"Pickle" is the fourth episode of Win or Lose. It centers on Vanessa whose personal life is represented by supportive hearts and her ability to fly.
Synopsis[]
Vanessa is a hard-working single mom who faces the challenges of life with positivity and laughter—her bubbly personality has won a community of online followers. Vanessa adores her children, Rochelle and baby Zane, but she's a little obsessed with the love she gets for her social media posts: seeing those pink hearts popping up brings her unchecked joy. When life throws her a curve ball or three, Vanessa is at the top of her game. She can handle anything, it seems, until one of her kids goes missing.[1]
Plot[]
Vanessa "Van" Rodriguez is a single mom who raises her infant son Zane and teenage daughter Rochelle. She comes into work, bright and cheerful where she livens up her co-workers. When the daycare center calls, her cynical boss scolds her for answering her phone. Unfortunately, it is an emergency as Zane bit another child and Vanessa is not only forced to leave work, but to quit as well after her boss threatens to fire her. Despite Van's attempt to argue for Zane with the daycare, she is forced to take him home. Van falls back on her online followers for emotional and comforting support to get her through the day.
Van goes to the softball game where she cheers on for Rochelle and uses her positive attitude to block out the haters around her. She hides her difficulties from Rochelle who appears to be doing extra studying. Van proceeds to go search for another job, doing an uber job on the side. As she continues searching, she eventually manages to find a suitable job at a gym. Just as she happily succeeds, she gets a call from Frank who tells her that Rochelle cheated on a test. Van confronts Rochelle about the accusation and she believes her claim that she was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Van goes to see Frank where she manages to argue on Rochelle's behalf and successfully turns Frank's mind around. Just as she leaves, Van is approached by other parents who give her back handed compliments and question her single parenting skills. Van finds herself unable to bring her positive vibes out and exclaims that she knows that Rochelle is a good girl. When she sits in the car, she examines the cheating note and Rochelle's handwriting and realizes that she did indeed cheat on the test.
In the morning, a suspicious Van uses Zane to break into Rochelle's phone, only to accidentally take it when Rochelle leaves for the day. Van finds Tom's number and believes that he manipulated her into cheating. Van, along with Zane, visit Tom and demands answers from him. He reveals that not only did Rochelle help him cheat, but that she also has a burner account on social media. Van is horrified to learn that Rochelle has been doing things that she is completely unaware of. She asks her followers to help locate BadBoy2023 and she immediately gets a lock on the address.
After nearly hitting Ira, Van arrives at the house and races through the party, only to find Odo who tells her to "answer the call of the unknown". An exhausted Van starts talking to two teen girls where she realizes that it is her birthday today and that she is afraid that Rochelle will turn into her. The teens tell her that she must be a good mother as she is genuinely concerned for Rochelle and that their parents barely care where they are. They reveal that they saw Rochelle, but that she already left the party. Van's phone rings, showing that it is an unknown caller, and she immediately realizes that it is Rochelle. Following a fight, she answers and races to Rochelle.
Van finds Rochelle and the two embrace, with Rochelle's world returning to normal. Van tells her that they need to talk.
Cast[]
- Rosa Salazar as Vanessa Rodriguez
- Milan Ray as Rochelle Rodriguez
- Harlow Hodges as Zane Rodriguez
- Jaylin Fletcher as Boss
- Tom Law as Tom
- Aliyah Nissim as Lexi
- Daniela Hernandez as Hiveline Owner
- Erin Keif as Kerin
- Josh Thomson as Frank Brown
- Melissa Villaseñor as Veronica
- Ariana Mahallati as Nadia
- Beck Nolan as Brian (as BadBoy2023)
- Will Forte as Coach Dan
Additional voices[]
- Dylan Buccieri - Odo
- Ian Chen - Junn
- David W. Collins
- Akira Evans - Terrence
- Jaylin Fletcher
- Rockwell Herron - "Ward of the state"
- Scott Menville - Random Dave
- Arthur Ortiz - Lou
- Zeno Robinson - Mickey pancake
- Fred Tatasciore - B.R.O. Gym Owner
- Kari Wahlgren
Errors[]
- As Vanessa is washing the dishes in kitchen, we see Rochelle grabbing her bag off the table before leaving in the background (as seen in the previous episode). However, when this scene is shown in said episode, Rochelle didn't seem sneaky.
- In the aforementioned episode, Vanessa is shown dancing near the kitchen sink. But in this episode, she's revealed to be checking Rochelle's phone.
Trivia[]
- In baseball and softball, "pickle" is a slang term used to describe when a baserunner is stranded between two bases.
- After baby Zane keeps biting Vanessa's hand, she puts a little Pixar ball in his mouth, which is one of the most common cameos in Pixar media.
- At the party, the pizza came from Pizza Planet, which is a fictional restaurant in the Toy Story franchise.
- In addition, the vampire movie the toys watch at the beginning of the Toy Story Halloween special Toy Story of Terror! is seen on a TV at the party.
- Pizza Planet Truck: Seen in the parking lot at the winning game while Vanessa talks to Rochelle.
- Vanessa makes Mickey Mouse pancakes for Rochelle, even namedropping them.
- The shot of Vanessa crashing her head through the door at the teen party references a similar scene in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining.
- When Van becomes worried about Rochelle's whereabouts, she worries that her picture might end up on a milk carton. Putting missing persons' photos on milk cartons became an obsolete practice in 1996 when it was replaced by AMBER alerts.
