Innocuously Important Episode: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
An episode that subtly sets events in motion that lead to a big payoff later on in the [[Story Arc]]. After [[The Reveal]], the episode will suddenly take on much greater significance in retrospect.
May use a [[Chekhov's Gun]] and [[This Index Will Be Important Later|related tools]], but telegraphing is avoided. Compare with [[Arc Welding]] where a [[Story Arc]] is created retrospectively from isolated episodes.
The examples, naturally, contain ''major spoilers.''
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'': The [[Fan Service]] episode redeems itself by setting up a major plot point that, later on, leads to many a [[Heroic BSOD]], the outing of Sara's identity, the cementing of the [[True Companions]], and the death of one unexpected major character.
* ''[[Madlax]]'' pulled this off with its [[Beach
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' loves doing this. The only even slightly minor character who has only one appearance was the terrorist from the fourth chapter. Even ''he'' shows up again. Both Bald (and Colonel Genz from the video game) appear in an advertisement for automail in chapter seventeen.
** In the [[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|2003 anime version]], you didn't think Russell and Fletcher would be ''content'' helping Bellsio with his farm for the rest of the show, did you? It seems Russell enjoys borrowing Ed's identity a bit too much. {{spoiler|Too bad the second time he does it, the homunculi have Ed pegged as an enemy after the events of Lior.}} Also there's Rose.
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* The [[Tear Jerker|heartbreaking]] episode ''Affection'' in ''[[Stand Alone Complex]]'' is seemingly an episode made to highlight some of The Major's tragic backstory. Turns out it also {{spoiler|tells ''Kuze's'' backstory too, and explains how he and The Major met when they were much younger.}}. This does not become explicitly apparent until the final episode of the series.
* ''[[Steins;Gate]]'': The first episode introduces the characters and setting, and begins to get into the concepts of time-travel used throughout the series, but {{spoiler|the events of that episode also turn out to have far more significance than they'd seem. Okarin's time-travelling efforts in the final episodes show the events of that day as they truly unfolded, and towards the end of the last episode Okarin watches his past self discover Kurisu seemingly dead, remarking that he was to begin the most important 3 weeks of his life.}}
== Literature ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Bridge of Birds]]'': Every seeming [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]] turns out to be this by the end.
* [[Dirk Gently]]'s "holistic" philosophy isn't wrong in the context of the
* ''Grave Peril'', the third book in [[The Dresden Files]] series, has serious implications reaching all the way out until Changes. (And likely beyond, as books continue to be released. [[Word of God]] says that all the guests at that little party will be seen again.)
* The prologue to ''[[A Game of Thrones]]'' is like this to the entire ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' series. The prologue to ''[[A Feast for Crows]]'' serves the same function within that book, setting up plot that doesn't truly get put into motion until the last chapter, some 900 pages later.
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Babylon 5]]''. Several episodes of the first season.
** The thirteenth episode "Signs and Portents". The episode's "A" plot is some fairly standard and unimportant thing involving Raiders [space pirates] and a Centauri artifact called The Eye. The "B" plot, involving the first appearance of the enigmatic Mr Morden and the question "What do you want?", turns out to be ''incredibly'' important and crucial to the rest of the
*** The A Plot does have one rather important thing happen in it; it's the first appearance of [[Big Bad|The Shadows]].
** "[[Babylon 5/Recap/S01
** "[[Babylon 5/Recap/S01
* ''[[Doctor Who]]''
** The ending of "The Shakespeare Code" included [[William Shakespeare]] using words to stop the villains. The last episode in the season, "Last of the Time Lords", took that concept and turned it [[Up to Eleven]].
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** "The Unquiet Dead", which introduces the Rift in Cardiff. Without that rift, the events in "Boom Town", the show's first, third and fourth series' finales and ''The End of Time'' would not have taken place... nor any of ''[[Torchwood]]''.
** Classic Who also had ''Silver Nemesis'' (Cybermen vs [[Those Wacky Nazis|Neo-Nazis]]) but it set up the Wolves of Fenric arc with Ace and the Doctor as [[Chessmaster]] motif which concluded in rather sinister style in ''The Curse of Fenric''.
** [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
** In series 3 of New Who, the episode "The Lazarus Experiment" set up both {{spoiler|Martha's family's betrayal to Harold Saxon/The Master}}, and {{spoiler|the aging device was used against the Doctor in the season finale}}.
*** Similarly, [[Doctor Who
* ''[[Lost]]'' : The season 3 episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes" seemed odd at the time. However, this was the first episode to employ any kind of time travel, and laid the groundwork for everything that has happened in season 5 with Ms. Hawking.
* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'': At first glance the "Showdown" episode seems like pure filler with Marshall and Lily preparing for their wedding and Barney going on ''The Price is Right''. However, we learn two episodes later that {{spoiler|Ted and Robin broke up at this time.}}
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* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'': In the first season, they encounter a planet that had been developing a drug that would make them immune to the Wraith feeding on them, but also has a 50% chance of killing the person injected. It seems like a one-off story, until the middle of season 4 when their enemy, a Wraith-turned-human-turned-hybrid gets hold of the drug and begins to spread it across the galaxy. It plays an important role in several episodes from then to the end of the series.
* ''[[Farscape]]'':
** "Beware of Dog" had a fairly ridiculous main plot, with a B plot of Crichton going crazy and imagining Scorpius around every
** The very first time Crichton hallucinated Scorpius was in "Crackers Don't Matter", a nutty, off-the-wall episode where everyone's going crazy and fighting over crackers.
** "A Human Reaction", a well done though not especially memorable episode - until it's revealed a few episodes later that ''the'' major plot point of the ''entire series'' was set up during its events.
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** 'Killed By Death'. Buffy is sick and ends up in hospital - a place she hates since her favourite cousin died in hospital when they were children. While the [[Monster of the Week]] in the episode (which was also responsible for her cousin's death) is dealt with, Sunnydale General ends up playing a ''big'' role in Season Five - not only does Buffy's mother Joyce end up with a brain tumour and spends a few episodes there, but we're also, at the same time, introduced to the character Ben Wilkinson, a young medical intern who serves as a possible [[Love Interest]] to Buffy {{spoiler|and who turns out to be the mortal, human shell of Glory, the [[Big Bad]] of Season Five - Glory's plans, in turn, result in Buffy's death in the Season Five finale}}.
* The ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "Circus Circus". No other episode sets up as many of the major arcs and themes in the second season: the corrosive effect of secrets; something new beginning as necessarily implying something else ending; stasis as the opposite of life/death/rebirth; the impossibility of simply picking up a relationship where it was left off; one's persona or public self versus one's [[True Self]]; a parent's inability to recognize his or her child.
* The
* The ''[[Mad Men]]'' third season episode "My Old Kentucky Home." On its face, the [[Four Lines, All Waiting]] story serves as a series of character vignettes bound by the "work disguised as fun" theme. However, this episode introduces us characters that become prominent in later episodes (Connie Hilton, Henry Francis); and story arcs that carry through the next couple of seasons (Peggy's introduction to the counterculture, Joan realizing that marrying her doctor is not going to give her the life she thought she wanted, Betty looking for a way out of her marriage, among others).
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' had two:
** In the first series "The Gates of Avalon" was a fairly basic [[Monster of the Week]] story, in which Arthur is targeted by two murderous Sidhe, but it also introduces the fact that [[Dreaming of Things to Come|Morgana is a seer]] which marks out her entire [[Character Arc]] from then on.
** The third series had "Queen of Hearts", which seemed a one-off [[Filler]] which once more returned to [[Status Quo Is God|status quo]] by the end of the episode, but it also introduced the character of "Dragoon", Merlin's old-man disguise which he puts to even greater effect in series four.
== Video Games ==
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* A lot of seemingly comical or nonsensical things in ''[[Hatoful Boyfriend]]'' take on greater importance in the [[Cerebus Syndrome|Bad Boys Love route]].
* In the first ''[[Mass Effect]]'' game, there's a side mission that involves going to the Moon and helping shut down a rogue [[Artificial Intelligence|AI]]. The third game reveals that {{spoiler|this was an early form of EDI, the AI on the second Normandy, who was recovered by Cerberus and rebuilt}}.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero]]'' is a game most fans of the franchise would just as soon forget; it's usually regarded as the worst game of the series, or at least a tie for that title with ''[[Mortal Kombat: Special Forces]]''. However, this game also introduced, Fujin, Quan-Chi, and Shinnok. Of course, few fans like ''them'' either, but they still play vital roles in the overall plot.
== Webcomics ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
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[[Category:Innocuously Important Episode]]
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