the moment of tenderness becomes inseparable from conflict.
The Song in the Car
Bee has burned a copy of Abbey Road and plays it in the car, limiting the sound to the front speakers because Ice Cream is asleep in the back. As the album proceeds, Bee discovers that Bernadette knows every word and cadence, even singing songs she dislikes. When “Here Comes the Sun” begins, Bernadette’s performance shifts the mood: Bee describes her as opening up like sunlight through clouds, and notes that she even gets the irregular clapping during the guitar solo right.
The scene makes the song more than a familiar track. Its hopeful guitar and Bernadette’s expressive singing reveal a warmth that Bee finds both moving and overwhelming. When the song ends, Bernadette pauses the CD and, with tears in her eyes, tells Bee that it reminds her of her.
Tenderness and Resistance
Bernadette’s association of the song with Bee makes affection suddenly explicit. Bee recalls that this kind of love is why she had not wanted Bernadette to attend her first-grade elephant dance: seemingly random things could fill her mother with feeling. The song’s hope therefore carries a complication. It offers Bee a vivid experience of Bernadette’s love, while also exposing Bee’s discomfort with the intensity and unpredictability of that emotion.
The Song’s Return
During a later confrontation, the song is playing again while Bee, soaked by the rain, faces Bernadette and Audrey Griffin. Bee’s attention is caught by the practical disorder around her—the running car, open doors letting rain onto the leather, and the gate repeatedly trying to close—as well as by Ice Cream watching from the back. Against that mounting frustration, the song recalls Bernadette’s earlier declaration that it was about Bee.
Bee’s response marks a sharp reversal: she thinks she will never listen to Abbey Road again, then pushes Bernadette away and slaps Audrey. The song has not changed, but its meaning has been recast by the scene around it. What first held Bernadette’s tender recognition of Bee now accompanies Bee’s anger, joining a moment of intimacy to the breakdown of control and safety.
