Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Connie and Phil: Is it over?

In yesterday’s Blog entry I said, “The only way I can see this coming off is if Lynn completely rewrites the story and Connie does not go to Montreal.” After today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, it looks a lot that is what Lynn is doing. Elly flat out tells Connie that Phil is not the one for her and he is not interested. It seems almost impossible now that Connie can make that Montreal trip to chase after Phil. Of course I said the same thing after Anthony Caine got married and had a baby “It seems almost impossible that Liz and Anthony will get married”; and look how that turned out. The skewed moral fabric of the characters in this strip sometimes calls them to do things only the most depraved and immoral person would do.

The most interesting part of the strip, aside from young Michael sitting on top of Farley the dog who appears to have doubled in size since we last saw him, is Lawrence’s final panel comment. It is a damning condemnation of single mothers who are desperate to get married. It makes me wonder, in these days post-Rod Johnston, if this is the statement that Lynn wished Aaron had made to her, all those years ago when Lynn was hot after Rod.

In this strip from back in September in the beginning of the new-runs, Elly said (WRT Connie), “Relationships happen in due time. When you’re always looking, you just get depressed and frustrated.” I had thought, at the time, this could be a sign that Lynn Johnston was going to jump over the Ted and Phil triangle with Connie. Then the first part of Phil and Connie appeared, and I thought I was mistaken in my impression. Now, I am not so sure. The old Lynn Johnston of the modern strip used to telegraph her storylines years in advance. Maybe this is one of those.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think Lynn is really reconsidering any of her past actions or choices, either in her own life or in the storylines. I think she is shooting for a cute moment with the kid, and that is all. Lawrence complains only about Connie's talk, but not about her actions. This strip says, "Aww, little kid feels left out by Mommy's words," and not, "Oh my God, this woman is totally negligent not to consider that the parade of men in and out of her bedroom is damaging to her son."

I want to believe that Lynn could rethink her bad choices, but I think her massive ego gets in the way.

11:31 PM  
Blogger Holly said...

qnjones Lawrence complains only about Connie's talk, but not about her actions.

I think that's it exactly: this strip is supposed to be, "Awww, isn't that cute? Lawrence sees himself as a husband-substitute for Connie. Kids just don't understand grown-up relationship! Ha ha ha!"

I almost hope that that was the intention, though, as I don't want to see how Lynn could further destroy Connie's character by having her try to explain to Lawrence how he's nice and all, but she finds it really hard to land a husband with her illegitimate half-Brazilian kid hanging around being moody all the time.

12:01 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Elly said (WRT Connie), “Relationships happen in due time. When you’re always looking, you just get depressed and frustrated.” I had thought, at the time, this could be a sign that Lynn Johnston was going to jump over the Ted and Phil triangle with Connie. Then the first part of Phil and Connie appeared, and I thought I was mistaken in my impression. Now, I am not so sure. The old Lynn Johnston of the modern strip used to telegraph her storylines years in advance. Maybe this is one of those.

Probably. We can probably look forward to a similarly rushed reprise of the Connie and Ted debacle followed by her admitting that Elly was right all along. All we'll need after that is to somehow reintroduce Anthony into the plot and Lynn can do straight reprints.

2:34 AM  
Blogger InsertMonikerHere said...

I'm pretty sure LJ had Lawrence express this sentiment in the original run (when he was older and trying to adjust to his mother's relationship with Greg?). I think it included a line something like "but she's got me."

In that way, this strip isn't bad (the horror is the context of wondering if somehow we're still going to have that Montreal trip shoehorned in - now making Connie beyond-insane desperate).

I think original-run Lawrence made occasional good points about a child's perspective on adults looking after their own relationships. He had the " 'you'll adjust, you'll adjust' - what am I - a TV?" line about the Connie and Greg marriage and/ or the move to Thunder Bay, and one or two times when he questioned whether his mom cared about him the way she cared about finding a husband.

I don't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't as forced as the Francoise business. Connie never put pressure on him to accept her guy the way Anthony pressured Francoise. And I think there was a good strip where Connie found out about Lawrence's feelings and reassured him that he was the most important person to her.

Eventually, when Connie and Greg married, they understood that Lawrence had his own relationship to build with Greg, and that if Lawrence wanted Greg to be "stepfather" and not "father", that was OK.

That stuff wasn't bad, but I shudder at the remix that will surely be coming.

6:56 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

InsertMonikerHere,

I don't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't as forced as the Francoise business. Connie never put pressure on him to accept her guy the way Anthony pressured Francoise. And I think there was a good strip where Connie found out about Lawrence's feelings and reassured him that he was the most important person to her.

Eventually, when Connie and Greg married, they understood that Lawrence had his own relationship to build with Greg, and that if Lawrence wanted Greg to be "stepfather" and not "father", that was OK.

That stuff wasn't bad, but I shudder at the remix that will surely be coming.


So do I. The sequence you mentioned was from when Lynn actually seemed to care about the strip so wanted the characters to ring true. Now that she can't be bothered getting it right just so long as it's done fast, we're in for a three-ring circus direct from Foob Hell.

7:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any mention of Francoise and I can't help but flash back to that horrific "I never had anything worth fighting about before!" line.

Yep, Anthony was one heck of a parent (and husband)--at least to the Pattersons.

DebJyn

10:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, lucky for Connie she got married (to a homophobe) before Lawrence came out of the closet. Then she would have had an illegitimate half-Brazilian moody GAY kid hindering her marriage hunt. Poor Connie! ::rolleyes::

11:35 AM  

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