| Odd Jobs | |
|---|---|
| General Information | |
| Release Date | 15th May 2021 |
| Series | Ben 10: Omniorigins |
| Details | |
| Season | 1 |
| Episode Number | 18 |
| Overall Episode Number | 18 |
| Credits | |
| Written by | SOULARCHER20 |
| Story by | SOULARCHER20 |
| Teleplay by | SOULARCHER20 |
| Directed by | SOULARCHER20 |
| Episode Guide | |
| Previous episode | Don't You Battle Without Me |
| Next episode | The Bond Forged From Men |
Odd Jobs is the eighteenth episode of Ben 10: Omniorigins, as well as the eighteenth episode of the first season.
Plot[]
Ben gets some keys and heads to the roof of his apartment. There, he activates the Omnitrix and transforms into Powerpipe and jumps off the roof, running to The Fictioverse. Upon arriving, Powerpipe turns back into Ben and subsequently enters the store, hoping to find Stuart. Looking around, Ben overhears music and enters the backroom.
Entering the room, Ben accidentally startles Stuart, who is preparing some old scrap to give to Lugs. After Stuart switches off the radio, Ben asks him to lend his armour, stating that he wants to take Stuart somewhere important but the Omnitrix is timed out. Stuart is suspicious but agrees to it, except that Ben has to guide him instead. During their flight, Stuart asks Ben why he wanted to surprise him exactly on that night, yet Ben replies ”You did it before”. Upon landing, Ben goes to something covered by a large sheet.
Checking under the sheet, Ben prepares to surprise Stuart and reveals a new car to Stuart, after his last car was destroyed. Stuart is beyond surprised and grateful to Ben, who gives him the keys and tells him to drive it back to The Fictioverse. Upon getting seated, Stuart discards his armour in order to drive more comfortably, but accidentally sets the car to drive. One of Stuart’s equipment accidentally falls onto the accelerator, causing the car to accelerate forwards and crash into a building.
To the duo’s surprise, the car remained intact. Upon inspecting the damage, Ben and Stuart begin discussing on what they should do, but are caught by a man calling himself Mr. Pakmar, who asks about the damaged wall. While Stuart and Ben try negotiating about paying for the damage, Mr. Pakmar instead dismisses them and claims that until they could pay for the damage, they will have to work for him and pay up until the end of the week or he will report them to the police, much to the duo’s chagrin.
The next day, Ben and Stuart are dressed in their uniforms and are taken to their workstation by Mr. Pakmar, who tells them their job is to wrap candies on a conveyor belt. As he leaves, he threatens them to do their job right or they will be working for him longer. By the time Ben and Stuart begin working, but soon the conveyor belt increases its speed, causing the duo to temporarily struggle. Ben then resorts to transform into Powerpipe to catch up, but instead gets Transmelt. At first, Transmelt begins using his powers to wrap the candies, but the speed overwhelms him, forcing him to create a huge bag in an attempt to intercept the candies.
This backfires however, as the bag gets filled to the brim. Transmelt finally loses his patience and begins to heat up, inadvertently causing a fire with his flaming head. Outside, Mr. Pakmar questions Ben and Stuart as to how the duo are capable of starting a fire wrapping candies, leading Stuart to begin giving a scientific explanation. Upon ending it, Mr. Pakmar decides to give them one more try and decides to give them an easy job; working at his smoothie bar as cashiers, much to Ben’s delight.
On their seventh day, Ben and Stuart manage to acquire a sufficient amount of money, yet they still need a lot more to pay for the damage. As the duo rest, Ben hears some commotion outside and learns that everyone present has had several items stolen from them. Stuart tells Ben all the money from the cash register was also missing, leading Ben to check Stuart’s cameras. There, a green individual is shown discreetly stealing money from everyone present. Stuart sees him and Ben activates the Omnitrix, accidentally getting Meltter, and runs after him. As Meltter begins to sink into the ground, he stretches and nearly catches the character, who uses an energy wave to knock Meltter back.
Meltter nearly lands on Stuart’s car, but changes into Constrictaconda just in time (much to Stuart’s relief), and chases after the character again. This time, Constrictaconda manages to catch up to the character, ensnaring him and telling him to hand over everything he stole. The character just laughs and disintegrates, leading Constrictaconda to see himself surrounded by an army of individuals. Two of them reveal themselves to be The Splitz, who claim that after escaping prison, they devised a better cloning formula that enabled them to steal items as if they were ghosts in order to get revenge on Ben and Stuart.
They then explained that they were the cause of the conveyor belt incident, as it was to lure Ben to them. As they taunt Ben on being without Stuart, he simply dials an alien that could battle all their clones at once, transforming into Hammerhack in the process. Each clone comes and attacks, but Hammerhack is able to sufficiently use the terrain to battle each of the clones with ease. While he was distracted, The Splitz began aiming a device at him that would disintegrate Hammerhack, only for the latter to overhear them and charge at them.
As the weapon needed more time to charge, The Splitz told a few of their clones to stop Hammerhack, which they obediently did. However, one of the clones suddenly stops and fires a freezing ray at The Splitz, causing their clones to disintegrate. The clone is revealed to be Stuart in disguise, who Hammerhack claimed to know his appearance. Looking at the time, Stuart claims that they were running out of time, but Hammerhack had an idea and turned into Powerpipe. Powerpipe runs around town, managing multiple businesses at once (a lemonade stand, a car wash, and even acted as a beggar and street musician), and successfully manages to acquire enough money.
After paying for the damage, Mr. Pakmar allows them to quit but threatens them into staying away from his businesses. As the duo enter Stuart’s car, Ben claimed that he earned extra money and bought a few random items for him and Stuart. As Stuart wonders why Mr. Pakmar sounded so uptight, Ben jokingly states that he was probably an alien in disguise. Unbeknownst to them, Mr. Pakmar removes a mask, revealing himself to be a short green alien, and enters his factory.
Noteworthy Events[]
Major Events[]
- Ben and Stuart meet Mr. Pakmar, and are forced to work for him after damaging his factory's wall.
- Stuart acquires a new car from Ben due to his last one being destroyed.
- The Splitz return, having improved their cloning formula, but are once again defeated.
Character Debuts[]
- Mr. Pakmar
Characters[]
- Ben Tennyson
- Stuart Garner
- Lugs (Cameo)
- Mr. Pakmar (First Appearance)
Villains[]
- The Splitz
Aliens Used[]
Allusions[]
- The concept of this episode is based on the Ben 10: Omniverse episode Special Delivery, which involves Ben working for a business owner after damaging their property while also single-handedly defeating multiple villains in a junkyard fight.
- The junkyard fight also takes inspiration from the Ben 10: Omniverse episode, The Vengers, as it involves Ben using an intelligent alien against multiple opponents and analysing each move.
- Ben seeing Stuart dancing while preparing a meal for Lugs is similar to a scene from the DC Titans episode, Doom Patrol, where Raven watches Negative Man dance as he prepares a meal.
- The song Stuart dances to is "Thunderstorm" by ABCB, which is a parody of the song "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC, which is what was used in the aforementioned episode.
- When inspecting the damage, Ben says "Glad you didn't go up to 88". This is a reference to the Back To The Future movies, where the minimum speed needed to time travel is 88mph. Stuart's car is also a DeLorean, the base form of the time machine.
- The entire candy factory scene is a homage to the show I Love Lucy episode "Job Switching", which also involves an uncontrollable conveyor belt and 2 characters struggling with its extreme speed.
- Powerpipe doing multiple odd jobs to acquire money is based of the Mind Your Language episode "Many Happy Returns", which involves a montage of various characters doing odd jobs to acquire money within a limited time.
- Stuart even says a similar line from the episode, saying "We'll have to get it for him, even if we have to beg, borrow or steal it!".
- Stuart's gift from Ben resembles the helmet Mento wears from Doom Patrol, while Ben has a collectible plushy that rsembles Sigmund from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.
- At the end of the episode, Ben stated Mr. Pakmar was probably an alien in a human disguise. This is based of the Men In Black film franchise, which has alien refugees in human disguises on Earth.
Trivia[]
- The episodes Rise of the Sentiknight, I Came in And Wrecked Em All..., and Double Time were mentioned in this episode.
- The scene with Powerpipe at the beginning was originally planned for the previous episode, but was instead changed to this episode.