#972: Alibis

[Polehaus53]

This episode features the teenagers of Odyssey doing a murder mystery party at Whit's End. Throughout the episode I thought it would be Whit who did it but it went in an entirely different direction than what I had expected. I also enjoyed hearing them all interact together. I thought the theme of loyalty and friendship was really well done. I'd need to hear this episode again before making any judgements. But for now I'll say that I enjoyed it.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Bob]

This is one of the more fun recent-ish episodes to listen to, probably because of the accusation stories, which are exaggerated and self-serving in the same sense as "Two Sides to Every Story", and sometimes reflect the speaker's habits or cluelessness like in "Mandy's Debut" (Ryan's having Jules refer to 'whatever things girls carry'.)

A quick section showing the accusations and their premises:

Jay accuses Cooper:
Cooper was embarrassed after a conversation with Bridget went poorly, and decided to show her ("and everyone") that he could be clever and creative, like Jay.

Bridget accuses Ryan:
Ryan called Bridget to get her advice on what he can do with all of the chicken feathers in the yard. Bridget was 'no help at all', so Ryan, angry at this, decided to get revenge.

Cooper accuses Jay:
Jay, wandering in the kitchen after losing the solution card and feeling bad about himself for proving again that he is 'inferior physically, mentally, socially, etc.' to Cooper, wondered what he can do to make it better. He then came up with an evil plan after happening to see a bottle of syrup.

Ryan accuses Jules:
Jules and Bridget saw a dress Jules liked at the store. Jules intended to buy it, but Bridget came back and bought it before her; Jules decided to get back at her out of spite.

Jules accuses Bridget:
Bridget, feeling down about herself given Jules' popularity, wondered what she can do to get attention on herself, before suddenly having an idea.

One curiosity is that while the flashback scenes normally end with the accused party's villainous laughter, Jules does not have any such scene; her sequence closes with Bridget's implied treachery. Ryan then surmises what Jules' response was, but it would have been nice if there could have been a follow-up where we got to hear Jules think out loud about what happened and plot her supervillainous response, as did the others. I'm sure Shona would have done a good job with it.

I like the message, and stories about youth groups and youth activities and their bonding, and so it's safe to say that this episode receives my approval.