All Apologies

Last time, we saw Summer’s on-the-court play take a step up only to run into a wall when she and her team got trounced. She’d also gotten caught up in the ongoing love triangle between her father and two women with rather poor taste. Despite Les and Cayla officially being a thing, TB saw need to throw doubt on the relationship as Susan Smith — that sinister suicidal succubus — proceeded to butt her way into things, a process made all the easier because Les is an oblivious moron and Cayla is a character with absolutely no spine. Summer’s importance after the first few months took a backseat as Batty began diving into fiction’s most laughably unbelievable love triangle and unfortunately for her, 2011 is going to go much the same way as 2010 for a while.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel as Batty will finally put this interminable storyline to rest. But not before he goes in guns blazing, pushing Summer out of the way in the process. Right from the jump, 2010 ends with Cayla and Susan at Les’ New Year’s party. As the clock ticks closer and closer to midnight, they both anxiously look around for their dickheaded dreamboat, each hoping to be the one that he rings in 2011 with.

But alas, the bespectacled beefcake is already claimed as they find him instead making out with the ghost of his dead wife who, need I remind you, called in a bomb threat just a week or so earlier.

Summer and Keisha, meanwhile, decide to ring in the new year with a little one-on-one.

But Keisha either intended this whole game as a ruse to talk about important issues or she simply resorted to dirty tricks once she started losing to Summer. Both are equally plausible.

Dissatisfied with Summer’s inability to know what her dad is thinking at all times, Keisha then decides to switch it up.

Keisha says that maybe the two of them should try nudging their parents closer together and Batty decides to end the week with a fancy (for him) narrative transition to show Les being an absolute prick under the guise of him just being a little frazzled. Of course, we know better.

After some “hilarious” Dinkle and the Band shenanigans, it’s another of Les’ endless book tours with some never before seen college friend of Les, since Batty never ever shows his characters actually attending college 99% of the time. He spends the entire trip back from the airport muttering to himself like a complete lunatic about Summer’s chances in the tournament but it seems fate had different plans.

We’re then regaled with the tale of the destruction of Summer’s knee along with the death Les’ dreams of not having to shell out money for his daughter’s higher education.

Having watched five too many inspirational sports movies and conflating them with real life, Batty decides to have the Lady ‘Goats do the logical thing and forefeit the friggin’ game to “be with their co-captain.” Because that’s something real teams do all the time of course and not just a cheap attempt at trying to wring sentimental pathos out of this wet rag of a story.

In a show of good sportsmanship, the other team refused the forfeit meaning the game was going to be replayed (does this actually happen?) much to Summer’s delight.

Summer will, of course, need surgery but not quite yet which she’s also happy about because it means she gets to inspirationally cheer her teammates on.

But alas, this strip is a quarter-inch from reality and thus unlike an inspirational sports movie or an anime where good vibes and the power of friendship can will even the smallest minnow to victory, Summer’s encouragement doesn’t prevent the team from losing and ending their season. Which kind of makes it seem like Central Catholic was so offended by the whole forfeit thing that they refused it simply so they could kick the asses of the She-Goats once more for good measure. Just to show them who’s boss.

With the tournament done, Summer now has to get her knee surgery and Cayla’s there to support Les in what’s obviously his hour of need. But oh no, that horrible harlot has decided to make her presence known here too!

But that’s not all! With Summer’s surgery a success, Bull shows up at Chateau Moore to offer his services and help Summer rehab her knee.

This is but one of the many acts of kindness that Bull has paid and will pay to his former victim that will go unappreciated by Les. Instead, Les and Cayla will opine about how awkward it is that his former bully is now helping his daughter as if he and Bull hadn’t been friends since before Summer was even born. To cap things off, the vile vixen also stops by to bring Summer’s homework and of course Les has to get in a snide little remark.

After a month or so of Dinkle, Owen and Cody’s nonsense, it’s back to Summer’s knee but not before TB decides to off the long-retired Coach Stropp.

Summer talks to Bull a bit about he and her dad knowing one another. This is the infamous week where it’s revealed that Bull’s bullying of Les was actually a ruse the whole time cooked up to protect Les from even worse bullies. A revelation that is utterly pointless as like so many other things with Bull and Les after Act I, it’s promptly ignored.

Summer, who’d been largely positive about her rehab, is now starting to feel the effects of inactivity which has made her cranky. But she’s about to get cheered up by a certain Saint’s Son.

After about 3 and a half years, Darin and his bride creep their way back into the comic to take their rightful place amongst the main cast. Well Darin does anyway as he and his funny books crew will come to increasingly dominate the strip; Jessica just kind of hangs around. We learn that he accepted a buy out from wherever he was working for unspecified reasons (they went under? who knows) and is effectively a jobless, homeless bum. Except not really because Les immediately gets him a job at, where else, Montoni’s and allows Darin to move in with them.

Summer’s excited but Cayla isn’t because god forbid she ever be proactive about anything in her life.

After the requisite month’s worth of strips is spent on reintroducing Darin to the strip’s dozens of readers, we move on to the next part of this grand tapestry that Tom Batiuk so skillfully weaves. Ann Apple, the homeless schizoid-turned-literary agent, calls to tell Les that someone wants to option Lisa’s Story into an actual movie. And not just anyone, but Hollywood! Yes, the entirety of the film industry is apparently just some monolithic entity and it needs to feed itself on the self-pitying misery literature produced by a mediocre and delusionally self-important high school English teacher.

Summer, being slightly more proactive than either her father or his milksop girlfriend, decides to take matters into her own hands when Les begins to falter.

Well that should be the end of it but Les himself has to agree which means a week of him sitting on a bench and talking to Ghost Lisa about all the ways in which Hollywood will ruin it. Personally I feel like all they’d need to do is give it a more accurate title; Tuesdays with Boring should work.

In the end, the spectral Lisa is able to set Les straight and get him to agree to it.

With everything coming up Les, he and Cayla sit on the Sacred Throne aka the porch swing and Cayla decides to tell Les “I love you.” Les can only fumble around like an idiot and not say the words back which upsets Cayla who decides they should put the brakes on things for the moment. This is mostly a test to try and get Les to stop being an idiot and Les, predictably, fails it.

But Cayla has made a mistake and the terrible temptress decides to make her move and fill the newly opened up woman-shaped hole in Les’ life. Alone in a classroom, Susan locks lips with the hunky man of her dreams.

Les now, finally, realizes that he has two women in love with him and decides to tell Funky and Crazy Harry about his dilemma. Funky and Crazy do what any reasonable people would do when confronted with the idea of Les the Lothario and proceed to laugh in his face. This pisses him off and causes him to storm out of Montoni’s like a baby.

We then get what is an all-timer in terms of Les’ unwarranted self-importance where Funky is forced to apologize to him and he snidely tells Funky “yes you did” to Funky’s admission that he went too far.

And it’s not just Funky as Cayla comes by to also apologize to Les for getting upset at him being an emotionally stunted dunce.

Keisha decides to send her mother a little image she just so happened to have.

Les explains the whole deal of what happened with Susan to Cayla who accepts it with little hesitation but worries about the reaction of others as the picture gets passed around. Summer, embarassed over the whole thing, decides to cosplay as the Unabomber to hide her identity.

The photo has quickly spread around school so Nate calls Les and Susan in so they can explain what it’s about. Any blowback Les could have received is immediately dealt with by Susan sacrificing herself and taking all the blame instead.

Susan decides to resign from her position and tells Les that she’s making a clean break from Westview entirely. Les makes a bunch of pithy and somewhat insulting remarks over the whole thing like the giant tool that he is.

And then decides to bid goodye to Susan with what might be one of the most eyerollingly stupid and infuriating things he says in the entire 50 year run of the strip.

“Heck of a kiss,” are you fucking kidding me? What a Grade-A turbo douche.

Susan gets one final sad and lonely trip down the halls of Westview High, reminiscing over her life there before exiting the school and thus the strip entirely.

Perhaps because people might have thought that Susan went off to try and kill herself once more, in the waning days of the strip Batty will randomly follow up this story with the immediate aftermath. Susan stops at a bridge, gets out and looks over the side but gets a pep talk by the conveniently passing by Ed Crankshaft.

But, and this is a real knee slapper, it turns out that Susan’s car merely ran out of gas. Ha ha, you thought she was going to toss herself off of the bridge because she’d tried to commit suicide before! Isn’t that hilarious!? Suicide Suzy, that’s what they call her!

Thus ends the dumbest love triangle in history and all I really got out of it, besides Les being insufferable and Cayla being Cayla, is that for whatever reason TB really seemed to develop a strong dislike for Susan. Why that is, I can’t really say. I’m sure if you asked him he would say he was just adding some drama and didn’t mean anything by it but come on, I don’t think it’s possible to read that love triangle storyline and Susan’s role in it as an antagonist and roadblock for Cayla, who Keisha actively dislikes and who Summer doesn’t seem overly fond of either, and then get that week in October 2022 clearly playing off of her long ago suicide attempt and think that Batty has anything other than disdain for Susan. It’s one of the most baffling things about the entire strip, there’s no real reason for it but it’s there, clear as day.

Speaking of, while the identity of who took and spread around that photo is unknown I’m 100% convinced it was Keisha. I don’t really have any reason not to think otherwise and completely ruining another person’s life would be an easy way to get that person out of her mother’s way. I’d wonder why she cares so much about making sure that Cayla gets with Les, of all people, but I think in reality it’s not like Cayla could do much better. She’s such a nonentity as a person that I think it would drive most people insane but Les loves someone like that who exists to feed his own ego. Also, if we’re going off the idea that Keisha was behind the photo then that makes her easily one of the most rotten characters in the entire strip.

You’ll notice that once again, Summer pretty quickly disappeared from this little recap because as I’ve said before Batty obviously lost interest in her pretty quickly. After she blows out her knee she mostly exists as scene filler for the first half of the year. But that will change at least a little bit because next time will cover the rest of Summer’s time in high school.