Episode Description:
After a caller calls to say that her on-radio advice is unrealistic, Connie puts Wooton's scheduled show on hold to convince her audience that she can, in fact, relate to her listeners.
Episode Review:
There’s a moment in “Unrelatable” when every listener’s jaw drops. You know which moment I’m talking about. It’s that moment you hear the fire alarm go off on Spencer’s side of the phone. You’re at first, confused, then disoriented, then, before you realize it, you find yourself yelling: “Oh no! He’s in your house!”. In the span of seconds, millions of questions go through your mind: “What’s Spencer doing there? Is he a stalker? How long has he been stalking Connie for? Who is in the house with him? Is he going to murder Jillian? Is he hiding there to murder Connie when she got home? WHAT IS HAPPENING?”
The answers provided, of course, are less terrifying and dramatic than any of those listed. The audience discovers, in time, that the escaped convict who’s been having a heartfelt conversation with Connie for the past hour simply broke into her house to shave and have a mango. Is this a disappointing answer? Not in the slightest. The best thrillers aren’t thrilling because of the answers they ultimately provide, but rather, the information they leave out throughout the course of the story. And for those listeners whose minds drifted towards the worst case scenario -- i.e. most grownups -- this is one very creepy episode to listen to for the first time! Seriously -- I was pretty stressed out.
For that reason alone, Adventures in Odyssey will probably receive letters. The letter won’t actually be able to point out anything objectionable in the episode (for there is nothing objectionable, really), but they’ll blame the show -- misguidedly, perhaps -- for the worst-case-scenarios they did think. That said, I have no doubt that the AIO Team wanted you to think the worst. I can’t help but wonder how much writer Marshall Younger was chuckling behind the scenes as he injected just enough information to make us think -- in those few traumatic seconds -- that Odyssey was veering towards very unsettling content. For a few seconds, we were all Donna Barclay thinking that an axe murderer was going to murder them.
Every so often I hear an episode that makes me think: “I wish I had written that''. This is one of those episodes. I’m a big fan of storytelling that treats the midway point as the episode’s most important part, rather than revealing the episode’s central conflict within the first minutes or two. This midway twist is a staple of many Hitchcock stories, from Vertigo, to Psycho, to Shadow of a Doubt -- where we suddenly see everything that’s come before in a new light. Marshall Younger, likewise, gives us one conflict at the beginning (Connie feels unrelatable), but holds off on revealing the more dramatic one (Spencer is a fugitive) until later -- allowing us, for those first ten minutes, to feel at ease and to think the episode is just another lighthearted comedy where Connie has an existential crisis over the radio. But in these precious minutes, he is both setting us up for, and distracting us from, the subsequent change in tone (and then, brilliantly, does it all over again for that “he’s in your house!” reveal).
What also makes this episode work so well is that it’s using listeners’ favorite characters in exactly the ways we like them. We see Connie, at the beginning, struggle with her own immaturity and then, by the end, showing the wisdom we know she’s gained over the years. We see Wooton once again playing the side-kick whose dialogue isn’t solely a series of “asides” or “digressions” (though, there’s a little of that), giving some of the episode’s funniest lines: “He was in your house! [...] He ate a mango!” And we see Jason being the Jason everybody loves, once again, using his background in the National Security Agency to help solve illegal activity (although I wish he had more meaningful struggles on the show, don’t you?). It makes me wonder why, when looking back at all the episodes that have aired, we don’t actually see fan favourite grownup characters inundate episodes more often. Even when I was the target audience, episodes that were heavier in grownup characters, like Connie, Eugene, and Whit, were simply more popular. That fact alone bumps up my rating of “Unrelatable” and episodes like it
To top it all off, “Unrelatable” contains a rather important theme, too. While I don’t necessarily agree with those who say that Odyssey isn’t tackling hard-truths like they used to, it's always eye opening to hear an episode that feels so thematically blunt/forthright. You see, I felt bad for Spencer, and I almost felt as though the right thing for Connie to do at the end was to help Spencer escape. Crazy right? Maybe it’s because Spencer showed such strong remorse throughout the episode. Maybe it’s because we see how the justice system isn’t always helpful in people’s rehabilitation. But I appreciate the episode's bluntness in saying “Regardless of what you think of this situation: right is right, wrong is wrong, and -- yes tragically -- there are real consequences for doing what’s wrong.” To its benefit, the episode leaves out any ambiguity it could have injected into Spencer’s situation, and I think that alone will make this message feel sobering for some to hear (even to some Christians!).
In the end, “Unrelatable” is a terrific episode. It ventures into a genre we haven’t encountered in some time, resulting in an entertaining thrill ride with not one but two solid twists. It’s scary, too. Sort of. Granted, there is only so much scariness that Adventures in Odyssey can inject into their episodes. We have yet to get an episode quite like “The Case of the Secret Room'' or “The Mysterious Stranger” or “The Black Veil” that had some genuinely bone-chilling moments -- and it’s doubtful we’ll ever be frightened in that way again. I’ll gladly accept “Unrelatable” as the next best thing.
After a caller calls to say that her on-radio advice is unrealistic, Connie puts Wooton's scheduled show on hold to convince her audience that she can, in fact, relate to her listeners.
Episode Review:
There’s a moment in “Unrelatable” when every listener’s jaw drops. You know which moment I’m talking about. It’s that moment you hear the fire alarm go off on Spencer’s side of the phone. You’re at first, confused, then disoriented, then, before you realize it, you find yourself yelling: “Oh no! He’s in your house!”. In the span of seconds, millions of questions go through your mind: “What’s Spencer doing there? Is he a stalker? How long has he been stalking Connie for? Who is in the house with him? Is he going to murder Jillian? Is he hiding there to murder Connie when she got home? WHAT IS HAPPENING?”
The answers provided, of course, are less terrifying and dramatic than any of those listed. The audience discovers, in time, that the escaped convict who’s been having a heartfelt conversation with Connie for the past hour simply broke into her house to shave and have a mango. Is this a disappointing answer? Not in the slightest. The best thrillers aren’t thrilling because of the answers they ultimately provide, but rather, the information they leave out throughout the course of the story. And for those listeners whose minds drifted towards the worst case scenario -- i.e. most grownups -- this is one very creepy episode to listen to for the first time! Seriously -- I was pretty stressed out.
For that reason alone, Adventures in Odyssey will probably receive letters. The letter won’t actually be able to point out anything objectionable in the episode (for there is nothing objectionable, really), but they’ll blame the show -- misguidedly, perhaps -- for the worst-case-scenarios they did think. That said, I have no doubt that the AIO Team wanted you to think the worst. I can’t help but wonder how much writer Marshall Younger was chuckling behind the scenes as he injected just enough information to make us think -- in those few traumatic seconds -- that Odyssey was veering towards very unsettling content. For a few seconds, we were all Donna Barclay thinking that an axe murderer was going to murder them.
Every so often I hear an episode that makes me think: “I wish I had written that''. This is one of those episodes. I’m a big fan of storytelling that treats the midway point as the episode’s most important part, rather than revealing the episode’s central conflict within the first minutes or two. This midway twist is a staple of many Hitchcock stories, from Vertigo, to Psycho, to Shadow of a Doubt -- where we suddenly see everything that’s come before in a new light. Marshall Younger, likewise, gives us one conflict at the beginning (Connie feels unrelatable), but holds off on revealing the more dramatic one (Spencer is a fugitive) until later -- allowing us, for those first ten minutes, to feel at ease and to think the episode is just another lighthearted comedy where Connie has an existential crisis over the radio. But in these precious minutes, he is both setting us up for, and distracting us from, the subsequent change in tone (and then, brilliantly, does it all over again for that “he’s in your house!” reveal).
What also makes this episode work so well is that it’s using listeners’ favorite characters in exactly the ways we like them. We see Connie, at the beginning, struggle with her own immaturity and then, by the end, showing the wisdom we know she’s gained over the years. We see Wooton once again playing the side-kick whose dialogue isn’t solely a series of “asides” or “digressions” (though, there’s a little of that), giving some of the episode’s funniest lines: “He was in your house! [...] He ate a mango!” And we see Jason being the Jason everybody loves, once again, using his background in the National Security Agency to help solve illegal activity (although I wish he had more meaningful struggles on the show, don’t you?). It makes me wonder why, when looking back at all the episodes that have aired, we don’t actually see fan favourite grownup characters inundate episodes more often. Even when I was the target audience, episodes that were heavier in grownup characters, like Connie, Eugene, and Whit, were simply more popular. That fact alone bumps up my rating of “Unrelatable” and episodes like it
To top it all off, “Unrelatable” contains a rather important theme, too. While I don’t necessarily agree with those who say that Odyssey isn’t tackling hard-truths like they used to, it's always eye opening to hear an episode that feels so thematically blunt/forthright. You see, I felt bad for Spencer, and I almost felt as though the right thing for Connie to do at the end was to help Spencer escape. Crazy right? Maybe it’s because Spencer showed such strong remorse throughout the episode. Maybe it’s because we see how the justice system isn’t always helpful in people’s rehabilitation. But I appreciate the episode's bluntness in saying “Regardless of what you think of this situation: right is right, wrong is wrong, and -- yes tragically -- there are real consequences for doing what’s wrong.” To its benefit, the episode leaves out any ambiguity it could have injected into Spencer’s situation, and I think that alone will make this message feel sobering for some to hear (even to some Christians!).
In the end, “Unrelatable” is a terrific episode. It ventures into a genre we haven’t encountered in some time, resulting in an entertaining thrill ride with not one but two solid twists. It’s scary, too. Sort of. Granted, there is only so much scariness that Adventures in Odyssey can inject into their episodes. We have yet to get an episode quite like “The Case of the Secret Room'' or “The Mysterious Stranger” or “The Black Veil” that had some genuinely bone-chilling moments -- and it’s doubtful we’ll ever be frightened in that way again. I’ll gladly accept “Unrelatable” as the next best thing.
Writer: Marshall Younger
Director: Marshall Younger
Executive Producer: Dave Arnold
Post-Production: Christopher Diehl
Music: John Campbell
Original Air-date: 01.05.2021
Episode Reviewed: 01.16.2021