"Virtual Realities" is the 33rd album release of the Adventures in Odyssey radio series. This album features the closure of the Blackgaard saga and the beginning of the split-era.
Episodes in this album:
- "Opening Day"
- "Blackgaard's Revenge" (Parts 1 and 2)
- "Another Man's Shoes"
- "The Buck Starts Here"
- "Something Cliqued Between Us"
- "The Eternal Birthday/Bethany's Imaginary Friend"
- "The Y.A.K. Problem"
- "Blind Girl's Bluff"
- "Where There's Smoke/The Virtual Kid"
- "You Win Some, You Lose Some"
- "The Treasure Room/Chain Reaction"
By episode, this album includes the following:
They arrive at Tom Riley's farm, but get an unpleasant surprise when they find out that the retreat has actually been cancelled. Tom still invites the Shepards to stay for a while anyway, so they can have their own retreat. Brad and Ellen agree to stay, to Aubrey's chagrin. As Tom and Connie show both the adults and the kids around the farm, Aubrey, still wanting to leave, gets the idea in her head to run away and become a hitch-hiker like her dad did years ago. She leaves the Timothy Center and heads toward Odyssey, eventually being found by Mr. Whitaker. Whit picks her up and Aubrey pours out her frustrations with her family to Whit describes her desire to "strike out on her own". Whit takes her to Whit's End to hear the rest of what Aubrey has to say. Meanwhile, Tom, Connie, and the rest of Aubrey's family realize that Aubrey is missing and panic.
At Whit's End, Aubrey begins to think and tell Whit about the things she likes about her parents, like how they taught her about poetry. Whit shares with Aubrey one poem he knows, called "The Hound of Heaven", that is told from the point of view of a person running from God but finding Him at every turn. It's after this that Aubrey rethinks her decision to run away and calls the Timothy Center on Whit's phone. Aubrey's parents and the others are overjoyed and soon reunited.
As the Shepards, Tom, Connie, and Whit have dinner later, Tom and Brad realize something. They know each other, Tom was Brad's "guardian angel" who took Brad in when he was a hitch-hiker and got him a job, planting the seed for him to become a Christian down the line. Tom offers to give the Shepards a cabin at the Timothy Center to move into and live in and hire Brad and Ellen to work there. Brad and Ellen like the idea, though Aubrey is unsure of this and says that she needs time to think about this decision...
- It's a Small World, After All: Brad realizes that Tom was his "guardian angel" who got him back on the right track after spending so much time hitch-hiking several years ago.
- The Runaway: Aubrey attempts to run away from the Timothy Center to become a hitch-hiker like her dad did. She later has a change of heart and returns, though.
As Connie warns the confused Aubrey of who Blackgaard is, Connie ask what Blackgaard is doing here and what he wants. Telling her that she, Whit, and Eugene will find out eventually, Blackgaard tells a general to start firing their cannons, prompting Connie and Aubrey to run for their lives. As they do, Blackgaard, oddly, helps Aubrey get out of trouble, telling her that he wasn't telling the cannons to fire at her and Connie and that he's trying to avoid getting shot, himself. Connie, bewildered by Blackgaard's Pet the Dog moment, takes Aubrey away as Blackgaard encourages Aubrey to come back if she wants to know "the truth". Moments later, Whit ends the adventure. Aubrey and Connie emerge from the Imagination Station, and Connie informs Whit and Eugene of who they saw in there.
As the four of them discuss what happened later, Eugene concludes that the Blackgaard they saw was a virus left in the Imagination Stationthat was programmed to essentially be a human Blackgaard that happens to be a virus. They explain to Aubrey who Blackgaard is and everything that he did in the past in Odyssey. Aubrey, however, is still conflicted over how she should feel about Blackgaard. He seemed like a decent enough person...er, program in the Imagination Station despite everything that Whit, Connie, and Eugene are saying. Later, as Aubrey goes to put an out-of-order sign on the Imagination Station at Connie's suggestion, it suddenly starts back up again and reveals the Blackgaard program. Blackgaard tells Aubrey that he can tell her the truth about his past and show her amazing things if he comes with her. The confused Aubrey does so.
In the Imagination Station, Blackgaard tells Aubrey that he was always innocent in the incidents that Whit and the others claim he was at the center of, claiming that Whit and the others were in the wrong during these. He suggests that he and Aubrey have things in common with each other and that a potential friendship between them could be truly great, like they were essentially the same person. Meanwhile, Whit and Eugene are attempting to figure out how to get rid of the Blackgaard virus. However, Blackgaard thwarts every attempt they make to destroy him, which Blackgaard tells Aubrey is just a demonstration of how much Whit and the others hate him.
Whit and Eugene's attempts to delete him foiled, Blackgaard introduces Aubrey to a mysterious program within the Imagination Station called the Vortex or Time, which can transport Aubrey to anywhere in time and space that she desires, such as Times Square on New Year's Eve if she fully trusts him. Blackgaard doesn't want Aubrey entering it now, though. In the meantime, Connie has noticed that Aubrey is missing and Whit and Eugene have discovered that the influence of the Blackgaard virus is being felt throughout the entire system and the usage of its resources are spiking. (Thanks to Blackgaard's Vortex being run.) They feel that they have no choice but to purge the system (even though it'll delete all of the work they've put into it over the years; though they have backups) in order to delete the virus. At that moment though, Blackgaard begins speaking to them and tells them that Aubrey is with him and that they could potentially kill her if they purge the system. To Whit, Connie, and Eugene's horror, Aubrey now fully believes that Blackgaard was right about himself and that Whit and the others were the bad guys all along and doesn't want to leave despite their pleas for her to get out of there immediately. Aubrey enters the Vortex, and Blackgaard tells them that he hasn't done what he plans to do with her yet and challenges Whit to come in and face Blackgaard face to face if they want to rescue Aubrey.
Now Whit and the others have to figure out not only how to figure out how to get rid of the Blackgaard virus, but also how to rescue Aubrey. Due to how advanced the virus is, there's little they can do outside the computer, but at the same time, there's no telling what Blackgaard will do to Whit if he goes in. Before taking this risk, they pull up the status monitor for Aubrey as she's in the Imagination Station and find out that she still doesn't fully trust Blackgaard, but they don't have much time before Blackgaard can truly have his way with Aubrey and do what he plans to do with her. They can't just pull her out because that could be very dangerous to Aubrey, especially since she's becoming convinced that Blackgaard is harmless and that they are the bad guys. Eugene suggest they induce Aubrey to have a desire to go to sleep, and, while Aubrey is sleeping, they get her out and pass off the incident as a nightmare.
As Eugene works on this plan and Whit decides to work on a back-up plan in case this fails, Aubrey continues to hop from time period to time period in Blackgaard's Vortex until she attempts to visit the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Blackgaard balks at sending her there, and he and Aubrey have a small falling out until Aubrey suddenly becomes tired and falls asleep. This is, of course, part of Eugene's plan, and an enraged Blackgaard threatens to torture Aubrey with electric shocks if they don't wake her up. Once again, Blackgaard challenges Whit to enter the Imagination Station himself if he ever wants to get rid of him and save Aubrey. At this point, Whit feels that he has no choice but to move on to plan B. Whit tells Blackgaard that he is coming in. In the meantime, Blackgaard is ready to go through with what he plans to do with Aubrey.
Aubrey wakes up. Blackgaard tells her that Whit was trying to hurt her, but Aubrey, by now, is very confused and doesn't know who to believe in anymore. Blackgaard tells Aubrey that the Vortex has a way of preventing anyone from ever hurting her again and opens it up. He tells Aubrey that if she enters it with Blackgaard now, the personality, memories, and traits of Blackgaard will be imprinted onto her brain, essentially turning her into him. Aubrey is shocked by the idea of becoming Blackgaard and tells Blackgaard that she doesn't want to go through with it no matter how much Blackgaard tries to convince her. However, Blackgaard refuses to take no for an answer and attempts to drag Aubrey into the Vortex with him anyway. At this moment, Whit appears and tells Blackgaard to let Aubrey go. Blackgaard refuses, believing that this is his only chance to live again and gain eternal life. Finally, Whit offers to have Blackgaard take him into the Vortex in Aubrey's place. Blackgaard gladly accepts the offer and lets Aubrey go. Despite Aubrey's pleas to escape while he can, Whit still steps into the Vortex with Blackgaard. However, as Blackgaard attempts to imprint itself onto Whit, something suddenly goes wrong and Blackgaard and Whit are destroyed in a massive explosion, to Aubrey's horror.
Aubrey finally comes out of the Imagination Station in tears, believing Whit to be dead, only to be surprised and relieved to find Whit alive and well. Eugene explains that "Whit" was actually a computer-generated hologram of Whit with a virus-remover embedded into it. When the Blackgaard virus attempted to imprint on what it thought was the actual Whit, the anti-virus program activated and destroyed the virus. The plan worked because there was a very good chance that this would be something that Blackgaard, regardless if he were the real deal or a computer program version of himself, would fall for. When asked if Blackgaard really had found out a way to life forever, Whit says that no, Blackgaard didn't. It's likely that Aubrey (or anyone else) would have been seriously injured had the Blackgaard virus attempted to imprint on them. Besides, only God has the true way to gain eternal life, through faith and belief in Him, and no one on Earth can try and change that. It's then that the realization hits them all that Blackgaard is now gone, this time for good.
- Connie: [So this means] that Blackgaard is finally, really, and truly dead?
Whit: Yes. Dr. Regis Blackgaard is finally, really, and truly dead. And may God have mercy on his soul...
- Batman Gambit: Two from both sides:
- Blackgaard was counting on the fact that Whit wouldn't stand to see Aubrey hurt by Blackgaard and come into the Imagination Station to take her place instead. The virus wasn't surprised to see Whit show up at all.
- How Aubrey is rescued and Blackgaard is defeated. It turns out that the "Whit" that faces Blackgaard in the Imagination Station was actually a hologram of Whit with an anti-virus program attached. Thus, when the Blackgaard virus took "Whit" into the Vortex, the anti-virus program activated and destroyed the virus once and for all. Given Blackgaard's nature, it was easy to infer that he would fall for it.
- Big "WHAT?!": Whit and Eugene when Connie tells them that they met Dr. Blackgaard in the Imagination Station.
- Bring It: Blackgaard challenges Whit several times to enter the Imagination Station and face Blackgaard himself if he wants to rescue Aubrey. Which Whit seemingly agrees to the last time.
- Call-Back: The audio from several of the time periods that Aubrey visits in Blackgaard's Vortex is actually taken from past episodes of Odyssey that featured them. The Revolutionary War audio is from "The Day Independence Came", the Christopher Columbus audio is from "Columbus: The Grand Voyage", and the audio from the Crucifixion of Jesus is from "The Imagination Station".
- Content Warning: One of several Odyssey episodes to have this before the beginning, warning of the Darker and Edgier content to come.
- Darker and Edgier: One of Odyssey's darkest episodes, "Blackgaard's Revenge" deals with, in the words of the Content Warning before the episode, "the struggle for a young girl's soul". Blackgaard eventually dies a violent death (by Odyssey standards) and even Whit seemingly dies as well. (It turns out that he's okay, though.)
- Foreshadowing:
- Blackgaard describing a friendship between he and Aubrey as being like they are "of one mind, one heart, [and] one person", hinting at the virus's true purpose to forcibly turn someone into Blackgaard.
- As Whit, Connie, and Eugene figure out ways to rescue Aubrey, Whit mentions wanting to work on an alternate plan in case the first one they come up with fails. It turns out that the aforementioned Batman Gambit was it.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ultimately subverted. Whit seemingly enters the Imagination Station to take Aubrey's place in Blackgaard's plans and seemingly dies in the process, but it turns out that "Whit" was actually a hologram of Whit designed to trick the virus and defeat it once and for all, and the real Whit is safe and sound.
- Never Wake Up a Sleepwalker: The principle behind this trope applies to the reasoning why Whit and the others can't just pull Aubrey out of the Imagination Station right there and then when they found out she was in there. There's no telling how doing this would affect Aubrey.
- Not Quite Dead: After being thought to have died in the explosion at Whit's End back in "The Final Conflict", Regis Blackgaard turns out to have left a virus in the Imagination Station that was basically himself and had the potential to imprint his memories and traits onto a person, essentially turning them into him. At the end of the episode, Blackgaard is gone for good.
- Wham Line: Imagine the shock you would have felt listening to the episode for the first time, having heard all of the episodes that previously featured Regis Blackgaard and knowing that he was seemingly gone....only to hear hear his voice say: "Oh, but it is, Ms. Kendall."note in the beginning of this episode.
Jared DeWhite is having a problem with a bully named Brock Blakely. After another day of having to deal with Brock pushing him around, Jared decides that he's had enough and gets back at Brock by stealing Brock's soccer shoes, putting Brock at risk of missing a soccer match he's playing in. Word about this reaches Whit via Dwayne Oswald, who was there with Jared as Jared stole Brock's shoes. Whit is fairly disappointed in what Jared did regardless of who Jared stole the shoes from. Jared insists that Brock deserved it, but Whit points out that Jared should be following God's directions of loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you. When Jared still isn't convinced that he Brock is deserving of any mercy from him, Whit decides to take the opportunity to introduce Jared to his newest invention: The Trans-muter. Whit tells Jared to return to Whit's End tomorrow morning before school with Brock's shoes.
The next morning before school, Jared returns with the shoes, and Whit shows Jared the Trans-muter, which will enable Jared to view life from the perspective of Brock. Jared steps into Brock's shoes, both literally and metaphorically, and reacts in shock when he sees that the machine has turned him into Brock. Now Jared will be able to experience what life is like for Brock first-hand. Jared heads off to school and discovers that nobody wants to mess with him, not even the other bullies at school. Jared takes the opportunity to stop some of these bullies from picking on Dwayne, but Dwayne is confused when who he thinks is Brock actually helps him and insists that he's Jared and refuses to believe that he would do anything but beat him up. Jared is caught as he's talking to Dwayne and is sent to the principal's office. Here, Jared learns that Brock is running the risk of being suspended from school and is expected to be a better example to the other students being several years older than them and all. Jared is shocked by this, realizing that it must be stressful having that much pressure on him, on top of being held back several grades.
After school, Jared bumps into a friend of Brock's named Floyd, who pulls Brock into the bushes outside of school to offer him some....flower seeds. Jared learns that Brock actually has a flower garden that Brock grows at his house, as he has a passion for flower gardening. Shortly after this, Brock's little sister Lorraine shows up at the school looking for Brock. Jared walks up to the terrified and breathless girl and finds out that "Dad's back". Jared dreads what he's going to see next. Sure enough, Jared and Lorraine arrive home to find Brock's dad drunk out of his mind and tearing up the Blakely's house. Apparently, Brock is the only one who is able to stand up to his dad whenever he comes home drunk. After Jared tries a valiant effort to try and stand up to Mr. Blakely, Mr. Blakely finds out about the flowers Brock is growing in the backyard. Enraged that his son is growing flowers like a "sissy", he begins destroying the garden despite the pleas of Jared, Lorraine, and Blake's mom.
After this, Jared suddenly finds himself back at Whit's End. It turns out that the whole thing was all in a controlled environment within the Trans-muter and Jared was never actually walking around town and school as Brock. Whit had put in what he knew about Brock into the machine (with Brock's shoes being a key component) and the machine worked from there. Jared feels terrible for Brock and what he has to go through on a day-to-day basis. He feels especially sad over how Brock is treated by his dad, realizing that this is probably a big reason why Brock acts the way he does. Jared knows that he must treat Brock better, with patience and kindness instead of wanting to get revenge against him, and pray for him.
Later at school, the principal goes up to Brock with Brock's missing shoes. Inside one of the shoes is a note from "a friend" apologizing for stealing his shoes and that he's praying for Brock. Brock is touched...and inside the other shoe is a package of flower seeds.
- Abusive Parents: As it turns out, Brock has a violent alcoholic father who gets in fights with he and the rest of his family and resents Brock's interest in flowers, even going out and uprooting his garden.
- All Just a Dream: Played with; it turns out that Jared's experiences as Brock were in a controlled environment...but the things that Brock has to deal with (which Jared experienced in the Trans-muter) are very real. With this in mind, Jared learns to be a nicer person to Brock because he knows that Brock is a nice, if fairly troubled guy deep down.
- Bait-and-Switch: At first, it looks like (to both Jared and the listeners), that Floyd is about to give Brock-actually-Jared what is heavily implied to be drugs....but then (to Jared's relief) Floyd opens the box to reveal flower seeds.
- The Bully: Brock, though he has Hidden Depths.
- Held Back in School: Brock, who is fifteen years old and still in middle school.
- Hidden Depths: Brock, as it turns out, is a fairly decent person deep inside who has an interest in gardening and growing flowers...and also has an abusive alcoholic father who mocks Brock for said interest.
- In Another Man's Shoes: What the Trans-muter is built to do; namely experience life from the point of view of another person. This episode (by far it's only appearance) shows Jared using the invention to be Brock.
- Malicious Misnaming: Brock calls Jared "Jer-rat".
- Third-Person Person: Jared inadvertently makes Brock come off like this when he learns that Brock is fifteen years old and cries: "FIFTEEN? BROCK IS FIFTEEN?!" Jared saves himself by claiming that Brock was just learning about the third-person point of view in English class.
- Voices Are Mental: Zigzagged when Jared is walking around as Brock. While he sounds like Brock to everyone else, the listeners included, he still sounds like his normal self to himself and Whit. (The listeners do hear Jared-as-Brock speaking in his normal voice for a little while after the Trans-muter does its thing, presumably to clue in that this is actually Jared.)
One day at Whit's End, Whit gives Jared, Ashley, and Nathaniel twenty-five dollars each as part of an experiment to see how wisely people spend and/or use their money. If the kids try to use their money constructively, they can keep it. If they use the money unwisely, though, Whit will have to take it back. The kids have to meet back up with Whit is exactly two weeks so he can learn and evaluate what they did.
Nathaniel decides to team up with Mandy Straussberg to sell muffins at school before classes start, using a muffin recipe that Mandy's grandma always used. Business booms as kids line up to get muffins before school...at least for a little while. Soon fellow classmate Pete sets up a competing establishment at the school, using, as it turns out, the same exact recipe Nathaniel and Mandy's use for their muffins! As it turns out, the recipe actually came from a cookbook, which Mandy says explains a lot as her grandmother couldn't actually cook anything besides muffins. As a result, anyone of the kids could simply make their own muffins, sinking Nathaniel's muffin business.
Ashley decides to create a bicycle-repair shop for the local kids to take their bikes. As she repairs a bike belonging to a kid named Roy, Roy takes notice of an accessory that Ashley built that can shoot socks a good distance and can be attached to bikes. Roy is amazed by the device and asks Ashley if she can make more for he and his friends for use as a mud-ball shooter in a mud-fight as part of a "feud" between the kids who live on 1st Street and those on 3rd Street. Later, the kids on the other street ask for some sock/mud-shooters, too. Ashley agrees, and makes a lot of money. On the day of the kids' mud-war, though, Ashley inadvertently forgets to put a part back on one kid's bike. She runs to the area of the mud-war just in time to see the back tire of Roy's bike pop off and result in him wrecking in the mud pit.
Jared, meanwhile, goes to Whit's End later, where Whit offers Jared to try a new flavor of ice cream (that was suggested by Jared) he has just introduced. Jared is initially up to it, until he accuses Whit of trying to trick Jared into spending some of his money. Then Mandy walks in and shows Jared an ad for some binoculars at Mr. Greenblatt's Department Store, which just so happens to be on sale for 25 dollars. Jared accuses both Mandy and Mr. Greenblatt of being in on a scheme with Whit to make Jared spend his money and runs out of the building. It escalates to Jared thinking even his mother and the mayor of Odyssey are in on Whit's scheme to take Jared's money. Jared decides to bury the money in a lunch box where no one will find it. Then the area where Jared's lunch box is dug up, leading Jared to think that Whit told the construction crews in Odyssey to dig around in search of Jared's money.
After the mud-war is over, the three kids (plus Mandy) return to Whit's End with the 25 dollars. Nathaniel used up all the profits he made from his muffin business to try and fail to keep his business afloat after everybody started making their own muffins, only having the original 25 bucks left. Ashley lost all of her profit when Roy had to be taken to the doctor because his arm seemed like it was broken; though it wasn't, she still paid for the doctor bill at her mother's behest and only has 12 dollars left. Jared triumphantly returns with the money still in his lunch box, flaunting his success at keeping it away from Whit in everyone's faces. Whit then takes Jared's 25 dollars back, because Jared did absolutely nothing with it but hide it away. Nathaniel and Ashley, meanwhile, are allowed to keep their money, as, although their businesses flopped, they at least tried to make something out of it. The lesson all three of the kids learned, for better or for worse, was that God wants us to make the most of our talents instead of just sitting on them doing nothing.
- Allegory: A fairly obvious one to the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30, with two of the kids (Nathaniel and Ashley) building on what was given to them and being rewarded, and the third one (Jared) simply hiding his away and being forced to give them up.
- Bland-Name Product: The muffin recipe used in Nathaniel's plot came out of a Betty Crocke-, erm, Becky Rocker cookbook.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Jared, Jared, Jared, as always. He becomes paranoid that Whit is trying to trick him into spending his money in various ways. Soon it gets to ridiculous heights as Jared thinks that Whit has roped everyone to Mandy, the owner of the local store, the mayor, and even his own mother into an elaborate scheme to get Jared's money. Eventually, Jared simply puts his 25 dollars in a lunch box and buries it. (This winds up being his undoing.)
- Foreshadowing: At the very beginning as the three kids chatter about what they could do with the money, if you listen closely you can hear Jared claim that he's going to buy a new TV; a possible hint as to which of the kids ultimately won't use their money constructively.
- Large Ham: Roy when his bike's wheel breaks off, causing him to wreck during the mud war:Ashley: Roy! A-Are you ok?
Roy: (weakly) I...should have known...you were on their side...
Ashley: I'm not, I didn't mean to!
Roy: You...sabotaged my...bike...
Ashley: No, I didn't. I'm sorry, I tried to make it in time.
Roy: Ashley, tell my mother...(gasp; in a whisper)I...love...her...
Ashley: Give me a break! You just got hit with some mud.
Roy: Oh...yeah.
Ashley: You're so weird... - Laser-Guided Karma: Jared spends the entire episode hiding his money because he thinks Whit is trying to take it away from him...and in the end, he has to give it back to Whit anyway since he didn't follow Whit's directions.
- Lethal Chef: Apparently, muffins were all Mandy's grandmother knew how to make. She apparently would burn water.
- Nightmare Sequence: While not explicitly shown, Jared apparently even has dreams where his 25 dollars are being taken from him.
- Serial Escalation: The increasingly illogical ways Jared thinks Whit is trying to get Jared's money.
- Shout-Out: Aubrey's use of a transmitter to relay the information to Lisa in this episode shares a number of similarities to what was done in the case of controversial 1980s televangelist Peter Popoff. Popoff would typically claim to have received a word of knowledge about someone's ailment that had come down the aisle to receive prayer for healing, only for an expose by James Randi to reveal that, among other things, Popoff — rather than getting a word of knowledge from God — was getting the information through an earpiece and was having the information relayed to him by his wife in another room.
- Additionally, while at the Electric Palace Aubrey and Lisa spot a CD of the Backward Boys.
