She's (Not) Having a Baby

BeckoningChasm
October 11, 2012 at 10:35 am
Well, with Batiuk’s penchant for leaving plots unresolved (Becky-Roberta, Cory enlisting), my bet is that this Maybe-Maybe Not Pregnancy is never mentioned again.

Link to today’s strip

A good number of you savvy snarkers correctly called “bullshit” on Cayla’s supposed pregnancy. Her announcement turns out to be Batiuk’s biggest “gotcha” since he pretended to kill off Sgt. Wally five years ago.

You’d think that with a one-year lead time, Batiuk would have a little more control over the narrative flow. But the plot pacing, such as it is, is getting even more out of whack, as TB tries to shoehorn in major plot events. Hence, we see Summer and Keisha starting college at the end of September, and Cayla ordering her wedding flowers after the chairs have been set up for the ceremony.

B"Les"sed Event

The Dreamer
October 10, 2012 at 11:42 am
Of course you know what comes after a wedding storyline. Cayla is younger than Les. It will be time for her to get preggers with Les Jr.

Señor Tortilla
October 10, 2012 at 12:31 pm
…One plausible yet extremely unlikely scenario would be that Cayla discovers she’s pregnant just before the wedding…

If you thought that unilaterally deciding “We’re going to have our wedding here!” demonstrated Cayla’s complete absence of tact…get a load of how she offhandedly announces to Les that she’s pregnant! And then following up with a casual aside to…who’s that? Her OB/GYN? The florist? And what’s with that look on her face as she tells him? They’re ostensibly in love, and about to get married. OK, they’re not young, but this is bad news? Only in the sense that it reduces the likelihood that Cayla will walk out on Les before she goes through with the wedding.

Take a Seat

With the exception of an implied nooner a year and a half ago, we’ve seen very little to suggest that there exists any real passion between Les and Cayla. Instead, as their wedding approaches, we are getting to see a lot more petty bitching and passive-aggressiveness.

Something makes me think that the grill guy is based on one of TB’s IRL buddies. Batiuk’s rendered him with more loving care than he typically expends on his throwaway “extras”.

 

Chairs to the Happy Couple

Well, looks as if we’ve been spared a whole week of St. Lisa counseling Les from beyond the grave. So: is today the actual wedding day, or are they still planning this? Reason I’m asking is because it looks like the mobile barbecue grill is setting up in the driveway, along with a table and canopy. Today’s “joke” is number umpteen-thousand-sixty-seven in Les’ series of asshat non sequiturs. Of course the chairs aren’t for the bride and groom, jerkoff.

Since unveiling her wedding-at-home plans to Les, Cayla seems to be getting more stressed, and less appreciative of Les’ carefree attitude (although that pissed-off look she’s giving him in panel 2 is…kinda sexy). If this culminates in her actually getting fed up and not going through with the wedding? Well, I can’t take back all the things I’ve said about Funky Winkerbean, but I will donate fifty bucks to lisaslegacyfund.org.

Missus Headroom

“If you’re still watching this on videotape…”? It is a videotape! What’s he supposed to watch it on?

There are seventeen comments already below as I write this, so I’m way late to the party, but the general tone of the comments so far is “What. The. Fuck,” and rightly so. The worst part, of course, is that Batiuk intends for these neverending Lisa Tapes to be heartwarming. What we’d really love to see is Cayla lurking just outside the room where Les pays rapt attention to his first and only true love, finally, finally realizing that she needs to move on.