Home Stretch 5: Who is the winner of the Hybrid?

Now, we all know that when the time-freeze takes full effect, the characters' development will stop stone dead in their tracks. Instead of watching the life stories of a flawed group of suburbanites, we'll be witnessing the adventures of a group of ageless idiot stereotypes who race around making puns. Let's us consider for a second or two who comes of the worst in this zombification. The worst off, of course, are Jim and Iris. Not only is he gonna be trapped in his body forever, she, barring a miracle, is trapped taking care of him alone. April may be trapped as a teenaged ChewToy, the natural but of universal scorn, but at least she can complain about her lot in life and expect to be heard so she's marginally less pathetic. Jelly and JSTF are in the middle ground between winners and losers. They aren't gonna get any older so they can avoid what's happening to Jim but they also can't really dislodge their youngest child from their lives like they clearly yearn to do. Merrie and Robin may never grow up but they're young enough to not resent it so they're sort of in the winners' circle. Their mother is also sort of a winner because she gets to rub her mother's nose in how great her life is, having successfully become part of the family she envied. She's also deluded enough to think she can change Mike, so her mild dementia prevents her from wrathful thoughts. Liz is about to have an improbable and undeserved romantic ending handed to her on a tray so she and whoever are runner up in the Zombie Foob Rally. The real winner here is, of course, Mike. Not only has he taken over the Pattermanse, he'll also be rich enough to buy and sell it fifty times over. Add in the fact that he gets to be in his early thirties forever and you'll see that he comes out miles ahead of everyone else.