Tell me, Joyce
on January 2, 2019 at 1:01 amChapter: Unfinished Business
Location: Bart O'Ryan law offices
Probably my favorite drawing of Bart O’Ryan. Well, favorite canonical drawing. The Lawsome Bart O’Ryans were pretty hard to beat.
Bart’s pulling off a huge-ass Walter Peck Maneuver, it seems. Just like Walter Peck, he’s making complete and utter sense, given the information he’s privy to. Unfortunately, he’s just forcibly shut down the Ghostbusters’ containment unit, and Gozer’s about to show up.
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Maybe SEMMF should’ve actually told the government about the coming Martian invasion instead of keeping it to themselves. Then they might not have been shut down.
That would probably require disclosing a bit about WHY the Martians are coming, and that has managed to stay redacted. Note that the previous strip mentioned Linda had been institutionalized, but not the genocide that prompted it. And if they tried to give the same half-information now with the leaks, the discerning eye of the public may well notice something about her record and put the last pieces together.
Given the degree of trouble Linda would get in, it makes sense she’s not disclosing. It’s terrible and endangers millions and makes her a pretty bad person to put her self-preservation above literally everyone else’s, but it makes SENSE and is in line with Linda’s general pretty awful decisions.
I mean, SEMME does know by this point that the why is because the Britjas did it. Linda isn’t actually implicated in the crime anymore.
just those UNserious attacks, like THREE years ago
That’s some seemingly uncharacteristic remorseful look on Sarah
or maybe I’m imagining it idk
She does look like maybe she’s having a second thought or two.
Yeah, it looks like she’s having second thoughts, but it doesn’t sell for me. Given how gleeful she was about destroying Joyce’s life in this scene prior, nothing in this strip seems like it would get through when nothing else did.
I think she might actually think that Bart’s going too far and might have made a huge mistake, especially with Joyce’s reaction after Walky comforts her and leads her out.
Even hardhearted people can see folly in things at times…or she’s actually only putting on a false facade because Bart is paying her, whichever makes the most sense.
I think it would fit fine if we didn’t just see her being all smug like, one strip ago.
Isn’t Joyce still wanted for, y’know, killing somebody? Gonna let that one go, Sarah? Okay.
He’s not law enforcement. He can expose her, but he’s not in a position to arrest her. And in all the nasty stuff in this scene, I didn’t hear anything about her being currently wanted or a fugitive, at least yet. (I’m a sloppy reader so maybe I missed it.) What’s he going to do right now?
Actually, given the known history of the US military and intelligence services overstepping their boundaries and attempting to cover things up even at this point in time, O’Ryan just comes across as absurdly naive here. Given developments since this time, he’s only grown more naive-seeming with hindsight.
Ikr his logic is so absurd it cracks me up.
I don’t know, I read the “but ofcourse they wouldn’t be hiding anything” as very sarcastic.
And frankly, if they are hiding another serious threat, that’s all the more reason to shut them down. Or more practically, replace the top level management, find out those secrets, wind down operations or transfer responsibilities to another agency as appropriate.
Shutting them down cold on a moment’s notice is inappropriate under pretty much any circumstances.
It took me a few tries to read it correctly, but “of course they wouldn’t be hiding anything” isn’t referring to the military. “They” is SEMME. I had to mentally rephrase it to “We have a capable military, in case SEMME is hiding any larger threats. But of course they wouldn’t be hiding anything, would they?”
….aaaand I think I misread you as well! WHOOPS, please disregard, my bad.
Wait, are you saying that Lawsome isn’t canon?!?
I wouldn’t compare it to Walter Peck necessarily. Peck was maybe in the right, but was also very driven by Venkman being a total asshole and not letting Peck do his job of simply inspecting the Containment Unit. Granted, Peck may have still come to the conclusion that the Containment Unit needed to be shut down, but he probably would’ve listened to Egon for a minute if he hadn’t been so pissed off.
Bart O’Ryan, on the other hand, just seems to be gunning for SEMME really hard for not as much of a discernible reason. Also, his question about SEMME keeping secrets really doesn’t make all that much sense, since keeping secrets is their job.
To that point, Peck has become one of my favorite characters in the Ghostbusters comic. He knows they provide an essential service, but he doesn’t have to like them personally.
I feel like anyone would be gunning for an organization that:
1. Is known to be responsible for abducting who knows how many young adults and forcibly drafting them after faking their deaths,
2. Was found to have been suppressing the existence of hostile aliens from the public, and
3. Has failed to provide any good reason for either of these practices.
Hell, even WE, the readers, don’t have a great reason for these. There’s no reason to fake the abductee’s deaths: the Aliens they’re fighting already knows who they are all! There’s no reason to hide that the Aliens exist, except for Big Boss covering her ass from the time she did all that genocide! (Which, yes, brainwashing, but BOY did that cause a lot of problems, and Linda didn’t know she had been brainwashed when she chose to put that policy in place to begin with).
But hey, SEMME’s the best chance at stopping the Martian invasion. Which…they’re ALSO keeping secret, despite there being no damn Martians left to keep it secret from.
The individual agents are sympathetic, but SEMME as a whole really isn’t. Can’t really fault Bart at all for thinking something stinks in Denmark.
Or I guess when Henry put that policy in place. I’m very tired, sorry.
And if he was showing any sympathy at all for the agents who were abducted and had their lives destroyed, he might be more sympathetic himself. But he isn’t, his vendetta is clearly against them as much as it is against the organisation as a whole.
So, Sarah gets the first inkling that she’s hurt a good person, a realisation that she wouldn’t fully admit to anyone until the world is coming to an end around her.
When’s Other Other Rachel showing up again?
Of course I don’t trust Bart here: He’s finger-tenting.