Recap / Odd Squad S 3 E 13 Mr Unpredictable Down The Tubes

Looks like Opal is going through some Sanity Slippage of her own, just like her predecessor.

Mr. Unpredictable

Airdate: July 8, 2020 ^note PBS Kids premiere

A new villain named Mr. Unpredictable calls out the Mobile Unit to try and solve his pattern, which he claims is actually not a pattern at all! Opal can't believe a villain can work without a pattern, but when the team keeps being blindsided, she starts to question herself. Meanwhile, the others take a tour of Villain University to see if they can gather any information about one of its alumni, who just happens to be Mr. Unpredictable.

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Tropes:

• Academy of Evil: Villain University is one. It's an Evil Counterpart to the more hero-aligned Odd Squad Academy, but functions moreso like a real, factual college than the Academy (which follows Artistic License – Education in regards to its structure) does.
• AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: When Oswald scolds Orla for acting unnatural when meeting Tessa Twosie, he tells her to be less obvious. However, he pronounces "obvious" so it sounds like "obvi-YESS", instead of "obvi-yus".
• Anime Hair: Mr. Unpredictable has blue hair which is curled at the top.
  • Simon Sixer's hair is very messy, and sticks up and out at different angles.
• Artistic License – Geography: The episode takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, with Opal and Omar going to "Beantown Street" to try and find Mr. Unpredictable. However, while there are places with the "Beantown" name (like Beantown Pub on Tremont Street), there is no Beantown Street in existence. Whether this is an error on the writers' part or this was intentional is unknown.
• Big "NO!": Mr. Unpredictable gives one that delves into him crying over his defeat at the hands of Opal and Omar.
• Blunt "Yes": Inverted. When Simon Sixer answers Miss Triangle's question of how to spot an Odd Squad agent incorrectly, she responds by making a "what the hell" face and giving a blunt "no".
• Breather Episode: This and "Down the Tubes" serve as a break from the previous two episodes, which had a darker shift in tone.
• Broken Record: Opal repeats the "er" in "cleverer" enough times that it sounds like she's attempting to imitate record needle scratching. It nearly delves into being an Overly Long Gag before Omar stops her.
• The Bus Came Back: Miss Triangle, who hasn't been seen since "Shapely University", returns in this episode, apparently having moved on from the eponymous school to be a teacher at Villain University instead.
• Captain Oblivious: Whoo boy, does Orla not know how to go undercover. Even when she nearly blows her and Oswald's covers, and even when the villains chase after them, she still remarks that she's wonderful at the art.
• Character Focus: This episode focuses primarily on Opal, who is stuck in her ways and believes that all villains work on a pattern. While she is portrayed as going through Sanity Slippage throughout the episode, she ends up being right, as Mr. Unpredictable does work on a pattern.
• Character Title
• The Chase: When Orla and Oswald are sniffed out, Miss Triangle says that the class's homework assignment is to catch them. What follows is a lengthy Chase Scene that goes long enough to end the episode.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: For going through Sanity Slippage, Opal turns out to be right on the money with Mr. Unpredictable following a pattern.
  • Omar also turns out to be right on the money with wanting to use a hundreds chart to figure out Mr. Unpredictable's presumed pattern.
• Comical Overreacting: How does Mr. Unpredictable react when Tessa Twosie refuses to give him her shoe to make soup in and suggests he use a bowl instead? He breaks off his friendship with her and vows to never, ever use or do anything involving the number 2 ever again.
  • And how does he react when Simon Sixer calls him Mr. U? He demands that he be called Mr. Unpredictable, breaks off his friendship with him, and declares that he wants nothing to do with the number 6.
• Confetti Drop: Confetti rains down on the Big O when she wins the guessing game.
• Confusion Fu: Befitting his name, Mr. Unpredictable prides himself on this style of committing odd crimes. He doesn't follow a set pattern like other villains do, which causes Opal and Omar to repeatedly fail in trying to catch him. It manages to drive Opal in particular to absolute insanity, as she believes that Mr. Unpredictable does have a pattern — and she actually ends up being right.
• Conspiracy Theorist: At the climax of the episode, Opal becomes one of these regarding Mr. Unpredictable, which isn't helped by any semblance of her sanity remaining going out the window.
  Opal: He hit 1, 3, 4, 11, and 13. Maybe it's a phone number!
  Omar: Opal, it's not a phone number.
  Opal: Orrrr maybe it's someone's birthday! Or the numbers on his license plate, or-
  Omar: [to the waitress] We would like the check, please.
  Opal: ...The numbers of blade of grass!
• Continuity Nod: Two villains are shown wearing Olive's pirate costume from "The Curious Case of Pirate-itis" and Oren's jester costume from "Captain Fun".
• Contrived Coincidence: Miss Triangle just so happens to be leading a class on how to spot an Odd Squad agent. Naturally, when attending the class, Orla and Oswald get caught.
  • During the class itself, Miss Triangle mentions that if an Odd Squad agent is undercover, they'll look like children wearing jeans and baseball caps — the very same things that Oswald and Orla are wearing.
• Copycat Mockery: After leaving the tent with Mr. Unpredictable's movie, Omar mocks what Opal has been saying every time he tries to pull up a hundreds chart.
  Omar: Hundreds chart, or will you just say, "I don't need it, I already solved the case"?
  Opal: The second one.
• Disney Acid Sequence: The video that Mr. Unpredictable sends to the Mobile Unit is incredibly trippy. While the show has been no stranger to these kinds of nonsensical sequences, this episode has arguably the most nonsensical of them all.
• Distaff Counterpart: Tessa Twosie appears to be one of Tommy Twosie, having a similar name and similar style choices (wearing two of everything).
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Opal yells this at the snake-in-a-can that she and Omar receive from Mr. Unpredictable at one point.
  Opal: We can do this the easy way or the hard way!!
  Mr. Unpredictable: This is still a recording.
  Opal: Hard way it is. [begins to shove the snake back into the can]
• Enemy Mime: A few mimes are seen attending Villain University.
• Evil Laugh: The "evil" comedy troupe at Villain University is called the "Wa-Ha-Ha's".
• Hoist by His Own Petard: At the climax of the episode, Opal and Omar beat Mr. Unpredictable by doing the inverse of Confusion Fu, then using his own battle style on him, which causes him to admit defeat.
• Idiot Ball: While Omar grabs the Smart Ball, Opal grabs the Idiot Ball. The amount of stupid things she does in this episode is enough to make a Drinking Game out of.
  • Oswald is the one that blows both his and Orla's covers and exposes them to the villains, by his badge phone going off. While many classrooms have teachers that inform students to put their phones on silent, Oswald apparently didn't put his on silent — and had he done so, he and Orla wouldn't be exposed. Bonus idiot points go to the fact that he actually answers the phone while in class instead of asking Miss Triangle if he can briefly step out of the room, or find some way to silence it while keeping it in his jacket pocket.
  • Orla failing at being undercover, as well as her believing that she's good at it, also has her holding the Idiot Ball.
  Orla: [hiding in a trash bin] Ahh, the thrill of undercover. [pops her head out] Nothing to see here, villains, just some ordinary garbage!
  Oswald: [pokes his head out of an adjacent trash bin and gives an exasperated sigh]
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: Orla manages to let slip that she and Oswald are looking for info on Mr. Unpredictable when Simon Sixer introduces himself.
  Simon Sixer: Hey, I'm Simon Sixer. I'm majoring in doing terrible things involving the number 6, minoring in drama. Any questions about the school?
  Orla: We will not ask about Mr. Unpredictable because we already heard about Mr. Unpredictable, unless you would like to speak on the topic of Mr. Unpredictable.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Subverted. Opal believes that Mr. Unpredictable is going to strike at 2 Beantown Street, and begins counting down from 3. Right after she says 1, a woman covered in whipped cream and carrying a can of candy corn rushes right up to Odd Squad, instead of Mr. Unpredictable.
• Kinda Busy Here: Oswald and Orla are forced to talk to Omar on the phone while fleeing from the students at Villain University.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: When Omar pulls up a hundreds chart on his smartwatch, a BGM piece often played when delivering the episode's Aesop plays. It slows to a halt when Opal taps his smartwatch and closes it.
• Malaproper: When looking around for any signs of Mr. Unpredictable's pattern, Opal says that it might be "the numbers of blade of grass".
  • Directly after that, Simon Sixer refers to Odd Squad as "Odd Squid".
• Manipulative Bastard: At the beginning of the episode, the Big O plays a guessing game with the Main 4 and says that she will give a free juice box to anyone who can tell her what odd thing has happened. Of course, anyone who is familiar with the show — both the characters and the audience — knows that there are millions of oddities she could be referring to, and because of that, all of the Main 4's answers turn out to be incorrect, causing her to get the juice box. Oswald's comment directly after pretty much cements how manipulative her "game" is.
  Oswald: She always wins this game.
• Movie-Theater Episode: Downplayed. One of Mr. Unpredictable's ways of teasing Opal and Omar is having them see a movie inside of a tent, with said movie being him taunting them. To make matters worse (or more hilarious, depending on your mileage), the movie is a 3-D Movie in black-and-white.
• Paddleball Shot: During the 3-D Movie that Opal and Omar see, Mr. Unpredictable's head moves towards the camera in one of these shots. It manages to scare both of the agents until they can't take any more and take their 3D glasses off.
  Opal: Okay, we've seen enough!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Oswald and Orla decide to go undercover and explore Villain University to find out more about Mr. Unpredictable. As a result, they shed their Odd Squad uniforms and go in civilian clothes, adopting different names as well (while Oswald's is "Jake", we don't hear what Orla's is). While Orla in particular proves to be horrible at going undercover, the villains all buy the disguises...that is, up until Oswald's badge phone rings while he and Orla are in a class on how to identify an Odd Squad agent.
• The Prankster: Mr. Unpredictable manages to get Opal and Omar with the "snake in a can" prank. As part of Opal's Sanity Slippage, she begins screaming and yelling at the snake-in-a-can as though it's a living thing.
• Running Gag: This episode marks the beginning of The Shadow's Villain Network Sigil Spam which takes effect in pretty much every episode. Most of the spammed sigils, if not all of them, appear in the form of Easter eggs. In this episode particularly, the logo is seen next to the chalkboard of Miss Triangle's classroom, as a flyer.
• Sanity Slippage: Opal lets her sanity gradually go out the window throughout the episode as she firmly believes that Mr. Unpredictable is working in a pattern. It gets to such an extent that Omar, of all agents, is portrayed as the Only Sane Man among the duo while she grows more and more frustrated and even mocks her at one point.
• invoked The Scrappy: An in-universe example occurs with Mr. Unpredictable himself, who is hated among most of the students at Villain University due to being a Jerkass that overreacts to minor things (such as Tessa Twosie denying him her shoe to make soup in).
• Series Continuity Error: The Big O addresses Villain University as "Villain Academy" at one point. The school is otherwise referred to by the correct former term.
• Shout-Out: Orla and Oswald going undercover at an opposing school wearing Paper-Thin Disguises and eventually being found out by the villains draws some parallels to the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Friendship University".
• Smart Ball: Omar gets a firm grip on this throughout the episode, going from being The Ditz to being the Only Sane Man.
• The Tell: Omar knows his partner well enough to know when she's about to become a Competition Freak.
  Opal: I pre-dict that Omar and I will solve this before you even get there, because Mr. Unpredictable is soooo predictable.
  Omar: You're gonna get super-weird and competitive about this, aren't you?
  Opal: Who, me? Psssssh- yeah, probably.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Mr. Unpredictable demands to be called Mr. Unpredictable, and not Mr. U.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When a waitress delivers a tablet on a silver platter to Opal and Omar, they realize exactly what's going to happen and immediately say "Oh no" in unison.
• The Un-Smile: Orla delivers one when talking to Tessa Twosie, which manages to startle Oswald.
• Worldbuilding: This episode introduces Villain University, a school for aspiring villains. While only appearing once, there is some invoked Fridge Brilliance at play — in case any villains are somehow defeated for good (which is shown in the mid-season finale), Villain University makes sure Status Quo Is God gets invoked by cranking out more and more villains for Odd Squad to battle and defeat. It's an endless cycle.
• World Tour: The Mobile Unit goes to Boston, Massachusetts in this episode.

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We hear the secret that he keeps...while he's talking in his sleep.

Down the Tubes

Airdate: July 8, 2020 ^note  PBS Kids premiere

When the tube system is shut down due to a scrambler installed by a villain, the Mobile Unit van becomes a taxi service for other Odd Squad agents. Once they realize their service will be rated on a scale up to 10 stars, Omar and Opal dedicate themselves to giving the coolest van experience. Meanwhile, Orla rides the tubes for the first time as she and Oswald attempt to figure out where the wires are getting crossed.

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Tropes:

• Arbitrary Skepticism: When Oswald calls Orla and describes where he is to her, he says that he's in a weird office, then lampshades the trope by adding on, "Even by Odd Squad standards."
• Bad News, Irrelevant News: Inverted. Orana tells the Main 4 that Oliver has octopus legs, before Oliver tells them the actual bad news: that a villain has messed with the tube system. Then Big O tells them that there's more bad news in the form of her shutting down the tube system.
• Big "NO!": Tennifer gives one of these when the Scrambler is defeated.
• Blatant Lies: It's made clear that Oswald doesn't like riding in the tubes — which is fitting, considering his Cowardly Lion status (and the fact that he likely never had much need for Tube Travel when he was working at the Museum of Natural Odd). While he manages to convince Orla and O'Shaughnessy that he enjoys it, his sleep-talking at the climax of the episode says otherwise.
  Oswald: [sighs; unenthusiastic] Let's try it again. Here we go, heh-heh, back in the tubes.
  Orla: I thought you loved the tubes.
  Oswald: Of course I do! That's why I said, "Here we go, back in the tubes!"
• Character Focus: While all of the Main 4 are featured, Orla primarily takes the spotlight for this episode as she rides the tubes for the first time and ends up having to find the Scrambler herself when Oswald becomes too exhausted to keep riding the tubes.
  • Opal also takes the spotlight to a certain extent, as she and Omar attempt to get 10 stars for their taxi service, but that plotline ultimately never gets resolved.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Oswald and Orla both travel through the tubes in orange balls, befitting their department's color of orange.
• Continuity Nod: The Big O is once again in Australia with Orana and Oliver.
  • Someone having tentacles for legs? It's been done before. Twice.
  • Opal's long-winded speech from "Running on Empty" returns again as an agent asks her and Omar how long they've been a taxi service.
  • The second passenger that Opal and Omar pick up changes his suit to its water travel mode when deciding to leave, which was last seen in "Odds and Ends".
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Orla manages to defeat the Scrambler — and by extension, Tennifer — in mere seconds with minimal effort, and all while keeping a levelheaded demeanor.
• Didn't Think This Through: The first and second passengers Omar and Opal pick up both produce a hangglider and transform into water travel mode, respectively, while still inside the cockpit. Both of them lament how they should have done so in a more wide-open space.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Opal telling Orla about the various ratings that passengers gave her and Omar allows the ancient warrior agent to realize the pattern in the tubes sending agents to different stations than intended.
• Evil Gloating: Tennifer starts to do this, but hilariously enough, she gets interrupted by Orla saying how Tube Travel is fun, before the villainess cuts her off in turn and continues to gloat.
• Evil Laugh: Tennifer starts to give one of these, but immediately switches to Oh, Crap! mode when Orla pulls out a gadget from her Hammerspace spine and destroys the Scrambler in one clean shot.
• Heavy Sleeper: Oswald somehow manages to remain asleep even as he's riding the tubes (and presumably, as Orla or someone else guided him to the tubes). Not even Orla — who is known for being loud and brash — is able to wake him up.
• "I Know What We Can Do" Cut: At the end of the episode, when Omar asks Orla if she wants to be picked up by him and Opal, she declines and says that she has a better idea in mind. Cut to her and Oswald riding the tubes, with the latter still in a deep slumber.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Right after he lies to Orla about enjoying Tube Travel while stuck at Station 6 in Belgium, Oswald is shown riding in the tubes in a less enthusiastic and more nervous manner.
  Oswald: This is longer than I thought. Too fast, too fast, too fast! Ugh, my tummy...
• Innocuously Important Episode: This episode introduces Tube Central Station in Australia for the first time. "End of the Road", the final part of the mid-season finale, has Tube Central Station be one of the main settings of the plot, and it plays a huge role in The Shadow's Evil Plan.
• Insistent Terminology: Omar is very insistent on the Mobile Unit being a taxi service, in contrast to Opal, who refers to the Unit as "an elite team of agents". The two partners end up getting into an argument with each other over the terminology they should use in front of their passenger, who decides to leave the van even though they're flying in the sky.
• Jaw Drop: Opal delivers a hilarious one when Omar hands a can of sparkling soda to her and she opens it, only for it to spray all over her, Omar, and the passenger in one of the back seats.
• Literal-Minded: When Opal finds out about the Mobile Unit taxi service's rating system, she resolves to give agents the best rides they've ever had, and tells Omar to buckle up. He looks down, looks back at her, and says in dead-earnest, "I am buckled."
  • Orla tells O'Shaughnessy that Mobile Unit agents call their partners to let them know when things aren't going well. She then calls up Opal and tells her that things aren't going well.
• Meaningful Echo: When O'Shaughnessy suggests that she and Orla give up, the Mobile Unit agent tells her that those in the Mobile Unit never give up. Later on, when Orla is forced to go through the tubes to reach the Scrambler and the villain responsible and expresses hesitance at doing so, O'Shaughnessy tells her that she thought Mobile Unit agents never gave up, which spurs confidence in her.
• Mirthless Laughter: High-Five's laughter upon pulling a "down low, too slow" trick on O'Shaughnessy goes from being normal to being insane and ham-filled, eventually delving into HA HA HA—No territory.
• Misplaced Accent: Lampshaded by Oswald, who tells O'Shaughnessy that he thought she would have an Australian accent since she works in Australia, only for her to tell him that she transferred to Tube Central Station from Massachusetts. (She doesn't have any accents stemming from Massachusetts, however.)
• Mundane Utility: There is apparently a gadget known as a "Guac-inator" that has the ability to magically conjure up guacamole, which Opal uses to refill the guacamole dish at the party that she and Omar throw.
• Not Helping Your Case: When Orla says that she doesn't plan to use Tube Travel and expresses her dislike of it, Oswald attempts to convince her her how fun it is by explaining how it works: you get squished into a tiny ball, then get hurtled around the Earth at the speed of a rocket. The fact that he uses various hand gestures to describe it, as well as the fact that he himself is scared of riding the tubes, doesn't help matters.
• Not Quite Flight: The first passenger that rides with Opal and Omar is revealed to keep a hangglider seemingly in her suit, allowing her to fly.
• Now You Tell Me: When O'Shaughnessy points out that an agent isn't supposed to take more than 4 tube rides a day, Orla says, "Now you mention this?!"
• On a Scale from One to Ten: The Mobile Unit's taxi service apparently has a rating app with a system where passengers can rate their experience with the service from 1 star to 10 stars. When Opal finds out about it, she goes from disliking being a taxi service to her perfectionism traits kicking into full gear as she tries to get a 10-star rating.
• Overworked Sleep: Oswald ends up falling asleep on the table in a Ugandan family's home after riding the tubes twice. It's implied by O'Shaughnessy that agents may also experience feelings of drowsiness after riding the tubes more than 4 times a day, with some falling asleep from engaging in too much Tube Travel — and while Oswald only rides the tubes twice, he is generally seen as weaker than the rest of the Main 4, which would explain why he falls asleep after only two rides.
• The Perfectionist: Opal, natch. She is outright obsessed with her and Omar's taxi service getting a 10-star rating, not even settling for half of that, a 5-star rating.
• Punny Name: "Tennifer", the villainess of the episode, is just "Jennifer" with a T.
• Rule of Three: As O'Shaughnessy explains the situation to Orla and Oswald, Orla repeatedly says "then we must ____". By the third go-around she does it again, but says "then I am out of ideas!"
• Series Continuity Error: O'Shaughnessy tells Orla that one isn't supposed to take more than 4 tube rides per day. However, past episodes have shown agents go through the tubes multiple times and not show any signs of exhaustion or drowsiness — at worst, your internal organs become mixed up, as Olive explains in "The Briefcase". Aside from that, Oswald is only shown going on 2 tube rides in the episode, not 4 (although since he is generally considered weaker than his teammates to an extent, it's possibly justified).
• Shout-Out: The agent DJ in the Mobile Unit van wears a jackalope headpiece similar to EDM artist Deadmau5.
• Talking in Your Sleep: Oswald does this when he passes out from exhaustion. The first thing he says, "no more tubes", reveals that he doesn't like riding in the tubes, in contrast to what he previously told O'Shaughnessy and Orla. As he remains asleep at the end of the episode, he says "OSMU", dreaming about him and the rest of the Main 4.
• The Taxi: The Mobile Unit van becomes one, although with the rating system (and the rating app in general) and the high-tech setting of the show, it functions more like a ride-sharing service similar to Uber and Lyft than a taxi company.
• The Worf Effect: Tennifer creates a machine that scrambles up the tubes so agents won't get to their intended locations, which is promptly destroyed by Orla, one of the most powerful agents in Odd Squad.
• Tube Travel: Oswald does this in order to find and destroy the Scrambler machine that is mixing up the tubes. Orla, however, is initially hesitant about riding the tubes, having never done so before, but is eventually forced to do so when Oswald becomes too exhausted and falls asleep.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Opal gives Omar a dose of this when he immediately volunteers both of them to be taxi drivers.
  Omar: Read your mind. Didn't I, partner?
• Worldbuilding: Tube Central Station in Australia is introduced as a location, which is run by O'Shaughnessy, the Tube Master General.
  • Various tube stations are also introduced — Station 6, an office in Belgium, and Station 5, which is the home of a Ugandan family.
• World Tour: This episode has Orla and Oswald go to Australia, the home of Tube Central Station, where Odd Squad's tube system is controlled. While it's not stated in this episode, it's later confirmed that the Station is located at the Sydney Opera House.

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