Episode Description:
Renee learns that ethical choices take practice, while Connie's campaign to help a friend creates a moral dilemma.
Episode Review:
Along with “Cars, Trains and Motorcycles” and “The Rydell Revelations”, fans were met with another controversial episode during the summer of 2020: “Millstones”. I must say, with all due respect to the creators of AIO, that this is certainly one of the most bonkers episodes I’ve heard in quite some time. Really bonkers. I mean, it’s at the same level of “Fences” bonkers. Unsurprisingly, it’s an episode that seems to either have upset one half of the AIO fanbase and downright confused the other half. Their reactions are certainly justified. Throughout its 25 minute airtime, “Millstones” makes fascinating head-scratching decision after fascinating head-scratching decision.
The episode opens with Connie speaking to a Wednesday night bible study about her friend Pamela -- a character who the audience hasn’t heard from in over 25 years and who, from all indications, Connie’s Bible study class hasn’t heard much from either. But, there Connie is, requesting money for her friend with as much forwardness as one of Focus on the Family’s emails. Now, you may wonder, couldn’t the millionaire that Connie works for who has a personal connection to Pamela have been able to help raise the relatively modest sum of 5000 dollars? (Or, perhaps, the multi-millionaire mailman?) No, in this scene, and also throughout the rest of the episode, Connie seems overly concerned with whether teenagers in the Wednesday night bible study class will help her friend through her difficulty.
Connie’s behavior goes from strange to stranger. In fact, you could say that Connie starts to behave a little un-Connie-ish. Twenty four hours later, we hear her writing a passive aggressive email about how they “can do better”, and including the line “prayers are great but sometimes money is also needed”. Then, shortly afterwards, we hear Connie go as far as making a deal with the devil -- Jay Smouse, that is -- to help raise the funds. Without notifying Whit that she’s even considering forgiving Jay’s tab, and without asking Jay exactly how he’ll raise the funds (as you and I might have done), Connie happily accepts his offer to go find money. And, as a result, Jay Smouse soon ends up handing her a box with 90 dollars in it and Connie (rather uncharacteristically) accepts the money without any questions.
Such moments of irregularity could be excused, if it weren’t for what happens next. Connie has a temper tantrum. She yells at the bible study class using a series of curious sentences such as: “I’d like to thank everyone for your help with the fundraiser for Pamela. I’d like to, but I can’t. It’s been two days [...] and [Jay] raised more than double what all of you raise combined! This is UNACCEPTABLE! What is going on with you all? We have an opportunity to show Christ’s love to my dear friend, and so far your response has been PATHETIC.” Woah. My first thought was: what do you mean it’s been “two days”? How many Wednesday Night Bible studies are there in a week? And secondly...WHAT?! Pastor Knox, of course, echoes the listeners’ confusion, telling Connie that hurting people “even if what you want them to do is a good thing, undoes all the goodness you’re trying to do for Pamela. Doing wrong, in the name of right, is still doing wrong.” Sounds logical right? Does Connie come to her senses? Does she apologize, fall to her knees, and repent of her sins? Nope. Her reply, to our astonishment, is: “Well, I’m sorry Pastor. I disagree”. Which part of what Pastor Knox is saying are you disagreeing with, Connie?
Making matters worse, Connie later learns that Jay was helping by taking unflattering pictures of people and threatening to post them online. This, of course, would make any sensible person horrified. It certainly made listeners horrified. But Connie, as we’ve learned so far throughout this episode, is no sensible person. No, instead of acting repulsed by Jay’s actions, she grows upset that Whit and Pastor Knox won’t actually let her use the money that she raised for Pamela. She doesn’t admit any wrongdoing, and says: “I need to get back to work...” adding, in a very childish tone, “If I still have a job here?” Time and time again, the episode shows Connie in a rather unflattering light, making decision after decision that doesn't seem to fit with the growth we’ve seen from her in the past decade. Would Connie really be behaving this way after so much growth?
It all doesn’t seem to quite make sense, does it? So why on earth is she being portrayed this way? After all, it’s not as if writer and director, Phil Lollar, is completely unaware of how he’s portraying Connie in these scenes. Whit and Wilson themselves highlight how uncharacteristic Connie’s behavior is, telling her “you’ve lost perspective”. No, the problem with “Millstones” isn’t that the writer doesn’t know how to write for Connie, but, rather, that the writer seems to be deliberately “rewinding the clock” to match the way Connie sounded when he last wrote on the show. Think about it. This is the first episode that Phil Lollar has written since returning to Odyssey that centers around Connie as a principal character. Could it be that he wrote Connie this way because this is the iteration he simply finds the most interesting? Unless I’m told otherwise, that’s my assumption.
To the episode’s credit, by showing Connie in such a negative light, Millstones highlights a problem with her character in recent years; namely, she’s just not as interesting as she used to be. That’s not entirely the writers’ fault, of course. As much as the show has had its ups and downs over the past two decades, Connie has, throughout these same decades, been part of its most dramatic and earth-shattering storylines -- from being in a crazy relationship with Robert Mitchell, to losing her mother. Such life-changing storylines would naturally shape a character towards greater maturity. But the problem with a character gaining maturity is that they eventually, well, become mature. And there’s only so much you can do with a completely mature character. Most AIO characters fall into two categories: those who make mistakes and those who help others learn from their mistakes. In recent years, Connie has been the latter.
That’s the main reason why, despite all of my criticisms about the ridiculousness of the episode, I actually kinda liked Millstones. Things aren’t just happening to Connie, or to one of her friends like Penny or Jules. She’s the one making mistakes. She’s the one showing poor judgment. For a full 25 minutes, she sounded like the Connie that I listened to in the 90s. And isn’t that the Connie fans liked the most? We can argue about character logic all we want, but, sometimes, we can spend so much time complaining about logic that we forget that an episode should have something else: pathos. And this episode has it. Overall, with Connie sounding like old Connie, and with the inclusion of Pamela, if you had just replaced Renee with, say, pre-converted Eugene, and then replaced Jay with, say, Curt Stevens, this episode would have fit so well as an early 90s episode.
It’s interesting to compare my reviews for “Cars, Trains and Motorcycles”, “The Rydell Revelations”, and “Millstones”. These three, in my mind, act as a trilogy of sorts. They each present an iteration of a central character that many audiences find too difficult to accept. So, if all were controversial, why did I respond so differently, then? Well, I gave “Cars, Trains, and Motorcycles” a lower grade (2 ½ stars) because I hadn’t seen Whit act that “delusional” way before. I gave “Rydell Revelations” an OK grade (3 ½ stars) because I felt an argument could be made for why Whit behaved the way he was acting. Meanwhile, I’m giving “Millstones” a higher grade (4 stars) because, at the end of the day, we have seen Connie act this way. There’s precedent. Anyone who has listened to the show for a long time knows that this behavior is nothing new. The behavior just makes its appearance at the completely wrong era of the show. That, of course, is why “Millstones” feels utterly bonkers -- but a nice sort of bonkers!
Renee learns that ethical choices take practice, while Connie's campaign to help a friend creates a moral dilemma.
Episode Review:
Along with “Cars, Trains and Motorcycles” and “The Rydell Revelations”, fans were met with another controversial episode during the summer of 2020: “Millstones”. I must say, with all due respect to the creators of AIO, that this is certainly one of the most bonkers episodes I’ve heard in quite some time. Really bonkers. I mean, it’s at the same level of “Fences” bonkers. Unsurprisingly, it’s an episode that seems to either have upset one half of the AIO fanbase and downright confused the other half. Their reactions are certainly justified. Throughout its 25 minute airtime, “Millstones” makes fascinating head-scratching decision after fascinating head-scratching decision.
The episode opens with Connie speaking to a Wednesday night bible study about her friend Pamela -- a character who the audience hasn’t heard from in over 25 years and who, from all indications, Connie’s Bible study class hasn’t heard much from either. But, there Connie is, requesting money for her friend with as much forwardness as one of Focus on the Family’s emails. Now, you may wonder, couldn’t the millionaire that Connie works for who has a personal connection to Pamela have been able to help raise the relatively modest sum of 5000 dollars? (Or, perhaps, the multi-millionaire mailman?) No, in this scene, and also throughout the rest of the episode, Connie seems overly concerned with whether teenagers in the Wednesday night bible study class will help her friend through her difficulty.
Connie’s behavior goes from strange to stranger. In fact, you could say that Connie starts to behave a little un-Connie-ish. Twenty four hours later, we hear her writing a passive aggressive email about how they “can do better”, and including the line “prayers are great but sometimes money is also needed”. Then, shortly afterwards, we hear Connie go as far as making a deal with the devil -- Jay Smouse, that is -- to help raise the funds. Without notifying Whit that she’s even considering forgiving Jay’s tab, and without asking Jay exactly how he’ll raise the funds (as you and I might have done), Connie happily accepts his offer to go find money. And, as a result, Jay Smouse soon ends up handing her a box with 90 dollars in it and Connie (rather uncharacteristically) accepts the money without any questions.
Such moments of irregularity could be excused, if it weren’t for what happens next. Connie has a temper tantrum. She yells at the bible study class using a series of curious sentences such as: “I’d like to thank everyone for your help with the fundraiser for Pamela. I’d like to, but I can’t. It’s been two days [...] and [Jay] raised more than double what all of you raise combined! This is UNACCEPTABLE! What is going on with you all? We have an opportunity to show Christ’s love to my dear friend, and so far your response has been PATHETIC.” Woah. My first thought was: what do you mean it’s been “two days”? How many Wednesday Night Bible studies are there in a week? And secondly...WHAT?! Pastor Knox, of course, echoes the listeners’ confusion, telling Connie that hurting people “even if what you want them to do is a good thing, undoes all the goodness you’re trying to do for Pamela. Doing wrong, in the name of right, is still doing wrong.” Sounds logical right? Does Connie come to her senses? Does she apologize, fall to her knees, and repent of her sins? Nope. Her reply, to our astonishment, is: “Well, I’m sorry Pastor. I disagree”. Which part of what Pastor Knox is saying are you disagreeing with, Connie?
Making matters worse, Connie later learns that Jay was helping by taking unflattering pictures of people and threatening to post them online. This, of course, would make any sensible person horrified. It certainly made listeners horrified. But Connie, as we’ve learned so far throughout this episode, is no sensible person. No, instead of acting repulsed by Jay’s actions, she grows upset that Whit and Pastor Knox won’t actually let her use the money that she raised for Pamela. She doesn’t admit any wrongdoing, and says: “I need to get back to work...” adding, in a very childish tone, “If I still have a job here?” Time and time again, the episode shows Connie in a rather unflattering light, making decision after decision that doesn't seem to fit with the growth we’ve seen from her in the past decade. Would Connie really be behaving this way after so much growth?
It all doesn’t seem to quite make sense, does it? So why on earth is she being portrayed this way? After all, it’s not as if writer and director, Phil Lollar, is completely unaware of how he’s portraying Connie in these scenes. Whit and Wilson themselves highlight how uncharacteristic Connie’s behavior is, telling her “you’ve lost perspective”. No, the problem with “Millstones” isn’t that the writer doesn’t know how to write for Connie, but, rather, that the writer seems to be deliberately “rewinding the clock” to match the way Connie sounded when he last wrote on the show. Think about it. This is the first episode that Phil Lollar has written since returning to Odyssey that centers around Connie as a principal character. Could it be that he wrote Connie this way because this is the iteration he simply finds the most interesting? Unless I’m told otherwise, that’s my assumption.
To the episode’s credit, by showing Connie in such a negative light, Millstones highlights a problem with her character in recent years; namely, she’s just not as interesting as she used to be. That’s not entirely the writers’ fault, of course. As much as the show has had its ups and downs over the past two decades, Connie has, throughout these same decades, been part of its most dramatic and earth-shattering storylines -- from being in a crazy relationship with Robert Mitchell, to losing her mother. Such life-changing storylines would naturally shape a character towards greater maturity. But the problem with a character gaining maturity is that they eventually, well, become mature. And there’s only so much you can do with a completely mature character. Most AIO characters fall into two categories: those who make mistakes and those who help others learn from their mistakes. In recent years, Connie has been the latter.
That’s the main reason why, despite all of my criticisms about the ridiculousness of the episode, I actually kinda liked Millstones. Things aren’t just happening to Connie, or to one of her friends like Penny or Jules. She’s the one making mistakes. She’s the one showing poor judgment. For a full 25 minutes, she sounded like the Connie that I listened to in the 90s. And isn’t that the Connie fans liked the most? We can argue about character logic all we want, but, sometimes, we can spend so much time complaining about logic that we forget that an episode should have something else: pathos. And this episode has it. Overall, with Connie sounding like old Connie, and with the inclusion of Pamela, if you had just replaced Renee with, say, pre-converted Eugene, and then replaced Jay with, say, Curt Stevens, this episode would have fit so well as an early 90s episode.
It’s interesting to compare my reviews for “Cars, Trains and Motorcycles”, “The Rydell Revelations”, and “Millstones”. These three, in my mind, act as a trilogy of sorts. They each present an iteration of a central character that many audiences find too difficult to accept. So, if all were controversial, why did I respond so differently, then? Well, I gave “Cars, Trains, and Motorcycles” a lower grade (2 ½ stars) because I hadn’t seen Whit act that “delusional” way before. I gave “Rydell Revelations” an OK grade (3 ½ stars) because I felt an argument could be made for why Whit behaved the way he was acting. Meanwhile, I’m giving “Millstones” a higher grade (4 stars) because, at the end of the day, we have seen Connie act this way. There’s precedent. Anyone who has listened to the show for a long time knows that this behavior is nothing new. The behavior just makes its appearance at the completely wrong era of the show. That, of course, is why “Millstones” feels utterly bonkers -- but a nice sort of bonkers!
Writer: Phil Lollar
Director: Phil Lollar
Executive Producer: Dave Arnold
Post-Production: Jonathan Crowe
Music: John Campbell
Scripture: 1st Peter, 5-8
Release Date: 01/07/88
Date Reviewed: 05/04/21