Grabbing Her Attention
Besides “Helga on the Couch,” another one of my all time favorite Hey Arnold! episodes is “Married,” in which Arnold and Helga both dream of being married to one another. While Helga’s dream serves as service to fans of the pairing, Arnold’s dream is the most important, especially near the end, when Helga almost confesses that she loves him.
I can describe a lot about what makes his dream important, but for now, I just want to mention one moment that stands out to me, which is when Arnold grabs Helga (who has been cruel towards and mooching off of him) and forces her to admit and show that she’s not truly as bad as she makes herself out to be.
Now there have been times in the show where Arnold loses patience with Helga and fight back when she pushes him too far. But because he is such a good guy, I do think Arnold would never stoop so low and become very violent with Helga. He would never hit or punch her if she angered him, despite everything she does, but as shown in his dream, in order to successfully get through to her, he will get physical with her if all else fails.
Previously throughout the dream, Arnold has had no power over anything and Helga has always been one step ahead of dominating him. But by the end, he is fed up and finally stands up to her. His actions prove that he will get physical if he has to, but no further than grabbing and only as a last resort. The point is, when Arnold grabs Helga, he's once and for all trying to get her to admit that she's not really mean or bad like she claims. She tries to deny it, just like she always does in real life, but his increasing pressure on her ultimately forces Helga into dropping her ruse and admitting the truth.
In my eyes, Arnold grabbing Helga to finally get her attention almost seems like he is literally trying to shake the truth out of her. Many times on the show we seem him just coping with her teasing and trying to ignore it, and only a few times has he fought back. But we never see him take the kind of “hands on” approach that he does in the dream. If Arnold attempted to stand up to Helga just by verbal communication, she might not take him so seriously, since he always suggests talking as a solution in solving a problem. However, if he touched her and/or then got a little more physical with her in order to get her to listen once and for all, I have no doubt that Helga would finally listen to him and he would get through to her like he wants.