The Ties That Bind

At J&J Antiques, Jason Whittaker is minding the store while Jack and Joanne are away traveling. His first customer is Harlow Doyle, the scatterbrained detective, who announces he is hunting for a very particular collectible lunchbox. While Jason searches, Connie Kendall stops in with boxes of her late mother's belongings and something curious she found in the attic: an old key stamped with the initials WWW, though nothing in her house has a lock to match it. Jason promises to do a little "investigative antiquary," and Harlow, after nearly buying a smashed copper serving tray by mistake, spots a lunchbox he loves and crows, "Great tumbleweed ticklers! It's perfect!" Later, Jason calls Connie with a lead: the initials may stand for W.W. Wingates of Boston, a company that made trunks for nearly two hundred years. Connie remembers her mom once owned an old trunk and promises to look for it. Jason also serves a mysterious stranger who buys every Western-style antique in the shop, asks directions to the local junkyard, and says the furnishings are for a town near spooky Hangman's Hollow. When Jason asks what the town is called, the man replies, "I guess you could call it Ghost Town."

Meanwhile, at Whit's End, Matthew Parker tells Whit that his sister Olivia is likely to have questions about why Whit refused to hang a poster for the Let's Get Together festival, and admits he agrees with Whit but doesn't know how to explain it. Whit explains that words like tolerance and inclusivity can sound good while hiding ideas that go against God's design for marriage and family. He tells a story: when Jason was little, he hammered Whit's favorite fountain pen into the wall as a nail to hang a picture. The pen actually worked as a nail, but it was ruined as a pen. In the same way, Whit says, people can use God's designs for their own purposes and ruin what those things were made to be. Matthew decides to share the story with Olivia.

At the huge Comic-Connellsville convention, Penny and Wooton Bassett wander wide-eyed through the displays and bump into Jay Smouse, who insists his garden-gnome costume is actually an intergalactic assassin, and Vance King, who hints he has come to make money but refuses to say how. Then a man in a snug arachnid-man costume calls out to Wooton: it is his cousin Hadley Bassett from Girdle Creek, Alaska, owner of the town's largest (and only) comic book shop. Hadley introduces Hugo Wells, a world-famous entrepreneur and art collector, who says he is a great fan of Wooton's work and wants to buy his original sketches and paintings. Wooton politely refuses to even hear the offer, but Wells leaves his gold-embossed card and an invitation to dinner at his fancy hotel. Over coffee, Hadley explains he has no place to stay, gushes that Wooton is his inspiration, and happily accepts an invitation to stay at Wooton's house.

Elsewhere at the convention, Jules Kendall, Connie's half-sister, has a quiet meeting with Vance King. The two met through her online profile, and Vance has worked out some secret deal he promises will be profitable for them both; he chose Jules, he says, because she reminded him of himself: tough, cynical, and opportunistic. When Connie arrives to pick Jules up, she learns her sister came to town without telling their dad or her mom and was suspended from school for a prank that backfired. Their dad has agreed Jules can stay only if she is at Connie's house under supervision. Jules claims she came because she loves comic books and knows people in Odyssey through a social networking site, but her vague answers leave Connie uneasy.

Finally, Eugene and Katrina Meltsner wrestle with Pastor Juan's request that they take in Buck Oliver, the boy from the counterfeiting scheme now in juvenile detention. Eugene confides to Whit that he feels unprepared to suddenly become the guardian of a teenager, and Whit compares parenting to a tornado, though one that can bring deep joy, and prays with him. At home, Eugene proposes an unusual way to decide: he and Katrina will switch places, each arguing what the other believes. Katrina, speaking as Eugene, lists all the sensible reasons to say no, from Buck's deceptions to the risks they can't predict. Eugene, speaking as Katrina, answers with a single word: redemption. If they turn Buck away, who else will help him turn his life around and lead him to Jesus? Dropping the role-play, Eugene admits, "You would have had me at redemption," and the two agree to fill out the forms to bring Buck Oliver into the Meltsner family.