Olive and Otto will have to go through miles of trials and tribulations just to get through these lost woods.
Trials and TubulationsAirdates: July 15, 2015 / September 1, 2015 note , April 18, 2015 note , June 21, 2015 note
In this half-hour episode, the tube system breaks and Olive and Otto are left stranded in a dangerous forest.
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Otto refers to landmarks as "landmorks" at one point.
- Acting Unnatural: When Ms. O first lies to Olive and Otto about Sector 21 not being a dangerous place, she's clearly worried, but tells the pair to brush it off despite Olive noting that she sounds worried. Later on, when she calls them, she has a sickeningly-sweet tone of voice that Olive and Otto easily see through.
- Adaptation Deviation: 3 years after the episode premiered, it got a game based on it, Sector 21, where the player must find various different creatures in the titular location. It has the similar math Aesop of directions and tends to stay primarily faithful to the episode's premise, but has a few differences, such as the character in the game not being one from the episode (although that's par for the course with games based on the show) and Olympia and Ocean giving a message beforehand despite neither of them having been in Sector 21 (it may be justified since Olympia is an Odd Squad historian and Ocean is a creature expert).
- Adminisphere: The tube operators are part of the lowest-ranking department in Odd Squad (Transportation/Maintenance), and as such, go unnoticed by everyone, including themselves; O'Donnell initially believes that she is the only "real" tube operator and it's either stated or implied that every other tube operator has the same opinion. It's also implied that they are very out-of-touch with Odd Squad as an organization, with the exception of knowing about Sector 21. At the end of the episode, all 52 tube operators team up with each other to give Ms. O a list of demands, something that they were unable to do before.
- An Aesop: The obvious mathematical moral of directions aside, this trope gets hilariously lampshaded by Otto shortly after he and Olive wind up in Sector 21.Otto: See, this is nice! We're actually learning stuff! At least I am.
- And Then I Said: Shortly after Ms. O leaves to find O'Callaghan, a transition to Olive and Otto walking through Sector 21 reveals that the two are chatting about exercise, with Olive's line becoming one of these.Olive: All I'm saying is, walking is a great form of exercise.Otto: Not as great as swimming, though.Olive: Sounds like you need to step up your walking game. You use walking sticks?Otto: I never thought they were- [voice becomes unintelligible and distorted]
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Ms. O, the head of a precinct of an organization that deals with various oddities, finds the tubes' Power Source — comprised of mundane items — to be ridiculous. O'Donnell hangs a lampshade on it.O'Donnell: Of course it's ridiculous, this is Odd Squad!Ms. O: Fair enough.
- Backing into Danger: Narrowly subverted, as Olive and Otto nearly trip over the rocks behind the tubes while backing away from the vines, but look where they're going just in time.
- Blatant Lies: Ms. O is revealed to be a Bad Liar when fibbing to Olive and Otto about Sector 21 with the good intention of not making them panic. They believe her at first, but soon discover the truth behind the forest and confront her about lying to them.
- Blind Mistake: Laser chickens are revealed to have terrible eyesight, and don't spot Olive and Otto even when the former is barely covered in mud.
- Bullet Time: Olive and Otto moving on the "slow-motion path" is emphasized by them moving in super slow-motion, with their voices heavily distorted and slowed. Logan the Ogre pulling them out plays the trope a bit more straight.
- The Bus Came Back: Logan the Ogre, who was last seen in "The Odd Antidote", returns in this episode.
- A few tube operators seen in previous episodes, like O'Malley and O'Donnell, return in this episode with major roles.
- Captain Oblivious: None of the tube operators are aware of each others' existences. O'Donnell is far more oblivious, though, as she initially believes that agents use the tubes between 3PM and 7PM on Tuesdays, and not any other time.
- Catchphrase: Olive debuts one in this episode of the Oh, Crap! variety: "Crumpets!"
- Chameleon Camouflage: Played with — Ms. O instructs Olive and Otto to use mud to avoid the laser chickens' detection. Sector 21 is full of brown, but all Olive and Otto do is stand still and move when it's safe to do so.
- Continuity Nod: Ms. O is taking up botany once again. From the same episode, Logan the Ogre makes an appearance.
- Learning about landmarks and sense of direction? It's been done before, and apparently Otto's retained the knowledge he's learned about them from that episode.
- Spider-cats, who were first mentioned in one of Oscar's Training Videos, are mentioned as one of the dangerous creatures in Sector 21.
- When calling Olive and Otto as they're on the longer route, Ms. O uses the same sickeningly-sweet tone of voice she used in "My Better Half".
- Covered in Mud: Invoked by Ms. O, who tells Olive and Otto to cover themselves in mud in order to blend into the forest and evade the laser chickens' detection. It ends up working, and the two agents sneak by unharmed.
- Cue the Sun: Inverted when Olive and Otto reach the tubes — they manage to reach them just as the sun sets, and when it becomes dark, the forest comes to life, with hostile vines lashing out at them.
- Dancing Is Serious Business: Olive and Otto are forced to cycle through various dances in order to find out which one the secretary at the bridge is thinking of, including tango, the Running Man, and That Russian Squat Dance, among a few others.
- Dead Air: A television variant that's downplayed — the episode opens with a few seconds of no dialogue, with BGM filling the void of silence. Otto then asks a woman sketching him and Olive if the pair can talk while she draws.
- Dragged by the Collar: Logan the Ogre pulls on Olive and Otto by their shoulders to get them off of the slow-motion path.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Olive makes a subtle and platonic one towards Otto, but is briefly cut off by the tubes activating before she finishes.Olive: Partner, whatever happens today, I want you to know, I wouldn't trade one day for anything!!
- Embarrassing Relative Teacher: Not so much his teacher as she is his boss; the secretary at the bridge has his mom as his higher-up as he tells her he thinks he's ready for the "big bridge" now.
- Enchanted Forest: Olive and Otto become stranded in Sector 21, which is a forest filled with all sorts of oddities, especially at night, when it comes alive.
- Fake Static: Ms. O invokes this in order to get out of a conversation with Olive and Otto.
- Full-Name Basis: Olive and Otto refer to Logan the Ogre as just that: Logan the Ogre. In exchange, Logan calls the pair "Olive and Otto the Humans".
- Gilligan Cut: Ms. O assures Olive over the phone that O'Donnell has the situation under control. Cut to the tube operator telling her boss that the situation is not under control.
- HA HA HA—No: The end of the episode has an Overly Long Gag of O'Donnell and the other tube operators doing this. They laugh repeatedly, followed by a brief silence, then they laugh again, and so on. While Ms. O finds it overall awkward, she does smile at the gag briefly.
- Harmful to Touch: Logan the Ogre is revealed to have poisonous skin.
- Hidden Depths: If Olive and Otto's conversation about exercise is any indication, the former prefers walking for exercise, while the latter prefers swimming (although Olive still encourages Otto to try walking for himself using walking sticks).
- Otto is revealed to be The Pig-Pen amongst the partner pair, who likes getting dirty and isn't above smearing mud all over his body when Ms. O instructs him to. Olive, on the other hand, is more of a Neat Freak and smears mud lightly on herself (including her face, where it functions more like war paint).
- Hot Potato: The banana tossed between Ms. O and the tube operators functions a bit like this, although why they're doing it is definitely not a game.
- I Have No Idea What I'm Doing: Olive claims to have an idea, then admits that she thought the idea would come out as she was talking, like in a chain reaction.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Olive and Otto believe that they can pass the secretary guarding the bridge they need to cross, viewing him to be harmless. However, he's not as harmless as they think he is, as he shows them that he has octopus tentacles for the lower half of his body.Otto (as he and Olive give him nervous smiles): We- we'll answer your questions gladly, sir!
- Ironic Echo: Logan the Ogre taking a selfie with Olive and Otto takes on a different tone once they find out that his skin is poisonous. Compare the selfie
from "The Odd Antidote" with the selfie from this episode. - I Work Alone: O'Donnell and the other tube operators each believe that they are the only people working in their department, and are surprised when they find more than one tube operator aside from themselves. None of the tube operators when together mesh well at first, but soon band together to save Olive and Otto, and by the end, they gang up against Ms. O with a list of demands.
- Just in Time: Ms. O and the tube operators manage to fix the tubes just as the sentient forest has Olive and Otto cornered. Similarly, the pair make it to the tubes just before the sun begins to set.
- Kissing the Ground: Otto and Olive discuss this trope when they come across the tubes.Otto: I don't know whether I should stand on them, or kiss them!Olive: I hear you, partner! I'm gonna stand on them.Otto: Yeah, me too.
- Lightbulb Joke: Ms. O recites one in a rhetorical and punny manner towards the tube operators.Ms. O: How many tube operators does it take to screw in a lightbulb?O'Duffy: Well, I-Ms. O: Don't answer that!
- Literal-Minded: O'Duffy has a moment at one point when Ms. O eats a part of the tubes' Power Source:Ms. O: Tell me I did not just eat the thing that makes that thing go.O'Duffy: You did not just eat that thing that makes that thing go.Ms. O: But I did, didn't I?[collective agreement from tube operators]
- Living Drawing: The Cold Open client has a stick man that is created as a result of Olive hitting her with a beam from the Un-Stick-Man-inator.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The episode centers on the tube operators as they work to rescue Olive and Otto from Sector 21.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Ms. O lies to Olive and Otto about Sector 21 so they won't panic. While she does have good intentions, that doesn't stop the partner pair from being initially upset with her when she lies to them again, although they understand why she lied to begin with.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": There may as well be an Oh, Crap! Ball being tossed around for how many times Ms. O and the tube operators freak out about Olive and Otto being stuck in Sector 21.
- Medals for Everyone: Played with, as Ms. O named every single tube operator Tube Operator of the Year.
- Me's a Crowd: Ultimately averted when O'Donnell believes that O'Malley and the other tube operators are clones of her (and vice versa); obviously, they aren't clones of each other.
- Multi-Part Episode: The sixth one of the season.
- My God, You Are Serious!: This exchange ensues between Olive and Otto at one point when they take the longer route.Otto: Man, when Logan the Ogre said this was gonna be a longer route, he wasn't kidding.Olive: No kidding.Otto: I just said that.Olive: I meant no kidding that he was kidding.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Otto eating while in the tubes — something that goes against the tube safety rules — is what causes him and Olive to fall out of them while traveling.
- Ms. O eats the banana that is needed for the tubes' Power Source to work properly, which causes a delay in fixing it and puts Olive and Otto in even more peril with the now-sentient forest.
- Non-Indicative Name: Olive and Otto discuss the names of the winter and fall seasons at one point while waiting on Ms. O.Otto: I would say it's called "fall" because the leaves fall.Olive: But in winter, snowflakes also fall. So why don't we call winter "fall"?Otto (as he sits on the question for a bit): 'Cause it's cold?Olive: This is why we're great partners. If I had to be lost with anybody, I'm sure glad it's with you.
- No Sense of Direction: O'Donnell, O'Malley and O'Callaghan don't know their left from their right.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Olive and Otto plummet from the tubes, which appear to be placed quite high up, but manage to survive the fall with no injuries and only their tube balls being split in half and losing their red tints.
- Percussive Maintenance: A scared Olive and Otto attempt to make the tubes work at one point by banging on the pads that are connected to them and yelling for Ms. O. Of course, neither she nor anyone else can hear them.
- Phoney Call: Of the "talking to nobody" variety — Ms. O fakes her phone ringing, even though she has three tube operators right next to her who are all watching her fake it. Nonetheless, she pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here on them once they find out that she named them all Tube Operator of the Year and rushes off.
- Poor Communication Kills: Logan the Ogre hangs a lampshade on the trope when he informs Olive and Otto that Sector 21 is dangerous, and they react in surprise.
- Power Source: The power grid that serves as one of these for the tubes has numerous different items needed for it to work, including a megaphone, a baseball, and a rubber duck among others.
- Race Against the Clock: It becomes one near the end of the episode as Ms. O rushes to get a banana from the Banana Room and passes it to the tube operators so they can connect it to the power grid and activate the tubes again before Olive and Otto get killed by the sentient forest.
- Rocky Roll Call: Upon arriving back at Headquarters, Olive and Otto list off the names of the 9 tube operators who helped fix the tubes.
- Rules Lawyer: Played straight for Olive, who follows all the tube safety rules, but averted for Otto, who has very skewed beliefs of what rules do matter and what rules don't.Otto: Wait! We're not supposed to eat?[Olive stares at Otto in horror as he holds up a piece of sandwich]Olive: Seriously?!Otto: I thought it was one of those rules that didn't actually matter. Like running with scissors.Olive: That is a rule that matters!
- Shear Menace: Olive and Otto's Hammerspace happens to collectively house one pair of Odd Squad-branded pruning shears, which they take apart and use to beat back the vines. The weapons don't last long, though, as the vines rip the two shears out of the pair's hands, leaving them defenseless.
- Ship Tease: In what is one of the most blatant teases to the Olive x Otto ship in the show, the duo tango with each other at one point during the episode, complete with the traditional rose between Olive's teeth.
- Olive's subtle, platonic Dying Declaration of Love towards Otto counts as this as well.
- Shout-Out: Olive and Otto ripping apart the large pair of scissors and brandishing them like weapons to beat back the vines is highly reminiscent of the Scissor Blades. However, far unlike Ryuko Matoi, neither one of the agents can use them effectively (the shears are larger than they are) and get them ripped from their grips after just a few minutes.
- One of the dances Olive and Otto do is the Macarena, complete with Suspiciously Similar Song. Funny enough, Olive did part of the Macarena dance in one of the early promos for the show, although this episode doesn't re-use that footage.
- Super-Hearing: While O'Malley doesn't have this as a superpower, he is able to hear what Ms. O mumbles under her breath (that is unintelligible to everyone, audience included): "Except for the 45 others, but they're all on vacation."
- Super-Strong Child: Olive and Otto manage to lift up two large rocks that block the tubes in Sector 21's tube entrance. Doubles as Foreshadowing for the Season 1 finale.
- Terrible Artist: Played with. The Cold Open client is actually a terrific artist, but when she goes to draw Olive and Otto, all she can draw is stick people with hats. When Olive hits her with an Un-Stick-Man-inator gadget, she is able to draw them perfectly. It's almost hyper-realistic!
- Tree Cover: Olive and Otto take cover behind a small tree when defending themselves against the laser chicken. It doesn't last long, and once the creature destroys that, they hide behind a rock that doesn't cover them very well.
- Troll Bridge: Olive and Otto come across one, albeit it's not guarded by a troll — rather, it's guarded by a half-human/half-octopus hybrid being dressed as a secretary (his tentacles easily convince the pair to stay put instead of attempting to pass him). He's quite competent at his job and only has one riddle for the pair that is pretty difficult to solve; they only solve it when he lets the answer slip while giving them a hint.
- Visual Pun: The rock statue in Sector 21 is both made of rock, and plays an electric guitar (an instrument commonly used in rock songs) as Olive and Otto pass him.
- You, Get Me Coffee: Inverted at the end, and oh boy, is it brutal. O'Donnell and the other tube operators have a list of demands they give to Ms. O that is well over 200 pages thick. Ms. O remarks that there's a reason why she never lets the tube operators be in a room together.
- You Just Told Me: The secretary guarding the bridge lets the answer to his riddle slip. When his boss calls, Olive and Otto feign ignorance about the ordeal, which grants them permission to pass.
