Manic Pixie Dream Girl Bobby Brackenreid.

Played by : Spencer MacPherson

Lyle "Junior" Anderson is the son of Lyle Anderson Sr. (Terrence Meyers) and Deborah Anderson (Laura Söllner) and the brother of Lorraine Anderson.

BIOGRAPHY

Junior and his sister Lorraine are the children of Lyle Anderson Sr., owner of Anderson Insurance, and Deborah Anderson. They have no idea that their parents are the spies Terrence Meyers and Laura Söllner respectively. When they were younger, their father disappeared for a year, having been accidentally sent to the island of Borneo via James Pendrick's rocket ship ("24 Hours Til Doomsday" [09x06]). It is unclear how this affected his family or how he explained his absence to them afterwards.

In "Murdoch Knows Best" [19x08], while playing the parlour game Cats and Dogs, their neighbour Albert Waxworthy was killed in the Anderson living room. Because of his resemblance to Lyle Anderson Sr., it was assumed that Anderson was the intended target, and Lorraine pointed fingers towards Junior. She showed police his school workbooks, in which he had drawn scenarios in which his father dies brutally, such as being run over by a train or being torn apart by lions. He was questioned by Detective Murdoch and Inspector Brackenreid, but they believed his innocence when he described his own more efficient fantasy of killing his father. Junior's hatred for his father was also seen through his interactions with him, such as when his father scolded him for touching the train set and Junior reacted with hostility.

LORRAINE : Junior's been wanting to kill Dad for years.

15x08 "Murdoch Knows Best"

Murdoch, Brackenreid, Dr. Ogden, and Anderson Sr. eventually uncovered that Waxworthy was killed by another neighbour, Herm Billingsley, who was working with Laura Söllner, Junior's mother. Both were spies for the Austro-Hungarian empire. Söllner revealed that her marriage to Anderson Sr. and the life they led together had begun as a plot to continuously gather intelligence from Terrence Meyers on the British Empire. She then killed Billingsley, preventing him from killing Meyers, and refused to turn to Canada, instead allowing herself to be brought in to the Canadian government. Anderson Sr. told his children that Billingsley and Söllner were having an affair and ran away together. Junior lamented the fact that they will not see their mother again and that they are now "stuck" with their father.

THE APPEAL

At first, Junior stood out because he was a really funny character to make fun of. "Petulant, pretentious, edgy Edwardian teenager who wants his dad dead " is such a tickling concept and the execution is goofy as hell. He acts like he knows better than everyone else, as if he has it all figured out. He has a three step plan to murder his father in his sleep and skip town. He casually tells the cops about this plan. He makes flipbooks in his math homework of his father dying violently. He reminds me of this old Kurtis Conner sketch:

Calling Junior an emo freak just comes naturally. Hello cynical middle class boy with a distrust and hatred for your parental figure and assumably the older generations at large. Do you want to hear a song. Manic Pixie Dream Girl Bobby Brackenreid basically was born from the joke that Lyle Anderson Jr. is actively worse off because he lives in a time before Simple Plan and the rest of 2000s pop punk. Born in the wrong generation fr. His episode happened to air around the time I began getting into pop punk which helped to actually put this connection in my mind. Naturally, Junior fitting into the edgy emo teen archetype lends itself greatly to translation into modern alternate universes, an ease I am happy to take advantage of. I LOVE GIVING THIS FREAK MY INTERESTS HEEHEE

The juiciest part of Junior’s character is that he does not exist in a vacuum. Junior’s father whom he hates is not just Lyle Anderson Sr.—his father is Terrence Meyers, a Canadian spy and a recurring character in the show. In addition, his mother Deborah Anderson is also a spy, one for the Austro-Hungarian empire, who initially married Lyle Anderson Sr. solely for her spy work. Junior and his sister Lorraine only exist because of a foreign empire’s plot to gather intelligence on Canada, and they are wholly unaware of their parents’ identities and the larger reality of their existence. On a meta level, in the grand scheme of the show, they basically only exist as additions to Terrence Meyers, one-off characters, footnotes in the character’s long history in the show not to be mentioned again. How fucked up is that?

That’s the final piece in Junior’s story that makes him a Character of All Time to me. It’s the delicious irony of a boy who hates his dad but doesn’t even know who his dad is, unaware of just how possibly justified his distrust and hatred is. A youth who is abrasive and thinks himself better than everyone else, but in reality he is ignorant. Junior’s tragedy is his ignorance.

JUNIOR

they/he | queer - nonbinary - aromantic

I headcanon Junior as hating their name, in part due to transgenderism, in part due to association with his father and in part because Lyle is just uhhhh ummm. not ideal. My name for them is usually Juliet, though sometimes I also consider and play around with the possibility of Julian/Julien/Jules !

Juliet from, yes, Romeo and Juliet, as well as also one of my own names. Juliet, simultaneously an icon of great romance, youthful defiance, and tragic adolescence. Juliet, a kid caught up in the circumstance of her parents' issues. Junior, caught up in a situation he isn't even aware of, his parents' circumstances unknown to him. Junior, who I love to imagine deep underneath that cynicism and ennui, wishes for something simple and beautiful, like a fairy tale, like a love story, though they cannot wholly place themself in the role. (Ohoho Jules and aromanticism is a whole other thing)

One immutable thing for Juliet to me is their hair. I latch on hard to that exchange in the Murdoch Knows Best where he and his father chafe against each other, his father pestering him to get a haircut. In modern AUs, Juliet dyes it purple, like Mania by Fall Out Boy. They'll probably try different colours later on, hot pink and turquoise and brat green... but purple is the main one.