Jim versus the Settlepocalypse
Jun. 5th, 2008 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreadedcandiru2As we launch into Jim's last great plotline in earnest, it looks as if Lynn might be pulling out all the stops. We were, after all, given a strip that wasn't the typical substandard sort of idiocy we've come to expect from the Declining Years. Instead, it hearkened back to the glory days of the mid 1990s. If she can maintain the quality she started with, she'll have earned back a lot of the good will she squandered trying to convince the world that the sordid behavior the Pattersons wasted their lives on was somehow good and noble.
On that note, there is a lot of unpleasantness she tried to transmute into heroism. So far, we've seen:
- John uprooting his family without taking their hopes or dreams into consideration at Mike's behest so he can have a large lot in which to build the eyesore model train layout of his dreams. Even though he did eventually realize that his daughter wasn't being moody for moodiness's sake, it didn't modify his behavior.
- Mike himself ignoring his family's needs for the sake of churning out derivative trash destined to be dissected in English classes for decades to come.
- April destroying every friendship she ever had because of her silly belief that that's how things are done.
These are unpleasant things but they pale in comparison to the ultimate example of wasting heroic means on mean ends: the Settlepocalypse. We know that what Liz and Anthony had in high school was a mild infatuation that would have petered out if left alone. It was not, though. Elly was so entranced by how cute these two people who had little in common besides being at the periphery of high school society to know or care that puppy love couldn't be built into anything lasting. Worse, nobody in the immediate vicinity seems to care what happened to the people whose lives were affected by the need the turn them into a pale copy of John and Elly's crappy marriage. If only the Pattersons could somehow be made to pull their heads out of the sand, they might realize that the pleasant wastes of time they've embarked upon really aren't all that important.
I think that saying goodbye to Jim might offer these people some well-needed perspective. Liz and Anthony might indeed get married but they'd do so with the knowledge that their alleged romance was not the central thing they thought it was, that there are other needs and concerns to be dealt with. Who knows. It might even get a Kool-Aid Drinker or two to wonder why everyone was racing around worrying about it in Jim's hour of need.
On that note, there is a lot of unpleasantness she tried to transmute into heroism. So far, we've seen:
- John uprooting his family without taking their hopes or dreams into consideration at Mike's behest so he can have a large lot in which to build the eyesore model train layout of his dreams. Even though he did eventually realize that his daughter wasn't being moody for moodiness's sake, it didn't modify his behavior.
- Mike himself ignoring his family's needs for the sake of churning out derivative trash destined to be dissected in English classes for decades to come.
- April destroying every friendship she ever had because of her silly belief that that's how things are done.
These are unpleasant things but they pale in comparison to the ultimate example of wasting heroic means on mean ends: the Settlepocalypse. We know that what Liz and Anthony had in high school was a mild infatuation that would have petered out if left alone. It was not, though. Elly was so entranced by how cute these two people who had little in common besides being at the periphery of high school society to know or care that puppy love couldn't be built into anything lasting. Worse, nobody in the immediate vicinity seems to care what happened to the people whose lives were affected by the need the turn them into a pale copy of John and Elly's crappy marriage. If only the Pattersons could somehow be made to pull their heads out of the sand, they might realize that the pleasant wastes of time they've embarked upon really aren't all that important.
I think that saying goodbye to Jim might offer these people some well-needed perspective. Liz and Anthony might indeed get married but they'd do so with the knowledge that their alleged romance was not the central thing they thought it was, that there are other needs and concerns to be dealt with. Who knows. It might even get a Kool-Aid Drinker or two to wonder why everyone was racing around worrying about it in Jim's hour of need.
