Let's Get Together

Odyssey is buzzing with excitement over the Let's Get Together Festival, a downtown celebration of families complete with rides, booths, food, and a petting zoo. Wooton Bassett is rushing to finish a display for his new comic book series, Sleuth Family Robinson, and when his fiancée Penny Wise tries to offer suggestions, he brushes her off because he's short on time. Penny tries to be understanding, but she can't help noticing this isn't the first time: "I don't mind being rebuffed. Twice."

Connie Kendall broadcasts her radio show, Candid Conversations with Connie, live from the festival. She visits John Avery Whittaker's interactive portrait gallery at Whit's End, where an actor playing Joseph from the Old Testament offers family advice, such as not telling your brothers about dreams where they bow down to you, and not selling anyone into slavery. When Connie interviews Wooton and Penny at the comic book display, their simmering disagreement boils over on the air. Penny asks how she can be Wooton's wife if he pushes her out of his creative life, while Wooton insists he does want her input, just after he gets his ideas onto the page. Hurt, Penny walks away.

Meanwhile, Buck Meltsner is catching up on homework in the library, part of his punishment from Miss Katrina for keeping secrets about his dealings with Vance's gang. He tells Matthew Parker that he isn't planning to run away to his old life; he intends to stay in Odyssey and learn how to be part of a family. "It'll be a whole new adventure," he says. Later, Buck finds Dion setting up a rigged carnival game with marbles hidden in the bottom of milk bottles, which doesn't work very well since the bottles are see-through. Buck convinces him to drop the scam and then tells him the truth about what happened at the duck pond: the whole thing was a setup to catch Vance, who has been arrested, and Buck himself made the phone call warning Dion to stay away. Dion can hardly believe anyone could outsmart Vance, but he lets it go, and the two head off to enjoy the rides.

Around the festival, Harlow Doyle keeps comically unhelpful watch as a volunteer security guard, and Matthew mans his family's communication booth alone since every other Parker is somewhere else. At Eugene's display, Matthew briefly points a bionic listening device at Wooton and Penny before Eugene shuts it down and suggests a talk about respecting privacy.

The heart of the matter comes out at the Whit's End counter, where Penny orders raspberry ripple ice cream and admits to Whit that ever since Wooton proposed, their relationship has felt like a stomach-churning roller coaster. Whit gently wonders whether all the squabbles are really a test to see whether Wooton will stay with her no matter what she throws at him. He explains that people who have been deeply hurt often test the ones who love them, and he suggests she stop testing Wooton and simply work through each conflict as it comes.

Wooton and Penny finally talk it out high atop the Ferris wheel. Wooton apologizes for being thoughtless about her feelings and explains that suggestions confuse him before his ideas are sketched out; Penny apologizes for being insensitive to how he creates, and for everything she has put him through since the proposal. She thanks him for his patience and for not giving up on her, and says she believes him now.

Then Penny spots the dunking booth and insists Wooton get in, though he protests that his moose mail cap isn't waterproof. She promises that if he takes the seat, she will finally answer his marriage question, once and for all, on her third throw. Wooton practically leaps onto the bench. Connie, sensing an exclusive, reminds listeners that Penny was an award-winning softball pitcher. The first throw sails into the petting zoo and the second is no better, but Wooton, perched over the cold water, cheerfully calls out, "I still don't mind!" Before the last throw, he asks one more time, "Penny, will you marry me?" Penny winds up, the ball flies, Wooton splashes down, and the answer is yes! The crowd cheers, though Penny notes Wooton still needs to get her family's blessing.

Connie closes her broadcast by asking Whit why he works so hard to celebrate families. He explains that marriage was never an afterthought for God, that God's mercy and grace are for everyone but on His terms, and that God doesn't meet us where we are just to leave us there. His final word for listeners: "God loves us and wants the very best for us."