561

Won
Posted on July 21, 2020 by David M Willis

561 thoughts on “Won”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “This is not an airport, you don’t have to announce your departure”

    1. deathjavu

      You do if it’s intended to be a passive-aggressive wordplay-based dunk on your evil wife!

      1. WikiDreamer

        *golf clap*

      2. Needfuldoer

        Hank would stand by his own, but she’s reluctant to come downstairs to see him.

        1. DudeMyDadOwnsaDealership

          And God’s Avatar of Divine Fatherhood in His Own Mind is conveniently too dead to ever have to return the favor after all the supposed excuses Carol has made for him all these years, so there’s no way to prove he wouldn’t just continue to play along and take take take like always.

          A life devoted to being an enabler rarely ends well, and I thank Hank has just realized that applies to both him and Carol. John wasn’t worth it. Jordan wasn’t worth it. “Josh” wasn’t worth it. Bonnie wasn’t worth it. Becky wasn’t worth it. Joyce now seems to have lost desire to be worth it. But that insincere sponge Ross is worth everyone throwing themselves under a bus?!
          Probably honest to God believed he was devoting he best years of his life to a bunch to would stand by their own beyond this human prawn-version of hardcore crew-gangbangery, too.

          Helps if you see it as a precautionary tale….Can and does happen to any of us.

    2. Rose by Any Other Name

      Mike drop.

      … oh wait…

      1. Nick

        BAHAHAHAHAHA
        I should feel bad about it but that made me laugh so much.

      2. Brendan Louis

        how dare…
        https://wompampsupport.azureedge.net/fetchimage?siteId=7575&v=2&jpgQuality=100&width=700&url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.kym-cdn.com%2Fentries%2Ficons%2Ffacebook%2F000%2F026%2F618%2FZEBxqIA.jpg

        1. Enkrod

          https://media3.giphy.com/media/SuIDKboVhHgtLPG6zm/giphy.gif

        2. Rose by Any Other Name

          … I’m too scared to check the links. Has anyone else braved them?

        3. Jason Rivest

          I have. Nothing to be scared about. Tom from Tom & Jerry, and the Greta Thunberg at the UN.

        4. Tan

          They are just meme reply images to express outrage. They are neither NSFW nor mentally/emotionally scarring.

        5. a/snow/mous/e

          Speak for yourself! That cat is an attempted mouse killer! D:

        6. Tan

          https://i.redd.it/tya8ycddg2t21.jpg

      3. JasonAW3

        Too late!!! He already did!

  2. Foxhack

    “You won.”

    This… isn’t about winning.

    1. Axel

      someone from her specific shitty church died. that means they all (everyone else) won, because anyone not in her shitty church is actively against it in her eyes

      1. Axel

        actively meaning they care about and feel accomplishment at the death, other than ‘thank goodness he can’t get my kids again’

      2. bubba0077

        This is what happened when you not only build your entire religion around a savior who is a martyr, but also build your entire current culture around being martyrs, even when you are not actually being persecuted at all.

        1. Lumino

          Come on, now, let’s not blame her shitbaggery on Christ. If people at her church saw Historical Jesus from Shortpacked they’d crucify him again.

        2. RacingTurtle

          “oh no, not again”

        3. Opus the Poet

          That quote is from a bowl of petunias, not Historical Jesus.

        4. MM

          It can be two things.

        5. SuperZero

          I suspect it has been said more than once.

        6. Ray Radlein

          Oh no, not again

        7. poofdepoof

          I don’t know why I can’t reply directly to Ray Radlein’s joke but I just came here to say that I reaaaally like it.

        8. SuperZero

          Comments can only nest so far so that they don’t get squished too much. We’re at the limit, so there’s no “Reply” button on these comments.

        9. Needfuldoer

          This better?

          “I died in the most painful and inhumane way trying to teach Judea how to get into the kingdom of Heaven, and this knowledge is mostly used to smuggle in some strange talking hedgehog.”

        10. Captain Oblivious

          https://media.tenor.com/images/f92b83dd895c8b2f2ea7040e67f87d39/tenor.png

        11. bubba0077

          The ‘also’ is important in my assessment. It isn’t about Christ, it’s about certain sects keying in on only the martyrdom aspect and building their entire ethos around that while ignoring everything else he is supposed to have taught.

        12. Geneseepaws

          Ignoring the poor, the hungry, Yada yada, it so bad for society as a whole, if one religion focuses on death instead of focusing on life.

        13. thejeff

          Yeah, it’s not really blaming Christ, but just one of the ways people interpret the message. It’s a pretty striking one though, at least in modern times. There’s a huge emphasis on Christians being persecuted for their faith today in parts of the world where Christianity is overwhelmingly dominant that doesn’t really make sense without some deeper motivation.

          It’s not ubiquitous though. Catholicism, for example, puts a lot of emphasis on martyred saints and the like, but I don’t think it had the same kind of “you will be persecuted for your faith” concept throughout most of its history.

        14. Captain Oblivious

          Maybe it’s because they already did that to found their faith, and have actually been persecuted since then too (various times/conflicts), so they do not feel the need to make up bs persecution stories today, to validate themselves with their identity.

        15. thejeff

          But all of Christianity descends from that same persecutions at the founding and Protestants were persecuted after splitting from the dominant Catholic Church as well.

        16. C.T Phipps

          I feel that’s a weird way of saying. “I support my crappy neighbor because I’m a vicious homophobe and hate that he failed.”

      3. Freemage

        The belief that all evil stems from a single source is actually pretty common among conservative Christians–there’s even a Chick Tract that displays the Devil as a hydra, with heads all labeled different ‘evils’ including Communism, Homosexuality, Paganism, Islam and Atheism. Basically, anyone who is not in their particular sect of Christianity is part of the singular ‘you’ against whom they struggle.

        1. Cabbage Jack

          Don’t forget Catholics! Jack Chick sure hated those cats!

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      For some people, everything is about winning.

      1. clif

        For others, it’s about everyone else losing.

        1. BarerMender

          Amen

        2. Shariku

          And for some, in a weird messed up way, everything is about losing, and making sure everyone knows that you’re the victim.

        3. Allandrel

          Oh, so you’ve met my mother?

      2. David

        For others, everything is about whining. And yet for others, about winnying.

    3. Meagan

      Maybe it doesn’t have to be, but it is. If Toedad had his way and Becky got kidnapped to be “straightened out,” then we’d definitely say that she “lost,” ergo, that not happening means the kids won. Of course, Linda isn’t really on Team Joyce and Co, so saying “You won” probably lines up more with Axel’s comment.

    4. Nah

      Like, it paints a weird version of the story where Linda and the rest of the world are in some fight against him rather than one of Linda’s family having been the victim of unprovoked violence from the guy.

      1. Captain Oblivious

        Exactly. You have to be insane to try telling someone that they won, after their child was kidnapped. Like, couch jumping nuts.

        But there’s the rub, “you’ve gotta be nuts, to argue with crazy people.”

  3. Stu

    Nicely done, Hank!
    Also, holy crap that logic there – “If you listen to the adults, then you don’t get hurt!” has to be right up there with “If you had my dinner cooked, I wouldn’t have had to hit you!” in terms of excusing and minimizing abusive behaviors.

    1. Mra

      Which Adult was Ross supposed to listen to? I’m guessing it wasn’t any of the ones he did, or else he wouldn’t be dead,

      1. abacuswizard

        “Which Adult was Ross supposed to listen to?”

        Maybe the one who told him to love his neighbor?

        1. Foxhack

          Why would Christians listen to that brown fella in sandals?

        2. StClair

          Don’t forget the blue sash. Kind of important.

        3. a/snow/mous/e

          Never forget the blue sash 😛

        4. a/snow/mous/e

          (I believe that’s a Shortpacked! reference?)

        5. Aro

          For some reason 99.9% of all artist’s renderings of Jesus have him wearing a blue sash.

        6. 3oranges

          Why not? They made blue from dead snails!

        7. ktbear

          The one who said love your neighbour, whose father dictated an entirely ambiguous book that suggests gays and lesbians are going to go straight to hell, at least in some interpretations?

        8. Rose by Any Other Name

          Oh oh!
          I recently read that the anti-gay stuff is actually a mistranslated of some anti-pedophilia stuff. As in “a man should not lay with a young boy”.

          That said, I read this on the internet, so grain of salt at best, but still, if it’s true, that’s a pretty major fuck-up on someone’s part.

        9. King Daniel

          I remember one of my older sisters bringing the same thing up once in an in-person convo years back (she also mentioned, IIRC, how in the case of the Roman centurion who had that “male servant” that Jesus healed long-distance, said “servant” was actually the centurion’s lover).

        10. JohnInCA

          Eh.
          It’s arguable.

          But years ago I realized it doesn’t actually matter. Religion is more then the holy text (even if they claim it’s super-important), it’s also the teachings, values and culture. And regardless of what the text may or may not have meant in the original Hebrew over 2000 years ago, the current common interpretation has held steady for centuries.

          You’re not going to undermine that by going “um, actually…” and trying to argue that their interpretation of the text is wrong. You can undermine it other ways, and they may eventually come around to the whole “their interpretation fo the text is wrong” bit, but that will always, 100% of the time, be a post hoc rationalization of their changing beliefs, not the impetus of their changing beliefs.

        11. Rose by Any Other Name

          That’s fair. Still, as a non-Christian looking in, it’s interesting to see how some of these things might have worked.

          Also, on that same point, I’ve also encountered a lot of modern churches that have simply chosen to be better. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but years ago, I dated both a Jewish lesbian and a Catholic lesbian* (years apart, not at the same time) both of whom came from denominations of their respective religion that fully embraced and accepted LGBT+ individuals. When I got introduced around, I got the “so when you two gonna get married?” shtick rather than any hate.
          So yeah, I get what you mean about the text being less important than people just choosing to be better. And it’s super nice when it happens. ^^

          * Technically she was bisexual, not lesbian, but the sentence flow and grammar worked better using lesbian. This note included for accuracy.

        12. thejeff

          Pretty much. Despite all the theological arguments and Bible passage quoting, huge amounts of Christian belief aren’t particularly sourced in the Bible’s text.

        13. BarerMender

          I’ve read that the quotation in Hebrew reads, “You shall not have the lyings of a man in the lyings of a woman.” Now you tell me what that means.

        14. Reltzik

          … women aren’t supposed to lie about a man lying?

        15. David

          Anal is reserved for males. Or “no strapons”.

        16. Azhrei Vep

          I’ll go with Hellsing Ultimate Abridged’s interpretation: “So as long as I don’t fuck a man in the vagina, it’s fine.”

        17. Vukodlak

          That the old testament only condemns homosexuality between
          men and not between women.

        18. Freemage

          There’s even a passage in one of the later books that says that God created lesbians to punish men for being unpious. So you go, girls–you’re doing the Lord’s work!

        19. a/snow/mous/e

          Men should not lie with women.
          A bold stance against heterosexuality.

        20. a/snow/mous/e

          oh my god could you imagine a CHURCH OF THE GAYS
          heterophobia
          all love must be queer

        21. Droewyn

          I hope they don’t take a stance against in vitro fertilization, otherwise they’ll be a short-lived sect.

        22. Knuf Wons

          Were you not aware that gay is immortal?

        23. CJ

          The problem is that the text, whichever version, is taken to be the god‘s one god’s true word without any individual and cultural bias in it.
          As if, if god is all encompassing and so much greater than humans, any human would be able to understand all of it.

          Hu, the text box is cut off. If the sentences have double words, that’s the reason.

        24. Kyle Voltti

          Blessed are the cheese makers

        25. Joe Covenant

          Well, yes, but obviously thats not meant to be taken literally – it refers to ANY manufacturers of dairy products.

      2. James

        I think the logic goes that if Ross’s daughter had listened to him, then he (the adult) would not have been sent to prison, bailed out, drafted into a kidnapping conspiracy and ultimately murdered.

        He had no agency in these events: it was all Becky’s fault.

        1. Bunny

          Blaming women is the fundamentalist MO. If Eve hadn’t eaten that apple, we’d still be in Eden.

        2. Zach

          Eve ate something…
          https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-06-17

        3. RowenMorland

          I think my favourite SMBC version of this was when the Tree of Knowledge was a restaurant.

        4. Geneseepaws

          It gets worse, “if Eve hadn’t Fed the apple to Adam,…”
          Other inside of the coin is, if she hadn’t, they’d still be the only two people on this planet. Without the knowledge of good and evil there’s no Hummenah-hummenah! Which leads to children, often.

        5. Freemage

          Not quite. See the Jewish legend of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who was banished from Eden because she refused to lay beneath him. So apparently, so long as they were doing missionary position, Adam and Eve could’ve been pumping out lots and lots of little kids.

          Now, who THOSE kids were supposed to sleep with is a little dodgy…..

        6. CJ

          As god put a sign on Kain’s forehead for all to know, there must have been other people around to see than Adam and Eve.

        7. RowenMorland

          Not eating the apple is like super-contraception.

        8. Bagge

          The poor man. We must understand what he’s been through.

        9. Meagan

          Well, he was doing his duty as a parent, in his world-view.
          It’s the same mindset of anyone be who is overconfident in their own decision making framework.

      3. Tannen

        Technically, you could say if he had listened to Blaine, then Blaine wouldn’t have had to kill him.

        1. SuperZero

          But all the victims would have died.

      4. DSL

        No, Ross (and I’m speaking in Mrsbrown-ese here) is one of the adults to be listened to. And he, of course was listening to the version of Jesus that best excuses her attitude and that of the alleged church.

    2. Diner Kinetic

      There’s an interesting point in here somewhere about how making right/wrong issues into problems of individual virtue instead of problems of like what’s actually happening is really useful for abuse, victim-blaming and rationalization, but I refuse to write comment section essays. Still, it’s definitely an interesting window into Carol’s terrible mind. It doesn’t matter that the kids were traumatized; just that Ross was a good person because he didn’t do anything she sees as capital W “wrong”

      1. Opus the Poet

        See, this comment is why this comment section needs to have a “Tweet this” button, to go with the upvote button we still don’t have.

        1. Sunny

          I think we’re better off without those buttons.

        2. elebenty

          That would be welcome!

      2. Droewyn

        I don’t think the kids being traumatized has honestly occurred to her. Why would they be? NoNe Of ThEm WeRe HuRt.

        Joyce is just practicing willful rebellion egged on by that red-headed pervert child of Satan; she’s not avoiding God and her own mother for a REASON.

        1. KryssLaBryn

          Remember, the only hurt/damage that counts is physical!! If it doesn’t leave a bruise, it didn’t hurt, and tHeReFoRe dOeSn’T cOuNt.

        2. Jamie

          Five bucks says they’d be cool with physical damage if it’s from an authority figure.

    3. regina phalange

      Not just excusing and minimizing abuse, but actively facilitating it too. This kind of phrase could be wielded directly by abusers in the way you mention, but it could also open the door for other abusers to take advantage more indirectly. Teaching children that some people are inherently trustworthy is a major way that pedophiles can get access.

    4. Carl Muckenhoupt

      And at the risk of a derail, I have to say that in today’s America, it also really brings to mind rhetoric used by and about the police. “If he had just complied with their instructions and not resisted, he’d still be alive.” (Which is, on top of everything, objectively false in multiple cases I can name.)

      1. RacingTurtle

        Relevant derail, considering that the Carols of the world are definitely among those who blame the victims in police brutality incidents!

      2. MM

        I mean, Carol is basically proving “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and it wouldn’t matter”…

      3. brute

        derail schmerail, this was a good thing to say here.

      4. Wizard

        Yeah, kinda hard to “comply” when you’ve got two (or more) cops yelling mutually contradictory orders at the same time. Or some yahoo with no uniform or insignia kicking in your door in the middle of the night.

        1. thejeff

          Or when you comply too quickly and they shoot you for making a sudden move.

          “He was reaching for his waist. I thought he was going for a gun.” “You told him to show you his license.”

      5. David

        Well, doh. How much blunter does The Willis have to get? That was so obviously the reference he was making that I did not feel it needed pointing out.

    5. Geneseepaws

      Damn, it must have cost Mr.Willis a PILE emotional capital to work through this page. Glad he did, it’s awesome, but dang! Having to draw a Mom run off her rails,… damn.
      Tip o’ the hat, Dave.

      1. David

        Carol isn’t running off her rails. That is sort of the point, with the rails left hanging over an abyss into which the bridge had crumbled and Carol’s engine full on track.

    6. SuperZero

      It really depends on whether the adult is saying “Doing that thing has inherent consequences, and you could hurt yourself,” or “Doing that thing is something I don’t like, and I could hurt you.”

      It’s a phrase that can mean more than one thing.

      1. Meagan

        If you believe, as Ross did, that being gay has an inherent consequence of going to Hell for eternity, then you believe you are in the first category, and any threat you bring to that person is nothing compared to eternal damnation.

        1. SuperZero

          That’s not really what I meant by inherent consequences.
          It’s part of a parent’s job to stop a child from doing dangerous things, for example. Do that thing and doing the thing will harm you.

          “Listen to me and you won’t get hurt,” is a very different phrase if I’m an expert helping you do something dangerous than it is if you’re a hostage.

        2. thejeff

          But, in their ideology, that is exactly what she and Ross were doing.

          It is their job to stop their kids from doing gay things because that will lead to eternal torment.

        3. Meagan

          Yeah like thejeff said – Ross and Carol do see themselves as experts helping their kids through a dangerous life filled with temptation.

        4. SuperZero

          Are y’all actually having trouble with the idea I’m expressing here or is this just pedantry?

        5. thejeff

          Maybe I did misunderstand – thinking about Carol and more “If Becky obeyed Ross, none of this would have happened”, rather than “Do what the kidnappers tell you because they’re adults”.

        6. SuperZero

          “Do what I say and nobody gets hurt,” is a threat, and is what she intended.

          Her actual words, though, aren’t inherently wrong. Those same words mean something different if you’re a young kid “helping” make cookies with parents who don’t want you to handle knives or touch the oven. Or from staying up too late and being too tired for school the next day. Or in any other case where the adult (or perhaps the expert, if you are an adult) is helping to navigate things you haven’t internalized yet. Situations where doing the wrong thing is what hurts you, not any “punishment.”

          Perhaps it wasn’t relevant, but that’s all I was musing on.

    7. Usmagrad87

      Appeal to consequences logical fallacy https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Consequences
      One of evangelicals favorite logical fallacies.

      1. Needfuldoer

        And of course, good old DARVO.

        Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender

      2. SuperZero

        …because it has the word “consequences” in it? Otherwise that has nothing to do with what I said.

        I also note that one of the examples on that page is very poor: “If there is objective morality, then good moral behavior will be rewarded after death.”
        Those two things are unrelated. The fact that the example person used the fallacy to draw a faulty conclusion is undermined by the fact that their statement was already illogical.

  4. FLUFFY

    Carol made me feel a smidge of something that I generously consider appreciation for Linda.

    I’M ANGRY ABOUT THIS

    1. EvilMidnightLurker

      Yeah, it’s kind of amazing and horrible.

    2. showler

      Not to worry. As soon as it is pointed out that her arguments could apply to her telling her own kids what to do, she’ll start arguing against herself.

      1. FLUFFY

        Phew. Okay, I was worried for a few seconds there.

        It’s so horrible for some personal reasons. STORYTIME™: A long time ago, in high school, I had this advisor who I really grew to loathe. Much like Linda, she expressed whatever affection she had in a way that was so self-centered that it barely felt like affection. This was someone who repeatedly lied to my face and didn’t think I was smart enough to be able to cross the street. I should be hella mad at Linda all the time, because that’s just the kind of person she is.

        And I’m actually madder at Carol.

        Huh.

        1. jmsr7

          Probably because Linda is an awful person, but Carol comes from an awful culture/religion. Carol might not have been an awful person if her church wasn’t awful.

        2. David

          It was mentioned a longer time ago, but Joyce’s parents did a lot of church-hopping before selecting their current one (and I assume that most of the search was driven by her since Hank seems more apt at fitting in). It is no accident Carol ended up where she is.

        3. Meagan

          I had the impression it was driven more by Hank once he saw various church’s corruptions.

        4. Droewyn

          Same.

    3. deathjavu

      Let me fix that for you: Linda was using her past marriage to the Dean to try and get Amber kicked out of school for something her dad did, just at the beginning of last strip.

      Carol may make Linda look good by comparison but that’s like saying a dog turd looks better than vomit. It might be true but both are disgusting.

      1. Miri

        I am now trying to work out which I would rather have to clean off the carpet. I am mainly making myself feel very thankful we have a carpet cleaner, mind.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Turds might leave a stain, but at least they’re solid so you can pick them up. Vomit soaks in.

          Source: have always had cats.

        2. Miri

          We used to have a cat whose normal poop texture was rather soft… We are currently potty training a toddler…

        3. Needfuldoer

          Oh, shit…

      2. thejeff

        Yeah, Carol actually has a point here with the “I suppose you let your kids do whatever they want” and Linda’s response isn’t really that honest. Sure, she probably wouldn’t go as far as supporting a kidnapper, but the big difference here isn’t that but that she doesn’t agree with why Carol supported him.
        I suspect she’d take some pretty drastic actions of her own to shape her kids the way she wants them.

        1. Regalli

          I want Walky out of that house and financially independent from Linda AS SOON AS FUCKING POSSIBLE, especially since we’ve SEEN Linda steal money from one child to leverage ‘proper’ behavior out of her. It didn’t work because Sal gets angry in response to this bullshit, but Walky’s a freeze and fawner.

        2. Droewyn

          I’d like to say that, having found his spine once, Walky will be fine, but he hasn’t had to hold his position against anything beyond stunned silence yet. And knowing Linda, that won’t happen again.

        3. Regalli

          He’s also clearly terrified of Linda and her disapproval, and he’s not ready to cut her out of his life entirely (which: Fair.) Sal’s pretty much past the point of expecting anything from her parents, and she was still clearly hurt and disappointed when they so thoroughly brushed her off at Freshman Family Weekend. Walky’s only just starting to realize Linda’s got serious issues, and I don’t think he’s connected yet that if her issues with Sal were sometimes arbitrary and sometimes holding her to completely unreasonable standards, that issues she’d develop with Walky would be just as arbitrary and unreasonable.

          I can see the path he’s headed on potentially leading to ‘no, you know what? I’m not subjecting myself to this anymore’ (wanting to expel your friend and fellow kidnapping victim for things her father did to hurt her is so clearly unreasonable that I can see both twins pointing to it later as one of those moments that led to them going no-contact,) but he’s not there yet. And I’d want them to have things in place when they do. (Paperwork, place to live, job, even a small amount of savings to cushion things would help.)

  5. Axel

    yes hank

    1. JessWitt

      Taking the first step to a long time coming divorce.

  6. Newllend(henryvolt)

    Divorce is looking real nice right about now.

    1. NinjaNick

      He deserves to Ann Eiffel her.

      1. Needfuldoer

        [Captain America gets that reference dot gif]

      2. Rabisch

        And quickly. Because after more than 20 years of marriage with her, he looks even dumber that Tom Farrell.

  7. Renadt

    Holy shit. Never expected Carol to swear like that. And holy fuck, just accepting her daughter got kidnapped, bending into pretzels to justify this.

    1. King Daniel

      Carol got an F-Bomb before Joyce

      1. Michael Steamweed

        If Joyce finds out, I imagine she will either (A) never use it ever, or (B) use it every five words. Can’t tell which.

        1. bryy

          You assume Joyce isn’t standing right there.

        2. Droewyn

          Oh gods, Joyce bearing witness to this conversation… I don’t want that for her ever, but holy shit would I like to *see* it.

        3. Michael Steamweed

          Yeah, that would be a bit traumatic for Joyce. But I want to see her delivering a total mic-drop moral bomb statement putting both mothers in their respective places simultaneously.

      2. AutobotDen

        Well, Joyce got a “Goddamn” in first, at least.

        1. King Daniel

          And at least three “shits”

        2. chris2315

          I would hope so, constipation is not healthy.

  8. Sirksome

    Hahahahahahaha!!!!!! I hate Carol more now! I kinda knew this would happen though.

    1. Sirksome

      Like there was a point where I was floundering between Carol and Linda for worst mom but it’s Carol. It’s Carol by a long shot. Congratulations.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Yep. Come up to the podium and accept your brown ribbon, Carol.

      2. SuperZero

        Carol is being openly very very evil.
        Linda is essentially criticizing her own behavior. Is lying better?

        In this case, probably! Linda might even learn something; unfortunately there are no witnesses knowledgeable enough to point out the contradiction. Except Charles.

      3. deathjavu

        Carol had third worst parent on lock the instant she let Ross out of jail, and easily takes 2nd now that Ross is dead. Linda is a turd sandwich but she never even came close to “release someone that pointed a gun at my kid.”

        1. FLUFFY

          At least Linda can pretend to be concerned about her children.

        2. JaneDoe

          Hey, Linda is concerned about her children!

          ….If, by “her children” you mean Walky and Billie…

          ….And, by “concerned,” you mean “mildly interested”…

        3. FLUFFY

          And if by “mildly interested” I meant “only barely gives a shit in any of the ways that matter as a parent as long as they succeed, and that’s the best we can hope for…” 😛

        4. deathjavu

          And yet that somehow still beats Carol!

          She hasn’t so much lowered the bar as buried it deep, deep underground.

        5. thejeff

          And at least with Walky, intends to make him succeed in the way she wants with no concern for what he wants. (He thinks he’s majoring in communications, but he’s really going to be a doctor.)

          Hmmm. Who does that remind me of?

        6. deathjavu

          She is completely delusional if she thinks Walky can get into medical school. The average student accepted has shadowed a medical professional, done biology research, has a GPA of 3.7+, etc. etc. I’ve seen the stats when I was helping a friend apply – he had all of that and still wasn’t accepted.

        7. Droewyn

          I’m trying to decide whether Carol outright shunning Jordan for ??? is better or worse than Linda’s treatment of Sal.

          At least banishment offers closure, of a kind. Sal gets the wounds reopened on a regular basis.

      4. Username Taken

        Linda is lawful evil while Carol is neutral evil, I think. Blaine is your classic chaotic evil.

        1. clif

          Toward was (religiously) Lawful Evil, Linda is Neutral Evil, Carol is Annoyingly Evil.

        2. clif

          Toedad.

        3. Username Taken

          I like your breakdown better.

  9. Spam

    thats a big heckin oof buddy, also way to stand on your own

    1. abacuswizard

      Hank is now standing alone.

      In the classic children’s song “The Farmer In The Dell,” the cheese stands alone.

      COULD HANK SECRETLY BE THE CHEESE???

      1. Robbie

        Hank is cheesedad. It’s canon now.

        1. Spam

          mmm cheese

      2. hof1991

        It’s Indiana not Wisconsin. Cheesedads are native to Wisconsin.

  10. Ray Radlein

    Look at Linda suddenly admitting that there exist middle grounds

    1. Wraithy2773

      Aye. It’s doubly weird because… well, she’s super lax with Walky, while being about as harsh on Sal as Toedad was towards Becky.

      Definitely a case where she knows they exist, but god damn if she can’t find them with both hands and a map.

      1. deathjavu

        Look, super lax on one kid and super harsh on the other averages out to a happy medium, just minus the happy.

        1. Rabid Rabbit

          And we know Walky got the super lax due to his constant potty humor! (I’ll see myself out.)

        2. Diner Kinetic

          No no you stay here that was hillarious

      2. Matthew Evan Davis

        I think her big flaw is that she cannot see that Sal has changed, and still treats her like that girl who was lashing out. Part of that is that Sal has given up on the relationship so she can’t see the change, a big part is that they basically cut the ability to see the growth by shipping her off to boarding school, but the biggest part is that I think Linda has those blinders that a lot of adults get where they can’t see their children as anything but what they were at their worst.

        Anyway, because she can’t see the change, she keeps reacting like it’s 13-year-old Sal doing things when everybody else can see that that girl doesn’t exist anymore. Not in that way.

        Carol, on the other hand, seems perfectly willing to sacrifice her children for her god. And to do so without even the remorse of Abraham. Which is way more scary to me.

        1. Fay

          Linda also doesn’t seem to realize that Sal’s lashing out was largely caused by how she treated her from the get go.

          However, she acknowledges that kidnapping and threatening children is wrong, which is such an incredibly low bar that she really shouldn’t get points for it, but it’s still more than you can say for Carol, so…

        2. Miri

          I think Carol gets negative points here? So we don’t need to give Linda points, but we do take some stickers off Carol’s good behaviour chart…

        3. Droewyn

          My mom demanded to know whether I got my tattoo in an effort to piss her off.

          …I was thirty-six.

  11. Ucchan

    Ooooooh

  12. General Tekno

    Oooof, wow, Carol REALLY doesn’t know how much of a nerve she touched there with the “you let YOUR kids do whatever they want” comment.

    Hank has the right idea for sure to NOPE out of this conversation. There are no winners here.

    1. AeromechanicalAce

      I think Hank is noping out of much more than the conversation.

      I suspect this is the moment he Noped out on the marriage, and good for him.

      1. Matthew Evan Davis

        I think he noped out last panel of last comic, but was trying to maintain appearances for Joyce’s sake. This is where he couldn’t do it anymore.

    2. SuperZero

      Linda won. Not sure what she won, but Carol said she did and would Carol every say something untrue?

  13. jaymiechan

    i think this is the point that Carol starts losing people. Hank’s clearly reaching his breakpoint, if Hank reaches it Jocelyne will likely feel free to reach hers and come out…leaving Linda and John as the only stains.

    1. timemonkey

      She’s already started losing people when Joyce realized what she did.

      1. Matthew Evan Davis

        Not to mention whatever happened with Joshua.

        1. Matthew Evan Davis

          Jordan, I mean. Someone else mentioned him further on and I realized I had the wrong brother.

    2. FLUFFY

      I’m really, REALLY hoping that Hank has the strength to turn his back here. I’ve been worried that he might end up so entrenched in fundamentalism that… even if he does make the effort not to judge Becky, there’s only so much he’ll be able to change.

      As for Joyce and Jocelyne…. well. Even if we don’t know if they know it, they’ve absolutely turned their back on Carol.

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        I think Hank’s going to be okay. Remember when he heard the whisper campaign at the church his reaction was to get the girls out of there asap, going so far as to ask someone to give Carol a ride home so they could leave immediately and be on the road before Carol got home.

        1. Matthew Evan Davis

          He’s also left churches that he felt were intolerant before. We’ve never heard about that from Carol, but I get the sense that that has been a bone of contention with them in the past.

      2. Zach

        I was raised pretty liberal, and I still feel nervous around black people. I can’t imagine him ever getting over his conditioning, and that doesn’t make him a piece of shit! Calling Jocelyne ‘daughter’, because ‘his happiness is more important than being correct’, would still be good parenting. At some level, we each have to work with what we’ve got.

        1. Meagan

          Yes I like this

        2. BBCC

          I’m not trans but I don’t think having my gender being treated like a delusion that is just being tolerated to make me happy would make me feel very good. I wouldn’t call that good parenting, though it might be the best Hank is capable of.

      3. Geneseepaws

        We know that Hank has changed churches a couple-a times, for dogma reasons. I worry about Carole’s Catma.

        1. Matthew Evan Davis

          I have wondered sometimes if he hasn’t gone along with their current church because Carol said something about changing all the time. He’s looking for Christ, and she’s looking for an echo chamber, you know?

        2. FLUFFY

          her karma is running over her dogma

    3. DailyBrad

      I wonder a bit about Jordan, but we don’t know too much about him one way or another do we?

      1. Nevermaker

        Just that he doesn’t get along with the rest of the family, that Hank thinks it was because they pressed too hard on him, and that Carol believes the opposite: the specifics haven’t really been clarified.

        1. Meagan

          I’m starting to imagine Jordan is like, a super goth Satanist or something.

      2. Human Bean

        I really hope we’re going to see Jordan sometime, I’m curious about that story.

        1. Meagan

          It’s coming at some point. He’s built up the mystery enough that he must be saving it for a big reveal.

        2. BBCC

          All we know is when Joyce stood up to her parents about not hanging out with Dorothy, Hank said she took more after Jordan than they thought.

    4. David

      A friend of mine had a family with an old-style patriarch as his father. His younger brother, uh, what do you even call it? came out to himself? I mean, you don’t “discover” that you are gay since being gay is a journey, not a destination, even if there are no other roads open. This was kept under the radar because oh God. At some point the middle brother said that he did not want to have this “bad influence” on his children and that the younger brother should not visit home when he was around, or he’ll out them to their father and have him thrown out.

      Well, that was the point of time when the oldest brother and the mother decided that this could not go on and sat down with the family patriarch. Guess who was not welcome to visit afterwards anymore. It wasn’t the youngest.

      A different case and form of “we stand by our own”.

  14. JessWitt

    The misguided fundie stands alone.

  15. Nevermaker

    Mic DROP, Hank. Nicely done.

    1. Wraithy2773

      Please don’t, the last Mike Drop causes so much drama…

      1. Hazel

        Eeeeyyy!

  16. NinjaNick

    Give yourself some fresh air, Hank. There will be hair pulling any second.

  17. Stephen Bierce

    *plays “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” on the hacked Muzak*

  18. Newllend(henryvolt)

    “He didn’t hurt anybody!” I think the teenager he helped put in a coma would disagree with you if he could.

    Also if not for the rebellious actions of her own kids, your kid would be on the back of a milk carton right now and you wouldn’t know what condition she’s in.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      Technically Blaine and Mike are responsible for Mike’s condition; Ross may be liable for helping kidnap the kids but he’s off the hook for Mike’s coma.

      1. Newllend(henryvolt)

        He hit him with a car.

        1. Kyrik Michalowski

          I must have forgotten about that, nevermind then he’s equally liabke for that too then.

        2. poofdepoof

          I now realize that that’s a typo for “liable,” but I had to do a double-take because at first I read “likable” D: (I mean, Mike isn’t the easiest character to like, but gosh!)

        3. thejeff

          Well it would still be as likable as Blaine, which is reasonable.

      2. Segnosaur

        Ross was the one who chased Mike up the stairs putting him in a position where he could fall (if I remember correctly) while blaine was occupied with Amazigirl. So no, he is not off the hook (even if blaine was the one most responsible for the fall.

    2. SuperZero

      Also all the other victims. They were physically hurt, if not seriously (and that’s luck; throwing them down a flight of stairs with bound limbs could have killed someone, easily). And physically isn’t the only hurt.

  19. SonicHowling

    Hank suddenly realizes that for Carol, this is not about right and wrong.

    1. BigDogLittleCat

      Exactly.
      Rather, that Carol’s right and wrong are defined by authoritarianism, not by anything resembling morals.

      1. Matthew Evan Davis

        Which gibes with the people thinking this is going to turn into a divorce because we know that Hank has walked away from institutions that present false morals (to his view) before.

    2. anonymsly

      Also, Hank suddenly realizing that Carol overtly and openly views their baby girl being kidnapped, threatened at gun point, and otherwise brutalized by someone she’d trusted as a child is Nothing Happened To Her.

      He’s noping out of that one too.

      1. bryy

        Yup. It 10000% makes you re-read the strip in which she calls to see if Joyce is okay as something way more sinister and self-centered.

        1. Regalli

          I mean, the ‘I would die for you’ parallel post-first kidnapping was made pretty explicitly, but seeing the minimization on THIS level? Still big to see it stated outright.

    3. SuperZero

      She’s also quite dramatically failing to stand by her own, assuming that should include her daughter.

      1. Matthew Evan Davis

        I think when Joyce sided with Becky Carol made the decision that Joyce was no longer “her own.”

        1. Enkrod

          Oh Carol thinks Joyce is her own, but she thinks her daughter is standing on the wrong side and should stand where Carol stands because she is where “her own” ought to stand, because her point of view is the only valid point of view to her.

        2. Enkrod

          She thinks Joyce is “her own” as in “own her”.

    4. Nah

      Hell, it’s not even about their own childs safety.

    5. Droewyn

      Pretty sure this isn’t a sudden realization, it’s just Hank’s personal breaking point.

  20. Savail

    Charles: Wait, that’s an option?

    1. Newllend(henryvolt)

      Hank Brown, setting an example for husbands and fathers everywhere.

      1. StClair

        Maybe Chuck can also follow the example of his son, and find a vestigial spine somewhere. (At least for a few seconds.)

    2. Kamino Neko

      Dangit, I came in to point to the same thing.

      1. Ron again

        Me too!
        “you can stand up to your wife!?”

    3. Nah

      I have to assume Charles is also at least a bit pissed about someone defending a guy who kidnapped his son. And helped facilitate said kidnapping by letting a guy who already kidnapped someone on this campus free to do it again.

  21. Kyrik Michalowski

    Oooo, Hank is clearly not having any of this bullshit and has decided to piss off and go somewhere else. Carol is clearly surprised that he’s not helping defend Ross and I for one couldn’t be happier.

    Is this the beginning of the end of their relationship?

    1. Owlmirror

      I don’t think she’s surprised that he’s not helping defend Ross.

      I think she’s surprised that he’s not even willing to stand silently by while she does.

    2. AeromechanicalAce

      I hope so. Carol is a Toxic Waste dump and deserves to be ALONE.

      1. Mr. Random

        Yes.
        Alone.
        With her only support system being the very people who also helped the man get out of jail after he shot up a school.

        ….. She’s never going to BE alone. She’ll always have her church standing by her.
        Not to say Hank should stay, just understand that she isn’t going to be alone, even if he does leave.

        1. MM

          Also the one kid who’s still sold on that worldview.

        2. timemonkey

          She could easily make a mistake and have the same toxic behaviour she’s demonstrating end up being turned on her. And she’ll have nobody left to turn to.

        3. Dave

          Would this be before or after Linda sues them into the Stone Age?

        4. Geneseepaws

          I can’t wait for Carole to meet her Savior. That’s gonna be one of the best conversations where, “I know if you’re awake,…I know if you’ve been bad or good,” and Honey you have screwed the pooch.

        5. Geneseepaws

          No Actual canines were abused in the Previous comment.

        6. Matthew Evan Davis

          She might be confused why Heaven is a toy store in Denver, though.

    3. Opus the Poet

      I think the beginning of the end was when Toe Dead threatened Joyce with a gun and Carol endorsed it after.

      1. Miri

        And Joyce asked her father if her mother was a good person because she genuinely couldn’t work it out at that point, forcing him to seriously consider the question and also why his child couldn’t tell any more. Carol was her “perfect mother” and Joyce genuinely believed that and trusted and adored her wholeheartedly when she first went to college… It’s not really surprising Joyce can’t face seeing her at this point.

        1. Meagan

          I thought she asked Jocelyn that?

        2. King Daniel

          Yeah, it was Jocelyne, not Hank.

        3. Miri

          Aah – you’re right! That was the conversation where Joyce asked her that, she hmmed and hawed, and Joyce surprised her by telling her how Hank had accepted Becky, yes? For some reason I thought she had also asked Hank about Carol…

        4. thejeff

          She kind of did, earlier.

          In reply, Hank took her back to college.

  22. DuckDuckMoose

    Go get ‘er, Linda. Your kids deserve better. Carol does not.

  23. Brian K. Pittman

    I have a feeling Joyce is gonna have to adjust to the realities of divorce fairly soon, because Hank looks beyond done with this shit.

    1. Sirksome

      Not much can beat “My wife was okay with our child getting kidnapped and kind of helped it happen” as a reason for a divorce.

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        Hey, it’s not like she was *hurt* you know!

      2. MM

        Too bad Amber’s mom is taken, because “my ex-husband was abusive and has mob ties” would make for some solid commiseration.

        1. BootsyBoom

          “You used to be married to the guy who kidnapped my daughter? Hot damn, let’s get dinner, baby!”

        2. Schpoonman

          “You raised the woman who saved my little girl?” is more where I think MM was going with that.

    2. DailyBrad

      Guessing she and Joe are going to have to talk a lot of shop soon. She’s turned to him in the past for parent issue stuff, and he’s one of the only friends she has who has divorced parents, it’s just him and Amber, and she knows him way more for this purpose.

      1. Miri

        And Sarah. She has already started to talk to big sister about this a little bit…

        But yeah, she seems to find it easiest to talk to Joe about this stuff in general. When he isn’t running away for an easy lay to avoid difficult questions, he is a really good friend to her.

  24. Mra

    Looks like we have something to distract Linda from Amber for a little bit.

    The best leverage to get Linda to stop attacking Amber would likely be Walky threatening to drop out if Amber is expelled, considering how much spine it would take to stand up to his mother and that he was barely able to make the single comment to point out that she doesn’t treat Sal great, that is unlikely.

  25. Ivy

    I honestly would like Linda to get a bit of self reflection after this, because sometimes parents who have made huge mistakes eventually figure it out and make attempts to get better!

    Love Hank not having aaanythjng to do with that defense of Ross.

    1. Hazel

      I feel like Linda could become a better parent (though still not great) but Carol could not.

    2. BBCC

      Hank is the parent you are looking for with mistakes and figuring it out. Linda seems pretty entrenched.

      1. Ivy

        Yeah, I can see that Hank is getting better but I’d like another, please.

        1. BBCC

          Maybe we’ll get lucky with Ethan’s parents – they got over it in the Walkyverse, maybe they will here.

    3. Ron again

      I vote for Carol to come back to her Church to find it has abandoned Ross’ actions as soon as he started to pair up with Blaine. Would make her have to reflect on that stuff.

  26. Lexi

    Holy fluff sakes, Carol, your daughter is *actually* an adult too. Maybe it’s time to admit that she has some agency in her life to do things other than “Listen to this man who is WAVING A GUN IN YOUR FACE AND TYING YOU UP WITH DUCT TAPE”

    1. Ron again

      To be honest, I’d give the words some thought too if someone were to wave a gun in my face and/or my hands were tied.

  27. Laladoria

    Linda may be shitty but she’s nowhere near as shitty as Carol. And thank you for not being a Trash Parent Hank… and because that was excellent timing.

    Now, who’s worse? The guy who kidnapped a bunch of kids to try and get his daughter out of school so he could force her to be straight, or the lady who enabled it, still thinks he did the right thing, and continues to defend him purely because he’s a “man of God”?

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      I’m going to go ahead and say Ross is still worse, if only because he’s actually comitted these actions rather than simply enabling them. That doesn’t mean Carol is much better, Ross is just slightly worse.

      1. Cyrus

        If all this drama had centered on Jocelyne being outed instead of Becky, do you really think she wouldn’t have acted just like Ross?

        1. timemonkey

          She probably would have just cut her out of the family and pretended she doesn’t exist while clamping down harder on her other children.

        2. David

          Wasn’t that what happened with one of them? Jordan? Hard to keep tabs.

        3. JohnInCA

          She thinks of Jocelyn as her “son”, and men are allowed to leave.

          So… yeah, I’m going with “cutting all ties” over “kidnapped and tried to fix”.

    2. Mra

      And hear we see contestant Carol Brown using flagrant disregard for dangerous behavior in favor of parroting doctrine and dismissiveness towards her own child’s trauma as her finishing move beating out Linda Walkerton for the Bad Parent Bronze medal. Up next we have Naomi performing her intolerant homophobia towards her son, although judges are skeptical it will compare to Ross McIntire’s over-the-top display.

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        Naomi’s just going to embarrass herself if she tries to compete with Ross. Focus on the silver, Naomi.

      2. David

        Well, Ross gave his best shot already.

    3. Ron again

      I think (unpopular opinion incoming) Ross is a way less shitty parent than people give him credit for. He is terrible, without a doubt, for not understanding homosexuality is not a “mistake”, or even a choice for that matter, but he did listen to children, something neither Blaine, Linda norCarol has shown to do.

      He was misguided by his belief and by Blaines sweet-talking, and he’s terrible for letting that warrant what he did, but in the end, what he planned to do was way less than what Carol is whole-heartedly defending.

      1. Regalli

        Noooooo, he did not listen. We’ve seen multiple times how controlling he was (not allowing Becky a cell phone, ‘your hair is your womanhood’ and only allowing her to cut it as short as it was at the beginning of the strip when she ‘accidentally’ got something sticky in it, Becky knowing how to sneak out and back into her home and having done so regularly, Frozen isn’t allowed because it ‘promotes the idea parents aren’t infallible’, EVERY LINE in the car chase sequence,) and it was clearly his way or the highway. Further, we have seen him physically hit his daughter. (Right before he realized she had the 911 line open.) Linda and Carol are both emotionally abusive parents (including financial, in Linda’s case,) but to our knowledge neither of them have ever gotten physical yet. (Not that I think it’s any better just because it’s not physical, but: Ross hit Becky, at least once. Given how Becky has NEVER discussed this and had very little reaction, it’s entirely possible that was not the first time.)

        Ross was every bit as much of an abusive shitbag as Blaine. The only difference was that Blaine could play a SLIGHTLY longer game in the name of a more elaborate plan, and Blaine was much quicker to jump to violence against his ‘allies’.

        1. Droewyn

          And I don’t think it can be stressed enough that Ross vocally declared that if he had to shoot someone to get Becky to obey him, that was on the table.

          Pretty sure Becky herself was implied to be a possible target.

  28. Cmasta1992

    Hank and Charles should head to the Winchester, have a pint and wait for this whole thing to blow over.

    1. He Who Abides

      Better hurry, before they get red on them.

  29. Sirksome

    I do have to ask what exactly is Carol’s issue on this? Why is she so ride or die for Ross?! The guy kidnapped her daughter! I’m almost suspicious something was going on between them at this point. It make no sense for her to value him over the life of her own child. I doubt she would kidnap another person’s child to prove a point. Why is it okay for him to do that. Is this one of the church’s unwritten rules or something?

    1. Robbie

      Because she’s an abusive parent. Because she supported him abusing Becky into compliance. Because she’d want the same support if she ever “had to” treat one of her kids the same way.

      1. Lexi

        I think you’re onto it. I don’t want to call her abusive (I don’t know why, her attitude is pretty abusive) but she wants to know that he did the right thing trying to make Becky straight because she would do it too.

        1. Regalli

          Carol’s behavior (and by extension Hank’s, though he’s at least realizing where he screwed up) is very much in line with religious abuse. Which can be traumatizing even if it’s well-intended (my parents were not at all controlling but I managed to absorb enough from the background radiation of life that I got a lot of the same anxiety tics Willis has admitted to until I became an atheist/any god worth worshipping understands I cannot healthily have an active relationship with Them around age twelve, and I only reached that BECAUSE my parents were good.) And we’ve seen that with Carol and Ross, that degree of control over their children and their fear of stepping out of line was very much intentional.

          The Wikipedia rundown here is… unfortunately, quite resonant with Joyce’s upbringing, given Joyce is autobiographical. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_abuse

        2. Lexi

          Ah, yes. This is exactly the way she’s abusive. Thanks, I hadn’t come across the term religious abuse before, and the “well intentioned” bit was throwing me for a loop.

      2. Droewyn

        Because if she’s wrong about Ross, then she really did endanger her own child.

        Which is impossible. Unthinkable.

        Therefore, ROSS PROTECTION SQUAD 4-EVER

    2. FLUFFY

      I WANT to say it’s something about her beliefs and it’s more that she’s ride or die for her beliefs, but that’s…. an intriguing possibility you raise.

    3. Tannen

      I think that, by attacking Ross and his motivations, Carol is seeing this as an attack on her faith and thus an attack on her.

      1. bryy

        100%. This has absolutely nothing to do with Ross as a person and everything to do with Ross as a symbol of her faith. Ross is a personification of her religion’s persecution complex.

    4. BigDogLittleCat

      Because Ross was trying to exercise absolute control over his daughter, and Carol wants to have absolute control over her daughter.
      If she admits that Ross stepped over a line, there is a limit to her authority.

      Perhaps more importantly, because her church backed Ross, and her identity is entirely invested in her church.
      If Ross was wrong, then the church was wrong, and the church is never wrong.
      You’d have thought they’d have thrown Ross under the bus as No True Christian, but I suspect that Carol will always defend something just because it was her “side.” Unlike Hank where the first thing he said was that Ross shouldn’t have done that.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Now I wonder if one of her thoughts is that she didn’t exercise absolute control over Jordan and look how that turned out.

        1. BigDogLittleCat

          Exactly. Remember the conversation about Jordan that Joyce overheard? Carol thought they didn’t squeeze hard enough.

    5. Bleuryder

      I’m gonna venture a guess here, but I’m guessing it’s the same type of logic of parents who send their gay kids to conversion therapy or similar things. I think she saw him as a righteous man who truly believed God’s word and who was willing to go to any extreme to save his highly corrupted daughter who had strayed from God by way of homosexuality. I don’t think she had a thing for him, (though I’m down for that plot twist) but that she merely idolized him in some way. Which means that she can be willing to put her daughter’s welfare at risk for the sake of protecting or admiring her idol more.

    6. Maxy

      Evangelicals (in my experience) also have the object permanence of a toddler when it comes to bad things done by fellow Christians.
      Carol didn’t see what Ross did, so in her mind, every element of the story has to be overplayed, exaggerated, or just made up. Since nobody (she’s aware of) got hurt, in her mind that means nobody could possibly have been hurt. (And Becky being “converted” back to straight is a good outcome in her mind.)

    7. deathjavu

      I truly, truly envy that you have never encountered people who will bend their logic in this way to maintain their predefined definitions of good and bad (in this case, Fellow Church Member GOOD Homosexuality BAD so therefore [insert cognitive dissonance and ridiculous mental gymnastics here])

    8. Sam

      The thinking of the groups like this is Group And What It Stands For >>> Individual. Joyce’s life doesn’t actually matter if it is used to make the *right* point. They are perfectly willing to risk the lives of others for their group goals and to die for them.

      1. Ron again

        It would be fun to see the look on her face if the rest of the church actually abandons Ross’ actions on this. Saying he was “misguided” and “blinded” by Blaine and God had to “take Ross in” to prevent him from sinning. That would be a nice hypothetical moment to witness.

        1. MM

          For one second, maybe. Then it’d be “we have always been at war with Eastasia.”

    9. timemonkey

      Her beliefs are more important to her than the people they hurt. Becky did something she believes is wrong so she believes Ross was justified in his actions to correct that behavior. It’s why she ignored his actions the first time and then wanted him out on bail despite knowing he’d likely try again.

      She even says it in those strips, she thinks if they let Ross get punished it’ll be like letting outsiders tell them how to raise their children.

    10. Melissa in MO

      I think that the missing son in Hank and Carol’s family is the key. No one really talks about him and I think that he was
      outed somehow and is being shunned and Carol wishes that she had taken action like Ross did to ‘force him straight’.

    11. SeanR

      Because she has to be right.

    12. Nah

      I think she feels she’d do the same in his position and she can’t be wrong.

  30. BigDogLittleCat

    “He only tried to do what he thought was right”
    He only helped kidnap and threat six people.

    Carol, your daughter won’t talk to you, won’t even look at you. You might want to reconsider whether or not she got hurt.

    “We stand by our own.”
    “Our own” being our fellow authoritarians, not our children.

    Linda can stand down now. Carol has a much bloodier fight on her ticket.

    1. Bagge

      Yup. The moment Joyce really, truly understood what her mom and her church stands for was the moment she understood that “our own” does not include Becky.

      1. David

        Heck, it doesn’t even include Jordan.

  31. Bleuryder

    Damn, Hank!! Way to go!

    Also this fight between two Karens is amazing. Honestly, I cannot wait to see what’ll happen when she finds out about Jocelyne.

    1. RacingTurtle

      I am wondering if she’ll never really know. If Hank separates from Carol, Joyce & Jocelyne (and Jordan?) can go no-contact with Carol over Joyce’s kidnapping before Jocelyne’s identity even comes up

      I’m not saying it’s probable, but I kind of would like it if Joss can come out without ever having to face Carol’s nastiness

    2. Owlmirror

      She may not ever find out about Jocelyne.

      By the time Jocelyne is ready to come out to Joyce, and perhaps eventually to Hank, none of them will be on speaking terms with Carol (or John, probably, as I see the family splitting up into Hank-Joyce-Jocelyne on one side, and John-Carol on the other).

      I don’t know where Jordan falls in that split, and he may be off on his own regardless. Worst case scenario is that Jordan is not religious, but is also nevertheless an MRA/incel/PUA/other flavor of misogynist.

  32. foducool

    by “we” I suppose she means “God and I”

    1. David

      I suspect that God would rather stand with Hank.

  33. He Who Abides

    Oh.

    Oh SHIT.

    1. danielle

      right?!?

  34. abacuswizard

    Holy crow, Carol doubled down!

    And tripled down!

    And quadrupled down!

  35. Cmd1095

    Wow, ok, so it seems Carol has no limits to how despicable she will be, Hank on the other hand, seems about ready to divorce this damned harpy

  36. Mr. Random

    Must feel like her ears just popped.

  37. Koms

    Carol and her church are evil. Not misguided or indoctrinated but plain evil. I hate her so much. She makes me hate Linda less, as if that’s possible. Linda will not realize her mistake as she is way too egoistic for that. Charles does not have nearly as much of a spine as Hank does. Now Hank, I’m so proud of him I’ve never seen him so angry. I hope this is the final straw. How can he stay with a woman who wouldn’t care about her ien daughter’s safety?

    1. C.T Phipps

      Becky showed up. She tried to be nice. She was practicing their faith.

      And they saw her as an enemy.

      Vile.

  38. Newllend(henryvolt)

    Right, they’re such adults they can’t even admit it when they’re in the wrong. Like fuck damn Carol if What Ross was trying to accomplish was to “do the right thing and keep his daughter safe” I think he failed the minute he decided to luer her to a house with a mobster and a bunch of frat boy thugs. I don’t blame Hank for walking away I’d be done to.

    And I hoped he died thinking about only that.

  39. Koms

    Did she get hurt? Physically no. But mentally and emotionally? It’s not a pleasant experience to get kidnapped.

    1. Newllend(henryvolt)

      I got a Wonder, if that’s how she really feels why is she there? Did she come there to see if she was okay or did she come there to reassure Joyce that despite everything that happened everything she did was the right thing to do.

      1. Koms

        Probably the latter ?

      2. RacingTurtle

        I think you’re onto something. Carol isn’t worried about Joyce The Real Person, she’s worried about Joyce-Carolsdaughter, who is an imaginary person that needs to be reaffirmed in her religious faith and obedience to their community’s rules right now

      3. Libby

        Carol may try to convince Joyce college isn’t safe again and ask her to drop out and come home so that she can try to reinforce the hold she used to have. You know, overlooking that Ross’s actions were the danger for two out of the three major traumas Joyce has been through whereas her friends have been there at every turn to offer advice or listen to her.

    2. Harvey Janus

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/huh/

      Hopefully that link works. Judging by the daze and the bloody nose, she was hurt.

      1. Opus the Poet

        That was the tail end of a massive panic attack. I don’t know of any stretch of the imagination that having a panic attack so bad you black out isn’t counted as harmed.

      2. Koms

        Oh yes, she was hurt physically too.. poor Joyce, she has been dealing with so much trauma..

    3. Mydnyt

      Yes but to people like her mother, Mental and Emotional damage is all taken care of by returning to gods embrace because mental and emotional problems are all a product of associating with unbelievers.

      1. thejeff

        It’s a godpertunity.

  40. guavajagular

    The worrying thing is that Linda and Carol do have a common ground. If their kids did nothing and they took Amber and Becky away and let the others go, they’d have probably been fine with it. Linda less so obviously, but you know she’d berate Sal for “escalating” things

  41. synnerman

    Oh yeah, that’s good stuff. GO LINDA! (I may never say that ever again.)

    And Go Hank.

    Time for the D-word.

    Joyce is so screwed.

    1. BigDogLittleCat

      I think Joyce already knows it’s a strong possibility, if not probability. She knows/hopes her dad won’t blow off her being kidnapped and taken hostage, and that the inevitable result would be divorce.

    2. Droewyn

      She’ll be better off, in the long run. So will Jocelyn. And maybe even Jordan.

  42. Shiro

    I let out an audible GASP at that last panel, holy shit

  43. Harvey Janus

    You love to see it, though frankly I want Hank to actually say something else besides just going “They shouldn’t have done that.”

    I don’t expect it to go this way, but the phrasing could be read by Linda as a tacit agreement with Carol, particularly if she knows they go to a fundie church, “I won’t accept talk like this from a woman.” and all that.

    However, it’s more likely that Carol’s going to question him exiting the conversation.

    Still I am so hype for this, let’s go!!!!!!!!!!

  44. Anders

    Coincidentally, “there is a medium position between laissez-faire and fascist” is also great advice for the republican party right now

    1. Apostate

      Dems too. Don’t forget, a liberal will choose fascism over socialism almost all of the time.

      1. SeanR

        It’s the drawback of having a system that degenerates into two parties. Eventually, those parties divide up all the causes and positions between them such that to be for one you must be against the other.
        The problem is, “first past the post” voting, and our other hacked-together election elements (such as the electoral college, although I think pulling it out now might make things even worse), make any such system falling to two parties, formally or informally, almost inevitable. Personally, I suspect informal parties might be even worse than informal ones. At least with formal ones, you can see the strings, (or whips, and party support during primaries, as the case may be).

        I believe a strong central government is also part of the problem, as it makes “winning” so critical. You can’t just let California be California, and Wyoming be Wyoming. One Federal Rule For All, or laws dictated by the federal government in exchange for a share of tax monies, means all the states have to have cookie-cutter policies.

        Personally, I’d like to see a Condorcet system, modified to take into account the biasing intended by the electoral college, (to preserve the point that, no, the populated cities AREN’T supposed to dictate terms to everyone else,) replace our current system. Being able to rank candidates, and having the highest scoring candidate win, not the least bad of the two most familiar parties, would, I think, cause candidates to trend toward the center rather than the fringes of their respective parties.

        1. clif

          Partially agree. If the electoral college works the way it’s supposed to, it’s of a piece with being a republic and a union of states. Ranking vote systems have their own problems where I’m incentivised to strategic voting like voting a second choice last to prevent it from beating my first choice. Instant runoff with low vote candidate removed each round eliminates the tyranny of the two party system eliminating choice and reduces motivation for strategic voting to almost nothing. Voting for what you honestly think is best is no longer throwing your vote away.

        2. SeanR

          Single Transferable Vote looks great…provided the version I’m most familiar with isn’t applied to additional seats.
          If the first winner gets a say in who gets their surplus votes, you get parties, or at least party like behavior, again.

          Here’s a video on that system, and the reason I don’t want it for deciding multiple seats.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

        3. thejeff

          The US actually has a much weaker central government than most countries. Our states do have very different policies on many things.

          And if we’d just let Mississippi be Mississippi, they’d still have Jim Crow. Not really a position I’d want to argue for.

        4. SeanR

          You make a solid point, and some people have to live in certain places for their livelihood or strongly wish to for family continuity, but if the states were more varied than they are, the citizens would still be able to “vote with their feet”.
          Of course, one problem with that is, a lot of people are “voting” no to California taxes and personal/commercial interference, and then “voting” yes to the same policies that necessitated California taxes, and that interference they agreed with, in places like Oregon, Colorado, and Texas.

        5. thejeff

          Yeah sorry, not accepting “vote with their feet” as a substitute for basic human rights.
          Or consider LGBTQ kids born in states that openly allow (require?) discrimination against them. They can’t even vote with their feet until they’re of age.

      2. paleotectonics

        Why yes, as a liberal feminist nothing makes me happier than caged children and murdered black people!! My neighbors who I share cookies with monthly and cheered at Pride Parade desperately want to see teh Gheys individually napalmed! My family who I can’t talk about politics to and remain civil are right about everything because I’m a liberal who also hates poor people and thinks they should starve!

        Whatever. Take your weird-ass straw man and buggrit.

        1. Droewyn

          I…*think*… that was supposed to be a dig at the centrist Democrats that the alt-right refers to as Liberals, but don’t actually represent actual progressives? Not positive, though.

      3. David

        Can I have “radical left” with my nonsensical collection of mostly unrelated buzzwords?

  45. Robert

    WAY TO GO HANK!

  46. Devin

    Looks to me like we could be seeing Hank’s redemption arc begin.

    I hope. For Joyce’s sake.

    1. SeanR

      Nah. His redemption arc began back during that argument with his wife that Joyce overheard. It got going strong when he drove them back to college, leaving his wife to take alternate transportation home from church.

  47. abysswatcher1993

    Carol just admited that Ross kidnapped Joyce. Carol, you will burn in hell for believing kids being kidnapped is normal. Next you will say lesbians should be rapped to “convert” them to heterosexuality, or that white people are supreme.

    1. C.T Phipps

      There doesn’t seem to be a limit, no.

    2. StClair

      In this worldview, everything is secondary to saving souls from Satan. Everything.

      1. C.T Phipps

        I don’t think that’s true. Just from my experience in fundamentalism, they’re actually quite happy to let the majority of the world burn for not believing in their particular branch.

        Hell, some welcome it.

        1. David

          He are the precious chosen few, let all the rest be damned. Let all the others go to hell, we can’t have heaven crammed.

  48. Chaucer59

    Go Team Hank!

  49. WikiDreamer

    “…I’ll be standing over here”
    The shot heard round the Dumbiverse

    1. Ron again

      I hope it reached the third floor, all the way to Joyce’s room.

  50. Bagge

    ….”Joyce did not get hurt”?

    Is that seriously, truly what Carol deep down believes? That the kidnpping, the gun, the threat, the repeated attempts to remove her best friend and make he own choice in the matter irrelevant did not hurt Joyce?

    Wow. Just wow.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I think Carol is horrified that Joyce ASSOCIATED with Becky.

    2. BenRG

      In Carol’s mind, you avoid being hurt by listening to the adults. In her view, Joyce should have helped Ross ‘save’ Becky. By not doing so, she brought whatever followed on herself. Carol is telling herself that she has no moral responsibility for what Ross and Ross’s chosen accomplice did to Joyce because Joyce was ‘doing the wrong thing’.

      Hank disagrees and, I suspect, will expand on that disagreement in the divorce petition.

      1. Eldritchy

        That “listen to the adults” might be giving us a glimpse into her own childhood…

        1. Human Bean

          Yeah, I thought so, too.
          The last strip had me feel oddly sorry for her, even with her being so awful.
          Of course, that’s no excuse :/

    3. Droewyn

      “Joyce is fine. She is. She HAS to be. Because if she isn’t… then I… no. No, she’s fine.”

      /Carol

  51. Rabid Rabbit

    Dear Carol: Please define what you accept counts as “hurt.” That way, we can figure out what grounds to debate with you on.

    For instance, if you’re only accepting physical pain of some sort or another, I accept that Joyce only says “Oof” when being thrown onto a concrete floor and landing on her shoulder here (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/kidnap/), but note that in the next strip, she says “Ouch” when Amber lands on her. So clearly there was some physical pain involved. Or does it not count because we can’t prove that Ross was the one who threw Amber in?

    1. deathjavu

      Logic has no place here. Carol’s thought process starts and ends with “church member good homosexuality bad” and the rest is just twisted noise to make her feel like she’s a good person.

      1. SeanR

        Carol’s though process start and end with “I’m right, and anyone who disagrees with me is obviously wrong. Right, Hank? Hank?”

      2. C.T Phipps

        It goes more than that since she utterly sides with Ross against Becky.

        1. KryssLaBryn

          Well, but… If she doesn’t side with Ross, then perhaps her daughter’s best friend’s mum killing herself wasn’t just brought on by, like, Satan or mental issues (which she probably passed on to her daughter; you know those are hereditary), but, like actual abuse. Which they maybe, as members of the same church and close friends, should have noticed and done something about.

          Perhaps her death was less weakness or a lack of faith or whatever, and more indirect murder.

          And then they left their daughter’s best friend alone in that house with him.

          OoooOOOoorrr… Ross is just a very religious, faithful guy who has been handed the troubles of Job and is desperately trying to save his daughter’s soul after already losing his wife to Satan. And that makes her right to still support him.

          And not responsible at all for anything that unbelievers and heathens who don’t see the very real harm that Satan does would probably, in their twisted, misguided way see as problematic.

          And that totally isn’t, you guys.

    2. Harvey Janus

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/huh/

      Judging by this page and the lead up of Blaine taking her hostage, she was unconscious from some kind of blow for a minute or two.

      1. Dara

        She was incapacitated by a panic attack due to Blaine grabbing her.

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/beats/

    3. BenRG

      She’s pretty deep in denial right now. She knows how badly this has turned out and how it is likely only going to get worse now. She knows that she and the congregation made this happen by a combination of naivete and blinkered focus on what they wanted, assuming that all their members wanted the same things. She’s very, very angry with herself but lashing out at Becky, Joyce and the entire world outside the Church is so much easier than dealing with that.

      1. Miri

        She may also be genuinely grieving for a friend who met a violent and unexpected end at this point… But yeeeaaaah… Those words actually came out of her mouth and she presumably heard them and thinks they sound reasonable…

      2. bryy

        I think she is way too indoctrinated to even realize she is angry at herself.

  52. zelgato

    Whelp. Made his move. Saw her roping him in.
    Exxxxit staagee lefftttt.

    1. Geneseepaws

      If you wanted to known: (Stage right. The wings are labeled by what the actor sees, not by what the audience perceives.)

    2. hof1991

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snagglepuss – Exit, stage left is a Boomer (and Boomerang) reference. Updated with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Stage_Left!:_The_Snagglepuss_Chronicles.

  53. TrueVCU

    RING THE BELLS OF DOOM

  54. Dr. T

    Wow Carol, you potty mouth. To quote Carla, “Do you suck Jesus’ wang with that mouth?”

  55. Alanari

    They got out of this by not listening to the adults. Because the adults wanted to kill at least one of them. Also, they are hurt. All of them. It’s just not a physical wound.
    And it’s kind of funny to hear Linda talk about a medium post, considering she’s struggling with said medium post, too.

    1. abysswatcher1993

      Ryuji: “Effin rotten adults.”

    2. temperaryobsessor

      Listening was important it helped them predict when they would be best able to run

  56. BBCC

    1) He did hurt people. Even if you only count physical harm and not traumatizing people, Mike is kinda hanging by a thread here.

    2) The answer to this is not ‘Well, at least he thought he was doing the right thing’ it’s ‘HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK, HE THOUGHT *THAT* WAS THE RIGHT THING?????’

    3) “What more do you fucking want?” You and Linda to tear each other apart. Is that so much to ask?

    4) Ah, “but did she die???” As if that makes it better. It didn’t work in PLL and it doesn’t work here.

    5) “If you listen to the adults, you don’t get hurt” Well Jesus tap-dancing Christ, this explains a lot about the way Joyce thinks. Poor baby.

    6) “I suppose you let YOUR kids do whatever they want?” Nah, Linda just couldn’t stop her.

    7) Linda, you wouldn’t know that medium position between laissez-faire and fascist if it leapt up and slapped you like I want to every time you talk.

    8) Apparently Joyce is no longer one of Carol’s own. I repeat – poor baby.

    9) Neither is Hank and he’s not stopping. Good job, Hank.

    10) Yes, Linda is more correct than Carol here. No, I don’t care, I’m still team kill each other.

    1. abysswatcher1993

      Both Linda and Carol can be killed by Bettlejuice for all I care.

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      8-9: I wonder how hard the cognitive dissonance is going to hit. I mean, she’s supposed to belong to Hank, right? But if he’s not using the same playbook anymore — if she’s actually thinking on her own and using her own opinions — what is she?

    3. Alanari

      I’m pretty sure the news about Mike hasn’t travelled very far yet. Also, I have a feeling that it is “his own fault because he jumped”

      1. Regalli

        And if Carol ever realizes he’s the one who answered the phone with ‘Hail Satan’ as a prank the weekend Becky fled Anderson, she’d be pretty far in the ‘he got what he deserved’ camp.

    4. Regalli

      Aaah, I was scrolling down looking for you after reading that third panel! Because yeah, point 7 is REAL FUCKING RICH coming from Linda ‘he just doesn’t know he’s going to be a doctor yet’, ‘I thought the accident would make you realize you should cut your losses, since you didn’t I’ll steal money from you and make its return dependent on you abandoning the best friend it is intended for,’ ‘of course you won’t hate me forever, you’re thirteen’ Walkerton. And that’s just the highlights reel.

      Carol’s definitely the more ‘Jesus burgerflipping CHRIST you just said that’ one here, but god the cognitive dissonance on Linda’s still pretty staggering. (Because Carol’s not even dissonancing it, she’s just straight-up rejecting reality.)

      I hope the Keeners take all the kids out for lunch and just do not bring them back until the mutually-assured destruction’s cleaned up. Hank can come once he’s done with his call to the divorce lawyer and a text to Joyce (and for that matter, Becky. Hell, Jocelyne will probably need to see it too, it impacts her life) about how he was not involved in the bail, he is horrified that it happened, and he is even more horrified it ended this way and people are STILL defending Ross, and as such will be cutting ties there.

      1. BBCC

        If my legacy on Dumbing of Age is just ‘She really really really likes Sal and she really really really hates Linda’ I’ll be okay with that.

        Also, because both these women need to be reminded, have a point 11) YOUR KIDS *ARE* ADULTS. They’re new to being adults and might still need pointers on it, but they are adults now.

  57. Yotomoe

    It’s times like this that make it really hard for me to lewd characters.
    But not impossible

    1. Bagge

      We trust in your creativity

      1. clif

        Agreed.

    2. Newllend(henryvolt)

      I admire your resolve

  58. jmsr7

    Fundangelical Christians think of themselves as being the adults in the car and that’s why they’re driving. Everyone else seems them as road raging drunks speeding down the highway, waving a gun around to keep anyone else from driving.

    1. Rabid Rabbit

      I thought Jesus was supposed to take the wheel for them.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Only if Ultracar’s brain has been transferred to a fembot.

      2. Miri

        That’s why the pedal has been put to the metal but they aren’t watching the road or holding onto the steering wheel at all, I think?

  59. Puckish Rogue

    Third panel is what I wish everyone on the far left and right wing could understand (the Linda bit of course)

    1. Ron again

      Especially when talking about “the other party”, sheesh. Seeing american political debates at the highest level really takes my hopes away.

    2. Puckish Rogue

      Far too much tribalism in politics all over the world. I don’t know when it transferred over from sports team but it certainly isn’t helpful

      1. thejeff

        In the US? Late 1700s.

    3. thejeff

      The far right is in power and we see the consequences. The far left doesn’t even hold much power in the Democratic Party and the horrors they’d inflict on us seem centered around universal health care. In other words, bothsiderism is bullshit.

      There is a small fraction of the left in the US that this could apply to, but since they seem most focused on tearing down the Democratic party I don’t think they’re really that significant.

      1. DalNiente

        Oh man, I am adding “bothsiderism” to my personal lexicon. Love that.

  60. Hornet

    Rock on, Hank!
    WHY was he one of the choices in last week’s “Worst Parent” poll, again?
    He’s flawed, sure, but, -and especially- juxtaposed next to his wife, he seems like a damn fine fellow!

    “We stand by our own”.
    Almost everyone does that – up to and UNTIL the point where they, cruelly and with forethought, endanger innocent lives!

  61. Kravis

    Karens don’t say “Sorry”, other Karen!

    As a Karen, you should know that!

    1. SuperZero

      I really don’t see why that particular label is being applied to Carol. Many other labels, sure.

      1. Kravis

        Ok.

  62. Puckish Rogue

    This is the storytelling I like, the kidnapping storyline was…not the best work but this is back to the moral ambiguity which is closer to real life

    1. SuperZero

      The morals here aren’t remotely ambiguous?

      1. Zach

        Simplistic ‘this is good and this is bad’ morals fall flat because they don’t get into ‘why’. This scene is contrasting 2 characters, neither of which are particularly good. Here we get to see why they do what they do. Understanding may eventually come, but never moralizing unless a character needs something spelled out for them. Show, don’t tell.

    2. Regalli

      I saw a lot of the kidnapping storyline as ammunition for the inevitable fallout. (It also was the unambiguous, black-and-white You Are Not This Bad that Amber ultimately needed to accept that she wasn’t doomed to turn out like Blaine, and the level of danger necessary to get Amber and AG talking again and recognize things had gotten FAR out of what was manageable on their own.) It was black and white because it NEEDED to be, to drive home the fact that Carol still stands by her actions even when they led to something THIS catastrophic. If she won’t budge now of all times, she cannot possibly be reasoned with.

  63. C.T Phipps

    Carol: DONT YOU UNDERSTAND! THIS IS ALL BECKY’S FAULT!

    Linda: NO! It’s SAL’s fault!

    1. Needfuldoer

      Take your upvote.

    2. Ron again

      Sal, Amber, the school itself… Why does Linda not aim her arrows at the people who actually did harm? Ahh, hitting Blaine and his goons will not make her feel powerful to her kids…

      1. SuperZero

        Like Carol? She did actually focus on a reasonable target as soon as she spotted one.

      2. Regalli

        I’m pretty sure Linda’s motivation here is that she specifically wants to punish SOMEONE she deems responsible for this, personally. She’s on the right target right now, but before that it was Amber. Where her children are and how they’re doing and what they think of any of this (Walky as victim in particular) don’t matter when she can go aggro on someone she can blame.

      3. Kindra

        I think Linda is still freaking out over the fact that her kid got *kidnapped*, and she’s desperately trying to do something to regain her sense of control of the situation. She’s lashing out from fear. It’s fight or flight, and Linda’s fighting, and in that situation the target doesn’t matter, just so long as you hit someone so you feel less afraid.

        One of the kidnappers is dead and the other one’s been arrested, so they’re beyond her reach. Amber wasn’t beyond her reach, so she was a target. But now there’s a target *directly in front of her*, and by sheer luck, it’s someone who actually deserves to be a target.

        1. SuperZero

          The thing is, if she’s freaking out that her kid got kidnapped she’s still expecting him to comfort her when he’s the one that was harmed.

  64. Sporky

    I like how this mirrors Sal walking out on her parents from earlier in the storyline.

    (It also mirrors Walky doing it, but I couldn’t find a way to keep from typing “Walky walking” and being confusing.)

  65. Opus the Poet

    Score one for Hank! Standing tall as a bastion of strength and reason in the face of science-denying quarter-wits (calling them Half-Wits would be giving them too much credit.

    1. David

      Let’s call it q-wits.

  66. Rikunda

    She did get hurt though… You just don’t care about emotional or mental wounds… Or know about her physical…

    1. temperaryobsessor

      Hey she hurt her hand punching him the first time.

      1. bryy

        That reminds me of how her church and family reacted when she had her cast (“Oh, she’s faking”). So, women are too weak and frail, but when they actually get violent, they are “faking”? It also says a lot that Carol will defend Ross’ violence, but not her own daughter’s reactions. It still kills me that Carol’s only real reaction was literally telling Hank to buy a gun to shoot gophers.

        1. Booker

          When did she tell him to do that?

        2. thejeff

          While they were at church. It sounded like the continuation of a past discussion, not directly related to the kidnapping, but shockingly tone deaf and obviously intentionally so on Willis’s part.

  67. DahliaRose

    Yeah! Go Hank!

  68. BenRG

    Yeah, here’s where it happens. Hank can’t tolerate the fact that his wife approves of Ross’s actions and very clearly was enabling them for one second more.

    Ross was Carol’s knight in a shining tee-shirt wasn’t he? He was the one who was going to bring her children ‘back to the faith’ by any means necessary. Damn, she’s a scary woman; even scarier when you consider the fact that she’s convinced that she’s one of the White Hats!

    1. bryy

      To her, Ross was the only one in their church willing to actually “do the right thing”.

  69. PiotrW

    … she’s delusional.

  70. Kunglebund

    Hank
    HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK
    MY MAN HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!!!!!!!!!
    OK so, first thing I’m noticing here. Hank is my man.
    second thing I’m noticing here
    “we stand by our own” Then hank walks away.
    Hank does not consider Carol to be “one of his own”. Hank is finally saying “I’ve had enough of this lunatic. my baby girl almost died and she doesn’t even care.”

    1. BenRG

      I’m also expecting Hank to formally resign from the church. He really doesn’t want to have ‘we’ to include him any more.

    2. DalNiente

      Yeah, Hank really strikes me as someone who has been trying to rationalize and be charitable towards the people around him as much as possible, but who has finally had enough.

  71. FirePrincessLily

    I sure hope Joyce is safely somewhere else from this.

    1. bryy

      Are you kidding? Joyce is probably right behind them.

      1. FirePrincessLily

        That would be terrible D:

  72. Geneseepaws

    Not to be Debbie Downer, but back when they were rescued, Becky said, “There’s No one left out there who can hurt me.” I hope that Carol and her evil don’t try to avenge Ross. Just that I’ve learned from Wilde Life studies that Momma Bears can eat their cubs at times. And hell, look what Chronos did to his kids!

    1. BenRG

      Oh, I’m expecting Carol to try to cause harm in a passive-aggressive way. She doesn’t have the guts to do anything physical but she’ll be more than willing to set up a letter-writing campaign against Robin to ruin Becky’s new life. She’ll try to shut off Joyce’s tuition (which may be difficult because Hank isn’t playing ball) and she might even try to ‘encourage others to do the right thing’, which sounds awfully like advocating violence against Becky, Joyce and the Walkertons (the latter as revenge on Linda and her whole godless breed).

      The next one likely to try something physical will be John with Joyce.

      1. SuperZero

        A letter writing campaign against Robin would help Becky, since she doesn’t actually want Robin to win.

      2. Eldritchy

        Honestly if she tries anything it might backfire quite spectacularly against her. Joyce is already estranged, Hank is starting to see her for the looney that she is and Jocelyne has all the reasons to bail out if she sees she has a chance. She’ll be left with only that other looney son that she has.

        1. BenRG

          To me, John (her missionary oldest son) is Carol’s next likely source of trauma after the divorce. I’m sure that he’s her ‘perfect son’ and if (when) it turns out he is embezzling mission funds to afford luxuries like his car, I’m not sure if she’d be able to handle it.

        2. Eldritchy

          Oh boi, that would be fun. Just imagine it, they are sitting at the table in their house, just the two of them and she pours her heart out over how everyone is evil and immoral… and then there is a knock at the door and a couple of cops come in and arrest John.

        3. Geneseepaws

          Hang on, I’ll get the popcorn!!!

        4. Wynne

          I hate that there’s a current real-life blueprint for this, but if the current horror show with the Johns Ortberg is anything to go by, she’ll do anything to make him appear “righteous” and say he’s done nothing wrong. Including throwing her other kids out the window.

        5. Droewyn

          I thought Jocelynne was the stated favorite “son”.

        6. Eldritchy

          Wasn’t that John? The missionary guy?

        7. David M Willis

          i dunno some days he’s more of a cowgirl guy

        8. Eldritchy

          XD

        9. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Don’t mess with a missionary guy.

        10. Keith

          I understood that reference

        11. Droewyn

          Found it!

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/heated/

  73. Ron again

    They really shouldn’t be shouting into each-others faces like that, with this virus and all. Wait, that’s only on this side of wall #4. Man I miss being allowed to do that

  74. Juanoku

    A lot of f bombs going around…

  75. JeOma

    Do not google 2 moms 1 dad. Or, you know, google it, I don’t know what you’ll find, and also I am not your mom (m/f).

    1. Peter Huppertz

      Apparently, you are someone’s grandmother (if you’re Dutch).

      1. JeOma

        But if I’m someone’s grandmother, I am also someone’s mother. Who’s to say I’m not YOUR mother? Because in that case, do NOT google 2 moms 1 dad! Because I’d be your mother and I say so!

  76. Kella

    “And did she get hurt? No!”

    Uh, Carol, given that Joyce has refused to answer your calls, how the heck do you know whether she is hurt or not?

  77. CJ

    Yeah, she was just kidnapped by someone she knew most of her life and saw him being murdered. Sure, no biggie.

    OT: the Do Not Track setting in my browser is on. Why the hell to I have to deal with the allow cookies‘s screen every few days? If do not track is set, the damn dialogue shouldn’t appear and simply disable all tracking cookies.

  78. Bicycle Bill

    I hereby freely acknowledge that my comment yesterday was totally in error, and that Carol has moved up into second place in the race for worst parent.

  79. Rectilinear Propagation

    I think the most infuriating thing is that people like Carol will never admit that they were wrong. Every single word out of her mouth in this strip makes me want to scream and the worst part is that at no point will she ever be able to see things from anything other than her POV.

    She will go to her grave offended that these people are upset that children were kidnapped because the kidnapper was a Christian fundamentalist homophobe and therefore right. Like, it’s clear that she understands that they don’t share her viewpoint with her “you won” comment, but she also clearly expects them to still see this as her and her church being objectively right.

    1. David

      That wouldn’t be fundamentalism but self-righteousness. “at no point will she ever be able to see things from anything other than her POV” implies that she has a point of view. Fundamentalism gives you a tool to fight and overcome your point of view and atone for your weakness by giving you a mission.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Attempting to process the cognitive dissonance would give her a stroke.

  80. Abbe_Faria

    There it is, the expression of someone seriously considering divorce papers.

  81. Reltzik

    Unpopular opinion time.

    Without actually defending Carol here… in fact, I’d echo most people saying that in this strip it’s Linda being 100% reasonable… I’d point out two things that help me emphasize with her a LITTLE more.

    1st, Carol isn’t talking in the abstract of a hypothetical man doing right or wrong and dying as part of it. She’s talking about someone she knew, who was perhaps a good friend of hers, someone she’s grieving for… and who got his skull viciously hammered in two days ago… and some Karen just marched up to her and started badmouthing him and attacking her for being his friend. This is an excellent formula for a shaken, raw, hurt, and combative emotional state, rather than steady, objective, and reasonable.

    2nd, Linda has already framed this entire encounter, from the moment she came marching up to Carol, in condemning and combative terms aimed at Carol, her community, and her community’s destruction. “You won” regarding the death of someone in her community makes a bit more sense in this context, even if there weren’t any real winners from the whole sordid affair.

    Again, Carol is extremely off base. Both of them are, and my opinion of both remains very low. But I also have a little bit of sympathy for both, because holy crap no parent should be expected to be totally rational in this sort of situation.

    1. RedCat

      I think it’s that she doesn’t feel guilty. Joyce COULD have gotten really hurt and DID get pretty traumatized. And it was Carol’s fault. She doesn’t even feel bad for it.

      1. David

        Oh yes, she does feel bad about it. That’s why she is so defensive. Religion gives her a reason to feel right, not good.

        1. Droewyn

          Agreed. It’s WHY she’s triple-downing on “Ross didn’t hurt anyone”. Not just because she’d have to question her faith (“If my church can be wrong about this, what else is it wrong about?”) but also because it would mean SHE was directly responsible for freeing the man who put her daughter in danger.

    2. thejeff

      Yeah, Linda sucks.

      But Linda’s framing only works because Carol’s community did enable this and that both of their children at risk.

    3. DalNiente

      Those are solid points. Carol is shocked and grieving and on the defensive and not inclined to be charitable or steady. I can’t say I sympathize with her, because it really seems like her reaction to Ross pointing a gun at and later kidnapping her child in order to gain access to his own kid is “well what would YOU have done?!” but…yeah, I can definitely see why she’s behaving/reacting this way.

    4. Apostate

      I have zero sympathy for the person whom is defending- and aided- a violent authoritarian zealot whom had already assaulted not only her freakin daughter but discharged a firearm at a school while kidnapping his daughter from it.

      She and every other person who donated to his bail is responsible for what has happened. Carol killed him as sure as worst dad did. They don’t get to play victim here.

  82. Romanticide

    At the critical moment Carol seems unable to prioritize her own children.
    Linda in this conversation became the broken clock that is right twice a day I have to say.

  83. Nono

    I’m probably the only person that thought this, but after panel 1 the first thought was ‘…oh my gosh Carol loved Ross’.

    I think I need to watch less soaps.

    1. bryy

      Yeah, that’s 100% reductive reasoning.

    2. BenRG

      I’ve been saying for a while that Carol was having an affair with Ross. Possibly she was enamoured of his ‘strength’, which she doesn’t see in Hank.

      1. Droewyn

        …huh.

    3. Newllend(henryvolt)

      I had my theories that her and Ross probably had an affair which is why Beckys mom offed herself, but others also theorize that she probably had a fling with Beckys mom instead and out of guilt Beckys mom took her own life.

  84. Nah

    Man she really cannot accept being wrong. Not in getting him out, not in his actions which she agrees with.

  85. Amelie Wikström

    I submit you have to listen to anyone who shoves a hammer in your face or you only have yourself to blame if you get hurt. Not just adults, Carol.

    1. Apostate

      Pretty sure the person with the hammer gets all the blame.

      1. Apostate

        Oh hey I’m Joyce again, huh

      2. Amelie Wikström

        Yeah but that’s like, logic or something. That’s not how you argue with Carol. The only thing you can do is try to get her to think a little bit about how utterly weird the things she says are. The thing that went wrong here, she says, is that the kids didn’t listen to the adults. The guy who killed her friend with a hammer was an adult, so clearly, she’s angry because they should have listened to him more. Especially because he was dressed in a cartoon costume and hitting people with a hammer.

  86. Kaffeeteria

    So, she would have cared ONLY if Joyce had been hurt. All others can literally just rot in Hell.

    1. Peter

      Oh, she cares that Ross is dead — because Ross was a “good Christian”. Obviously, his death was the fault of everyone else.

  87. Amelie Wikström

    Sarcasm aside I think Carol and Ross’s basic contention with, let’s see, maybe every person who understands that we live in a society with other people? Is the part where using intimidation, violence, murder and emotional blackmail to force your lesbian kid to act straight is “the right thing”. That’s an ethics discussion you could have with a therapist or a lawyer, but not a discussion you’re ready to have unless and until you can entertain the tiniest shred of doubt that your blind faith may/i> be wrong.

  88. BenRG

    I just had a Babylon 5 flashback. I’d love for Hank to have said: “If anyone wants me, I’ll be over there with all the other sinners.”

    1. John

      One of my favorite lines from that show!

  89. Corneel

    This kidnapping seems to have caused an outbreak of chordatitis with several people growing a spine.

  90. thumb

    Finally he takes a stand. Better late than never, but rather sooner than later.

  91. fire_daws

    In reddit terms we’ve got a r/entitledparent versus a r/insaneparent. Hank’s got the right idea of not becoming involved and getting out of the blast radius.

    1. Peter

      I think at this point, Hank is moving towards a different stance than just “out of the blast radius”. I think he’s finally going to leave Carol. At least, I certainly hope so.

      1. Lanie

        Minimally, I think he’s going to give Carol a big piece of his mind along the lines of “I can’t believe you think any of this is ok and that’s frankly disgusting”, which Carol will NOT take well. Hank definitely isn’t perfect, but I’m pretty pleased that he finally seems to be confronting the fact that his spouse isn’t someone he’s proud of right now.

        1. Needfuldoer

          I’m reasonably sure this will only make Carol question his allegiances, for she cannot be wrong.

  92. DahliaRose

    Take that Carol! You’ve taken, at this point, multiple steps over the line and now even your own husband will stand by you! Even he’s sick of your shit 😀
    In the immortal words of Nelson from the Simpsons, “Haha! Haha! Haha! Haha!”

    1. DahliaRose

      *and now NOT even your own husband will stand by you!

  93. GreyWulf

    Most of the cast is over 18 correct? Wouldn’t that make them adults as well?

    1. BenRG

      ‘Adults’ isn’t a reference to age. It’s a reference to something acting and thinking in line with what is broadly regarded by the subculture of the person speaking considers to be ‘seinsible’ and ‘mature’.

      1. LauraS

        And that’s another difference between Carol and Hank. After the first Becky incident, Hank chose to trust Joyce’s judgement because he saw that she was now a woman. Carol still sees her as a child to be controlled.

        1. Droewyn

          As evidenced by Carol threatening to pull Joyce out of school, which… she can’t actually do. She can pull funding if they’re paying for it rather than Joyce having student loans, but she has no legal authority to make Joyce quit. And I’m pretty sure that Joyce has figured that out since.

    2. SuperZero

      I’m 33 and I’m pretty sure I’m not an adult.

  94. Rabisch

    Maybe (and I repeat, maybe) see how horrible Carol is will make Linda rethink about her own behavior with Sal and Walky, see her Hypocrisy and help her become a better person/parent? That’s seems to work for Hank.

  95. Rah

    Because that’s what Jesus taught: “WE STAND BY OUR OWN”
    …just the worst kind of bull$hit hypocrite

  96. Mishyana

    God DAMN.

  97. Mishyana

    Also I kind of feel like Carol is inevitably going to say something really phenomenally shitty to Becky at some point here, and that will not only be the final straw for her relationship with her husband but also with her daughter.

    1. GreyWulf

      Blaming Becky for her husband distancing himself from her possibly?

    2. BenRG

      Actually, I’m expecting Carol to make some extraordinarly demands and issue an ultimatum to Jocye. When Joyce rejects them, Carol will start shouting at Dorothy, blaming her and accusing her of ‘seducing my little girl just to corrupt her’, which is pretty much the last straw for Joyce. Carol will then tell Joyce that, until she ‘comes to her senses’, she can consider herself without family. Then she’ll attempt to storm off in righteous fury, expecting Hank to follow her only to realise when she reaches the doors to the atrium that he isn’t following her. Instead, he’s hugging a crying Joyce and that is where things will get really interesting.

      Oh, if Willis wants to make the entire comments section squeal in joy, Joyce will react to her mother’s tirade by kissing Dorothy in front of her (surprising everone, especially Dorothy and herself).

      1. bryy

        I think we’re about ten strips away from Joyce monologing for three panels, one panel of Carol absorbing it, and then a final panel of Carol responding with something *cosmically* shitty,

    3. Newllend(henryvolt)

      I wouldn’t put it past her to say “He died because of you.”

      1. bryy

        At this point, I think that is actually the tamest thing she could say.

        1. Vulcanodon

          Depends if we’re talking about Ross or Jesus. If she can tell one from the other…

    4. Nah

      I think part of Carol knows to say those things in private when no one is around to defend Becky, like with her “can you REALLY know if you’re a lesbian at your age and is it worth your father being in prison” thing.

  98. Vancore

    Shots fired! Shots fired!

    We have two armed Mom’s shooting it out in the lobby, everyone get down and avoid eye contact until further notice.

  99. Vukodlak

    In the slightly modified words of Eric Cartman. (and censored so it actually posts)
    Weeeeeeeeeellll
    Joyce’s mom’s a *****, she’s a big *** *****,
    She’s the biggest ***** in the whole wide world
    She’s a stupid *****, if there ever was a *****
    She’s a ***** to all the boys and girls.

    1. clif

      I didn’t know you could spell b o n g o with asterisks.

  100. Geneseepaws

    Let’s have a contest; “what is Hank’s next Pop Culture quote?”
    I’ll start with Bender: “Carole, you can bite my shiny metal…”
    Any takers?

    1. BenRG

      Susan Ivannova in Babylon 5: “If anyone wants me, I’ll be over there with the rest of the sinners.”

      1. Geneseepaws

        Ooooh, well done.

      2. Kindra

        Wasn’t the line “getting drunk with the rest of the aliens?”

  101. temperaryobsessor

    Linda I’m glad you don’t advocate parents rights to point guns at their offspring and their offsprings friends. That’s is not and shouldn’t be a real right. That does not mean you found the middle position between laissez faire ans fascist.
    Remember the enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend, sometimes they just like making enemies, sometimes they are fighting over who can eat you, and sometimes they only agree with you on that one point.

  102. DalNiente

    I wonder if we’re about to see the clash between Carol’s “my children are possessions” and Hank’s “my children are people” beliefs.

  103. Joe Covenant

    2-1 ON for divorce talks soon….

  104. BenRG

    Thinking about it, I have realised something else disturbing about Carol’s statement: “We stand by our own!” That’s a very tribalist point of view. In essence, she’s calling everyone outside her subculture ‘others’; not endowed with the same intrinsic value or deserving of the same respect and consideration.

    It’s a bit like saying “My country, right or wrong”. It’s a sentiment that was basically used to justify every atrocity in history. “It doesn’t matter what we do to them because they’re different from us.” Deserving of less consideration and certianly not really… ‘people’.

    1. Zee

      I mean yeah fundamentalists operate on an us vs them basis. Take Jehovah’s Witnesses, they’re trained to see everything outside the church as worldly and tainted. They’re trained to spread the word in the most annoying way possible so they get harshly rejected by the outside world and run back into the warm, loving arms of the church. It’s how these groups keep their members wrapped around their fingers

      1. BenRG

        I was wondering when someone was going to mention my religion!

    2. C.T Phipps

      “My country right or wrong” is also a sadly misused statement. The entirety of the statement is, “My country, right or wrong. If right be kept right. If wrong, be SET RIGHT.”

  105. temperaryobsessor

    Good for you Hank none of these are your people, I don’t know how you figured that out about Linda and her husband. God Carol would so be down with blaming Amber.

  106. Zee

    Hank and Carol sitting in a tree
    K-I-S-S-I-N-G
    First comes the love, then comes the marriage
    Then comes the baby in the baby carriage
    Then the baby gets kidnapped and Carol don’t care
    Hank’s heart broken beyond repair
    Hank leaves Carol and takes the tree
    D-I-V-O-R-C-E

    1. Droewyn

      applause.gif

    2. Geneseepaws

      What? This deserves an up vote. Consider it lauded.

      1. a/snow/mous/e

        why can’t we have up votes? is it a crime?
        are there… up laws?
        i need to see a written record. so i can… hold your up laws, please.

  107. Nenja

    That last panel is very nice.

  108. hof1991

    I resemble that remark.

  109. hof1991

    Carol admires Ross for standing up to the sinful world, while Hank has been too soft on the “lost sheep” Jordan. Plus is probably to blame for Joyce’s sister, since if he was a better role model, this wouldn’t have happened. Yes, Carol know in the back of her mind.

    Carol wants Hank to be like Charles, a potted plant to back her up.

    But my main thought is how this must have been for DYW to write. Reliving pain isn’t fun or easy. Kudos for this.

    1. Heavensrun

      Just for the record, when I first saw “to blame for Joyce’s sister,” it was not clear that you were speaking in Carol’s voice? So I was about to go off.

      But also I disagree that Carol knows. She has the awareness of a pumice stone.

  110. Wakeangel2001

    being a failed criminal doesn’t make you a good guy. In all truth, in his last moments it was revealed that he probably wasn’t THAT bad a guy, but the church had reinforced some rather dangerous beliefs that enabled negative behavior.

    1. Needfuldoer

      I bet Ross was more like Carol, before Bonnie passed. He was a deeply troubled man, raised with an abhorrent worldview, pushed beyond his breaking point by outside forces, desperately holding onto the scraps of normalcy as he knew it.

      Contrast with Blaine, a manipulative sociopath who revels in the misery he inflicts upon others.

    2. Sam

      Yeah, the fucked up thing about Ross from an outside perspective, is that, in the right circumstances, he could have been The Joyce of his own story. We can see the kernels of good his beliefs smother and squash down. We can see there were still lines he refused to cross (actively torturing and killing teens). We can see the promise in him that his beliefs and the people around him actively warped by telling him ‘if you’re doing the right thing in your mind, it is okay to traumatise swathes of people!’

      We can see the potential that he had to become a really great man if circumstances were different and yet he became a rather terrible one with a few moral lines instead because the people around him were all like that too.

  111. Deanatay

    I know Willis writes these comics three months ahead, and I know he’s been eerily prescient at times, but Carol condoning Ross kidnapping her daughter? Seems a bit too familiar.

  112. Sombrero

    Moms soccer: Linda 1 – Carol 0 (1st half)

  113. Sombrero

    Also: judging by the number of comments, I was not the only one eagerly expecting more content about the Walkertons and the Browns.

  114. JenGen

    I know this is controversial opinion but I don’t put Linda in the same category as bad parent as ToeDad, Blaine, or even Linda. I kinda put her in Richard Rosenthal or maybe Billy’s Parent’s territory. Maybe not the best influence/role model (He hit on a college student in front of Joe), has obvious flaws, but definitely loves her kids.

    Stepping back from being an audience member with multiple views and has also spent more time with Hank and has seen his growth, She found out the same girl who permanently scarred her daughter (yeah she was a robbing a store but the stabbing happened once Sal was already detained) not only is living in the same dorm as Sal, but is also the daughter of the guy who kidnapped her son. She’s not trying to get Amber kicked out to save face, she’s doing it cause she’s legit worried and feels like this is something she actually can do to make her kids life safer.

    Like, obviously I don’t agree on the favoritism at play that is def tainted by colorism nor do I think she made the right all with Sal trying to help Marcy, but she’s got a complicated relationship with her daughter who still still loves very much.

    Honestly, i’d put her above Ethan’s parents and below Hank who while is the much much better of the two Walkerton parents, he still let Joyce be in that environment willingly. His passivity in that relationship doesn’t automatically make him a victim. He gets points for occasionally pushing back and growing but we didn’t particular like him at the start either ( He pulled that “we’re gonna passive aggressively pray over you having atheist friends instead of talking about it” crap).

    Also an aside, we can lay off of Charles a bit. Obviously Linda is more a aggressive in the relationship so we see her interact with people more (plus her relationship with her kids is more highlighted) but we don’t really know what his relationship with his kids 1 on 1 are just like we didn’t know Hank’s with his until Willis gave us more of those scenes.
    Maybe i’m a bit biased. Being black in an interracial black/white relationship (especially in the burbs) it can just be a lot easier/safer letting your white partner be the more aggressive one (especially in public)

    1. BBCC

      That’s kind of ruined by the fact Linda didn’t give a FUCK about Sal’s hand (to the point Sal hid it from her last time she saw her) until she could use it as ammunition. And the fact Linda dumped her newly disabled 13 year old in another state and didn’t see her or speak to her (except to lecture her on how she’s a failure) for five years per Word of Walky. Until a couple weeks ago, she had never been in a strip where she spoke to Sal without yelling at her. Hell, her comment on Sal being ridiculously late was ‘she’s making us look like bad parents’. Linda does not care about Sal as Sal is. Linda cares about the way Sal makes her look and about looking like a good mother. Hell, she doesn’t even really care about Walky as Walky is. Remember her little ‘Oh, he THINKS he’s in telecommunications until he switches to med school’ crap earlier? Or Walky’s freaking out because he knows how his mom will react if he fails math because he’s SEEN how she treats Sal?

      Linda is not a good mother. She is emotionally and financially abusive as well as emotionally negligent (which honestly is just another form of abuse) to Sal.

      And Charles isn’t really better. Sal usually speaks about her parents plural when she talks about them lecturing her about how she’s a failure. Charles is the one who insulted her hair to her face (and we’ve seen how she feels about her hair when she’s alone). Just last storyline, Sal told Amber she envied Amber’s ability to reject her father’s claim over her. Charles isn’t Blaine or Toedad but he’s not a good father either. Heck, it’s one thing to be passive but when your partner is pulling emotionally abusive and financially abusive crap, I think it’s worth criticizing he does not intervene.

      Loving your kids doesn’t make you automatically a good parent. It doesn’t even make you not an abusive parent. Even if we grant Linda loves her kids (which imo is a fairly big question mark), she is still an abusive mother. Her trying to punish another teenager for the actions of her dad isn’t a point in her favour even if it is out of love.

      1. Regalli

        Also, I consider a prerequisite of loving someone (at least once they’re out of the ‘does not yet have personality, does not yet really have functioning senses yet’, since we’re talking about parent-child relationships) is understanding who they are and supporting them in that. You can fantasize all you want about the kids growing up and being doctors or presidents, but when you have a kid you’re committing to making and raising another person. You can’t control what they’ll take to or not. (You can give them a lot of options, you can encourage things, but you might be a statistician and they end up being competent at math but REALLY taking to agriculture of all things and that’s just how it is.) There’s a lot of things you ultimately can’t predict or control in a kid – basic physical details like bone structure or, say, hair texture (no idea why I’m bringing that up in a discussion of Walkertons!), sexuality, neurotype and able-bodiedness… even gender’s really just an educated guess until your child is old enough to make that decision. And your child, because they are a unique person in their own right, will inevitably have opinions that differ from yours about many, many things.

        Linda does not recognize that Walky has a right to have ideas about his future she disagrees with. And Walky’s the one she’s NICE to. Linda refuses to recognize that Marcie has been nothing but a good and caring friend to Sal, and Sal to Marcie in return, because Linda refuses to see past Marcie being Latina and a very active, somewhat mischievous girl. (I think the former is more significant than the latter, but I’d bet the fact that she first saw Marcie when they were climbing a not-for-climbing playground fixture helped cement that first impression.)

        Linda doesn’t actually see her kids as people with the capacity to exist outside her orbit and the roles she’s chosen for them, so any idea of them that she loves is fundamentally different from loving the kids as they are.

    2. temperaryobsessor

      Actually while Ethan’s parents clearly have problems with homophobia until I learn more details I put them in the lesser parental evil catagory. Because all I know is they were not happy about it, but they still seem civil to him and didn’t cut him off.

  115. Dev

    …so I know this would be hard for Joyce but I’m so hoping she’s witnessing this to have further move away from her mother.

  116. Kensou

    Slow clap for Hank.

  117. Bobcat

    Language, Carol.

  118. MightyPinto

    “Attempted Murder!?!? It’s not like he killed someone!” – Carol, probably.

    1. Kater

      “Now honestly what is that?! Do they give a nobel prize for attempted chemistry?!

      1. temperaryobsessor

        No but school will usually give you partial credit for attempted math.

  119. Pagemistress

    Attenborough V.O.: And here we see the more reasonable member of the couple on the defensive separate himself from the conversation, as well as imply to his mate that he does not agree with her. The male of the couple I’m the offensive position looks on, surprised to discover after all this time that this is an option. Only time will tell what this will mean for the two males, though it is clear which of them has more of a spine.

  120. elebenty

    Hank pulls a Romney. Good for you, Hank.

  121. Aprion

    “We stand by our own”

    Truly? Then I guess I won’t have to feel bad about beating you to death with this shovel. Because if you truly mean that you deserve to be put in the fucking ground.

  122. Ian livs

    I never thought I’d be on the side of Wally and Sal’s Mom here, but you know what they say about strange bedfellows. Meanwhile… sorry, Hank, but I’m not sure your wife is redeemable after this. (I have plenty of hope for you left, though.)

  123. Joseph Picard

    I usually have to read posts of articles on FB to getthis kind of rage. Which way is it to the kittens, again?

  124. Shadotterdan

    If they had listened to the adults they would have been dead too.

  125. KJ

    THANK ?YOU?HANK???

  126. Heavensrun

    Panel 2 Hank: Holy shit, Carol, REALLY?

    Panel 5 Hank: (Mike)

  127. Keulen

    Carol’s definitely angling for the second-worst DoA parent slot now that Ross is dead.

  128. Daniel M Ball

    FINALLY!!

  129. Sterling

    And now imagine that in the Walkyverse, these two sets of parents watched their children get married.

    Hoo boy, what a wedding.

    1. SuperZero

      Would you invite them?

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