"Because We Never Said Goodbye": The Tragedy of Nick Mulligan.

Ever since Nick Mulligan last appeared in "Lost by a Nose", I've been waiting for this amazing character to return. I'd often slip his name into discussions where he probably didn't need to be mentioned. For example, if someone was complaining that Connie was sounding annoying, I'd write: "well she wouldn't be if Nick was still around!"; or if someone asked "where's Richard Maxwell?" I'd reply: "A better question would be, 'Where is Nick Mulligan?'"; or even if someone wondered "How did Jack Allen survive the blast in the tunnel without harm if Dr. Blackgaard died?" I would answer: "Most likely because Nick Mulligan tossed Jack Allen onto his back and ran out of the tunnel before the blast desecrated them". I guess it's a good thing I'm not in charge of the OdysseyScoop's FAQ section.

Those of you who have noticed these irrational references to Nick Mulligan for the past half-a-dozen years probably sighed. I would have too. I remember wandering the message boards and reading fans scream "Wheeeeeress Euuuugene?" or "Aaaaarg! Wooton's voice just made me throw up again!" I'll admit, watching other fans obsess over insignificant things can be a little annoying. The reality is that we all have our little obsessions. Mine is Nick Mulligan. Yours might be the jingle of the bell when someone enters Whit's End. It just has to be there.

It is time--if I may use an absurd amount of idioms--to roll up the sleeves, put my foot down, and pull out the big guns. It is time to argue, once and for all, the reasons why Adventures in Odyssey would be a significantly better show if Nick Mulligan was still around. In doing so, I hope to convince both the rabble and the writer, from the lowliest fan to the highest producer, how underrated of a character Nick Mulligan was, and how crucial it is for him to return. After it is all said and done, I will be done with this topic. Forever.

This article had been floating around in my mind for a long a time. I knew that completing it would be a difficult task. I'll be honest; no one else is viciously fighting for Nick Mulligan's return. More fans plead with the writers for Richard Maxwell—a character who has been gone for over a decade—to come back to the show. I'm not sure why fans have remained so silent about Nick considering not many had a problem with him when he was around. Here are a few of the comments on the TOO addressing Nick's absence:

"I miss Nick, too. I feel like there should be some resolution to his lack of Christianity. He's learned a lot of things through the show, but aside from Seth's ill attempt, we haven't seen Nick's spiritual life touched on much since the days of the entire Mulligan family. I miss those episodes." -HarlowRoxMySox, April 02, 2005.

"Another one that really got to me (I've never cried but well I guess you can say I can get close) was when Nick talks to Mike Mulligan in A Lamb's Tale 'You did it for me'"-Agent3xq, August 30,2006.

"Yeah. Nick didn't become a Christian. Like others have said, hopefully the people at the AIO headquarters could include Nick more. Maybe next season?? This is also a *hint* *hint*, Nathan Hoobler " -Kenric, April 1st 2005

" I want to hear Nick's salvation episode someday but I'm content to wait a long time for it to come. " -Chandler, January 05, 2006.

The Adventures in Odyssey team, frankly, did not do as well of a job with Nick Mulligan as they did with other characters. In the same way Torry Martin molded Wooton at the beginning, Bill Myers developed shows for Nick Mulligan, getting his character off the ground, and slapping him with an interesting back-story. Although Nick was introduced alongside the widely unpopular Mulligan family, no one can argue that Bill Myers didn't do a great directing job, wringing out great performances from the actors. Traci and Mike felt like real parents. Nick and Lisa, oddly, felt like a real brother and sister. And while their barnyard backdrop was annoying, their conversations and relationships felt real. In recent years, a new breed of Odyssey fans has risen--Mulliganites--those who have found a new appreciation for those old Bill Myer episodes. I am one of them. I have become quite fond of "Just say Yes", Viva La Difference", and "Leap of Faith". Despite their obvious problems, Mulligan episodes included believable chemistry and great biblical lessons.

But after Myers left the show, Nick Mulligan was left to rot.

Nick's failure to join the ranks of other Odyssey-favorites makes me truly believe there's a "adoption curse". Everytime a family adopts someone on Odyssey, the adoptees never seems to last a very long time. In fact, "adoption" seems to be a sign that the writers are running out of ideas. One of the most mind-boggling things about the Mulligans was that they continued to adopt and adopt in every episode they appeared in. If fans hadn't complained, every child in Odyssey would now be living at the Mulligan farm. Imagine:

Mike Mulligan: "Mr. Parker, having trouble with Matthew? We'll take him!".

Hector was around for one episode, while Tony and Brianna served their purpose after two episodes. Later, Xavier showed up...and then vanished. Strangely, shortly after Xavier left, Kelly was introduced by writers who seemed to have forgotten that the Washingtons had dealt with the whole adoption thing albums earlier. She didn't last more than seven episodes. Many classic episodes, from "Clara" to "The Top Floor", play with the theme of adoption but—for one reason or another—none of the adoptees are developed beyond playing the role of that cute kid who wants/does-not-want parents. Adoption stories stop being exciting after parents, uh, adopt.

"Where there's Smoke", a seemingly desperate way to save Nick Mulligan from that "long, dark-hallway", sums up how uninterested the writers were in Nick Mulligan's future. Why? They used a split-episode to introduce him as Whit's End's newest employee. A split episode. No "Connie Comes to Town"-type episode called "Nick Knocks on Whit's Window", but an episode in which Whit's choice to hire him seemed like the most passive decision he ever made in his life. Whit says a short "sounds good Nick" and—badaboom—Nick is hired. Considering the drama we saw with Connie and Eugene's first few episodes at Whit's End, "Where there's Smoke" feels underwhelming. Whit, I know that trust people easily, but you do realize that you've just hired a problematic teenager into a respected establishment? A teenager who was told to "stay away from the city", no less. Did you learn nothing from trusting troubled kids in "What Happened to the Silver Streak?" You'd think this decision of yours might have caused a little bit of drama with the rest of the employees. No? Alright, moving on...


When I listen to interviews featuring writers like Paul McCusker or Nathan Hoobler, it always seems like Odyssey has this "greater plan". For instance, while many fans accused Album 51 of being "uneventful", Paul McCusker recently admitted that they purposely stayed away from heavy story lines during Odyssey's "reboot", wanting to feature simpler story lines with straightforward biblical themes. In the same way, as much as it occasionally seems like the writers are producing episodes randomly, I also get the impression that they deliberate and methodical, checking the fan reaction like a weatherman checks a thermometer. However, I have a hard time believing that they were so methodical when it came to deciding Nick's future. Can you really imaging that they sat around asking one another "Well what shall we do with Nick?", or even mapped out where they were heading with his character? I've come to the conclusion that Nick was filler.

Was it only a coincidence that Nick began working at Whit's End around the time that Eugene left (give or take an album)? Did they know that Will Ryan was leaving the show and knew they needed another young male to take his place at Whit's End (this would be a good question to ask the writers)? Nick Mulligan's presence in "The W.E", tagging alongside Mr. Whittaker throughout Novacom, was oddly similar to how Eugene tagged alongside Mr. Whittaker in "The Battle". And when Eugene returned to the show in "A Most Intriguing Question 1, 2,3", Nick Mulligan saw his last day in "Lost by a Nose" only a few episodes earlier. It's pretty obvious that Nick showed up in an episode simply because they needed someone to be there.

You must be wondering, then, if Nick Mulligan was pure "filler", why do we need him today? What purpose would he serve? What would we do? Well, reintroducing Nick Mulligan would have several benefits. For one thing, it would help bridge the awkward gap between pre-album 50 about post-album 51. In a time where only Whit, Connie, Eugene, and Wooton remain from the first 50 albums, Nick Mulligan would be yet another to relieve our fears "Odyssey is not what it used to be".


Another reason for why Nick should return will be introduced using an excerpt from Jacob Isom's 2003 article "And The Small Bell Jingled". It is a thought-provoking analysis of Connie's development through the years. However, I disagreed back then, and still disagree now, with one small section:

"But Connie of today isn’t the same. 

The small bell above the door jingled sweetly as Nick Mulligan walked into Whit’s End, taking in the scenery around him. He was stepping onto a stage that he’d be standing on only when Odyssey needed a good laugh and a macho character. Whit stood behind the counter, attempting to keep the kids of the shop happy and trying to talk to Tom Riley at the same time. But Connie wasn't there.

Connie doesn't practically live at Whit’s End anymore. She is never there to greet a young child or a concerned parent. She is never there to provide a warm smile and a friendly conversation. She has been replaced. Replaced by Nick.

          Replaced."

First, I agree wholeheartedly that in this period Connie was "never [at Whit's End] to greet a young child or concerned parent [or] to provide a warm smile and a friendly conversation." I do not agree, however, that she was, at the time, replaced by Nick Mulligan. Rather, in a period where many fans found Connie too obnoxious drooling over Mitch, Nick helped to "cushion the blow". In "Secrets", for instance, Nick voiced the thoughts of many irritated (male) fans, providing us with cynical lines poking fun at Connie's obsessive, annoying, and love-struck self.

Connie: "Who wouldn't want to date Mitch?"
Nick: "Well, I wouldn't want to date Mitch."
Connie: "What girl wouldn't want to date Mitch.[...] He's funny, romantic, smart. He does the most thoughtful things--
Nick: You're glazing over Connie...
Connie: --like when he surprised me by making a candlelight picnic in McCalister Park.
Nick: Wow. He's good.
Connie: And he started a Bible Study. He's a great leader. Very personable. Everybody likes him. Kids LOVE him.
Nick: Sounds like a Golden Retriever, except Jake is an atheist.

Instead of replacing Connie, I think Nick improved Connie's character by providing fresh chemistry and interesting, often witty, dialog. As much as I liked the hearing Connie and Eugene interact, I also think they should cease bickering (or flirting—depending on who you ask). Eugene is a married man and really shouldn't be hanging around Connie in the same way he used to. Let Katrina be Eugene's "new Connie" and let Nick and Connie become the new "Connie and Eugene". By doing this, Connie might mature, adopting an "older sister" role, instead of remaining in the constricting "little sister" role.

However, I wouldn't mind if Nick Mulligan actually did what Isom feared back in 2003 and actually replaced a few characters. In a time where we show we miss Tom Riley's hysterical twang or Bernard's curmudgeoness, we must remember that Nick Mulligan embodied a few of their characteristics; "Bernard and Job" was one of the few episodes where Bernard got a taste of his own sarcasm/cynicism: "Hate to break it to you, but 'J-O-B' spells job". Nick is basically a teenage version of Bernard, always a little sarcastic and "too cool for school". Nick is also somewhat similar to Tom; he's that "foreigner" who speaks differently and butchers words and sayings. When Nick Mulligan read Shakespeare in "The Taming of the Two", did it not remind anyone of when Tom read aloud from "Pilgrim's Progress" in "Best Intentions"? If Whit could be be split up into two characters when he left I'm sure certain traits of Bernard and Tom could be combined into one character: Nick Mulligan. Instead, the show is, almost futileslessely, trying to fill in the void left by these characters by introducing new ones like Red Hollard. Why not simply bring back a few underused characters?

And replacing Connie might not be such a bad thing. When the show first started, Connie Kendall had a crucial role in keeping episodes interesting as the "antagonist":

"You need an antagonist. You need somebody who's gonna come in here and stir things up and not buy all the things that you say. You oughta' make it a high school kid. So she's a little older than the target age area of the audience. So she's kinda a role model, but she's kinda not. And she can have all these issues come along with her." -Steve Harris, when describing the creation of Odyssey.

Now that Eugene and Connie have grown into mature Christians, Whit's End could be described as a happy-go-lucky center where Whit, Eugene, Connie, Wooton all wholeheartedly agree with one another. The show needs another character who will provoke Christian thought and challenge the rest of the employees. Connie couldn't have been the one who tempted Vince. Neither could she have been the one who had problems with smoking. Only Nick could have. And there are plenty of other problems that only someone like Nick could bring to the show's attention. Connie has grown too far, spiritually. In recent years, many have criticized Connie's character for "going in circles", gaining maturity, and then being as bright as a doorknob in the following episode. Nick could be that spiritual doorknob, so to speak.

Nick had a number of story-lines that the team could have created or explored further. Just by looking at his page on AIOWIKI, you could probably come up with a few ideas yourself. What about his friendship with Vince in "The Badguy?" What about the fact that there is a violent situation in Oswald Heights and you have a character could relate and reach out to the youth there? What about the fact that bullies are afraid of him? Could Nick ever abuse that power? Why exactly did he leave New York? What was his old family like? Does he ever go to visit them? If so, how do Mike and Traci feel about that? What about "10W40", the band he was part of? What about the number of potential football-related episodes involving Nick? Will Nick ever learn how treat girls respectfully? I'm pretty sure the Odyssey team could have wrung out at least a half a dozen interesting story-lines before letting him go.


More importantly, what about his faith? Whoever decided that it was a good idea to resolve his Christianity within a Clubhouse magazine was, well, wrong. In the same way no one considers the Adventures in Odyssey video series part of the Adventures in Odyssey canon, I do not consider anything that appears within the Clubhouse magazines part of the series. In my mind, Nick is still not a believer, and the writers could very well still continue with this storyline. Will it confuse children? Perhaps. Having Nick become a Christian in two different ways might be a little weird for younger listeners. However, the writers could always simply dramatize the story given within Clubhouse Magazine to confuse less listeners.

Now most of you are probably wondering "isn't it too late?" Since Nick's last episode was #561, he's been  absent for about 129 episodes. Isn't that too long of a period to have a recurring character suddenly return to the show?  Well, Jack Davis last appeared in "Elijah 1+2" before reappearing in "Modesty Is the Best Policy", 104 episodes later. Jimmy Barclay made an appearance in "Living in the Gray", 149 episodes after his last appearance in "It's a Pokenberry Christmas". Bill Jenkins showed up in #578, 301 episodes after his last appearance. Davey Holcomb, at the time, broke records for showing up in an episode 550 episodes later. Monty Whittaker, I believe, holds the current record, returning to the series 581 episodes later after "Scattered Seeds".

So, yes, long-lost characters do return after a long period of absence. Some may argue, though, that fans could easily enjoy "Stars in our Eyes" without ever knowing that Bill Jenkins was once a character on the show. And though new fans may have been slightly confused by Jimmy Barclay's presence in "Living in the Grey", one wouldn't need to have that piece of information to hear the episodes which follow it. Jack Davis simply came back as a "friend", while Monty Whittaker, in "The Green Ring Conspiracy", came back as a grandson. My point is, you don't need to revisit those older episodes to understand their back-story. If Nick Mulligan suddenly came back, could he still be working at Whit's End? Would his return not confuse the many of fans who have joined the show since then? Would they not think, "Wait, who's this guy?" I'll be the first to admit that it wouldn't be wise to simply introduce him working behind the counter while pretending he never left. Ultimately, the challenge would be to incorporate Nick Mulligan into the show without confusing the show's newest listeners.

The trick, then, would be to reintroduce him in a clever way. Nick could be reintroduced as Connie's classmate at Campbell College. Or, in a more drastic scenario, a character could briefly mention that they just received a mysterious email from a long lost friend (Nick) who once worked at Whit's End, and then dramatically say "he's in trouble in New York!" Then, Eugene, Whit, and Connie  could rush to The Big Apple to help out their old friend out of some kerfuffle. Finally, at the end of the episode, Nick admits that it wasn't a good idea to leave Odyssey. He then asks Whit if he can continue working at Whit's End. Whit agrees. Behold, the prodigal son has returned! 

Alright, maybe that wasn't the best example. He could also be reintroduced quite easily through a timely, witty one-liner:

Nick: "Hey, guys."

Connie: "Nick! Where have you been? It's been ages!"

Nick: "Sorry. I was in the washroom. Spilled some coffee on my 'I love my barking tree-frog' T-Shirt. I heard you say something about Blackgaard being alive...?"

Wait, Nick has been in the bathroom for eight seasons? The audience would laugh, and off Nick Mulligan would go, making macho jokes and being sarcastic as if he never left. Or, consider this scene: 

Nick: "Hey, guys."
Connie: "Nick! Where have you been? It's been ages!"
Nick: "What are you talking about? I was just here the other day when we all got snowed in and used our imaginations to create the fictional world that seemed an awful lot like a rip-off of a Dr. Seuss story. 
Connie: Really? I don't remember you being there.
Nick: Yea, that was the day I got my tonsils removed. I couldn't speak for a week! Man, thanks for being observant... 
Connie: Oh, sorry Nick.

I'll admit that these are cheap, barely passable suggestions of different ways to play out this sort of joke; namely, Nick has been around the whole time, he's just been "busy" somewhere "out of sight". At this point, it would be a welcomed wink-wink to the audience.

It wouldn't be too weird, then, to suddenly start refocusing on him again. Shifts in perspective occur all the time in Adventures in Odyssey, as Paul McCusker recently stated in an interview at Audio Theater Central: "the camera has shifted...we are looking at Odyssey from another direction". Similarly, Nick's disappearance does not have to be explained as a "goodbye" but merely a temporary "change in perspective". If Adventures in Odyssey can suddenly stop focusing on a group of old characters (The Straussbergs, the Washingtons) and onto a group of new characters (The Parkers, The Jones), surely the show can just as easily go back to focusing on the older characters...right?

However, the absurdity of Nick's disappearance is that, last we heard, he still works at Whit's End. Although characters come and go, Whit's End has always been the focus of the show. It is very easy to decide that the show's spotlight will stop shining, for instance, on the Rathbone family or the Straussberg family, but it is much more difficult to explain why a character who works at Whit's End is absent from a place where the spotlight always shines.

In a period where the show is experimenting, trying to decide what works and what doesn't, let me ask you, Adventures in Odyssey, to continue with something that did work. If you thought Nick Mulligan didn't work, it was only because you hadn't payed attention to him:

"It would be great to see more development of [Nick's] character and see him do stuff, and be the main focus of some eps, instead of just being referred to. If he was developed to the point where we really, really care about him and understand him, a conversion moment would then be much more meaningful, and so would the lack of such a moment." -Catspaw, Jan 05, 2006.

Catspaw summarized my own thoughts nicely. Nick didn't get the same attention from fans as other characters did simply because he didn't get enough attention from the writers. In a period where characters like Wooton and Emily Jones are shoved down our throats, and headline their own episodes so that fans can "warm up to them", it would make sense why Nick didn't exactly have legions of fans petitioning for his return. Nick was never shoved down our throats. Episodes are a character's campaign poster. No one will know you exist without the right number of advertisements. 

"Even though a small elite group of writers have permission to continue the world of Odyssey to the best of their ability, they still risk the disastrous result of failing to broaden a character’s profile, forgetting or neglecting to expand on a certain aspect of a character’s life, resulting in a character with lacking characteristics, as well as fan outrage." -Jacob Isom, "And the Small Bell Jingled", 2003.

Fan outrage is right. Nick's unexplained absence creates a void; it is a confounding and frustrating gap in this beloved series. They have trampled on Myers' great fictional creation. They believe his absence deserves no explanation, because the character itself not worth the time nor the explanation. By brushing off his main storyline into an issue of Clubhouse Magazine, the value of his soul was reduced to a irrelevant and meaningless footnote.