The long-anticipated review of “The Rydell Revelations” with Rachel and Josh from the Return to Odyssey podcast has arrived … and it’s unlike any other review of the three-parter. Nothing is held back as the couple presents the case that this end of the Rydell Saga is the worst possible outcome for the series, with flaws ranging from plot deficiencies, broken characterization, and the betrayal of the integrity of John Avery Whittaker.
Despite the criticism of these episodes, I still really enjoy them. But I did enjoy hearing Josh and Rachel’s critiques, and this does break my view of, “Well, it’s only because we had all these theories and all this time to think about the episodes before they were released.” No, they are episodes that break easily under deeper analysis. I did notice, however, your cynical view of your conversations with Phil, even though I agree with what you said about them, i.e. “Well, maybe it’s your mind playing tricks on you.” NO, IT’S NOT! 😂 I will say, what great timing with the release, what with Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off releasing tomorrow. Getting hyped over here.
By the way, I’m in the middle of writing a story, so my writing, even as a comment, is a lot more rich currently than it would be otherwise.
Dude! That’s so cool! What do you write? I’m a (hopefully) aspiring author and write a lot of fiction especially action adventure. In fact, Odyssey gives me the most inspiration.
I heard a film critic say something about the show Wandvision that I think describes the Rydell Saga perfectly. “The show was better at building intrigue than delivering on the promise of the premise” I feel like this is exactly what happened with Odyssey. They set it up to be this amazing mystery with a lot of intrigue and Morrie almost seemed like a kid Blackgard or Mr. Charles. Even if they had played him as a Richard Maxwell who had seen the error of his ways and changed. Overall, I was disappointed with the ending and it soured me on the entire saga. Whit was out of character. The Whit I grew up with wouldn’t do what he did here. And it also made me not trust the show as much anymore. When we were going through the Olivia Saga, I had a hard time getting excited and interested because I was afraid it was going to be another dud ending. Thankfully, they mostly delivered on it, but I think it’s going to take the show a long time to recover from the Rydell Ridiculousness.
That’s why I had to compartmentalize. Don’t let your “Critical Rydell Theory” cloud your judgment about Odyssey in general. 😉
I personally wasn’t skeptical about the Olivia stuff because I knew Marshal Younger was manning the helm, and I trusted him. And it seems like the main mistake here is that there wasn’t a plan for the ending from the beginning of the intrigue, so there was no way Phil could deliver on the buildup.
I think the show is perfectly fine. It’s the Rydell stuff itself that’s affected here.
*Cough, cough* No offense and feel free to tell me how I’m wrong because I could be wrong but how do you outmaneuver the Suzu theory with the Escape Room episode? Because Morrie is clearly breaking laws and the actual voice, and if Suzu is the one behind everything and Morrie is trying to bring her down, then how does this episode work? This episode I can see Phil’s whole perspective: that wouldn’t work. This episode pretty much tears apart the theory unless you can tell me how it makes sense with the theory Suzu was behind everything. If that can happen, this theory makes complete sense to me. lol
This whole saga is actually a good lesson in how to write good writing because it’s so bad. I liked how you guys talked about cheating the audience. I’m an aspiring author so I’ve learned a lot about writing and the process in the last 5 years. One thing that stuck with me and is complete opposite of what Phil Lolar did is that you can’t hook your readers with promises of resolution and then not deliver. And when foreshadowing, you don’t place red herrings everywhere and never give them real clues to end resolution. Surprise is great in stories but if all you do is plant red herrings and never real clues, the surprise just annoys readers (in this case listeners). And I mean we had clues to Morrie but the end resolution was completely different to what we all thought. And readers/listeners are really smart. We know stuff. I quite agree with your point that “no my mind is not playing tricks on me.” And we know AIO has amazing sagas. There are so many of them out there so this saga was honestly a huge letdown. Because I know how good they can be. But I’m trying to learn from these episodes because even bad stories can help improve your own. I also liked their point on how you need to outline ahead of time so you know where you’re going especially with mysteries. As a pantster-turning-plantster (so mix of plotting and pantsing) it’s helpful to hear other writers talk about how outlining is helpful and makes it better for the reader/listener because you can figure out where to go and not bait your readers but never deliver.