Out of the Woods

The morning after a dinner party at the Parker house, Penny Bassett tells Connie that she and Wooton should not get married. The Parkers asked Penny to pray out loud and she declined, and after a later conversation with David and Eva Parker, Penny has become convinced that she and Wooton are spiritually incompatible. Connie is stunned, especially when Penny admits she has already told Wooton she doesn't see how they can be married. Penny explains that she only attends Connie's bright, energetic church because everyone she knows goes there, and that people seem to expect her to pray aloud, lead Bible studies, and talk about Jesus the way the others do. Some of the kids in town have even asked Connie whether Penny is really a Christian. Feeling misunderstood, Penny sums herself up in a sigh: "I'm a striped fish in plaid water." Later, at work, she rambles to a bewildered stranger about how some people understand faith through words while she thinks in pictures, colors, shading, and lines. The poor man only wanted directions to the nearest gas station.

Meanwhile, Buck Meltsner, who now lives with Eugene and Katrina, is approached by Dion Farkus. With Vance's father under arrest and Vance lying low, the gang wants Buck to step up and impress them, and Dion sets a meeting at the bowling alley. At Whit's End, Eugene is assembling a festival display about family communication that includes spy gadgets borrowed from Jason Whittaker, such as a postage-stamp listening device, a lapel-pin camera, and a bionic listening device that can hear from a hundred yards away. Detective Polehaus admires the equipment, says he may need to borrow some of it, and then drops troubling news: Buck is taking over Vance's gang.

At the bowling alley, Buck lays out a scheme to rig carnival games at the Let's Get Together Festival, using milk bottles with lead bottoms, cork-filled throwing balls, and fixed dart, basketball, and ring-toss booths so nobody will ever know they were cheated. Before the gang can agree, Vance himself steps out from the snack bar, where he has been listening the whole time. He scolds the boys for scheming in public and orders Buck to meet him at the duck pond in McAlister Park at eight o'clock to explain the rest of the plan.

Troubled about Penny, Wooton asks Eugene for advice, since Katrina was once a Christian while Eugene was not. Eugene admits that back then they reasonably ended their relationship, and only married after he became a Christian on his own. Wooton insists Penny is a believer, and he never would have proposed otherwise, but he wonders whether two Christians can still be spiritually incompatible. Eugene urges him to find out exactly where the incompatibility lies before making any decisions. Soon afterward, Penny asks Wooton to come with her to a meadow to find clarity. There she shows him something she has kept private: hidden through the trees stands a little church, perhaps a hundred years old, where she has been slipping away on Sunday afternoons. With its stained glass windows, carved altar, candles, kneeling pews, and organ, it is the place where she feels closest to God. She likes Wooton's church and will keep attending with him, but she has felt pressured to believe that only churches like his count. Wooton gently tells her that "being a Christian is about your own relationship with Jesus," and Penny shares how she came to faith as a little girl, gazing at paintings of Jesus and realizing he loved her enough to die for her. When Wooton asks if this old church is where she would want to be married, she says yes, and admits she could only share something so private with the one she truly loves. Wooton tells her he loves her too, and the two are happily reconciled.

That night at the duck pond, Vance accuses Buck of trying to steal his gang and reveals that he turned in his own father for putting him in a bad position. Buck coolly needles him until Vance brags that he is the brains behind everything the gang has ever done, including ordering the beating Buck once received, boasting that his boys obey the moment he whistles. Buck dares him to prove it. Vance whistles, but no gang members appear. Instead Detective Polehaus steps out, having recorded every word with Eugene's bionic listening device and captured video on hidden cameras, all backed by a judge's warrant. The whole meeting was a setup Buck arranged with the detective, and Vance is led away under arrest. Afterward, Buck apologizes to Eugene for keeping the plan secret, explaining that Dion had to believe he was sneaking around behind his family's back. He promises never to try anything so risky again, then confesses that he was never afraid of Vance, but he is afraid of facing Katrina: "It's not her anger that scares me. It's her disappointment." Eugene warmly assures him that he is no disappointment at all, that they are pleased to have him in their family, and that now, with Vance dealt with, Buck can finally feel he belongs.