Episode Description:
"A mean girl from Connie's past wants to reconnect. Meanwhile, Jules hatches a plan to teach her own bully a lesson" - AIO
Episode Review:
The opening of “Mean Streak” may have conjured up a feeling of dejavu especially if you had just listened to “Met His Match”. Amazingly, both episodes begin with a slightly depressed Connie sitting in front of her computer, browsing a parody of a popular social media page, during a 5-minute long scene in which she, among other things, laments an aspect of her life, while Penny sits nearby, offering friendly advice and counsel. Then, after Connie leaves, Penny pairs with a young sidekick and decides to fix a person’s problem without their knowledge, which, of course, has mixed results. Both episodes were also written by Kathy Buchanan, and I’d be certainly surprised if the idea of one episode wasn’t birthed during the writing of the other.
“Mean Streak” may not have the goofiness of “Met His Match”, but I found it more interesting and more fitting to the world of Adventures in Odyssey. In some ways, the episode is a refreshing throw-back to older Odyssey episodes – simple premises with a well told story. It also does not fall into a category or “type”, as many newer Odyssey episodes do. It’s not a “Parker family episode” or a “Jones and Parker detective Agency episode” or a “BTV episode” or “KYDS Radio episode”. There’s no continuing saga, no trek to a foreign country, no Imagination Station or Room of Consequence adventure. Rather, the action takes place almost strictly within and surrounding Whit’s End, with a random assortment of recurring characters, like Jeff Lewis, coming and going, and reminding us all that Odyssey is – at its core— about a small town with small but interesting problems.
When I first read the description of the episode, I had erroneously assumed that the “mean girl” they were referring to was a classmate from her old school in California. The reason that I was surprised was that, surely, if Connie was bullied in Odyssey, we would have heard about it already. In the early days of Adventures in Odyssey, Connie talked about everything t0 Whit. Interestingly, the way Connie spoke about these past events felt like she was recollecting on events that happened over a decade ago – I don’t think the show has meant to age her an entire decade since graduating from High School. But it’s an acceptable addition to her history, given some credence and believability with the appearance of Jeff Lewis at the end (a Sheryl McCormick cameo might have been fun, too) and it doesn’t feel nearly as retroactively forced into the show’s cannon as when Adventures in Odyssey tried to convince us, say, that Rusty Gordon once picked on Liz Horton, or that Eugene and Connie attended the same camp in “The Champ of the Camp”.
“Mean Streak” also shows a complicated balance: Adventures in Odyssey is trying its best in giving Connie her typical struggles while keeping in mind her growth and progression on the show so far. And you can really tell Buchanan is working that balance the whole time, making sure that Connie isn’t the same character she was at the beginning of the show – the immature, self-centered, teenager – but remembering everything Whit has taught her. Since we wouldn’t have believed that Connie would orchestrate the plan to deceive Tiffani herself, Connie only gets swept up with exaggerating her own life once Penny had done the initial legwork. She “lies” to Tiffani at just the believable moment – much like in “Met His Match”, where she discovers Penny’s plan to matchmake Whit only after the plan had been set into motion. The show once again wisely keeps Connie as both a flawed and mature character.
The twist revealing that Tiffani is a “monster” is enjoyable, and the ending, in turn, is quite satisfying. Too satisfying, perhaps. Tiffani gets covered in green slime and runs away screaming. Yes, she sure deserved it. But does it make sense considering the episode’s theme? While Connie shows restraint throughout the episode, and doesn’t try to repay evil for evil, listeners, on the other hand, get exactly what they want: a deep feeling of satisfaction for something bad happening to Tiffani. I chuckle at the irony. They sure chose an ending that was more entertaining than thematically sound. I don’t believe in Karma, but, for a brief moment, it sure felt like Adventures in Odyssey did!
"A mean girl from Connie's past wants to reconnect. Meanwhile, Jules hatches a plan to teach her own bully a lesson" - AIO
Episode Review:
The opening of “Mean Streak” may have conjured up a feeling of dejavu especially if you had just listened to “Met His Match”. Amazingly, both episodes begin with a slightly depressed Connie sitting in front of her computer, browsing a parody of a popular social media page, during a 5-minute long scene in which she, among other things, laments an aspect of her life, while Penny sits nearby, offering friendly advice and counsel. Then, after Connie leaves, Penny pairs with a young sidekick and decides to fix a person’s problem without their knowledge, which, of course, has mixed results. Both episodes were also written by Kathy Buchanan, and I’d be certainly surprised if the idea of one episode wasn’t birthed during the writing of the other.
“Mean Streak” may not have the goofiness of “Met His Match”, but I found it more interesting and more fitting to the world of Adventures in Odyssey. In some ways, the episode is a refreshing throw-back to older Odyssey episodes – simple premises with a well told story. It also does not fall into a category or “type”, as many newer Odyssey episodes do. It’s not a “Parker family episode” or a “Jones and Parker detective Agency episode” or a “BTV episode” or “KYDS Radio episode”. There’s no continuing saga, no trek to a foreign country, no Imagination Station or Room of Consequence adventure. Rather, the action takes place almost strictly within and surrounding Whit’s End, with a random assortment of recurring characters, like Jeff Lewis, coming and going, and reminding us all that Odyssey is – at its core— about a small town with small but interesting problems.
When I first read the description of the episode, I had erroneously assumed that the “mean girl” they were referring to was a classmate from her old school in California. The reason that I was surprised was that, surely, if Connie was bullied in Odyssey, we would have heard about it already. In the early days of Adventures in Odyssey, Connie talked about everything t0 Whit. Interestingly, the way Connie spoke about these past events felt like she was recollecting on events that happened over a decade ago – I don’t think the show has meant to age her an entire decade since graduating from High School. But it’s an acceptable addition to her history, given some credence and believability with the appearance of Jeff Lewis at the end (a Sheryl McCormick cameo might have been fun, too) and it doesn’t feel nearly as retroactively forced into the show’s cannon as when Adventures in Odyssey tried to convince us, say, that Rusty Gordon once picked on Liz Horton, or that Eugene and Connie attended the same camp in “The Champ of the Camp”.
“Mean Streak” also shows a complicated balance: Adventures in Odyssey is trying its best in giving Connie her typical struggles while keeping in mind her growth and progression on the show so far. And you can really tell Buchanan is working that balance the whole time, making sure that Connie isn’t the same character she was at the beginning of the show – the immature, self-centered, teenager – but remembering everything Whit has taught her. Since we wouldn’t have believed that Connie would orchestrate the plan to deceive Tiffani herself, Connie only gets swept up with exaggerating her own life once Penny had done the initial legwork. She “lies” to Tiffani at just the believable moment – much like in “Met His Match”, where she discovers Penny’s plan to matchmake Whit only after the plan had been set into motion. The show once again wisely keeps Connie as both a flawed and mature character.
The twist revealing that Tiffani is a “monster” is enjoyable, and the ending, in turn, is quite satisfying. Too satisfying, perhaps. Tiffani gets covered in green slime and runs away screaming. Yes, she sure deserved it. But does it make sense considering the episode’s theme? While Connie shows restraint throughout the episode, and doesn’t try to repay evil for evil, listeners, on the other hand, get exactly what they want: a deep feeling of satisfaction for something bad happening to Tiffani. I chuckle at the irony. They sure chose an ending that was more entertaining than thematically sound. I don’t believe in Karma, but, for a brief moment, it sure felt like Adventures in Odyssey did!
Writer: Kathy Buchanan
Director: Kathy Buchanan
Executive Producer: Dave Arnold
Sound Design: Nathan Jones
Music: John Campbell
Theme: Kindness
Original Air-date: 05.01.18
Review published: 06.03.18