Gil Gets His Dig(g)s In

One of our Central City protestors (the Tommie Smith/John Carlos descendant) gets a name and becomes as central to the plot as any Milford girl.  The “other item” Gil was shaking Skip down for must have been her name and digits. I leave it to the readership to discuss the propriety of what Skip and Gil have done. Suffice it to say it doesn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth.

I’m assuming Gil’s convo with, I’m assuming, Ryan will pick up tomorrow with, I’m assuming, what Gil said to Ms. Diggs after appreciating her “taking a stand” that wasn’t written here.  Odds are it will involve some gentle variation on “keep your ****in’ mouth shut.”

From the Pantheon of Mysterious Objects Dept.: Diagonally striped thing above and to the right of the GIL mug (or is it below and to the right? I can’t tell); backdrop of P3 (they’re standing outdoors, presumably; is it a huge backstop, more Prairie Style Windows, or what?).

Did Someone Say Track?

Hey remember how there was a whole thing about one of the girls liking one of the guys on the track team? Yeah, me neither.

Bonus points:

Kaz’s barbed wire tattoo peeking out beneath his sleeve that he still regrets getting but can’t afford to get removed.

Truly, Madly, Reluctantly, Unfortunately

Good thing I went with the color version of the strip today. These fair-haired women with prop glasses are all starting to look alike. Today it’s Ms. Rizk, not Dr. Pearl; we know this as Gil is the summoner, not the summoned. (Not that it’s clear Dr. Pearl summoned Gil but, you know, pecking order and all.)

Ever since the Central game the strip has been playing a huge game of connect-the-dots. Great leaps ever forward – from Kaz’s near telepathic understanding of what Gil wants to Gil’s visit to the Van Aukens to Gil’s chat with Dr. Pearl to today – with a lot of gaps to fill. Is it clear that Gil spoke with Ryan at his home? (The “genuinely remorseful” comment to Dr. Pearl might lead us to believe he did.) Whether he did or didn’t, what prompted Gil to speak with Dr. Pearl next? (To get the green light from the Doctor to lean on Ms. Rizk to quash Daftpunk’s article?)

And now, what leads Ms. Rizk to add the “unfortunately” tag to her statement implying that Dafunk’s article has already been quashed? Is it meant for us to deduce that, even though she’s been against Daffy’s hit piece on the ‘Cane from the get-go, she secretly wants to run the article? As our astute readers commented yesterday, this spring arc has turned into another of Rubin’s classic Bechdel Test fails. Girls’ sports have taken a back seat not only to boys’ sports but also to high school journalism which, by maintaining its integrity, may end up protecting a male athlete at the expense of his female victim and accusers. Ms. Rizk’s “unfortunately” may be her subtle form of protest against the Milford jockocracy.

Gil won’t give that a moment’s thought, ’cause sarcastically, he’s in charge.

One Other Problem?

Wait, the Van Aukens wanted a fresh start so they moved to the next tank town over which is actually closer to Ma Van Auken’s work?

Like many TWIM commenters, I’m not even sure what the heck Gil is talking to Dr. Pearl about. So far as we’ve seen, aside from losing control, not his temper mind you, while being the subject of a protest of sorts, Ryan has mostly been OK.

Except that…. there’s one other problem. Sure, why not, it’s mid-June, we have practically no feel for any of the character’s in this season’s plot nor any sense of what’s at stake, but let’s introduce another thread to the plot. As they say, tune in tomorrow…

Guess What I Heard, Dr. Pearl?

Gil wraps up his visit to the candid Van Aukens, then runs to Dr. Pearl to share all the hot gossip with her. I’m not sure why Dr. Pearl needs to know all this. Nothing really happened at the game that Ryan had to answer for. Maybe that look on Dr. Pearl’s face is saying, “why are you bothering me with this? what happened?”

I have that look on my face now, too.

Misadventures In Plot Advancement

Man, our bespectacled Dafne summoner is about as useful as Rubin when it comes to advancing the plot. At least we got a score. Do you suppose any of the kids on the Central team know what’s going on?

Bonus point: As pointed out in the comments, it is awesome that the Valley Conference is old school and uses wooden bats.

What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

Ladies and gentlemen, today’s strip offers classic laissez-faire Thorp coaching at its finest.  Ryan “Hurricane” Van Auken is getting rocked like a, uh, well, you know, while Gil leaves him in there to twist in the wind.  This prompts random Milford guy – is it the same one who answered the phone in the Journalism Office? – to run and tell Dafne, who’s at softball practice. (Interesting that there are ads on the practice field outfield fence; must be a lot of marketing money to spare floating around in Milford.)

The now elfin Dafne, looking a bit the daughter of Namor, suddenly finds herself incontinent drops everything and runs off to see what’s going down.  Does Mimi even acknowledge Dafne’s defection?  Hell no!  She doesn’t even look so much Dafne’s way! Mimi needs to grow a pair like that Coach Dawes and tell Dafne to go do what she loves but never darken a softball field again.

So, I Took A Little Vacation From The Blog…

May 30, 2017

And this is what I come back to… Nothing wrong with the first two panels of Tuesday’s strip and I even get a kick out of The Bucket supporting the baseball team, confident in the knowledge that they”ll more than make back their advertising spend through increased sales of milkshakes and french fries. But, boy howdy we swerve back to the Volcano hit a girl plotline and I got just about nothing.

May 31, 2017

I am trying to imagine that part of Ryan’s shock is coming not from the sign, which looks about a third the width of the one they were holding in panel three of Tuesday’s strip, but also the incessant clacking and clanging of those bracelets.