Recap / Odd Squad S 1 E 8 Crime At Shapely Manor

A dark and stormy night is a perfect time to solve crime.

Crime at Shapely Manor

Airdates: December 4, 2014 ^note PBS Kids premiere, January 15, 2015 ^note TVO Kids premiere, January 17, 2015 ^note ICI Radio-Canada premiere

On a dark and stormy night, Olive and Otto are sent to Shapely Manor to investigate an odd crime with even odder people. It's Lord Rectangle's birthday, and he has his friends over! But...his cake has been stolen! Olive and Otto must decipher the clues to find out who stole his cake.

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Tropes:

• Acting Unnatural: Olive is easily able to tell that Professor Square is lying due to his actions.
• Basement-Dweller: Exaggerated in the case of the butler and the maid, who live underneath the basement.
• Big Fancy House: Shapely Manor is one. As befitting of its name, it has many rooms and floors, and has a rather large map to boot.
  Otto: This is not a small house.
• Birthday Episode: The crime centers around Lord Rectangle's cake being stolen while celebrating his birthday, which is also the birthday shared by Miss Triangle, the butler, and the maid.
• Bottle Episode: The episode takes place entirely at Shapely Manor, and is one of the few to not show Headquarters and/or mention it.
• Bump into Confrontation: When Professor Square bumps into Olive, she accuses him of attempting to sneak out of the manor right off the bat.
• The Cameo: Three of the four members of The Kids in the Hall — Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson — star as Lord Rectangle, General Pentagon, and Professor Square, respectively.
• Character Narrator: Olive serves as a narrator for this episode twice: once at the beginning of the episode, and when describing Lord Rectangle and his guests.
• Detectives Follow Footprints: One of the clues left behind by the suspect is a pentagon-shaped footprint outlined with cake.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The General's hands being stained with red paint is an obvious metaphor for a murder victim who has blood on their hands. Bonus points for the fact that the General is...well, a part of the military.
• Face Palm: As part of her Character Tic, Olive does one when Otto accidentally breaks a vase.
• Facial Dialogue: During the scene where Miss Triangle is explaining how she didn't steal the cake, Olive goes mostly nonverbal, shooting her various looks that range from intrigue, to doubt, to what appears to be outright fear.
• Fake Food: Subverted; Lord Rectangle has a photo of his cake taken from above, and it's the real deal.
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: Defied. Olive obtains a photo of the cake thinking that if the cake is in a certain shape (triangle, square, pentagon), she and Otto will be able to figure out who did it. However, the cake is shaped to contain all three shapes, meaning that anyone could have done it.
• Foreshadowing: There are plenty of moments that lead up to The Butler Did It reveal — starting with the butler and maid explaining to Olive and Otto how they live underneath the basement, and the butler intentionally dropping the agents' coats.
• General Failure: General Pentagon has the general demeanor and attire of an army general, and has experience fighting in the Shape Wars for 5 years, but doesn't have the skills to match — one of his attack plans is putting the army's supplies in a pentagonal shape, which isn't even close to the river they have to cross, as one of his soldiers points out.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: Otto hangs a lampshade on Lord Rectangle wanting to have dessert first on his birthday.
  Otto: Cake? Before pizza? You are the smartest man I've ever met.
• Good-Looking Privates: General Pentagon — himself an army soldier in the appropriate attire — treats Olive and Otto as Consummate Professionals due to them being in uniform.
• Gratuitous German: Professor Square speaks with a German accent and peppers some of his dialogue with German words.
• Greens Precede Sweets: Both subverted and inverted — Lord Rectangle orders the butler to bring out the cake to eat first, before the pizza.
• Happy Birthday to You!: General Pentagon, Professor Square and Miss Triangle sing the last line of a different "happy birthday" song. A rather confusing example considering the show is made in Canada.
• The Help Helping Themselves: The butler and maid, as well as Lord Rectangle's friend Miss Triangle, are the ones who stole Lord Rectangle's birthday cake, out of anger that Rectangle never remembers their birthdays. Once everyone apologizes, Rectangle destroys his cake and decides to make cupcakes for everyone instead.
• Impossibly-Compact Folding: The butler hands Olive and Otto a folded-up map of the manor on a small dish. When they unfold it, it's the size of them combined, and Olive has trouble attempting to fold it up even with Lord Rectangle and the others helping her. She eventually gives it back to the butler and maid.
• Involuntary Dance: Played for laughs when Professor Square forces Olive to be his square dancing partner for a brief moment.
• Inventor of the Mundane: Lord Rectangle became wealthy by inventing the ice cream sandwich.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Olive and Otto split up to search the manor for clues.
• Lights Off, Somebody Dies: It's invoked by the butler, who turns the lights off and makes a break for the cake along with the maid when the candles on it are blown out by Lord Rectangle.
• Limited Wardrobe: Olive and Otto's rain jackets look exactly like their suits — badges, lapels and all.
• Lost Food Grievance: Lord Rectangle is so distraught over the loss of his birthday cake that he cries over it, much to the annoyance of his guests.
  Miss Triangle: Oh, he's crying again.
  General Pentagon: Unbelievable.
  Miss Triangle: I mean it's just a cake...
• Meaningful Rename: Miss Triangle was formerly called Miss Steinerflute.
• Multi-Part Episode: The second after "Reindeer Games".
• Mystery Episode: Olive and Otto attempt to solve the mystery behind a cake being stolen at Shapely Manor. The first part of the episode has the two agents work to solve the mystery, while the second episode is comprised solely of The Summation.
• Narration Echo: Olive does this at one point to herself.
  Olive: [as a Character Narrator] I needed to find out exactly what happened here tonight. [outside of narration] Lord Rectangle, could you tell me exactly what happened here tonight?
• Noisy Shut-Up: When Lord Rectangle begins to accuse his guests of stealing the cake, they become offended and begin to angrily defend themselves. Olive resorts to giving a loud whistle to shut them up.
  • Otto gives a loud "ATTENTION!" upon returning to Lord Rectangle and his guests after finding the footprint.
• No Peripheral Vision: Otto fails to see the white vase that's directly in front of his face when he orders everyone to stay inside until the mystery is solved, managing to knock it over and shatter it with a sweep of his hand.
• One Crazy Night: The episode takes place in a single night.
• Priceless Ming Vase: Otto manages to knock over a vase while ordering all of the suspects to stay in the room.
  Otto: You're all staying here until we solve this mystery. All of you.
  [he accidentally knocks over the vase]
  Otto: [as Olive is giving a Face Palm] I'm so sorry, I'll pay for it. How much did it cost?
  Butler: It was priceless, sir.
  Otto: Oh. Phew.
  [he moves back over to Olive, who shakes her head and gives an eyeroll]
• Pun: Otto makes one that Olive doesn't seem to grasp until a few moments later. At the end of the episode, she one-ups him with a pun of her own.
  Olive: Can't win 'em all, partner.
• Red Herring: Professor Square and General Pentagon turn out to be red herrings and are interrogated by Olive and Otto as to what happened when the incident occurred. Both are revealed to have lied about what they were doing at the time of the theft (presumably, Square was reading his book, while Pentagon went to wash his hands), but neither contributed to stealing the cake.
• Rewatch Bonus: The reveal that the butler, maid and Miss Triangle worked together to steal the cake makes sense once viewers go back and point out all of the Foreshadowing moments with the trio.
• Running Gag: The party guests all tell Olive and Otto to "think about it", with "it" being that the crime is the work of another guest. They accompany this by tapping a part of their face as they leave the rooms.
• The Scapegoat: Each party guest blames each other for the incident — Professor Square blames General Pentagon, and the General blames Miss Triangle, and it's implied that she blames both of them.
• Neat Freak: Invoked by General Pentagon, who claims that he ran away when the lights went out to wash his hands, with Otto noting that clean hands are important to him.
• Shout-Out: The episode serves as a Whole-Plot Reference to the film Clue, with all four adults serving as parodies of various characters — Professor Square as Professor Plum, General Pentagon as Col. Mustard, Miss Triangle as Miss Scarlett, and Lord Rectangle as Mr. Boddy.
  • A mystery-themed episode of a show with a ruined cake and multiple suspects? Hmm, sounds a bit familiar...
• Simple, yet Opulent: The red farmhouse painting and flat diamond that Lord Rectangle shows off to his guests both look plain and simple, but are apparently rarities and hold great value.
• Sniff Sniff Nom: Played with. Upon finding a presumably muddy footprint, Otto takes his finger to the mud and eats it without sniffing it...before realizing that it isn't mud, but frosting from a cake. Olive then tastes the footprint herself to confirm. However, neither one of them sniff the footprint beforehand.
• Stealth Expert: All three guests are quite stealthy and manage to startle Olive and Otto upon bumping into them. In the case of Miss Triangle, it's briefly discussed by Olive:
  Olive: How are you all so sneaky?!
  Miss Triangle: Well, you've got to be, darling, to run with this crowd. [whispering] A bunch of tricksters, the whole lot.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: Otto can apparently play piano, as evidenced by him performing a Musical Sting on it. Whether it's for nothing more than a gag, however, is up for debate.
• The Summation: It's exaggerated in Part 2, which has Olive and Otto leading the party guests and Lord Rectangle on a run throughout the manor, visiting different rooms in order to explain what happened.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: When Otto bumps into General Pentagon, this exchange ensues.
  Otto: This case is getting odder by the m- [yells in surprise as he bumps into the General] Mr. Pentagon!
  General Pentagon: It's General Pentagon. I didn't fight for 5 years in the Shape Wars to be called "Mr.", you got it?
• Too Important to Remember You: The motivation for stealing Lord Rectangle's birthday cake was because he never remembered the butler and maid's birthdays.
• Umbrella of Togetherness: It's implied that Olive and Otto had one that they both shared, which can serve as potential Ship Tease.