Message to Connie: Elly is not the Bride
In today’s For Better or For Worse, Connie Poirier reappears (reprint alert level red) and gives a pep talk to the Mother of the Bride as she puts on her makeup. Once again it makes me think back to my wedding. My wife had 2 mothers vying for the Mother of the Bride status, because she was the only daughter between the two of them (stepmother had all boys). Connie has some interesting opinions about the role of the Mother of the Bride. Let’s examine them: 1. The Mother of the Bride will smile ‘til it hurts. That’s a no from my wedding. It’s a wedding, not a beauty pageant. 2. Cry in your Kleenex. Odd Lynn would use a name brand for facial tissue. She usually sticks with funny, fake names for products. That’s a yes from my wedding. We have video of each mother-of-the-bride in tears during the ceremony. 3. Take a million pictures. I am going to assume that “a million” is an exaggeration; otherwise it would be no from my wedding. There are a lot of pictures taken of the mother-of-the-bride. It’s nothing compared to the number taken of the bride, but I am ceding the numerical point. My wedding pictures took about 30 minutes to finish, but have been to weddings with incompetent photographers where it took over an hour. 4. When it’s all over, the Mother of the Bride and her best friend will look like a couple of wrecks. This means, worse than they do now. In the case of my wedding, a definite “No”. The mothers-of-the-bride cried, but they didn’t cry enough to wreck their makeup. It’s a wedding, not a funeral. 5. The best friend of the Mother-of-the-Bride will try to look worse than the Mother-of-the-Bride, because that’s what good friends do. Absolutely not from my wedding. The best friend of the Mother-of-the Bride could have cared less about such things. This isn’t the bridesmaid trying not to outshine the bride after all. The biggest difference between the events of today’s For Better or For Worse and my wedding is the presence of the best friend in the dressing and makeup process for the Mother-of-the-Bride. In my family, the Father-of-the-Bride was present for those events. The best friends came with their own families, who were also invited to the wedding. I would expect Connie to be coming with her husband and Elly with hers, instead of seeing them walking arm-in-arm. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing Connie with her son Lawrence for a change of pace. They haven’t been shown in the strip together in over 10 years.
This strip starts the wedding day process with 4 weeks to go to cover the events until the strip's demise at the end of the month. Mike and Deanna's wedding covered a similar amount of time, except it included the bachelor party, the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I had hoped we would see a bachelor party for Anthony Caine, if for no other reason than to see if he has any male friends aside from the male Pattersons and Gordon Mayes. I was also looking forward to seeing how a rehearsal would be run differently with Liz and Anthony, since it was the rehearsal which was the primary point of contention in Mike and Deanna's wedding, and Shawna-Marie Verano's wedding. 4 weeks is probably too much to handle just the wedding day unless:
a. Connie and Elly reminisce about 1979 for a few weeks.
b. We actually only get 3 weeks of wedding and 1 week of post-wedding aftermath and strip closure.
c. Michael Patterson does a speech for the wedding which takes all week long, just as the "Shannon Lake on the cafeteria table" speech did.
d. Lynn Johnston takes the time to give a lot of old, obscure characters a last hurrah.
Personally, I like (b) and (d). However, I fear it may be (a) or (c).
This strip starts the wedding day process with 4 weeks to go to cover the events until the strip's demise at the end of the month. Mike and Deanna's wedding covered a similar amount of time, except it included the bachelor party, the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. I had hoped we would see a bachelor party for Anthony Caine, if for no other reason than to see if he has any male friends aside from the male Pattersons and Gordon Mayes. I was also looking forward to seeing how a rehearsal would be run differently with Liz and Anthony, since it was the rehearsal which was the primary point of contention in Mike and Deanna's wedding, and Shawna-Marie Verano's wedding. 4 weeks is probably too much to handle just the wedding day unless:
a. Connie and Elly reminisce about 1979 for a few weeks.
b. We actually only get 3 weeks of wedding and 1 week of post-wedding aftermath and strip closure.
c. Michael Patterson does a speech for the wedding which takes all week long, just as the "Shannon Lake on the cafeteria table" speech did.
d. Lynn Johnston takes the time to give a lot of old, obscure characters a last hurrah.
Personally, I like (b) and (d). However, I fear it may be (a) or (c).
posted by howard at 9:41 PM
14 Comments:
The obsession with the Elly & Connie friendship that has developed in the last year is really curious to me. I wonder why Lynn has brought Connie back into such heavy rotation. I know that she is used as a device to introduce the flashback strips. However, Connie is not necessary for this task. Elly could do it herself.
I find myself wondering if this has something to do with Lynn's divorce. I have often heard older women say that their friendships with women friends become more important again late in life because they often find themselves single when their husbands unexpectedly 1) die, or 2) divorce them (often for younger women), or 3) are still alive but no longer compatible/interested partners. We know that #2 applies to Lynn, so I wonder if she is musing on this theme as she finds herself unexpectedly without a man in her life.
As for the idiocy of the exchange in this strip: Elly is a narcissist. Everything is always all about her. It stands to reason that she is worried about how gorgeous she will look (hah!) and that Connie would know that Elly's vanity requires her to look worse.
I have not seen the mother of the bride ever take pictures at any wedding I have attended. They are usually too busy doing other things.
I predict we'll get three days of wedding and one week of aftermath/wrap-up (though a portion of the post-wedding will include the reception). I'll go out on a limb and predict no more flashbacks, but we'll check in with each character preparing for the wedding--in excruciating detail (so you might almost wish for flashbacks).
One thing that bugs me is Connie telling Elly, "I'm gonna be so happy for you." As you said, Elly is not the bride. If you're going to be happy for someone, be happy for the bride and groom. Not the MOB for "finally" getting her daughter married off before she becomes an old maid.
qnjones,
As for the idiocy of the exchange in this strip: Elly is a narcissist. Everything is always all about her. It stands to reason that she is worried about how gorgeous she will look (hah!) and that Connie would know that Elly's vanity requires her to look worse.
I know. The Settlepocalypse is a symptom of the disease; since Anthony looks like a clean-cut, upwardly mobile nice guy, Elly prefers him to people who threaten her assumptions. Too bad there's nothing to Anthony but a hangdog expression and victimism.
howard,
c. Michael Patterson does a speech for the wedding which takes all week long, just as the "Shannon Lake on the cafeteria table" speech did.
Personally, I expect that his speech might be the Sunday strip immediately following the wedding. The long-feared sequence wherein each married couple is associated with a verse of the wedding vows seems to have been designed to be in color. The last week will be the strip closure/lead-in to the Reload wherein Elly thinks back to when they were shopping for Liz's first proper bed.
qnjones,
I know that she is used as a device to introduce the flashback strips. However, Connie is not necessary for this task. Elly could do it herself.
Elly could, but if you look back over the Connie and Elly strips, you will find that a lot of them have Connie complimenting Elly on a task well-done or making the self-deprecating comments about their appearance. Lynn prefers Elly to receive compliments and not give them to herself, even though, since Lynn is writing both parts with essentially the same voice, it is Lynn complimenting Lynn.
We know that #2 applies to Lynn, so I wonder if she is musing on this theme as she finds herself unexpectedly without a man in her life.
I think this is absolutely the case. A few years ago, all these dialogues would have been with John as they would have reminisced together about their common past.
I have not seen the mother of the bride ever take pictures at any wedding I have attended. They are usually too busy doing other things.
I interpreted this as: Pictures including the mother-of-the-bride will be taken, from the “smiling until it hurts” line. My experience is that if you have someone in the family is a real photo bug, you have to take special steps to restrain them during the wedding. In my family, that person was the father of the bride, and in order to satisfy him (i.e. prevent him from spending the wedding taking pictures), we had to employ one of the best photographers in the Dallas area, and my father-in-law had to see that her cameras were better than the ones he had. The other photo bug was my own mother, and I had to warn her not to take pictures while the professional photographer was taking a shot. She could barely contain herself.
Elly is the photo bug in her family, and she is showing signs already of limited participation in her daughter’s wedding; so I could see her whipping out a camera. However, she didn’t do that during Mike and Deanna’s wedding.
aprilp_katje,
I predict we'll get three days of wedding and one week of aftermath/wrap-up (though a portion of the post-wedding will include the reception).
Three days? I don’t know. We have to have some motherly advice from Elly to Elizabeth where Elizabeth tells Elly how wonderful she is. We have to have some interplay between the 3 kids in the wedding line, and the ceremony itself. 3 days doesn’t seem like enough time.
I'll go out on a limb and predict no more flashbacks, but we'll check in with each character preparing for the wedding--in excruciating detail (so you might almost wish for flashbacks).
Each character, eh? I can see that. Just like the Christmas, 2007 sequence. Maybe we will even get a strip with all the Pattersons thought-ballooning evil thoughts about Mira Sobinski.
dreadedcandiru2,
Personally, I expect that his speech might be the Sunday strip immediately following the wedding.
If Lynn does it like she did with Mike and Deanna, then the Sunday strip will match the weekly strip to a certain degree. We could have both.
The last week will be the strip closure/lead-in to the Reload wherein Elly thinks back to when they were shopping for Liz's first proper bed.
30 years of Elly remembering back. I can definitely see that, especially with the wedding not dated to be on the final day of the strip.
Oops, I meant "three weeks," not "three days." Darn early-morning posting! Three weeks of wedding day, at least. Let's not forget April's four-week grade-eight "grad" day!
"..If you're going to be happy for someone, be happy for the bride and groom."
Well, this seems to be a reflection of the overall feeling that there isn't anything "joyous" about the marriage for Liz or Anthony. Liz finally get to "marry a guy just like dad" (which has been her primary goal, according to the character profile) and Anthony finally gets someone to make him a "hooooome".
Yep, Elly and John seem to be the only ones "happy" about this event. And even that comes off more like the relief of not being saddled with an "old maid" daughter.
aprilp_katje,
Darn early-morning posting! Three weeks of wedding day, at least. Let's not forget April's four-week grade-eight "grad" day!
I know all about early-morning posting. That's when I call Lynn Liz and vice-versa. So you predict three weeks of wedding and one week of aftermath/wrap-up.
debjyn,
Well, this seems to be a reflection of the overall feeling that there isn't anything "joyous" about the marriage for Liz or Anthony. Liz finally get to "marry a guy just like dad" (which has been her primary goal, according to the character profile) and Anthony finally gets someone to make him a "hooooome".
Except when the Anthony biography comes out, we will get to see if Elizabeth really is the mommy-replacement for Anthony that the preview bio has made her out to be. If so, we can really be creeped out by this wedding.
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So you predict three weeks of wedding and one week of aftermath/wrap-up.
howtheduck--Yes! That's my prediction. :)
debjyn, I agree about the joylessness. Elly's thrilled. John's probably having another chairgasm over this. But Liz just seems blank about the whole thing.
aprilp_katje,
But Liz just seems blank about the whole thing.
Well, we did get to see a little joy with Liz last Saturday. She said she loved Françoise, Anthony’s family and Anthony, in that order. Then she and Anthony kissed for the first time since last year.
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