Basic Trope: Two seemingly unrelated characters turn out to have a connection in one way or another.
- Straight:
- Rita meets bartender Stan at a tavern on her journey to the capital. She later learns that Stan is the cousin of her lover Mabel.
- Charlie was classmates and acquaintances with Lina at their mutual private school. When he and his Olympics-winning sports team are invited to meet the president some time later, Charlie learns that Lina is the president’s daughter.
- Billy invites his brother Grant to meet his girlfriend. Grant recognizes Billy’s girlfriend Willow as a cashier who works at the same department store as him.
- Martin has an adversarial relationship with older co-worker Lawrence at an advertisement agency and occasionally complains about this to his mother Barbara. Later Martin accompanies Barbara to her high school reunion and they bump into Lawrence there. It turns out that Barbara was a classmate of Lawrence in high school.
- Sylvia is a private eye tracking down a criminal and Jeanne has recently moved into the apartment next to Sylvia's. Turns out Jeanne is the criminal she's looking for.
- Exaggerated: Everyone in the universe has a connection, no matter how close, to everyone else.
- Downplayed: Peter and Martin attended the same school for years and only became classmates that school year, though knew each other beforehand.
- Justified:
- Rita does not know every member of Mabel’s family and is thoroughly surprised when she learns that Stan is Mabel’s cousin.
- Charlie was not very close to Lina outside of a couple of classes and back then, her father was simply a senator. By the time Lina's father ascended to the presidency, Charlie and Lina had graduated and both had all but forgotten about the other. Additionally, Charlie is apathetic towards politics, so he doesn't follow the president and his personal activities - thus why he didn't know that Lina was the president's daughter.
- Grant and Billy live in a very small town with less than 100 people and only a few major places. Grant and Willow work at the same department store, being one of the few stores in town, though had little meaningful personal interaction beforehand. Billy then met Willow at the local bar, another popular place in town, and they began dating.
- Lawrence and Barbara's relationship was limited to just high school classmates and thus there wasn't much reason to continue the friendship beyond that setting. Additionally, "Lawrence" is a common name, thus Barbara wasn't clued into the fact that both her ex-classmate and her son's co-worker were the same person.
- The criminal Sylvia was looking for did the crimes anonymously and thus she didn't suspect Jeanne to be the culprit until she learned more about her.
- The connection is only detectable through genealogical research.
- Inverted: There is no relationship between any of the characters.
- Subverted:
- Stan the bartender isn’t actually Mabel’s cousin.
- Lina lied about being the president’s daughter.
- Billy is not dating Willow.
- Barbara and Lawrence didn't attend high school together and didn't know each other then.
- Jeanne isn't the criminal Sylvia is looking for.
- Double Subverted:
- Stan the salesman, on the other hand, is Mabel’s cousin and he momentarily met Rita when he tried to sell a bike to her on her journey.
- Lina is actually the president’s niece.
- Billy is dating Willow’s sister Frida, whom Grant knows from church.
- Except Barbara and Lawrence did attend college together and even dated briefly.
- Then it’s revealed that Sylvia’s sister and roommate Louise is the actual mastermind and she set up Jeanne as a patsy.
- Parodied: “So, you’re my mother’s husband’s stepsister’s roommate’s girlfriend’s dog’s veterinarian’s grandmother’s neighbor? That practically makes us related!”
- Zig Zagged: In the story, Rita meets Maureen, Saul, Keith, Nike, and Jules during her journey. It turns out that Saul is Rita’s missing uncle whom she had hitherto never met while Nike is a former classmate of hers. The rest are unconnected to her outside the journey.
- Averted:
- The connections are revealed from the outset of the series.
- There are no connection reveals between any of the characters.
- Enforced: The producers decided to throw a twist into the show to increase drama by revealing that a character was related to another.
- Lampshaded:Jade: So, if Brianna is Joseph’s daughter, that means Carly is also her sister.David: I guess then everyone must be connected to everyone else in some shape or another.
- Invoked: Zack writes a play for class, but being a procrastinator, he doesn’t get the play done until the morning of. As a result, he writes a play with the tacked-on twist that everyone was related in some way.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Martin gathers everyone in a room to tell them that he's connected to one of them. Angie leaves the room to avoid hearing who.
- Discussed:Jade: "Unlike in movies, finding out you're connected with someone you met only once is not likely."
- Conversed:David: "How realistic can it be that that guy from the tavern just happens to be the cousin of the lover of the hero?"Jade: "Having connections with other characters in the story, no matter how minor, can bring a lot of drama and make us interested in this universe. Plus, Stan and Mabel do look alike, you have to admit."
- Played For Drama: ???
- Played For Laughs: ???
Back to Connected All Along
