We can only hope today’s strip is the awful coda to this awful story arc about these awful people.
This is why you turned down Buck’s advances, Linda? Not because he was being incredibly creepy and distasteful? Not because you are still mourning your husband who committed suicide not even 6 months ago and don’t feel like jumping into any relationship? Not because you know absolutely nothing about him beyond his high school football career? Not because the only thing you two demonstratively have in common is your late husband?
I agree with Linda on one thing, though. I can’t go through this again, either.
Son of Stuck Funky 
So is Linda saying that she feels guilty about not hooking up with Buck but there’s just no way she’s getting into another relationship with a CTE victim? It’s not just that he can’t write for his female characters, it’s almost as if he’s never met a woman at all. And I know that can’t be possible. Sigh.
Well, this looks like the end for that asshole Buck, one of if not the most poorly-developed character in all of Act III. Boy Lisa’s weird half-sister is close and we never learned much about Rocky’s mom or Lenny, but Buck never got any kind of back story at all and he had WAY more “screen time” than those characters did. He played high school football, he has CTE and very low standards…that’s it. I mean even Phil Holt had more personality then Buck and he f*cking died after one arc. We know more about Vera (actress, commie, patient, extremely old) and Marianne (actress, lives with mother, mental issues), and even Skyler (ill-mannered, temperamental) than we do about that ol’ horndog Buck. Oh well, good riddance, I say.
Oh, and he favors 2010-2011 era North Korean cars. I hope tomorrow’s strip features that thing flying off a cliff (or alternately, running over Cliff) and a guilt-ridden Linda fleeing Westview in judgmental shame a la Susan. Two birds, one stone.
Adeela is a pretty crappy character too. Brought in just so he could showcase KSU’s cross cultural cafe.
Without showing any sort of culture, beyond his usual Petri-dish scrapings.
This would be moving if Batiuk had made Linda into a likable, affectionate person and shown the hard times she endured as a caregiver. Well, it’s still moving, but in the stomach-churning sense of the word. So, once again Batiuk goes with his trengths.
A: Likable, affectionate
Q: What two words would never be used to describe Linda?
Or, if Batiuk had developed Buck’s character into anything beyond “played football for Big Walnut Tech 30 years ago.” For example, being a widower himself might have made him more sympathetic. Knowing what we know, he just looks like a creeper running a long-term scheme to bed his rival’s wife. Am I supposed to feel bad they didn’t hook up? It’s not Linda’s job to look after every CTE case in town. If anything, she’s being too nice here.
You know what else would have helped? Linda rejecting Buck to his face, instead of talking to no one while he drives away. Batiuk loves misery and drama, but cuts away from any scene where he might have to depict a real a human emotion.
Hey, we heard about that time Bull put the cream cheese in the soap dish(?). How much suffering are we supposed to watch the poor woman endure?
“I lost Bull one brain cell at a time”? Bull was still functioning at a pretty high level when he decided to sabotage the car and commit suicide. (This does also raise the question why he felt the need to tamper with the brakes when he just had to hit the accelerator and drive through the guard rail.)
This being TomBa, there’s a high like likelihood that we haven’t seen the last of Buck. Star-crossed love is one of his favorite themes.
Maybe a “Buck had died” Sunday strip, but IMO there a certain finality to this one. In fact, aside from the occasional WHS background scenes I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last Linda-centric arc ever too. Without Bull what’s the point?
Are we sure Linda wasn’t talking about her brain cells?
Afterall… CTE is catching
Buck tampered with the airbags, not the brakes – as you say, why would he, need to when he planned to drive right off a cliff?
Battocks always portrayed his condition as convenient lightswitch-type CTE – on when he needed pathos, off when he’d written himself into a corner. If Bull wasn’t capable of driving a car without getting into accidents, he sure as hell wouldn’t have been functional enough to work on them. IRL, Linda’s letting him take a wrench to their car would’ve been tantamount to a death wish on her part.
Every time I host this strip, I think “Well, it can’t be too bad” when my shift is done.
Oh wow, have I been wrong.
That is amazing. IMO that car is one of the greatest Batiukmobiles of all time. It’s like a composite of every unpopular car trend of the last ten years. He took the time to get those peculiar (and useless) rear windows right but forgot which way the car was facing.
Looks like by Friday, they unpacked all the boxes from the back and brought them back inside or put them on the curb.
Also, note that on Thursday there were boxes in the back seat, but Friday the back seat was empty. Did they go and drop off the boxes between time?
Honestly, I was kinda hoping Buck’s exit from this arc–and, hopefully, this strip–would climax with him backing over and destroying Linda’s mailbox, which was custom-made to resemble a Westview High football helmet (yes, just like the one Bull was wearing when he took his final drive). What a great opportunity, and Battyuk blew it!
That’s a great idea and it’d actually be funny, thus there’s absolutely no way it’d happen. Or he could have maybe done a bit where Linda trips and spills ashes on the same spot where Bull spilled Coach Stropp, but he had to do a grim rainy graveside scene instead.
– Spouse receives bad diagnosis that is 100% someone else’s fault.
– Sulking and angst…
– Spouse chooses to just stop living.
– Deceased spouse leaves boxes of antique junk and mementos behind.
– Sulking and angst…
– Inexplicably have potential new partners throw themselves at them.
– Sulking and angst…
Bull’sLinda’s story is pretty muchLisa’sLes’ story, except that Linda has the decency to admit she is an awful person.The ironic thing is that Buck sustained his CTE-inducing head injuries from Bull, then got shot down by Bull’s widow because he had CTE, the very same CTE Bull gave him. So in essence Bull wins.
The great (?) thing about BatBlab is how sometimes he just totally whiffs on how a strip will be perceived. He was going for “awww” here and got “ewww” instead, but he does that all the time. The really weird thing about this one, though, is how Linda’s dialog seems to imply that she feels guilty of shunning Buck’s advances only because of his CTE, not because she feels conflicted about Bull or anything. I honestly don’t think that’s really what he was going for here, but when he tries writing from the female perspective everything goes all awry. He really needs to stop doing that.
Imagine Buck on that ride home. Almost makes you feel kind of sorry for the ol’ square-skulled bore. Almost. It doesn’t make anyone feel sorry for Linda, though, discriminatory against the soon-to-be-enfeebled as she is and all. Ice water in those veins.
Don’t you ever compare Bull to Lisa. Ever!
Let the misery continue.
Well done Linda, you may be a third string character but you made the most of it and shot all the way up to the Top 5 in the “Lester Moore Hateability Scale!”
What did she actually go through? Damned if I remember her going through anything.
Bull’s wallet? It’s Batiuk’s fault for not remembering to show us the details. A big thing for Linda to go through was living with a big, strong man whose condition makes him subject to uncontrollable rages. Yet Linda didn’t seem aware of this, much less scared or battered. I guess Batiuk didn’t want to let realism spoil his image of Bull as a hapless goofball.
He actually did, in his customary “tell, not show” failure – while making Linda look like a resentful, bitter woman in the process. Linda literally wrote it (seriously, I’m dying here) to the internet support group, stating that Buck had become nothing but an angry 24/7 shadow of the man she loved. The only thing that calmed him down was falling asleep in front of the TV watching game films.
Yet when she received validating comments like “you’re not alone” and “others are in the same boat” her reaction was “yes, I am” and “how does that help me?” so you have to wonder just what the fuck she was doing there in the first place.
Jeepers, that’s the reason she didn’t go along? Gnarly!
C – R – I – N – G – E
I think today is the first time since Buck’s introduction that we see his full name. Bedlow. This week we saw how low Buck will go to bed a woman.
Buck is now going home to the half-way house he has been living at: “The Light House”