Today’s panel 1: Yup, the whole Funky Winkerbean Act III worldview in a nutshell, thank ya very much.
Panel 2: Darin’s concept of how Social Security works is matched in sophistication and maturity by his understanding of marriage.
Beanie Wanker
January 25, 2013 at 7:22 am
…So what are these two idiots, 17 years old?
Impossible to tell here if Jess is being sarcastic or sincere… impossible even to tell what the hell she’s talking about.
While he’s only been back in Westview a short while, Darin’s already got the beginnings of Batiuk Butt
I honestly don’t know what’s been hardest to swallow these last couple of weeks: Fred’s stroke prompting Ann to reveal the bitterness that permeated their married life, or Darin and Jessica, married over ten years, conversing like two newlyweds. Today we get a dose of the latter. The “kids” head to the vendos for some coffee, giving Darin a chance to ruminate on what he’s just learned about his “loving” adoptive parents. He shares with his bride of over a decade what he’s “always pictured marriage” to be like: “…being deeply in love forever and ever to the exclusion of everything else.” “Everything else” consisting of things such as putting your MBA to good use, or getting it together to buy a home instead of crashing with friends or living in a dump above a pizza parlor.
As Ann continues her recollection of her life with Fred, the picture she paints is far less rosy than we’d expect. It was only one year ago that TB brought Fishstick Annie back to Westview High to inspire the slumping girls’ team with the story of how she defeated the status quo on the way to coaching her team to a division title.
More recently, the senior Fairgoods shanghaied Darin and Jessica to take them on a tour of places they lived earlier in their marriage, and reminisced about how much fun they had in their old apartment. Now with Fred laid low, Ann confides that “somehow,” becoming Mrs. Fred Fairgood forced this feisty female to forfeit her ambition? Does the fact that their marriage turns out to be devoid of romance make this storyline even sadder, or less so?
$$$Westview Oncologist$$$$$
January 22, 2013 at 12:49 am
Personally, I think Jessica’s assumption of Fred and Ann being the victims of a freak lightning storm to be quite an appropriate catalyst to their tepid romance.
Her interest piqued by Ann’s story, Jessica presses Ann for all the romantic details of her courtship with Fred. No doubt she’s envisioning an epic liason along the lines of Reds, with Ann and Fred finding love against a backdrop of turmoil and unrest. Ann, rather abashedly, brings Jess’ expectations into line, this being Westview and all.
In the waiting room, Ann shares with Darin and Jessica the story of her and Fred’s courtship. Batiuk tries to lighten the grim tone of this arc by having his dumb blonde character misconstrue the kind of “strike” Ann is talking about. Because she’s such a romantic naïf, Jess actually seems taken aback at the thought that teachers would actually go on strike. Anyway, when is a strike (in the work stoppage sense) ever “unexpected”?
Son of Stuck Funky 
