Story — The episode begins with a much-missed pre-intro scene. Detective Polehouse is told over radio that he needs go take care of something. After the intro, we find out that Connie’s car has been stolen. Polehouse begins questioning her. She tells the detective that when she first discovered her car to be missing, she called Whit and asked him if her car was in the Whit’s End parking lot. In a flashback, because of her cold medication, Connie is dropping dishes and all around “out of it”. Whit says that he’ll drive her home because she shouldn’t be working in her condition.

Later, Polehouse gets a call from dispatch saying that the suspect has been found with the car. He goes to the location, just outside of the Riley-Clement farm and finds Buck. Buck admits to stealing the car. Still later, Jules confesses that it was actually her who stole the car. She had only meant to drive around a little to practice her driving, but when a bunny jumped out in front of the road Jules crashed into a fence. At school, Jules needs her clarinet reeds from the car and Buck has a free period, so she asks Buck to go get them. Buck reluctantly agrees.

“Nobody will miss you.”

Jules

“You’re right.”

Buck

Connie drops the charges, making Buck free to go because she thinks that everyone was just trying to do her a favour. Polehouse goes into the station to free Buck. While he’s there, he talks to Buck. He asks Buck why he was heading out of town. Buck says he doesn’t know if he was trying to steal the car. Polehouse says that being in a real home must be “some kind of culture shock” for Buck. Polehouse comes to the conclusion that Buck wanted to test how much he was loved by his friends and foster parents of Odyssey. He says that the people of Odyssey, especially his parents, like and love Buck. Polehouse says that he trusts Buck not to try to steal a car again.

In the next scene, Polehouse calls his mother and says

“Thank you for adopting me.”

Don

We learn that his father has already died. Polehouse makes a point of leaving his keys in his car, but then reveals that it is safely locked in his garage.

Notes — I really liked how there was a pre-intro scene. It reminds me of an older era of Odyssey, and was both nostalgic and hopeful for a new phase of intros.

Trivia — For a long time the only things we knew about this episode was that it would feature the character of Don Polehouse and “Dispatch”

  • This picture was released on Facebook, showing some of the cast for Auto Response:

Thoughts — I enjoyed this episode quite a lot. It has a considerable amount of re-listen value, something that is definitely important to me, and so I’ll definitely be listening to the episode again in the future. We see a continuing theme throughout recent Odyssey albums that Jules seems to be manipulating Buck into doing things that aren’t exactly right and that he wouldn’t do if it weren’t for her asking him to do them. Maybe he needs to re-think how much he trusts her and/or confront her about the issues in their relationship.

Expectations V.S. Reality —

First, let’s take a look at the actual episode description and my speculation.

When Connie’s car is stolen, Detective Polehaus tracks down what really happened and the surprising link to other Odyssey residents.

Adventures in Odyssey Club

When Connie’s car goes missing, it plunges Eugene, Connie, and Detective Polehouse into a mystery that may go beyond just one car.

My speculation

I have to praise myself here, I did a pretty good job. Even the “may go beyond just one car” part could line up with the episode if you take it to mean Buck’s continuing arc, as well as Polehouse’s character development. The first phrase, however, was almost spot-on and I’m pretty surprised as to how well I did with this episode description. Let’s re-read my 2020 predictions about this episode:

No summary has been released for this episode, but there was a picture of the cast. It contains Dave Arnold, Phil Proctor, Patty McCormack, Will Ryan, Phil Lollar, and Katie Leigh. This indicates that the episode will probably include Detective Polehouse, Eugene, and Connie. The Album 70 promo mentioned Connie’s car being stolen, and I’m guessing that this is the episode that it happens in.

I didn’t really make any very bold predictions, but they were all fulfilled. If you’d like to see how my predictions aligned with reality for the next episode in Album 71, Unrelatable, subscribe to Adventures in Opinions and you’ll be emailed when a new post comes out.