Characters / Adventures In Odyssey Main Supporting Cast

Regulars around Whit's End and leading adult protagonists.

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Thomas Dale “Tom” Riley

First appearance: “Whit’s Flop”

Last appearance: “Suspicious Finds”

Voiced by: Walker Edmiston (“Whit’s Flop”-“Suspicious Finds”), Chad Reisser (“A Matter of Obedience”)

• All Up to You: In “Exit”, Whit is led away by Mr. Charles kidnapping and threatening Connie, but no one knows Tom is still in the utility shack containing the launch equipment, so he is put on the line with Jason to destroy the Imagination Station (a mission that goes down to the wire with Tom and would have taken about ten seconds with Whit).
• Ambition Is Evil: Averted; he’s a member of the city council at the start of the series and then becomes the city mayor because he wants to serve the town. The only reason he even runs for mayor is that no one is opposing Bart Rathbone.
• Bad Liar: He’s really bad at coming up with explanations on the spot—in “A Christmas Conundrum”, for example, he tells Eugene that the stereo he’s purchasing for Connie to give to Eugene for Christmas is for Tom's personal use instead, because he can use it for “all sorts of…listenin’-type things”.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He’s normally a friendly, welcoming guy, but as Richard Maxwell discovers, he can hold quite a grudge.
• Book Dumb: He doesn't tend to follow technical discussions very easily, but he is very skilled and wise in the realms that serve a purpose to him.
• Brown Note: The life-after-death program in the Imagination Station in "The Mortal Coil" is so beautiful and horrifying to him that he demands that Eugene erase it.
• Call to Agriculture
• Clear My Name: In “Hard Losses”, he finds out that he is up for a recall mayoral election after false evidence was planted that he was paid off by the company that polluted his apple orchard; the episode ends with him welcoming the opportunity to clear his name and remind the townspeople why they elected him.
  • Whit has to do this for him in “Exactly As Planned” when Tom is charged with blowing up the Novacom tower on his property and can’t remember enough of what happened to him for a not-guilty plea. Tom’s defense attorney, Michael Frazier, decides that the best route would be an insanity plea in which Novacom is exposed, with their criminal actions used as an explanation for why Tom would blow up the tower. Whit investigates the tower instead, and discovers the actual culprit: Arthur Dent.
• Cool Old Guy: He doesn’t try to be hip and cool; he just meets kids where they are, which means they connect with him really easily.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Fatal Flaw: Holding grudges and having a short temper.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Eugene, who saves his life in “Flash Flood”.
• Frame-Up: Is framed by false evidence planted by Glossman for a chemical spill that poisons his apples.
• Friend to All Children: He’s great with the kids at Whit’s End, he coaches a Little League team, and he’s perceptive enough about children that he’s able to advise Whit in “The W.E.” that no matter what their technology looks like, kids still have the same thoughts, feelings, and emotional needs that they always have.
• Go and Sin No More: Lets Rodney Rathbone off with a warning for stealing his apples and breaking his fence to get them in “An Act of Mercy”; however, after he finds out that Rodney pushed around another kid for a $1.00 debt, he makes Rodney work to make recompense.
• Good Is Not Nice: While he’s normally a friendly guy, he held a grudge against Richard Maxwell for years after Maxwell burned down his barn, even when shown evidence that Maxwell had changed.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In Darkness Before Dawn, he is falsely accused of taking campaign donations from Edgebiter, the company that polluted his farm, as a payoff, and is recalled and dragged through the dirt as a result. (Fortunately, this is resolved when the townspeople discover that he was being framed by Regis Blackgaard as a power grab.)
• Heroic Willpower: Rather than become consumed with Whit’s afterlife simulation program in “The Mortal Coil”, he immediately recognizes that it is incredibly dangerous after experiencing it for only a few seconds and orders Eugene to shut down not only the program, but the Imagination Station itself.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Whit; he affectionately refers to him as “John Avery” when exasperated.
• Hidden Depths: “Potential Possibilities” reveals that he used to be part of a vaudeville team.
• Hopeless with Tech: Tends to lean toward Type 2. He knows the basics, but he'll never exactly be confused with a programmer.
• Hot-Blooded: Responds very fiercely when he feels threatened, even to his friends.
• Irrational Hatred: Toward Maxwell.
• It's All My Fault: Blames himself for allowing Novacom to plant itself in the town, as Tom was the one who leased his property for them to build their broadcasting tower.
• The Lancer: To Whit, serving as a voice of common sense and emotional support while contrasting Whit’s cooler head with a more fiery temper.
• Landslide Election: Wins the mayorship of Odyssey through one of these in “Tom for Mayor”.
• Mistaken for Cheating: In the episode "The Other Woman"; Tom finds himself the subject of rumors started by the Rathbones^note Bart was hoping for another crack at running for Mayor after Tom begins dropping hints that he is not going to run for another term, which he eventually does that he was seeing another woman at Hillendale Haven, based on Riley's rarely-mentioned wife not being blonde. As it happens; that was Tom's wife Agnes, who suffered from severe depression and was staying at the Haven - with Agnes having dyed her hair blonde for unknown reasons.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When he finds out that Richard, whom he had been constantly rebuffing and deriding, was severely injured trying to help him.
• The McCoy: Tends to react more emotionally to situations than logically.
• Nice Guy: For the most part, he is a friendly, welcoming guy who enjoys helping people and cares about the welfare of the town.
• No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: Befitting a show where forgiveness is regularly preached as a virtue, he’s often called out on his grudge against Richard Maxwell (although even he admits on multiple occasions that he knows in his head that he should, but the anger in his heart prevents him from it).
• Only Known by Their Nickname: One of the only times Tom is referred to as “Thomas” is in “Exactly As Planned”, when the judge declares him acquitted of the accusation of blowing up the Novacom tower.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The normally calm and collected (if slightly curmudgeonly) Tom goes into a panic over the life-after-death program in the Imagination Station and immediately orders Eugene to erase it after experiencing it for only a few seconds.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His son Timmy died in a tragic boating accident, and it's haunted him ever since.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: As the mayor of Odyssey; he looks out primarily for the welfare of the town.
• Simple-Minded Wisdom: Just because he's a farmer with a thick country accent doesn't mean he doesn't have worthwhile things to say; he just doesn’t word them the way Eugene does.
  • He has very pointed, sharp words to say to Whit about the Imagination Station’s life-after-death program in “The Mortal Coil”, telling him that death is supposed to be a locked door until God and God alone opens it; in "A Most Extraordinary Conclusion", he points out to Whit that even if the Imagination Station can restore Eugene's memories, it can't quantify the true value of his relationships, and it can't restore his relationship with God.
• Stubborn Mule: He continually insists that the Novabox wave therapy treatment is working for his wife Agnes, in spite of the proofs that Whit has brought against it. It comes back to bite him when the very thing Whit warned him about—that the healing effects of the Novabox reverse themselves—happens and Agnes can no longer even recognize him anymore.
• The Character Died with Him: Walker Edmiston, voice of both Tom Riley and Bart Rathbone, died from cancer in early 2007^note over a year before Tom's last appearance in the episode Suspicious Finds. In the 2017 two-part episode Legacy from Album 62, we learn that Tom has himself passed away.
• Trash Talk: Tag-teams with Bernard in this about Eugene behind his back in “Flash Flood”.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Whit, Jack, Jason, and Eugene all call him out on his treatment of Richard Maxwell.

Bernard Walton

First appearance: “By Any Other Name”

Last appearance: “Rights, Wrongs, and Winners” (on-air), “BTV: Live” (overall)

Voiced by: Dave Madden, David Griffin (“The Conscientious Cross-Guard”), Josh Shada (“The Girl in the Sink”)

• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Arthur Dent insists upon pronouncing his name “BER-nard” instead of “Ber-NARD” in "Nova Rising".
• Agent Scully: To Wooton in “The Other Side of the Glass”.
• The Alleged Car: His truck has quite a few…“special features”, which become Eugene’s undoing when he borrows it to move into his new house in “Two Friends and a Truck”.
• Almighty Janitor
• Audience Surrogate: Frequently responds to the goings-on at Whit’s End with the snarky amusement of a Greek Chorus.
• Book Dumb: Isn’t the most academically or technically minded guy around, not that he minds.
• Brutal Honesty: Never sugarcoats anything; for example, he’s not a bit shy about informing Marvin that the prophet Jeremiah never caught a break after his persecution by the Jews and eventually died in the Babylonian captivity.
• Buffy Speak: Has a difficult time describing Novacom's scheme and the reason for Eugene's amnesia to Maude in "A Most Surprising Answer":
  "And that's where Eugene started back with his top-secret research to convert the—the watchacall—with the...jahoozey."
• Catchphrase: Variations on “this place gets weirder all the time”.
  • “Kids today…”
  • “What are parents teaching their kids these days?” Alternatively, “When will parents teach their kids…”
  • "Well, do X to me and call me Y" (e.g. "Well, smack me with a stick and call me a pinata.")
• The Clan: Has a massive extended family that is both distantly related to and has a blood feud with the Meltsners.
• Country Cousin: Less “country” and more “down-to-earth in comparison to academic and erudite”, but he is this to Eugene.
• The Cynic: He certainly holds Christian values, but he has very few illusions about the world.
• Deadpan Snarker: Quite possibly the snarkiest character on the show.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first lines on the show:
  “Well, the job’s done, Whit. The windows are all clean—at least as clean as they’ll ever be with all these kids running around.”
• Girls Have Cooties: While rescuing Mary Beth Pearson from a river (part of his anecdote in “The Girl in the Sink”), he tells her unconscious body that he wasn’t planning on hugging a girl until he was at least twenty-five.
• Good Feels Good: Gives Sam Johnson a scolding in this vein in “When Bad Isn’t So Good”. Just because he doesn’t get noticed for doing good things doesn’t mean that he should start doing bad things; doing the right thing is its own reward, and more importantly, when a person does the right thing, they have the knowledge that they’ve pleased God.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Has quite a few creative exclamations that he uses when surprised, exasperated, or pleased.
• Grumpy Old Man: Frequently complains about how kids don’t get taught properly by their parents, but he also has good relationships with almost all the kids around town.
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: Deadpan to Wooton’s Ham in “The Other Side of the Glass”.
• Happily Married: To his wife Maude, though he never misses an opportunity to poke fun at her.
• Hopeless with Tech
• I Was Just Passing Through: Claims to have simply stopped into a plumber’s convention in a town where Eugene is stranded in “First Hand Experience”, only to find out Eugene’s situation; a police officer comes by and reveals that as soon as Bernard found out what happened, he practically tore the town apart trying to find his friend.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: In “The Fifth House on the Left, Part 2”.
  “I’m a window-washer, not a microsurgeon!”
• Imagine Spot: In "Solitary Refinement", he has one as he considers what monastic life would be like for Eugene.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With all of the kids with whom he associates; though he does not appear to have any children of his own, he gets along rather well with the kids around town (even if he'd never admit to it).
  • Also with Eugene, Connie, and Wooton, all three of whom are roughly thirty years his junior.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He hides his affection for his friends and the kids at Whit’s End under a thick layer of grousing and sarcasm.
• Long-Lost Relative: To Eugene, although it's not a traditional example since Bernard was already an established character by the time Eugene found out they were distantly related.
• Lopsided Dichotomy: In “A Most Intriguing Question”:
  Connie: Sounds like he’s having a party up there.
  Bernard: Or you’ve got some very large mice.
• Manchild: Shades of it in “Do or Diet”; Connie, who is taking up personal training, finds it difficult to try to motivate him to get in better shape when he has absolutely no impulse control around unhealthy food, and he grumbles that Whit is a “trainer’s pet” for reporting a healthy dinner.
  Bernard (mockingly): “With fresh fruit for dessert!”
• Mentor Archetype/Trickster Mentor: Whereas Whit is usually grandfatherly, straightforward, and affectionate, Bernard is world-weary and sarcastic, preferring to let the kids figure things out for themselves and not above screwing around with them a little bit.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Averted; according to him, you couldn’t possibly miss him, even among four other siblings.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Walks into the Harlequin Theatre, taken over by Regis Blackgaard as a base of operations, as a loud, hillbilly, dopey janitor in "The Last Resort"; walks out having remotely hooked up Eugene’s computer to receive files from Blackgaard’s computer that are essential to taking him down.
• Odd Friendship: With Eugene, who is a neurotic, academic, sesquipedalian, technologically fluent erudite, which Bernard is…none of those things.
  • Also with Wooton, who is goofy, cheerful, and childish, and proudly hails from Cloudcuckooland.
• Only Sane Man: Often shares this role with Whit.
• Papa Wolf: In "The Fifth House on the Left", he is warm, kind, and protective of Tammi Smith-Hammer, a little girl he barely knows, in the face of her controlling father.
• Poor Communication Kills: He never specifies to Eugene what the quirks about his truck are, which is what causes Eugene to accidentally wreck it.
• Refusal of the Call: In “Nova Rising”, he gets a message from AREM, who has already been playing a principle role in questioning Novacom’s presence in town, right as he’s quitting Novacom to go back to producing B-TV on his own. He ignores it, and tellingly does not appear in any of the Novacom episodes afterward.
• Running Gag: If a truck of his is ever making an appearance, it will probably break down or get damaged at some point: it needs fixing after a small crash in “Second Thoughts”, it can’t handle high altitudes well (and so Bernard has to drive so slowly that he ends up being ticketed) in “Third Degree”, Eugene accidentally wrecks it because of the faulty brakes in “Two Friends and a Truck”, and it gets dirt in the carburetor badly enough that it can’t even start in “The Other Side of the Glass, Part 2”.
• Smart People Play Chess: Inverted; he’s not academically brilliant, but he beats Eugene in several consecutive games of chess (and watches delightedly as Eugene progressively loses his sanity).
• Straight Man
• The Storyteller: Regularly tells kids stories, usually from the Bible; the episode titles are typically formatted “Bernard and X”.
• Stubborn Mule: Tellingly, he has the B-plot in “Stubborn Streaks”, wherein he refuses to admit that his window-washing service is losing customers because he’s taken on so many that he can’t do a good job on them all.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality
• Talks Like a Simile/Unusual Euphemism: Has been known to state that something is "about as interesting as the side of a cereal box" and to tell people to "stuff me with spinach and call me a soufflé" when astonished.
• Trash Talk: Tag-teams with Tom about Eugene in “Flash Flood”.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Eugene in the early days.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice gradually gets more deadpan over the course of the show.
• You Need a Breath Mint: Subverted; he asks Eugene if he has one in “The Final Conflict”, but then explains that he needs it, not Eugene. (It’s because he siphoned all the gas out of the tank of Professor Bovril’s car to prevent a getaway.)

Jason Whittaker

First appearance: “The Mortal Coil, Part 1”

Voiced by: Townsend Coleman, Thom Pinto ("The Mortal Coil, Part 1"), T.J. Lowther ("Memories of Jerry"), Christopher Fornof, John DeVito ("Silent Night")

• The Ace: Successful NSA agent, computer programmer, quasi-inventor, cook, and international missionary.
• Agent Scully: He’s the most resistant to the idea that Malachi is really an angel in “Malachi’s Message”, believing him instead to be an enemy agent of some kind.
• Agents Dating: Was briefly engaged to fellow NSA agent Tasha Forbes until the wedding was called off due to spiritual differences - Jason being a Christian, Tasha wasn't
• Altar the Speed: Tries to elope with Tasha the day before their wedding in “A Question About Tasha” after Jack refuses to be his best man.
• Amicable Exes: With Tasha.
• Anti-Hero: Particularly when faced with a dangerous or otherwise sticky situation. He is the most likely to be told that he doesn't have to ignore basic morality to successfully counter evil, and he tends to be very cocky and aggressive when he thinks he knows what he's doing.
  Jack: We're not supposed to fight the way they fight!
  Jason: Well, sorry, but that's the only way I know how to fight.
• Break the Haughty: His character arc in the Blackgaard Saga consisted of him learning the hard way that he isn’t as good as he thinks he is.
• Character Development: He grows beyond his impulsivity, understanding the importance of prayer and reliance on God above himself.
• Chick Magnet: Monica Stone and Tasha Forbes both showed attraction to him, and it's entirely possible that Eugene wasn't just trying to save face when he claimed Connie had a crush on him in "Love is in the Air".
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Notably, the problem isn't that he has a passion for helping people; it's that he has a passion for helping people using his own abilities and making his own decisions instead of letting God direct him.
• Code Name: Agent 1131, for the NSA.
• Deadpan Snarker: Frequently.
• Determinator: It takes a lot to keep him down for the count.
• Didn't Think This Through: One of his prime character flaws; Jason has an unfortunate history of acting on impulse.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In "A Name Not A Number, Part 1", Jason and NSA Deputy Director Donovan are investigating Tasha's kidnapping by Red Scorpion, and Donovan tells Jason that he'll be back "in the blink of an eye", which, coupled with the fact that Tasha's computer had information on it about codes, clues Jason into the fact that Tasha's erratic blinking in the video Red Scorpion sent of her is actually Morse Code.
• Expy: Elements of his characterization hearken back to James Bond and Indiana Jones; the clothes he wears on the cover of Album 27: The Search for Whit are particularly Indy-esque, as is the adventure of the titular episodes, and he’s drawn in a tuxedo on the cover of Album 50.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride and recklessness.
• Forgot About His Powers: Or rather, his skills that were central plots to his first three major episodes. Jason is well-known for his skills with codebreaking, but in "The Search for Whit, Part 1", he doesn't recognize backmasking on the tape Whit sent him, nor does he clue in to the fact that the message is an acronym at any point during a nine-hour flight.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric—strong-willed, confident, and prone to aggression.
• Friend to All Children: Gets along very easily with the kids around town.
• Genius Bruiser: One of the most physically adept characters and also very quick-thinking and gifted in the realm of computer programming (though nowhere near Eugene's extensive knowledge), generally knowledgeable about a number of subjects, and in command of a vast array of street smarts gained through experience.
• Good Is Not Nice: Upon seeing Rodney Rathbone visiting the hospital to check on Richard Maxwell in "The Last Resort", Jason forcefully yanks him into an elevator, shoves him up against the wall, fiercely assures him that he and the Bones of Wrath will be brought to justice, and intimidates him into spilling all the information he knows.
• Good Is Not Soft: Struggles with the fact that his line of work requires this, dissonant with his deeply-held Christian beliefs, in “The Labyrinth”.
• Good Versus Good: Constantly butts heads with Jack during the period where they ran Whit’s End together.
• Guile Hero: He's not always seen fighting physically, but he usually doesn't have to.
• Hand Gagging: Does this to Eugene to keep him from spilling vital information in a bugged room in “The Search for Whit, Part 1”. Eugene then repays him in kind in Part 2.
• Heartbroken Badass: After he and Tasha have to break off their engagement, and then after he finds out that Monica Stone used him.
• He's Dead, Jim: Pronounces Dr. Blackgaard dead at the end of “A Name, Not A Number, Part 1” after Blackgaard is injected with a syringe full of Ruku virus. (Justified, as Jason knew the virus to be deadly and fast-acting.) Turns out Blackgaard was actually Faking the Dead.
• Honor Before Reason: Has a tendency to indulge in this, including in some of his advice-giving—he’s the one who suggests that Eugene go up to Lakeshore Lodge and interrupt a wedding because they think it’s Katrina’s.
• Hot-Blooded: Is much more brash and impulsive than most of the characters surrounding him; Glossman notes that this is easy to use against him.
• Innocently Insensitive: In “A Touch of Healing”, he doesn’t understand why a disabled child would become addicted to the effects of an Imagination Station program that allows them to experience life without their disability, even going so far as to refer to the ability to walk after being crippled as a "novelty"...to the mother of a paralyzed boy.
• Jumped at the Call: Revels in the excitement of the idea of heading the Israelites to counter the Bones of Wrath, and enjoys throwing himself into hands-on projects in general.
• Large Ham: He can get a bit melodramatic at times. “Love Is in the Air” has him deliver a very impassioned speech about pursuing love.
• Let Me at Him!: When sufficiently pushed. He nearly loses it with Philip Glossman before Glossman reminds him that the latter has the bureaucracy on his side, while Jason has...a high school student, the local nerd, a mayor up for recall, and a ragtag group of schoolchildren led by a guy who works at a gas station.
• Like Brother and Sister/Platonic Life-Partners: Seems to be set up this way with Connie.
• Like Father, Like Son: He and Whit share the same tendencies toward stubbornness and irrationality in stressful situations; Whit just takes longer to lose his cool and it's usually related to a long-standing emotional blind spot (i.e. anything and everything to do with Jenny), whereas Jason is more susceptible to being emotionally manipulated in general.
• Mr. Vice Guy: He tends to let his heart rule his head and he doesn't usually stop to plan at first, but he is a courageous person who genuinely wants to do the right thing.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Predictably, his idea to use the Imagination Station to give kids with disabilities the experience of life without them in “A Touch of Healing” spirals into chaos very quickly, with disabled kids all over town pleading with him for more time with the program and getting into fights with each other because of it.
• My Own Private "I Do": Tries to have one spur-of-the-moment with Tasha in “A Question About Tasha” in a snap emotional reaction to Jack’s suggestion that she’s not a Christian. He comes to his senses when he finds out that she really isn’t one, and that she is therefore not someone he should be marrying.

• Nerves of Steel: Justified; the man was an NSA agent, a role that usually requires being calm in the face of danger.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: The Roguish to Jack’s Noble in the appropriately dubbed “Jack-and-Jason era”.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Like Whit, he’s good at giving kids practical advice about their situations; he sends Erica Clark to the Room of Consequence to get her to understand the problems with being addicted to soap operas, and he’s upfront with Alex Jefferson about the fact that whether in Connellsville or Kenya, missions work is sometimes dirty and unpleasant.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to almost everyone else's Blue. His contrast with Jack in particular was part of what leads fans to fondly remember the famous "Jack-and-Jason era" that followed Whit's bus trip.
• Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: Usually the Wrong Way half with Jack.
• Spy Speak: Uses the line “Codebreaker 2” in “A Name, Not a Number” to signal to Donovan that their phone line is tapped.
  • He’s on the receiving end of it in “The Search for Whit”, where Tasha uses a date they were on at Trickle Lake (where they sat on a log that turned out to be covered with insects) to communicate to him that the room they’re in is bugged.

• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By inviting a city inspector to check the Underground Railroad tunnel under Whit's End to see if he can turn it into an educational display, Jason inadvertently brings in a state inspector, too, and that inspector turns out to be Philip Glossman; this sets into motion Blackgaard's plan to close down Whit's End, obtain the mineral in the tunnel, and possibly create biochemical weaponry with it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Jack repeatedly calls him out on his harebrained, poorly-thought-out ideas, from noisy video games to turning the Imagination Station into an emotionally manipulative Lotus-Eater Machine to attempting to fight against Blackgaard rather than acknowledging the battle for its spiritual nature.
  • Eileen Sellars, mother of the paraplegic Zachary Sellars, confronts Jason about the Imagination Station program in “A Touch of Healing”, pointing out that Zachary has been refusing to actually do the real-life physical therapy that might help him walk again because he’s quickly becoming addicted to the instant gratification of life without his disability and he becomes more disrespectful and ill-tempered as a result.

Katrina Shanks Meltsner

First appearance: "Truth, Trivia, and 'Trina"

Voiced by: Pamela Hayden ("Truth, Trivia, and 'Trina" - "Plan B, Part I: Missing in Action"), Audrey Wasilewski ("A Most Surprising Answer" - present)

• All-Loving Hero: Showed great compassion for Buck and kept trying to convince him to do the right thing even as he was complicit both in kidnapping her and in a counterfeiting scheme.
• Affectionate Nickname: ‘Trina.
• Altar the Speed: Shortly before she and Eugene are Put on a Bus for the duration of the Novacom saga in "Plan B, Part 1: Missing in Action"; they get married in the hospital room of her father, Armitage, shortly before his death from what appeared to be a stroke and brain tumor^note the following episodes reveal that Armitage was actually murdered. After Novacom was defeated; the Meltsners returned and eventually held a public wedding ceremony.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In “A Book By Its Cover”, she tolerates Melissa’s self-centered, entitled antics up until Melissa threatens to have her fired for things Melissa manipulated her into doing, after which Katrina tells her off magnificently. Melissa was reduced to tears afterward.

  Katrina: I want to say, first, that you'd better never talk to me like that again.
  Melissa: What?
  Katrina: I don't care who you are or how you dress or how old you look! That tantrum of yours was worse than a spoiled two-year-old!
  Melissa: You can't-
  Katrina: Be quiet until I'm finished! Second, don't you EVER threaten me or any adult you come into contact with again, do you understand? You think you can wreck my career?! Well, imagine the quality of YOUR life without a proper education!
  Melissa: I...
  Katrina: Now, you're gonna turn around, go back to that classroom, and give me a heartfelt apology, and we're gonna study until you can take that test CONFIDENTLY and never have to resort to childish outbursts to cover for bad grades AGAIN!
  Melissa: Why should I?
  Katrina: Because I'm TELLING you to! And my guess is that, considering your obnoxious attitude, I'm probably the ONLY tutor in Odyssey that'll help you get through school! Now MOVE IT, young lady!

• Child Prodigy/Teen Genius: She graduated high school at fourteen, according to “The Graduate”.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Her grey eyes symbolise her resilient, patient, and introspective nature.
• Daddy's Girl: She was very close to her father Armitage, and was heartbroken by the fact that her marriage to Eugene had to be celebrated at his deathbed.
• Damsel in Distress: She's taken hostage by Buck and Mr. Skint in "The Green Ring Conspiracy".
• Distaff Counterpart: For the first half of her run, her role was basically "girl set up to be Eugene's girlfriend" (not to say she wasn't good at it) to the point where all but two of her appearances were episodes dedicated to their relationship (the exceptions being “A Book By Its Cover” and “The Graduate”). This changed by the time they returned to the show, though it's hard to say if her personality became "less like Eugene" or just plain "less distinctive" — many fans felt that it was the former.
  • In recent episodes, as the show focuses on them as a married couple, she's gotten better.
• Dumb Blonde: Inverted; she's blonde and highly intelligent.
• Friendly Address Privileges: Tells Eugene when they first meet that her friends all call her ‘Trina, although this doesn’t stick.
• Guile Hero: In “The Top Floor”, she gets Dalton Kearn, an intelligent, cruel archaeologist who held her father-in-law captive for twenty years, to state his name so that Eugene can record it and use it to open a voice-activated door in Dalton’s apartment.
• Happily Married: To Eugene, as of "Plan B, Part I".
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Recently drawn with blonde hair and incredibly kind and patient.
• I Can Change My Beloved: Considers trying to date Eugene to evangelize to him in "The Turning Point", but Connie immediately shoots it down, knowing from experience that missionary dating doesn't work.
• Lampshade Hanging: In “A Book By Its Cover”:
  “Maybe it’s due to my recent conversion to Christianity, but it sometimes seems as if situations emerge that purposefully teach a lesson.”
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Justified and definitely not exploited for drama—it’s revealed that she and Eugene cannot have children in “To Mend or Repair”, and it’s one of the most heartbreaking scenes on the show.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Implied by all the times she references having hired staff do things with her instead of her parents; she mentions to Eugene in “For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll” that she’s never had a parent pamper her while she’s sick or injured and that she appreciates the feeling of a loved one waiting on her hand and foot.
• Only Sane Man: She tends to be more practical and level-headed than Eugene.
• Plot Allergy: In “Naturally, I Assumed…”, Eugene can’t give her the carnations Connie suggested he give to her because she’s allergic to them.
• Put on a Bus: With Eugene in "Plan B, Part I". Both made their triumphant return in "A Most Intriguing Question".
  • Earlier in “The Turning Point”, she left Odyssey in order to figure things out and put space between Eugene and herself, as he was not yet a Christian and she therefore could not allow their relationship to continue. She returns in “Love is in the Air, Part 1”.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: To rival Eugene, though, probably due to her superior social skills, mostly when talking to Eugene.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers an epic one to Melissa, the student she has trouble tutoring, in “A Book By Its Cover”.
• Teasing the Substitute Teacher: As a substitute teacher filling in for the regular literature teacher who was on maternity leave; Katrina finds herself the victim of a series of pranks instigated by Jay Smouse and Valerie Swanson (who eventually managed to convince Olivia Parker to join in) in "How to Sink a Sub", with the escalating prank war escalating to the point where Katrina quits.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Eugene. To no one’s surprise, they get together; first they get married at her father’s bedside moments before his death, then they have a ceremony for all their loved ones in Odyssey upon their return.
• You Didn't Ask: She didn’t tell Eugene that Darren is a young student she’s tutoring in “Naturally, I Assumed…” because “he didn’t ask”.

Jack Wilbur Allen

First appearance: “Gone…”

Last appearance: “The Journal of John Avery Whittaker”

Voiced by: Alan Young (“Gone…”-“Home Again, Part 2”), Mark Schillinger (“Blackbeard’s Treasure”), Marshal Younger (young), Garrett McQuaid (“The Journal of John Avery Whittaker”)

• Actual Pacifist: In contrast to Jason’s “fight fire with fire” methods, Jack refuses to play hardball with the Bones of Wrath because he doesn’t want the children under his care to get hurt; this attitude culminates in him confronting Blackgaard with words and attempting to get him to accept Jesus and redeem himself rather than taking him down.
• Agent Mulder: He’s the only one out of the main cast to be initially receptive to the idea that Malachi is really what he claims to be (an angel) in “Malachi’s Message”.
• All-Loving Hero
• The Atoner: Saw working at Whit’s End as penance for what he did to Whit at the orphanage.
• Big Good: Takes Whit’s place in this role during the Blackgaard saga.
• Brutal Honesty: He can be very blunt when sufficiently pushed (although it takes a lot to actually get him there); he calls out Whit on his anger that Clara is being adopted by a young married couple rather than allowing him to adopt her, pointing out that Whit cannot give Clara both a mother and a father…because his beloved wife Jenny just died recently. Ouch.
• Cool Old Guy: He’s the kindly, grandfatherly variety; he connects well with kids by simply listening to their problems and providing sage, calming council.
• Deadpan Snarker: More of the affectionate, long-suffering variety.
• December–December Romance: With Joanne.
• Did Not Get the Girl: It’s kind of a Foregone Conclusion that he doesn’t end up with Jenny—Whit’s future wife—in “The Triangle”.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: The trait first appears in “A Code of Honor” and remains as an element of his character for the rest of the series.
• Extreme Doormat: He sometimes tends to sugar-coat things and ignore problems rather than face them directly; caught between Connie and Mitch arguing about an actor’s talent, he begins muttering about the cable availability where he lives in “Fifteen Minutes”, and he finds it very difficult to be honest about the incompetence of a new employee of his in “And That’s the Truth”.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Mentions having disliked geometry in school in "Poetry in Slow Motion".
• Fatal Flaw: His first wife apparently referred to him as “painfully polite”; while he is very considerate of others’ feelings, he’s also prone to be conflict-avoidant and doesn’t always speak his mind or take action when he should.
• Face Death with Dignity: In “The Final Conflict”, he remains calm and dignified as Regis Blackgaard threatens his life and instead tries to convince Blackgaard to give up and possibly accept salvation.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic—peace-loving, kindly, and conflict-avoidant.
• Friend to All Children
• Happily Married: To Joanne, as of "For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll, Part 3".
• He's a Friend: Tries to reintroduce Richard Maxwell to Tom Riley this way in “Hard Losses”. It doesn’t work, but he does still reach out to them both.
• Honor Before Reason: He has a point that Butch being beaten up because of his work with the Israelites was inexcusable and that children should not be placed in that kind of position, but Jason has a point that without people around to undo the Bones’ schemes, they’ll only get worse.
  • He continues to pursue the story behind the painting he and Joanne receive as a donation in “The Painting” even though the donor tells him to simply take it and not advertise where it came from, believing that there is something suspicious going on.
  • Even before that, he wants to make sure that the donor really wants it to be given away and that they have full knowledge of the implications of doing so, as it is the original work rather than a print and is therefore worth thousands of dollars, even though selling it at his antique gallery could put it on the map and be a huge success for him.
• Hopeless with Tech: Downplayed; he jokingly remarks in "Wrapped Around Your Finger" that he's still frightened of pocket calculators when Eugene shows him the computerized antique database for the antique shop.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Finally decided this about Jenny, as recounted in “The Triangle, Part 2”.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Connie, Eugene, and Jason, as well as the rest of the kids around town.
• Love at First Sight: With Joanne in “The Decision”—he’s pretty smitten with her from the minute they first meet.
• Love Confessor: He first professed his feelings for Jenny to his childhood friend Emily in a letter, as recounted in “The Triangle”; his subsequent declaration to Jenny herself, where he read the contents of his letter, was actually extremely awkward for her, as she was planning to tell him that night that she wanted to break up with him.
• Mellow Fellow
• Nice Guy
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Noble to Jason’s Roguish.
• Odd Friendship: With the self-aggrandizing, melodramatic Edwin Blackgaard, in “Welcome Home, Mr. Blackgaard” and “The Merchant of Odyssey”.
• Older and Wiser: In contrast to Jason’s youthful energy (and impetuosity and recklessness), he usually hangs back and assesses the situation from a distance to get a better idea of what he’s dealing with.
• Only Sane Man: Like Whit, he acts as the calm in the midst of the storm of Eugene’s neuroses, Connie’s melodrama, and Jason’s impulsiveness.
• Orphanage of Love: Prior to coming to Odyssey, he ran one of these in Nebraska, as told in “Clara”.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Like Whit, he’s good about listening to people’s problems and treating them kindly and respectfully; when Richard Maxwell asks for help and is honest with Jack about his criminal past, Jack still listens to him and trusts that he’s there to help rather than hurt.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Jason’s (and everyone else’s) Red.
• Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: The Right Way half with Jason, most of the time.
• Secret-Keeper: Becomes one for Jason and Whit’s NSA work in “The Final Conflict”.
• Self-Deprecation: In “Tom for Mayor, Part 2”:
  “My name is Jack Allen, and by a sudden lapse of reason, I was the one both candidates agreed should moderate tonight’s debate.”
• Shout-Out: His middle name Wilbur is named for the character Wilbur Post, Alan Young's character on Mr. Ed.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Connie accuses him of trying to be this for Whit in “…But Not Forgotten”.
• Terrible Artist: Subverted in "A Book By Its Cover". Connie and Eugene take a look under a canvas he has covering what they think is a painting he's submitting for exhibition in the library and they think it's an absolutely horrendous mess, but it turns out that this was a surface for scratch work on which he also cleaned his brushes.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In "Clara"; we learn that the reason Jack wanted to leave when Whit returned to town from his expedition to the Middle East was an incident several years earlier when Jack neglected to tell Whit that the young girl he wanted to adopt that she was already set to be adopted by another couple. Needless to say, Whit - who had already developed an attachment to Clara - is furious^note not helping matters is that this came not long after Whit's wife Jenny had died; breaking off their friendship and even threatening to sue, and it's not until the end of the episode that their friendship is restored.
• You Didn't Ask: This is why he doesn’t immediately offer to help run Whit’s End in “…But Not Forgotten”—due to his polite nature, he doesn’t want to impose his assistance on anyone.

Joanne Judith Allen (née Woodston)

First appearance: “The Decision”

Last appearance: “Home Again, Part 2”

Voiced by: Janet Waldo, Wendy Schaal and Lauren Summers ("The Pact, Part 2")

• Career Versus Man: Two examples that balance each other out—in “Malachi’s Message”, Jack wants her to quit the Missions Board because he feels that her work there, which involves constant travel, makes her too busy for the antique shop and their relationship; Joanne ends up resigning. Conversely, in “Seeing Red”, Joanne wants to have an antique compass appraised and sold to a museum in Washington, D.C., to fund the reconstruction of a church in Sri Lanka, while Jack wants her to wait until an auction closer to home, and Jack ends up relenting and letting her go.
• December–December Romance: With Jack.
• Give the Baby a Father: Played With. It's revealed in "A New Era, Part 2" that Eugene's father Leonard didn't want him and alluded to his wife Thelma possibly getting an abortion, and she was so furious that she walked out. In "A New Era, Part 3", Joanne recounts to Leonard that she worked at the pregnancy center where Thelma wound up and formed a friendship with her, and encouraged Thelma to return to Leonard and patch things up because the baby would need a father—and Thelma needed him, too.
• Granny Classic: She's not a grandmother, but she otherwise fits the kindly old woman archetype.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Connie.
• Maid and Maiden: Maid to Connie’s Maiden, particularly throughout their road trip in Album 41.
• Old Maid: While it’s never really brought up as part of her backstory, there is no mention of her being a widow or a divorcee, and the numerous places where she’s worked and the clout she has with the Missions Board suggest that she was Married to the Job before she met Jack.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Jack’s Blue—she’s more adventurous and risk-taking than he is (for a given value of risk-taking), and their conflicts usually arise from her wanting to go somewhere to take care of something and him wanting her to stay in Odyssey working with the antique shop.
• Second Love: Jack's.
• Silk Hiding Steel: In a non-combat sense; she’s very matronly and welcoming, but she takes on leadership on mission boards and teams; she is quite clever and resourceful, unafraid to be involved in the Andromeda crossfire in "Plan B".

Wooton Bassett

First appearance: “Welcoming Wooton”

Voiced by: Jess Harnell

• Agent Mulder: In “The Other Side of the Glass”; he’s almost immediately suspicious of the See-Right company because he does not regard it as simple coincidence that he, the creator of Power Boy, just happened to be in the same place at the same time as Bernard, the local window washer, while Bernard was washing a window manufactured by See-Right that had had the Power Boy symbol for help marked on it.
• All-Loving Hero: Enjoys making people happy.
• Big Fun: One of the most fun-loving characters on the show, and much reference is made to his weight.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Very skilled cartoonist who writes and draws books that are hugely popular while simultaneously being a complete goofball.
• Catchphrase: When he starts talking about something like why he never got any toys as a kid, he trails off with “Because…well, just because”. In “Wooing Wooton” when his dad shows up and he’s nervous about seeing him again after nine years, he explains why with a panicked “Because! Just because!”
• The Clan: Has a very large extended family that is also exorbitantly wealthy.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Evil Twin: Wellington may not be diabolically evil, but he is an amoral reprobate as opposed to his generous, good-hearted brother.
• Friend to All Children
• Fun Personified
• Good Feels Good
• Hidden Depths: He’s a quirky mailman, he’s a talented cartoonist, and he has an absurd depth of knowledge about barnyard animals.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Grady, for whom he also sometimes plays a role as a Parental Substitute.
• Kid-Appeal Character
• Like a Son to Me: With Grady, as highlighted in “Like Father, Like Wooton” and “The Highest Stakes”.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Winston, his father, is stoic, professional, and snobbish; Wooton is cheerful, friendly, and kind to everyone.
• The Mad Hatter: Really enjoys his zaniness; he sees that it helps him to connect with kids if he can act like he’s one of them.
• Manchild: He’s in his thirties and does take his responsibilities seriously, but he still does his job with a fun and bouncy flair.
• Noodle Incident: He apparently pulled a prank on his cousin involving a whiffleball bat that somehow backfired and “required surgery”.
  • He’s been known to have bizarre things happen to mail that get no explanation, like somehow getting oatmeal on it.
• One of the Kids: For good reason; as a kid, he was never really allowed to actually be a kid because of his wealthy family’s reputation, so he allows himself to indulge his sense of childish fun as an adult.
• Parental Substitute: To Grady.
• The Pollyanna: Has a very cheerful and optimistic outlook on life in spite of the fact that he’s an outcast among his family and his own father has disowned him.
• Quirky Curls: According to the artwork, he has thick curly hair.
• Remember the New Guy?: How he’s introduced in "Welcoming Wooton"—not only is he the local mailman, but all the kids already adore him.
• Sad Clown: He's goofy and fun-loving and he relates well with the kids, but most of his family is cold, cruel, and self-serving, and his father has actually disowned him.
• Serious Business: Comic books, especially his own. His entire motivation for investigating the See-Right company requires his assurance that anyone who would use the Power Boy symbol for “Help!” must really mean that they’re in trouble.
• Sherlock Scan: In "The Other Side of the Glass", he figures out that Bernard is using a new cleaner from the color of the logo, and that the windows Bernard has been cleaning with it are manufactured by the See-Right Window Company because the "S" in that logo reminds him of the "S" in the Speedster comic books. For that matter, he knows that the See-Right windows were new in the first place because someone came to his door to sell him some and he recognizes the other windows as the same brand as the ones that he bought.
• Sweet Tooth: His signature order at Whit’s End is a banana split with licorice whips instead of bananas.
• This Is the Part Where...: In “The Other Side of the Glass”, Wooton explains the narrative framework of mystery stories to Connie and Bernard as they meet up to discuss further developments in their investigation into the PowerBoy “Help!” symbol appearing on the windows Bernard is cleaning.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Licorice.
• Weird Aside: Master of this; he mentions having a “sea monkey budget” in “The Coolest Dog” and remarks that he hates the sound of sandpaper scraping over fresh-baked salmon in “The Other Side of the Glass”.
• Weirdness Coupon: Eugene puts it best in "Blood, Sweat, and Fears":
  “The man once made a life-size fort out of Jell-O cubes. Understanding the way his mind works would be a challenge for Einstein!”
• White Sheep: One of a very small number of his family members who isn’t a terrible person.
• Wolverine Publicity: There’s almost as much merch with him on it as there is with Whit, who’s been around for about fifteen years longer.

Penny Bassett (née Wise)

First Appearance: "The Green Ring Conspiracy, Part 3"

Voiced By: Kimmy Robertson

• Bait-and-Switch: At the end of "The Ties that Bind", Wooton does his big proposal, initially setting up yet another marriage. Come the next album, however, we learn she didn't immediately say "yes."
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Much like eventual husband Wooton, Penny is a talented artist (this is what led to her work being used as part of Dr. Benjamin Trask's counterfeiting scheme and later working for Jacques Henri at a local art store) who also manages to be quite flighty at times.
• Gold Digger: Gets accused of being this by Wooton's twin brother Wellington when Wellington digs into her past in an attempt to convince Wooton to break off the engagement.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Gets stuck in a rut after "The Green Ring Conspiracy" when it turns out Dr. Trask was a complete phony all along and was actually a part of the counterfeit ring. The trust issues she has to deal with ripple across the next several albums and an entire episode is dedicated to her attempting to overcome it.
• Punny Name: Prior to her marriage with Wooton, her name was an obvious pun on "pennywise".