Playing Favorites

Wyatt Perkins takes one look at the world's grumpiest Burger World cashier - the one who just called him a loser - and calmly tells Olivia and Matthew Parker, "She's my sister." Bridget used to be his best friend, but ever since their dad was deployed overseas again, she hides in her room and treats Wyatt like a stranger. His plan to win her back by learning teen slang flops spectacularly when the list turns out to be from the 1950s... nobody at the sock hop is impressed. Meanwhile, Olivia and Matthew wire their own dad to Wyatt's homemade lie detector to find out which kid is his secret favorite, and learn there's more than one way to show your love. That gives Wyatt his best idea yet: he straps himself into the machine and lets Bridget quiz him, and when she asks if he misses her, the buzzer stays quiet. She admits she misses him too - and Wyatt gets the proof at the register, where she throws out a customer for mocking him and slips him extra fries.

Found on Out of the Blue Album 68 · 6 episodes

The run See every episode

0875 Man of the House With his Marine dad deployed overseas, a boy takes a hurried goodbye a little too literally and sets out to prove he can hold the household together - power tools, campfires, and all.

0876 Page from the Playbook When a friendly new kid arrives just as Odyssey's football team heads for the state championship, Buck learns that trust - on and off the field - can be trickier than any playbook.

0877 A Sacrificial Escape When a mysterious voice hijacks a new escape room and seals it shut, two young detectives must solve its puzzles against the clock while their friends outside race to help.

1 of 2 0878 Nightmares by Constance With the wedding just two days away, planner Connie Kendall is quietly asked to stop it - by the bride's own grandmother, who's convinced the groom isn't who he says he is.

2 of 2 0879 Nightmares by Constance Two wedding planners and an undercover investigator race to uncover whether a bride's fiancé is a jewel thief - or someone's carefully framed target.

0880 Good Job! When a cheerfully chaotic job seeker and a fearful young saxophonist both face the terror of trying, one small town learns what it really takes to succeed.

0881 Playing Favorites A boy sets out to win back his teenage sister, who now treats him like a stranger, with help from his friends, some hopelessly outdated slang, and a homemade lie detector.

0882 A Wise Surprise A family visit fills with crossed wires when Penny and Wooton's big surprise collides with her parents' overactive imaginations - and a secret nobody saw coming.

0883 Breaking News When a struggling local news anchor is pressured to trade slow, careful reporting for viral pizzazz, a dull story about storm drain algae may be hiding something bigger than anyone suspects.

0884 Always Home When a military family gets one precious week together, the oldest daughter keeps finding reasons to be anywhere but home.

0885 Further from the Truth When Emily Jones finds her school locker emptied and a cryptic poem left behind, the young detective must follow a trail of riddles that leads uncomfortably close to the friend she's been avoiding.

1 of 2 0886 Unsinkable A century-old letter discovered at Whit's End launches Whit, Jason, and Emily on a treasure hunt into the secret past of a mysterious woman who once sailed on the Titanic.

2 of 2 0887 Unsinkable An old recording carries Whit's End back to April 1912, where a young girl aboard the Titanic must choose between saving herself and finding her father as the unsinkable ship goes down.

Featured characters

Minor characters & crew 1 more roles

1 supporting role

Ronald Perkins Henri Lubatti

Made by

Chris Anthony Host Marshal Younger Writer Nathan Hoobler Director · Producer Nathan Jones Sound Designer Dave Arnold Executive Producer

The story

Read the full synopsis 3 min

While their mom and little sister Camilla are out of town, Olivia and Matthew Parker get a rare fast-food dinner at Burger World with their friend Wyatt Perkins. The cashier is famously grumpy, threatening to bite customers' sandwiches and insulting everyone in line, and when the kids step up to order, she zeroes in on Wyatt, calling him a loser and joking that his friends must be volunteers from a charity for dweebs. Wyatt just shrugs off her meanness, and when the stunned Parkers ask why, he drops the bombshell: "She's my sister."

Over dinner, Wyatt explains that Bridget has changed. She used to talk with him all the time, but now she hides in her room, rolls her eyes at everything, and treats him like a stranger. Wyatt insists that siblings are never really friends anyway, and he even claims a scientific study proves that all parents secretly have a favorite child. Olivia and Matthew don't believe a word of it, but the question nags at them, so Olivia asks her dad point-blank whether he has a favorite. He says he honestly loves them all equally, though the kids aren't ready to let the matter drop.

Wyatt, meanwhile, keeps trying to win Bridget back. When Mr. Parker mentions that teenagers just talk differently than younger kids, Wyatt decides to learn teenager language and prints out a list of fifty teen slang terms from the Parkers' computer. Unfortunately, Matthew discovers too late that the website was actually slang from the 1950s. Wyatt marches home and baffles Bridget and her friend Valerie with words like "keen," "copacetic," and "sock hop," while Bridget helpfully replies that there's soda in the fridge, thread in Mom's nightstand, and possibly some copacetic in the medicine cabinet. The experiment is a flop, and Wyatt sadly admits to the Parkers that his sister has become a girl in the next room who hates him, and he doesn't know how to be her friend anymore.

Everything starts to make sense when Wyatt video-chats with his dad, who is deployed overseas with the military. After the usual round of corny jokes, his dad explains that Bridget is still hurting: she thought she was getting her dad back when he left active duty, only to have him deployed again, and years of moving from base to base taught her that making friends just means losing them. Now she isolates herself, even from her own brother. He has Wyatt dig out one of Bridget's old report cards, where her third-grade teacher called her outgoing, popular, and a delight. They agree that's the real Bridget, and Wyatt's dad asks him to help her, and above all to be patient with her.

Meanwhile, Olivia and Matthew hook their dad up to Wyatt's science project, a homemade lie detector, and pepper him with favorite-child questions. The machine, which Matthew admits is about as accurate as a monkey throwing darts, buzzes at nearly every answer, and Mr. Parker finally pulls the wires off. Once Wyatt heads home, though, he tells Olivia and Matthew sincerely that he has no favorite: he has never missed one of Olivia's plays, he spent some twenty happy hours building a hovercraft with Matthew, and he and their mom paid for Camilla's retreat because she'd wanted it so badly. "There's more than one way to show your love," he tells them, because people love each other differently.

That gives Wyatt his best idea yet. He straps himself into the lie detector in Bridget's room and hands her a list of questions to ask him. When she asks for his favorite memory of the two of them, the buzzer keeps catching him as he works through riding the school bus together playing I Spy, naming the zebras at the zoo, and talking Grandma into frying an entire party-size bag of french fries. Then Bridget reads the last question: does he miss her? Wyatt says yes, and the machine stays quiet. Bridget softly admits she misses him too, and that she hasn't been the greatest sister lately, but she promises to work on it.

Back at Burger World, Bridget is as snarky as ever with customers, and when Valerie sneers at Wyatt and calls him a loser, Bridget throws her own friend out of the restaurant for harassing another customer, citing the store's no-tolerance policy. Olivia, who slips back in for ketchup just in time to see it, tells Wyatt she thinks his sister really does love him. Wyatt already knows, and he has proof in his bag: "She gave me extra fries."