Hmm. This is a pretty interesting conversation. I think I can postulate that there are two basic kinds of Achewood story arcs: the Party/Cartilage-Head-style arc, where the basic scenario is established immediately and never changes much, and the GOF-style arc, where the scenario that appears to start the storyline has no actual connection to what the arc turns out to be about. (The GOF is actually quite complicated in this regard, since it goes from "Ray and Todd consider various artificial-scrotum-based business ventures" to "Ray awkwardly entertains his mother" to the actual GOF.) I find it interesting at this point that everyone's intrigued by this arc specifically because we're hoping it will turn out to be something else -- that nobody particularly wants to read three more weeks of Todd's Insane Crackhead TV-Star Adventures, but we'd love to see it turn into something unexpected.
Is there a correlation between relative lameness of startup and likelihood of a GOF-style swerve? If so, is it just a product of Onstad saying "eh, this isn't going anywhere, time to do something different?" I have to assume it is, but with Onstad, you can never deny the possibility of a boring startup being intentional as a run-up to something totally bizarre and epic.
(Yes, I'm overthinking it. Shut up.)