Home Away From Home
"Maybe I stockholmed you or ... or you stockholmed me. I guess that makes us The Stockholms!"
— Jasper Williams
The Stockholms is an animated web series created by Explosm Entertainment and produced by Octopie. The series focuses on a bank robber named Jasper Williams, who holds three unrelated strangers hostage, in what becomes the longest hostage negotiation in American history, lasting for over five months. During this time, the three hostages Charlene, Marley, and Yong Sun develop Stockholm Syndrome and start treating each other like family. The animation and artwork is provided by the artists of The Cyanide & Happiness Show.
It can be viewed here
as individual episodes or here as a compilation.
Tropes:
- Alliterative Title: Episode 3 "The Holyday Heist", episode 4 "Emotions Eleven" and episode 8 "The Canine Caper".
- Audience Surrogate: Korey Coleman and Martin Thomas are two cops who watch the events of the hostage's life unfold from outside the bank and they act like viewers of the sitcom, laughing and commenting on what they like about the characters and plotlines. In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment at the end of the finale, they're also the two only cops mourning Jasper
- The Bad Guy Wins: Spoiler alert. Every episode has an underlying formula of hostage negotiator, Ned, trying to get as little as one hostage from Jasper, only to fail.
- Averted in the series finale.
- Bag of Holding: Santa's bag natch. It can be used to generate the perfect gift. When Willie ends up inside, he sees a void filled with presents that quickly start to smother him.
- Bank Robbery: Jasper Williams robs a bank.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: According to the flash-back in the finale, Yong Sun shout "I wish I could live here" while running into the bank, one minute before the hostage situation beggins. Subverted, as he actually likes (most of the time) being held into the bank.
- Black Comedy: This show runs on it.
- Blatant Lies: The last episode ends with the Once an Episode theme song saying "The Stockholmers are gonna be ok." to spite the fact that Jasper was shot dead in front of them and they were very clearly traumatized.
- Blended Family Drama: A very weird variant, where three unrelated people are forced at gunpoint by a criminal to pretend they're all part of the same family.
- Bottle Episode: Pretty much every episode takes place in a bank.
- Brick Joke: Jasper always holds his gun ready to shoot but never actually uses it. Which makes sense since it's empty.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: One of the main jokes of the show is that the characters act like a stereotypical sit-com family or a gaggle of good friends, when the entire time, they're currently involved in a life or death hostage situation.
- Chastity Couple: As shown in episode 8, Jasper and Charlene sleep together but the fact that she's still tied to a chair means little else is happening. And being still in the same position and within her full covering clothes who only let her face appears than in the rest of the show, it is pretty clear that Charlene sleeping bound beside Jasper has nothing to do with bondage.
- Christmas Episode: "Holiday Heist" was an episode about Santa Claus coming to visit the bank, only to get knocked out cold and held hostage by Jasper. Played with : in-universe, it takes place during december ; in the real world, it uses most of the codes of US Christmas episodes. But in-universe, it is only the first Santa apparition, who stays in the bank as a major character until his death in july. And in the real world, the episode was originally published on Octopie's Youtube channel in 2020 august, and republished on Explosm Entertainment's Youtube channel the 2021 19th april.
- Christmas Miracle: Invoked, played for laugh and averted at the same time in "Bankrupt"
Santa: "It'd take a Christmas miracle to raise the money now. [All The Stockholms look at him, smiling] What ? Don't look at me ! It's february."
- Crazy-Prepared: Parodied with Martin and Korey. As policemen, they don't have a clue on how to stop the hostage situation. But as shippers, they have several customized t-shirts with their favorite ships between the people inside the bank, and they wear them under their uniforms just to show them in case of shipping argument. Which happens in "Emotions Eleven". Ned also have a printed t-shirt to celebrate their friendship when they reconciliate by the end of the episode.
- Creator Thumbprint: The show was animated by the same people who made The Cyanide & Happiness Show and it really shows too, as the art style is almost-practically unchanged, that it could practically take place in the same universe. The only real difference is the larger variety in body shapes, wherein Cyanide and Happiness, heads were pretty much only a circle and bodies were rectangular outside of some unique characters.
- Different in Every Episode: The song in the ending credits is always different so that it matches the episode's plot.
- Expository Theme Song: The theme song describes the setup of the series via a Randy Newman impression exaggerated to Simpleton Voice.
- The Faceless: Jasper's face is unseen due to him perpetually wearing a ski mask, the same goes for his accomplice Willy. Up to eleven as Jasper keeps his ski mask even when he's shaving.
- Failed a Spot Check: None of the police noticed getaway driver Willy waiting outside the bank in a car for over a year.
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: Parodied as the red dot turns out to be the laser pointer of the sniper.
- Foreshadowing:
- In episode five, Santa says he can't make a Christmas miracle in february, and then coughs. He will become seriously ill in the following episode because he stayed too long away from the North Pole, and dies in the seventh episode, precisely entitled "Christmas Mourning", because of this disease.
- In episode nine Jasper hears someone breaking in a goes to confront him with a baseball bat, despite having a gun. Because the gun was empty the whole time.
- Forgot the Disability: When Charlene asks Jasper to check on a noise, he asks why she can't do it before remembering she's tied to a chair. It really says something that the man who tied her to it would forget that.
- Five-Token Band:
- As none of them are biologically related, the titular "family" is this. Jasper is the White Male Lead, Charlene is a brown-skinned woman wearing a hijab likely making her Muslim/Middle Eastern, Marley is a chubby black girl, and Yong Sun's name points to him being Korean.
- Among the police force are the overweighted, black Ned (who later joins the family as the Team Pet), Ambiguously Brown Korey and Martin, a white police sniper, and a Chief with bizarrely reddish skin and hair.
- Friendly Enemy: Ned is more than happy to provide Jasper with anything he demands, and he is rather meek when it comes to asking him to release hostages.
- Good Parents
- Yong Sun's mother who is clearly terrified for him, being one of the few people to take the situation seriously.
- Played with, Charlene is portrayed a caring mother figure for her fellow hostages, but shows little to no concern about her actual children if she has any.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Willy is quite unhinged from waiting in the getaway car for over a year. Doesn't help that the only song he had to listen to was Mambo No.5.
- Hostage Situation: The overall, main premise of the series.
- It Works Better with Bullets: Jasper's gun was never loaded, to begin with. He managed to hold up a bank for a year and a half with a bluff.
- Lima Syndrome: Jasper is clearly shown to care for his hostages. This is referred to by the characters as Jasper being "Stockholmed" by the hostages.
- Malevolent Masked Men: Downplayed with Jasper, who wears a mask and who is a bank robber and a hostage taker, but who also actually means no harm to the hostages or to the police. Play straight with Willy, who is a mentally unstable, more violent masked bank robber who actually try to shoot Yong Sun.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Parodied as Jasper's robbery of a Jewelry store is treated as an analogy for cheating. The innocent explanation is also parodied, he was out to get Charlene a diamond studded restraint as an hostage-versery gift.
- Never Trusta Trailer: In the trailer, the chief shouts to Ned that he did not manage to save a single hostage. This scene is taken from episode 8 "The Canine Caper". At this point of the show, Ned already managed to get Chris Pine out of the bank. That’s even what he said to the chief immediately afterwards, though the chief counters with the bigger picture of Ned's failure to help any other hostage escape (including a now deceased Chris Kringle).
- Police Are Useless: Ned and the rest of the police fail to get as little as one hostage from Jasper. Subverted in the finale when Jasper lets his guard down and is promptly killed by a police sniper.
- Retraux: The title cards and backgrounds all look like they were taken straight from the cartoons of the 90's and early 2000's, while the characters themselves have the polished stick figure style of Cyanide and Happiness.
- Running Gag:
- At the end of every episode, a new character gets held hostage at the bank and they continue to remain in the bank in all of the following episodes.
- Another running gag is for a sniper to try and shoot Jasper only to just miss when Jasper slightly moves his head forward or back. Except for the ending, where Jasper is abruptly shot dead.
- Spoiler Title: While episode six ends on Santa who has a serious faintness, he dies in the next episode, entitled "Christmas Mourning".
- Shipper on Deck: Martin and Korey have their opinion on what couples would be the best inside of the bank, are arguing about it in "Emotions Eleven", and even have several printed t-shirts to illustrate it.
- Subverted Sitcom: The Stockholms is a Black Comedy Bank Robbery and Casual Danger Dialogue based sitcom parody, with no actually threatening situation, most of the time. But it turns into a subverted sitcom during the last two episodes, when Jasper is remplaced by the more dangerous and turned-to-psycho Willy, who actually hold hostage the other principal characters. Jokes become rarer in these episodes (although they do not disappear completely). And the last episode contains a failed attempt of murder over 8-years-old Yong Sun, Willy's Cruel and Unusual Death (although some viewers may consider he deserved it as he was a dangerous criminal) and Jasper brutally shoot dead by the police in front of his new family.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Jasper is abruptly shot dead in the middle of a heartwarming moment between the "family".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Really there was only ever going to be one way a series based around a hostage situation could end, no matter how much of a familiar relationship they developed. The group hug finally made Jasper an easy target for the sniper, who shots him dead like any criminal.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Charlene, Marley and Yong Sun all develop this for Jasper.
- Taking the Bullet: Charlene tries to do this when Willy tries to shot Young Sun, but is unable due to being tied to a chair and Willy ends up not shooting anyway. Jasper then does this successfully, taking a bullet to the arm in the process.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The only people who seem to actually take the situation seriously are the pizza guy, Yong Sun's mother, the police chief, and possibly the sniper (as slow and clumsy at his job he is). The rest of the police force either act like a Friendly Enemy to Jasper or treat it like a TV show, Marley's friends at school are more upset over the fact that she can't go to prom, and everyone else just seems to ignore it completely. Even having a movie star and even freaking Santa Claus with them doesn't seem to heed any attention, neither do Chris Pines nor Santa seem to even care that they've essentially been dragged into a crime scene.
- Villain Protagonist: Jasper Williams is a robber who takes people hostage.
- What the Hell, Hero?: By "The Canine Caper", to perfect his dog disguise, Ned repeatedly licks Yong Sun's face. The problem is that he is a grown up man and a law representative licking up a 8-years-old's face. That's the only time throughout the entire show where his fellow policemen Korey Coleman and Martin Thomas are shocked by what they are watching. Downplayed, as Ned has (hopefully) no twisted feelings or intentions towards Yong Sun, and by the fact that Korey and Martin don't directly call him on this.
