Curtain Call

From Candypedia
Curtain Call
Chapter74 of 127 (list of chapters)
PublishedFebruary 11, 2013 (2013-02-11)
Page count36
Major charactersLucy, Mike, Paulo, Sue
Minor charactersAlec McCain, Daisy, Jasmine, David, Abbey, Chris, Amaya, Stacy, Jessica, Rachel
LocationsRoseville High School
Collected inVolume Four
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After a semester of rehearsals and one last directorial meltdown, Sue’s play finally opens. Backstage, Paulo works up the nerve to confess to Lucy, and by the end of the night Mike is fumbling toward an apology he’s owed her since December.

Synopsis

Opening night has arrived, and Sue is not handling it gracefully. She frets about props, the late start, and someone who still hasn’t shown up. When McCain deadpans that the narrator is stuttering, she shakes him until he froths.[1] Mike gets grabbed by the chest fur next and interrogated about his third-scene entrance. He insists he’s got this.[2]

Paulo, meanwhile, has begged his way backstage to make his big confession.[3] Alone in Lucy’s dressing room, he fumbles through the speech he’d rehearsed: he missed her, he’d looked forward to school just to see her again, and he’s scared.[4] Lucy, dull-eyed under her costume hood, stands up and cuts him off with “Let’s make out.” Paulo, stunned, gets out an “Okay.”[5]

Mike, costumed as the hero, comes looking for a last read-through and instead meets Paulo bursting out of Lucy’s dressing room with his fur a mess.[6] Paulo pulls himself together and tells Mike it’s none of his business.[7] Inside, Lucy sits withdrawn with her hood up. Mike’s concern curdles into annoyance when all his rehearsal talk earns him is a “Sure, whatever.”[8] Paulo’s night doesn’t improve out in the audience, where Daisy has innocently saved him the seat next to Jasmine.[9] After Jasmine walks out on him, Paulo admits to Daisy that he broke up with her for Lucy, and that he never actually got around to asking Lucy out.[10]

The play itself goes over well. Mike’s village hero climbs a prop mountain under a rain of what turn out to be actual rocks.[11] In the cave above waits a cloaked figure, his long-lost twin — the cursed child who survived her own execution.[12] Her speech about the pain of solitude makes the hero drop his sword and embrace her, apologizing that nobody ever helped her.[13] That breaks the curse. Lucy’s robe falls away to an elegant blue dress, and she sings.[14] As the two stand holding hands, Mike slips into a childhood memory.[15] Little Lucy asks whether he’d want to marry her, then storms off in a huff when he fumbles the answer.[16]

The curtain closes on a success, but behind it Mike and Lucy realize they’re still holding hands. Lucy’s face sours as she yanks hers away. Mike deposits Chris into Sue’s arms and runs after her.[17] When Lucy stonewalls him in the hallway, he pulls her into the dressing room and shuts the door.[18] He admits he didn’t need to yell at her back at his place, and that not everything is okay, but offers: “We could start things over.”[19] Lucy turns away to her vanity, and after a long moment she smiles. “That’d be nice.”[19]

Character dynamics

Lucy, impassive, tells a startled Paulo "Let's make out."
Paulo had a whole speech prepared.
  • Mike and Lucy: Their friendship has been in ruins since Mike told Lucy she was a parasite back in December, and by now the play is about the only thing keeping them in a room together.[20][8] Onstage, Mike has to deliver a scripted apology and embrace Lucy as the hero’s sister.[13] Holding her hand at the finale pulls up a childhood memory of her wanting to marry him.[15] By the end of the night he has chased her down and offered a fresh start, which she quietly accepts. Nothing between them is actually settled, and he says as much.[19]
  • Paulo and Lucy: Paulo is the one doing all the wanting here, and he treats opening night as his big chance, having ended things with Jasmine partly for Lucy’s sake.[21][10] He came to finally say his piece, but Lucy cuts him off with a make-out session and no answers. She meets his sincerity with the same numbness she shows everyone else right now. Paulo leaves elated, while she stays at her vanity with her hood up, exactly as flat as he found her.[5][7]
  • Paulo and Jasmine: The split at Tess’s New Year’s party was mutual on-panel, but Paulo now tells it as him leaving her for Lucy.[21][10] At their first meeting since the breakup, Jasmine lasts exactly one exchange in the seat beside him before walking out.[9]
  • Sue and Lucy: Sue drafted Lucy into the play more or less by force, and the two have shown no particular warmth before now.[22] When Lucy volunteers, unprompted, that Sue did a good job, she catches the director completely off guard. The two share a warm grin before her entrance.[23]

Trivia & observations

Oliver’s pencil thumbnails for the play sequence.[24]
  • Mike’s green tunic and prop sword are exactly what they look like. Veronica’s commentary greets him with “oh hey there link i mean mike”.[25]
  • The rockslide effect uses actual rocks, with Jessica lobbing stones in front of three big fans while Sue works the controls from behind the curtain.[11][26] Veronica’s commentary admits “I’m sure Sue is having a lot of fun throwing rocks at Mike.”[11]
  • Veronica calls the cursed twin “an appropriate role for the newly dead-inside lucy.”[12]
  • BCB won the 2013 ComicMix March Madness webcomics tournament during this chapter’s run. Veronica announced the win in the commentary while mourning, “I JUST WANTED TO LOSE TO HOMESTUCK ;__;”[12]
  • Per Veronica’s commentary, the marriage flashback is “a callback to an old storyline in the old series.”[27]
  • Chris makes his second appearance here, after debuting in December.[28][29] Veronica’s commentary declares him “The true star of this show!”[30]
  • Years later on Tumblr, Veronica described Mike’s closing apology as a “non-apology,” singling out “It’s not like everything is okay” as its one redeeming line.[31]
  • Amid the backstage celebration, Rachel presents Jessica with a congratulatory bouquet. Veronica’s commentary salutes her: “What an absolute sweetheart.”[18]

Related chapters

In the flashback, young Lucy asks Mike with wide eyes, "People marry when they're 18?"
Young Lucy takes Mike’s grasp of marriage law entirely at face value.
  • Casting Call: Sue finishes her script there and strong-arms Mike and Lucy into the lead roles, reasoning that “the girl can sing.” Lucy’s curse-breaking song in the finale proves her right.
  • December: The yelling Mike apologizes for at the end happened at his house in that chapter, where he told Lucy he hated her and called her a parasite.
  • Breaking Up: In the very next chapter, Lucy doesn’t come to school the day after the play, and Mike eventually traces her to a hospital. Veronica has confirmed that Lucy attempted suicide the night of the play, after it ended.[32]
  • Double Down: A much later flashback to Lucy’s dressing room on the night of the play shows the make-out this chapter keeps off-panel. It ends just as Mike arrives outside the door.

References

  1. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 2
  2. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 3
  3. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 4
  4. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 7
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 9
  6. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 12
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 13
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 14
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 16
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 17
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 20
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 22
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 24
  14. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 26
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 29
  16. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 31
  17. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 34
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 35
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 36
  20. ↑ Chapter 68: December, page 30
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 21
  22. ↑ Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 8
  23. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 18
  24. ↑ “Oliver’s thumbnail work on Curtain Call”. 2014-08-22.
  25. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 11
  26. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 21
  27. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 30
  28. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 15
  29. ↑ Chapter 68: December, page 14
  30. ↑ Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 33
  31. ↑ “Ask response on genuine apologies in BCB”. 2018-09-19.
  32. ↑ “Ask response on when Lucy’s jump took place”. 2017-08-14.
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