Endtown by Aaron Neathery for October 16, 2015

Sorry Holly, but it was about time someone slapped some sense into you!

Well, this will either snap her out of her mental snafu, OR, we are getting ready to see a mouse and a lizard go for the gold!!

Uh-Oh, but she was asking for it. I hope it does some good. Holly needs to come to her senses if they are to survive.

That’s going to leave a mark! Kirbee will protect Chik, and if she’s got to slap Holly upside the head in doing so, she will. Wally had better maintain his position, for there’s a time to protect Holly and a time to let her take some lumps, and it’s lump taking time for Holly.

“Thanks! I needed that!”

Boy, Holly’s come a long way since she helped Wally adjust…

would seem the mouse just got slapped stupid! maybe her brain will come back to the central position now.

Holly probably started losing her stability way back. This harridan personality of hers surfaced right after this flashback.

This could probably be the worst possible thing that could have happened to Holly. If anything’s going to make her go full-bore freak-on, it’s being bashed by someone that’s been making googly eyes at her boyfriend. If “I” wanted an opportunity to completely possess Holly, he’s got it now.

In time-honored tradition Holly will give her head a shake and say “Thanks, I needed that”. Or not.

When she has lowered herself to the point that she is threatening Chick, who is only a child, she deserved/needed that.

“Calm down!” slap “Get ahold of yourself!” slap And then a nun shows up and slaps her.

Also, Panel 2 sports the ever popular “Dutch Angle”, as made famous by TV Batman’s Villain lairs being ‘crooked’, as well as in the movie Battlefield: Earth.

Finally.

Poor Holly. But I think nobody can argue that she didn’t deserve that, at least in her current state of mind.

Reboot Mouse.

The bug is in Chiks hands.

While I don’t think this is going to help matters much (at least in the short term)…yeah, she had that one coming.

I’ve seen the storyboards for Monday.Panel 1: Holly bounces to a halt in a small depression in the sand about 30 feet from Kirbee.Panel 2: Wally starts trotting in Holly’s direction to check her as he gets three simultaneous flashbacks.FB1: Jim/“I” in the prison cell: “Want to know how she dies, Cat?”FB2: Jim/“I” in the prison cell: “She really is a lot like the school teacher, isn’t she?”FB3: Wally with Holly on the Opabinia Queen: “This radiation badge is the only thing left I have from that teacher.”Panel 3: Wally breaks into a run, just as the badge turns black.Panel 4: Holly/“I” looks up at Wally, doing the Exorcist 180-degree neck thing: “Gotcha.”

Oh, man! I wanted to do that!

I see Aaron’s continuing the tradition of having characters strike people who richly deserve it. Holly gave Flask a black eye when she insisted she was still fit to lead after the “Countdown” debacle. Wally Decked Aaron Marx after he (unwittingly?) sent him and Holly through a propeller arc. Now this.Sadly, I doubt this would have the effect we desire. I don’t know if Wally’s punch had any effect on Marx but Holly seems to have had no effect on Flask’s ax craziness. This will probably send Holly further around the bend.

Holly was threatening Chic, whether directly or indirectly through Irving, it doesn’t matter. That is what Kirbee saw and that is what she reacted to.As far as anything taking souls (soles), look to where they are at. They are back in a wasteland. Nothing drains a person like miles and miles of nothing but miles. Referring to the old song, at least the bear had the other side of the mountain to look forward to.Is this the other side of the territory Unity was in, or did they turn back?

Creepy voice from Holly……I is at work here.Yep Holly lands about thirty feet away……right at the foot of a Topsider who can hear the yelling but not seeing anything while he scratches his butt in confusion. She is now outside the shield wall.Guess how Holly dies??

I think someone finally "caught " Holly. Right in the chops. Wasn’t looking forward to today’s installment. Outlook for Monday feels even bleaker… :(

All right so, I’m starting to see a bit of a problem with narrative right now. It has to do with the fact that we know who Holly is, but that this isn’t her. We also know that Wally understands who she really is and knows this is out of character for her. This is problematic for a couple of different reasons. The first, is that it makes a character we like appear to be a villain by way of a huge change in character. And while mystery can be a good thing, this is not one of those times.

While writing finding Nemo, Andrew Stanton originally had written the story so that we wouldn’t have seen the tragic attack on his wife and eggs/children in the until in the midway point of the film as a surprise reveal. Imagine what that would’ve done to the character of Marlon in the eyes of the audience if that was the case. He would’ve become a completely unlikable and unsympathetic character. Knowledge is everything in this case and withholding it has little or no value in comparison. The rest of the Pixar team understood this and corrected Stanton on the matter. Mystery should never come at the cost of empathy. (Gravity Falls is a great example of how to get both) Stanton still apparently was very much in love with this idea though, and he used it in John Carter. But with no one to correct him he failed to realize the same problem existed. John Carter is a good film with one huge glaring flaw. We do not understand why John Carter is in moping mess for half the film so we think that’s his personality. It would’ve served the film better if we had seen the scene with his family’s distraction from the onset. We need to empathize with protagonists unless they’re designed as anti-heros from the beginning.

The other big issue I see here, is that while Holly’s behavior up until this point has been mostly curious, not warranting Wally pushing the issue, we are well beyond the point her behavior goes from curious to dangerous. She’s about to attack and innocent (not to mention abused) child for no clear reason. We know as much as Wally knows. If we ourselves would be demanding answers of Holly, then so much the more should Wally be demanding answers of Holly. The longer he fails to do this the more we question his intelligence. While it’s debatable at this point as to whether or not it was a good idea to withhold from the audience the information key to understanding Holly’s current behavior shift, this much is certain: we need to know right now what that is, because all we have is speculation and anyone’s guess is as good as anyone else’s.

I thought Wednesdays episode, where Wally says NO to Holly’s “if you love me” was the slap she needed. Was I wrong!

Lesson #1 for Holly:

It’s time to bury the dead, not drag them around- your self imposed burden puts everyone at risk.

Lesson # 2 for Holly:

Do not threaten children in front of Kirbee.

On one hand, I understand Holly wanting to give Clive another chance at…well, life (in a functional sort of way). After all, when they had their private chat, he did talk some sense into her.But sadly, Clive may be better off where he is now. And for Holly to threaten Chic… This poor boy has been bullied for being different his entire life……I am sorry, Holly… but until you come to your senses, I’m siding with Kirbee.

Actually, I think this might precipitate a real conflict with Wally.

Wally appreciates Kirbee, I’m pretty sure — and he is very well aware that Holly isn’t firing on all cylinders right now, and is endangering them — but he loves Holly. Slapping her over like that might just be a step too far.

That is going to leave a mark.

That was probably a very good instinctive slap from Kirbee. If not for Holly’s sake, then Chic’s. Having said that though, it had better be a case of Holly being knocked out and hopefully waking up to the reality or best case scenario, waking up with short term mild amnesia.Lol “Clive? Who’s Clive?”

Buuuuut that’s just wishful thinking.

Excellent insight, @JerseyCajun, and I have to agree, it has become increasingly hard to empathize with Holly who is supposed to be a main character, because that’s the way AN is revealing the story.

AN prefers the perspective of an “everyman” like Wally – a largely uninvolved outsider representative of the reader – and most of us seldom truly understand the motives of others around us, even those we are familiar with like neighbors or coworkers. So while I personally agree completely from the standpoint of storytelling and empathy for the protagonist, for others it’s just too… convenient… a way to learn about others; it isn’t realistic, the world doesn’t work that way.

That said, I feel for Clive and quite frankly don’t want him left behind either. There’s an entire story arc behind him that is about to just be… buried.

We really do need to have more insight into why this has happened this way.Holly did order Kirbee around quite a bit while in the midst of the escaping, finding Wally, and the fire, but when she had such a fuss about Kirbee going with them, the only reason that made ANY sense was that she may have seen Kirbee kiss Wally.But that he accepted it as a thank you and not as a come-on, should have reasured her.The totally illogical attachment to Clive has never made much sense, Holly was smart enough to have her priorities straight, or be able to be shown and accepted that as truth.If there is not an imminent explaination for her behaviour, I think she has become being a character who is about to be killed off. Like crazy Sparkplug who had to kill his family,? and we aren’t certain he really died, but hope that he was put out of his misery.But Holly is a main character and they usually don’t get killed or change their behaviour so much.I really feel for Wally, he has loved Holly as much as Jim loved Sarah. It will be terribly hard for him.I hope that we find out some answers on Monday. My BF comes over every other weekend and we enjoy going through the past 2 weeks, but this week has been pretty hard, and I’m not even bring up watching these last 2 weeks.

Its a pity we didn’t learn more about Clive, he was a fun character and it was interesting that he understood that he was a human who had his brain harvested, erased and plugged into a truck. That was more than Petey and his beloved seemed to understand.

I find it really interesting that on the one hand you have Holly complaining about Kirbee being a burden, and about the group not caring about “helpless children” (Clive)… yet it is Kirbee who is actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting (literally) and taking steps to protect the group’s actual child, while Holly’s the one who’s been acting like a ninny and endangering Chic.

It’s like the mere existence of Kirbee and her selflessness and bravery is throwing into relief just how petty and selfish Holly is being (and has been)… and I think that Holly is all too aware of it (but unable to admit it to herself). Hence her venomous response – it’s coming as much out of self-loathing as anything, I suspect.

I don’t see Holly as being possessed by some otherworldly force so much as still feeling the effects of an old wound that has never healed. She doesn’t have the blowing eyes, the creepy God like voice or reek of the supernatural in any way. She just comes off as somebody who has gone dangerously over the edge. Sort of the way Jim was when he left to get Sarah and then learned she was cheating on him. Hmmm…losing Clive might be the thing that makes Holly snap and leaves her vulnerable to whatever got Jim. We still don’t know what happened to Holly and Lynn after they were captured on that deserted road — the only clue we have is that she said “I lost the baby” right before jumping off the clock tower. It seems that her fixation with Clive is related to this, as though she considers him a replacement for the child she apparently lost. I’m beginning to agree with Jersey Cajun that some answers on this matter are way overdue.

I am thoroughly enjoying the growth of Kirbee’s character as these real-world, terrible, stressful situations settle in and reshape her. Good for you, Kirbee.

I was praying Holly would have gotten slapped last week. I have had enough of “rabid Holly” for now.Kirbee knocked “El Raton Loca” off her feet, and into the middle of next week. Either it knocks the sense into Holly or it snapped her tiny neck.If it’s the latter, it may seem funny to some if they come across Clive while burying her.I’m starting to wonder if Holly has been taken over by the same force that resurrected Jim…

Here y’go Holls: Panic Attack"

Let’s see. If I recall right, Holly (1) survived the Apocalypse and the rough early years of Endtown, (2) had the burden of helping Wally adjust to life in Endtown, (3) stowed away on a failed quest to destroy a Topsider rocket that evolved and ended traumatically, (4) got locked up for a long period of time for being an unfriendly acquaintance of Linda, (5) “lost the baby,” possibly early on, possibly then and there [possibly Wally’s], (6) tried and failed to kill herself, (7) demanded that Wally take her away from Endtown as political events spiraled out of control, (8) discovered a destroyed mutant community, (9) was threatened by Jim and Sarah, (10) was captured and further threatened by the inhabitants of Unity, and now (11) has lost her friend Clive.Pretty rough time, could possibly unhinge anyone. Feel free to add incidents, ‘cause I’m not sure I’m remembering them all.*By the way, what is happening back in Endtown?

Thanks Kirbee, she needed that. Lets just hope it didnt break what sliver of sanity she was holding onto…

Also, is it just me.. or are Holly’s teeth getting bigger?

My concern is that Kirbee might have unwittingly broken Holly’s neck. Mutants may be tough and heal fast but Kirbee is a lot larger than Holly and that slap was pretty hard.Schism Jim said that he knew how Holly dies. Was this what he saw? Death at the hands of a well intentioned ditz?If Holly dies, will she have a post mortem conversation with Aaron Marx? Hmmm…I think that would be stretching it.Frankly, I hope the above is all wrong. I’d rather see Holly live and hopefully heal.

One nice thing about Kirbee’s height is that if Holly charges her after this, Kirbee can probably just hold Holly up by her scruff, out of reach of anyone, until Holly winds down.

Is Irving the bug anthro?

This scene is quite shocking. In a sense, I’m a little dismayed by the number of readers who are happy that someone hit Holly, and who say she deserved it.Holly is cracking from the accumulated mental trauma of events up to the present, and I think we are about to learn some horrible events from her past, hitherto suppressed, that have been slowly poison her and wounding her from the inside. The last thing she needs is to be wounded from the outside as well.She needs to be brought back into coordination with her environment, yes. She needs to be listened to and heard, We’ll see what Kirbee’s slap will achieve, maybe some dramatic event that will force Wally to act by re-connecting with her. But I won’t be on the sidelines, cheering Kirbee on and saying"I wanted to do that."Yes, this has been dramatic story-telling, brilliant if not pleasant. I suspect we should get ready for Mister Neathery to spill the beans on Holly’s morbid skeletons. In due course, they can be exorcised.One final point. Significantly, it was Clive who pulled Holly out of the stupor she had been in, ever since the Milk Trial. He spoke to her with tough love, and it was his direct and practical words that were the first things that managed to get through to her.

In a way, Holly is not unlike Flask. It should be noted that, in the beginning, Philomena Flask was to some degree compassionate. She didn’t quite buy into the Topsider dogma and her first act in the flashback was to release a condemned man. The combined stresses of falling in love, being abandoned at a critical time and being captured and tortured bent Flask into the psychotic woman we knew for most of her time in the strip.Holly has a dark past of her own. We know about the monster and their capture. I’m guessing she and Lynn were exposed then and that they mutated in captivity. I’m guessing that she “lost the baby” at that time and that Lynn never made it out. I’m guessing that Holly papered over the pain she felt about this, I don’t think she told Doc Chase about it. The milk trial made it all come out. Now losing Clive has sent her off the deep end.Still, I can’t fault Kirbee for slapping her any more than I can fault Holly for punching Flask.

If she doesn’t get a grip now, there is no hope for her. Pity, but in this universe you have to let the hopeless go, else they cause the collapse of the community. Kirby is looking better all the time.

Well, if it’s a true “last man, last woman” situation, any offspring would be siblings. So we could look forward to the planet being repopulated with genetically challenged people.

Awful late to be posting; not sure if anyone will read this. May have to re-post Monday..I echo the concerns of a few, that Holly should not have been slapped. Only in Hollywood or other fiction does the physical act of hitting someone restore sanity – or other ridiculous things such as initiating and cancelling amnesia..I would add that, if Holly were about to put hands on Chic, intervention would certainly be called for. And, I suppose, imminent danger to Chic was implied..But I maintain that the blow that Holly received will do nothing to correct her mental condition..Moving on..There has been a lot said lately about a thing called “I” and that this “I” is what possessed Jim after what we were led to believe was his death, somewhere around the time Holly chewed off his fingers..Having followed this story since the incursion into what we now know was Unity, I’m trying to figure out what you guys are talking about..Jim got “schism syndrome” when Sarah threw herself at Piotr, that much we know. And Jim did seem to come back from the dead after his encounter with Holly..But what is this “I” thing, and was Jim the first instance of this new complication?

Really. A good sedative might just relax her enough to sleep for a decent amout iof time and when she woke up she might be able to be brought to her senses, gently.I physical blow might hurt bad enough to release her endorphans, which would help too.