“And I mean I literally made sure to preserve his brain for study. If you look inside this closet, you can see that I severed Bull’s head and put it in this photo-developer tray. I attached some tubes to his head so it would look cool, but they’re just for show. Oh, and you can see he’s got plumber’s tape over his mouth; that’s because he kept yelling at the big mutant in the other closet to break out and smash the place up, and I’d just vacuumed.”
So, is Linda’s dialogue (in panel two, blimp one) supposition, or did she find a note explaining Bull’s plan? Because he could have been wearing his helmet because dementia. Or because he forgot he had it on, or simply wanted to wear it. The longer this arc goes on, the more apparent it is that there was no plan at all here, just another pathetic stab at getting attention. A phishing attempt that somehow managed to snare the New York Times.
And if Linda did find a note, how many weeks will it take her to read it? At one word per day….gee, are you sure ten weeks are enough?
Special Movie Bonus: has anyone here seen…this?
Son of Stuck Funky 
Linda tried to preserve Bull’s brain? THAT WASN’T A POT ROAST! She cracked Bull’s head like a walnut, marinated his brain and sent his decorticated body shambling into the night! BURN THE WITCH! BURN HER IN HER OWN OVEN!
Yes. Bull could have used carbon monoxide poisoning or overdosed but he chose a big car crash to damage his brain even more so any study results would be invalid. That flimsy football helmet is not a racing helmet. Any researcher worth his salt would find the donation useless.
Unfortunately Linda took that salt, mixed it with pepper, garlic and Worcestershire sauce, and applied it to Bull’s brain. The only good thing about the way she overcooked it is that Les can no longer say Bull had a bunch of half-baked ideas.
See, it’s called writing. That subtle detail about using his football helmet to preserve his brain is just a quarter inch removed from Junior Seau shooting himself in the chest. Writing, I tell you!
So… Linda’s admitting she was an accomplice?
Also, cease-and-desist from Gary Trudeau in 3… 2…
“Let me explain how I did it, Les. See how this helmet is expanding? Don’t worry, it’s an optical illusion. Try it on, it’s quite harmless. There! Comfy, isn’t it? Soothing, like a forgotten lullaby, lulling you into a gentle sleep . . . a deep sleep . . . one in which you will dream that you car can fly . . . fly you away from all your problems . . . doesn’t that sound dreamy?”
Thanks for referring to “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”. It’s one of my favorite movies!
WT is right. That was Bull’s brain she had in that pan!
Les puts his hand over his mouth as he thinks of all the jars of home-made preserves he saw in Linda’s kitchen.
Tomorrow: The doctor from the CTE institute knocks on the door. (If you thought they’d call or e-mail, you must be a new reader.) The doctor is drawn in great detail, like a Real Guy. Obvious homage to somebody who asked Batty to draw him in his comic strip. Anywayz… The doctor says they completed the study of Bullwad’s peanut sized brain.
“Well, Missus Bushmiller…”
“Bushka.”
“Whatever. Turns out your husband didn’t catch the CTE after all! He was just an idiot and a jerk.”
“But what about the mood swings? Watching the same old football videos? Compulsive laundry services?”
“Oh, that. He was just being weird. A real oddball. Man, I could use a pizza right now. Well, gotta scoot. Toodles, Missus Bullshizzle!”
“Bushka!”
“Whatever.”
Batiuk doesn’t actually know that Bull’s sacrifice is in vain because he’s not good at understanding real-world stuff. It’s like how Les is too busy being jealous that no one wants to preserve his brain to understand that Linda just copped to bungled insurance fraud.
“Jan In The Pan, are you still here?”
“He’s at the 20, he’s at the 10, no one will catch him…”
“Hey, you’re not my dad. You’re Hitler!”
“When you were in that pan, did you make your own gravy?”
Following on the theme from yesterday, Lisa’s comment in panel 2 could bolster the case that she killed Bull by providing motive.
Of course Linda is depressed beyond words. Now that she doesn’t have to take care of Bull 24/7, she can get her job back at Worstview High. That means being around Les every work day.
Linda will have no choice but to return to teaching, since that mean ol’ NFL is refusing to shell out to the widow of someone who never suited up for a game. Now we just need to disable the airbags in Cayla’s car…
“So he wore this helmet so his brain wouldn’t be damaged in the accident(?).”
Yes friends, I placed that parenthetical question mark to indicate how hip Less is with up talk. That Todd, is writing!
Yeah, Christ Sake! Why is she saying “accident?” She’s spelling out chapter and verse how this was a planned suicide crash. SO IT’S NOT AN ACCIDENT!
BatWit desperately wanted to tie suicide to the CTE, and now he’s tiptoeing all around the suicide part like he doesn’t want to bring it up. All ten (yeah, a whole TEN) of the people who bothered to show up for the funo should have already had a pretty good idea it was a suicide, given the nature of CTE and the circumstances of the crash. Because here’s the thing – Forget about the damn helmet and the airbags. He rammed a guardrail at high speed. That is, “high speed” for a glorified golf cart. Sure, he fell only ten feet. We’re supposed to imagine it’s a 100 foot cliff. Looked pretty deliberate.
“Accident” my ass.
So Linda is an active, intelligent woman who can hide her sinister machinations behind an appearance of a mindless, frumpy Westview wife, and get away with anything. Author-avatar Les looks horrified, as though Batiuk has just exposed his own deepest fears of women.
You know how sitcoms have an “A” story and “B” story? This CTE arc has that, except the stories contradict each other.
In the straightforward “A” story, it is finally confirmed that Bull attempted to preserve his brain for CTE research. Linda congratulates herself for “making sure this happens”, even though she would have nothing to do beyond signing a couple forms.
Tomorrow we return to the “B” story, where the police are conspiring to keep Bull’s a suicide secret for some reason, even though his preserved brain is on its way to the CTE lab.
Next week: Bull’s donated brain is found to be unusable for research, while Les and Linda begin co-authoring “My Husband Didn’t Commit Suicide.”
When I read “I made sure that happened”, my first thought was Linda saying to Bull, “Are you leaving to kill yourself in the car now? Don’t forget your helmet!”
That line was similarly jarring to me too. It’s so cold-blooded that my first thought was that she was confessing to murder. (I commented upthread).
The chill vanishes when you realize it’s just more empty self-congratulations. All Linda really had to do was help Bull make out a living will, and maybe an organ donor card.
Right. The problem is with the writing (no surprise).
my impression as well. And lets stop calling it an accident? The air bags were disabled and he was wearing a helmet. Really “I made sure that happened” are pretty sinister sounding given the context, but with this Author sloppy writing is a more reasonable guess.
Now playing at the Valentine:
I wish I could upvote this twice!