Tag: Summer

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Funkyverse

today

Um, why is Summer out hitchhiking in a blizzard? Summer began her walk in the morning, ostensibly to “clear her head”. Are we to believe she’s been wandering around in the snow all day? I mean, it’s certainly not impossible or anything, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty f*cking weird. As is hitching a ride to church. I don’t know exactly what he’s trying to do here, but bringing these stories together by having Summer just happen to be standing there on the side of the road is really, really lazy writing, even by Batiuk’s extremely loose standards.

I’ve never endorsed violence (here at SoSF, that is) and I’m not going to start now. But “coinkydink” is a “word” that should never be uttered, let alone spelled out, and quite frankly, I think it merits a beating. I didn’t even know WHAT it said at first…”coin ky dink?”. Then I figured it out, and it made me irrationally angry. And I still am right now.

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

The Entire Month of June, 2013


Jessica apologizes to Darin for forcing him to go through with the Frankie meeting. Jessica’s father, John Darling, who was murdered when Jessica was a baby, makes an appearance in a Sunday flashback. Darin and Jess summon the Moores and the senior Fairgoods to alert them to Frankie’s plot. Nobody in the room has a clue how to thwart Frankie until feeble Fred murmurs “Pm nd Jff”…their former neighbors and the daughter and son-in-law of Ed Crankshaft.

Frankie attempts to interview Funky, Bull, and Crazy Harry to get some dirt on Lisa, but they all deny remembering her. Summer and Cayla arrive home from school. “Jff” Murdoch visits Westview to share his recollection of witnessing teenage Frankie and Lisa in a domestic dispute one night thirty years ago in “Lover’s Lane”. This recollection leads to the discovery of young Lisa’s journal, which details her abuse and impregnation at the hands of Frankie. Jessica videotapes Summer reading aloud from her late mother’s journal, and Darin threatens to post the whole sordid thing on YouTube if Frankie goes ahead with the reality show. Defeated at last, Frankie and Lenny pack up and leave town.

“The entire month of June”…LOL. This was one of my personal favorite Act III arcs. I always had high hopes for Frankie whenever he’d come slithering back on to the scene, but he ended up being sort of a wuss, with no follow-through at all. I remember hoping that Frankie would befriend Boy Lisa and steal all his money or something, but he never really “did” much of anything. And I hoped he’d somehow ruin the Starbuck Jones movie, but again, he delivered nothing. FW was always crying out for a true villain, someone who genuinely hated these jerks and carried a grudge, but Frankie was as close as we ever really got.

At least Boy Lisa got a fun “origin story” anecdote out of it. A keg party, a parked van, a sleazebag from a few towns over…what’s not to love? Man, that BatYam is one sick f*ck sometimes, I’ll tell you what.

Backflip the Script

Here’s the capper to a story arc that has quite a bit in common with that arc where Funky spent a week exploring that abandoned house. I mean, aside from the fact that both arcs involve apparent trespassing. Batiuk shows a character wordlessly wandering around before, on the sixth day, they arrive at a “profound” conclusion. In fact, I’ve lifted Funky’s pithy statement from the abandoned house arc, and gently nudged Summer’s mind to deliver it here. Not much of a different feel, is there? If anything, it makes better sense than Summer’s summation about “flipping the script.”

Off The Deep End

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Yes, Summer, by all means, climb the snow and ice-covered diving board hanging over the abandoned swimming pool. Remember, this genius has ten years of college under her belt. What an idiot. Again we see something that happened in high school resonating through history, yet college seems to make no difference one way or the other. If she slips, falls, and ends up freezing to death in that abandoned pool, this whole thing will have been quite worthwhile.

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

September 20 – October 4, 2015
Crazy Harry finishes transferring (and ostensibly watching) the hours of Lisa tapes. He informs Summer that he found “a couple of Easter Eggs” on the tapes, which he burns to separate DVD’s marked “For Les” and “For the Other Woman”, and Summer presents these to Cayla. Cayla’s starts with a lecture from Lisa about how to handle her duties as Les’ wife (before devolving into threats that Lisa will haunt Cayla if she ever hurts “our Les”).

The “Other Woman” Easter Egg arc, definitely one of Batiuk’s weirdest Lisa fantasies. And, of course, Cayla just sat there with a stupid look on her face, content as always with her role as Les’ good-natured doormat. Cayla was one of Act III’s least-believable characters. Being attracted to Les wasn’t enough, so over the course of Act III he neatly excised her already-barely discernible personality and turned her into Cayla Tyler Moore, always ready, willing and able to indulge Les and his demented Lisa nonsense. This arc SHOULD have ended with Cayla lobbing those DVDs into the fireplace with middle fingers extended, but she just sat there grinning stupidly instead. Yuck.

There is a Light That Never Goes Out

As she wanders ’round Westview, hopefully Summer’s head is beginning to clear. The rest of us, meanwhile, are getting dizzy trying to figure out what, if any, significance these locations hold for her. On Monday we saw her pass by Dinkle’s house, but Summer was too involved with sports to be in the band. The high school was certainly an important part of her life, but from there, she continues on past the first home of the Fairgoods, Fred and Ann.

I’m embarrassed to admit I immediately recognized the house in today’s panel 1 as “the Lighthouse.” It was another site that Fred and Ann pointed out ten years ago as they took Darin and Jess on their impromptu nostalgia tour. It was formerly “a home for troubled youth” where Ann had worked early in her career. Maybe the locale stuck in my head because of Ann’s ominous answer when asked by Darin why it had closed: “Long story short…the guy who ran it turned out to be more troubled than the kids who stayed there.”

I searched the Act I strips in vain for some background. One of the “troubled youths” who spent time at the Lighthouse was young “Crazy” Harry Klinghorn:

But I gave up before finding any dirt on “Neal,” who appears to have been a pretty nice guy.

In the second panel, Summer gazes fondly at yet another Fairgood landmark, the second apartment where once lived Fred and Ann. Really, what gives? Yes, this is the couple that raised her half brother, and “Eight Track” Ann did (assistant-) coach Summer’s team to the state championship. It just seems so random, but who are we to question Summer’s legendary “ability to detect patterns“? At least we’re out of that goddam janitor’s closet.

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Not Fair, Not Good

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Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

October 15-22
The wedding of Cayla and Les.

October 23-28
After the wedding, Fred and Ann inexplicably decide to take Darin and Jessica on a tour of the neighborhood where they lived when they first were married.

What’s this got to do with anything?

Thursday

That’s the house. Now what this has to do with Summer, or anything else for that matter, is a mystery to me. And Fred and Ann needed to drive there, yet Summer strolls right by, like it’s right down the street from Moore Manor. So it’s even more baffling than previously assumed. BatYam is throwing these weird, extremely obscure details out there, presumably to amuse himself, as who the hell else is going to recognize it? (Turns and glances at SoSF staff, shakes head in bemusement and wonder. Man, you people are good. When we stop devoting all the brain power to this strip, we’ll no doubt conquer the world).

What is she doing there in panel one? Blowing on her hand? Vaping? Picking a piece of apple skin out of her teeth? It’s really odd. I guess we’ll never get that map of Westview I’ve been clamoring for, as obviously the entire town is some sort of geographically impossible optical illusion of some kind, like an M.C. Escher drawing or something, where nothing is as it seems and everything kind of folds back upon itself into infinity.

Coming soon: Summer walks by more things. Nothing happens. Everyone is agog that FW is ending this way. Then we all realize it couldn’t possibly have ended any other way.