Happy Hour

From Candypedia
Happy Hour
Chapter80 of 129 (list of chapters)
PublishedOctober 15, 2013 (2013-10-15)
Page count51
Major charactersPaulo, Mike, Rachel, Daisy, Abbey, Sue
Minor charactersDavid, Amaya, Jessica, Matt, Tiff, Rodrigo
LocationsRachel’s house, Paulo’s house, Roseville High School, Roseville neighborhood
Collected inVolume Four
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Rachel’s parents are away for her birthday weekend, and Paulo’s present comes straight from his dad’s liquor cabinet. A few drinks in, the party becomes a wake for Lucy, and Mike finally tells everyone what he said to her before she left.

Synopsis

It’s Rachel’s birthday, and with her parents away until Sunday, she invites Paulo and his friends to a weekend party at her house.[1] Paulo has completely forgotten to buy her anything, so he goes digging through his dad’s liquor cabinet instead.[2][3]

His present turns out to be two bottles of alcohol, which earn him a scolding at the front door before the birthday girl grins and keeps them both: “But I’ll never tell.”[4] Paulo chugs his first can while holding eye contact with a lecturing Mike.[5] Even Mike doesn’t stay sober for long, thanks to a sweet pink drink Rachel picks out just for him.[6]

It doesn’t take long for the party to turn into a wake. Paulo slides upside-down off the couch muttering that no wonder his dad drinks, and Daisy’s frantic “YOU’RE HIGH ON LIFE” gets the glum reply that he could be, if Lucy were here.[7] The group falls to mourning the absent Lucy, and Sue’s toast in her honor tips Mike into tears.[8] A nervous slip about whether Lucy ever mentioned anything sets Sue, and then Jessica, on the scent of his secret.[9]

Cornered, Mike finally starts talking, beginning with the history essay.[10] His account fills an entire wordless page of horrified faces, and Paulo punches him across the face.[11] Paulo screams that he made Lucy feel so alone. Mike fires back “It’d make for two of us.”[12] Then he rounds on the whole group, telling them he’s just a joke to all of them and that none of them ever act like his friends.[13]

Daisy chases him down and hugs him, but her tearful defense turns to open jealousy while a stone-sober Abbey listens. She asks Mike, “Why’d ya even like her? What made her better than me?”[14] Abbey grabs a beer and takes his first swig of the night. Daisy rushes over to him, leaving Mike alone and weeping.[15]

Paulo, of all people, ends up comforting Mike. Rachel shoves the sobbing Mike onto the couch beside him, and Paulo, looking away, puts a hand on his head with a muttered “Idiot.”[16] Both boys admit they loved Lucy, and Paulo warns that if she ever comes back, Mike has lost his chance.[17] Then Matt barges in with a three-tiered birthday cake, and the party lurches back into dancing and games.[18] When Mike goes missing later on, Paulo finds him crying on Rachel’s bed and sits with him in silence.[19]

Rachel sees her wobbly guests out,[20] then teases Paulo that it’s a good thing they’re not dating, since a real girlfriend might’ve kicked him out for mourning his ex all night.[21] Right on cue, his stomach gives out. She holds him through the vomiting and the heartbreak that follows (“S-she was the one, you know..” “I know.”), and gets pulled into a grateful hug.[22][23] The final page is a wordless time-lapse of the snow around a tree melting into green spring grass.[24]

Character dynamics

Paulo, teeth clenched, punches Mike across the face while the rest of the group stares in shock.
Mike finishes his confession, and Paulo answers with his fist.
  • Paulo and Mike: Paulo and Mike care about each other despite their rivalry. Drunk, the two swing from head-pressed declarations of friendship to a punch thrown over Lucy.[25][11] Even so, it’s Paulo who winds up with a hand on Mike’s head at the end of the night, and who later sits with him in silence while he cries.[16][26] Both say out loud that they loved her, and Paulo warns that when Lucy comes back, Mike has had his chance.[17] In Veronica’s words, “Their bond is deeper than they expect..”[16]
  • Daisy and Abbey: Daisy’s old feelings for Mike come out in front of Abbey. He stays sober to look after everyone, then hears his girlfriend ask Mike, mid-hug, what made Lucy better than her.[14] He tells Sue she’s “just drunk,” then breaks his own rule and takes a swig of beer anyway.[15] He still helps her home at the end of the night.[20]
  • Mike and his friends: Mike has been the only one who knew what he said to Lucy, while the group treated her absence as somehow his doing.[27] After he confesses, he tells them he’s a joke to them and nobody ever takes his corner.[13] The group is horrified, and Paulo punches him. By the end of the party, Daisy and Rachel have both hugged him.[13][20]
  • Paulo and Rachel: Rachel finally defines their arrangement by cheerfully announcing that they’re not dating.[21] She hosts, mediates, forgives him the entire Lucy meltdown, and ends the night on the bathroom floor holding him while he cries.[22] By the time he pulls her into a grateful hug, they’ve grown a good deal closer.[28]
  • Daisy and Mike: Daisy’s old crush comes out in her own words while she holds Mike in front of everyone. Mike is too wrapped up in Lucy to give her any answer at all.[14]

Trivia & observations

Paulo and Rachel hug, silhouetted against the bathroom window as snow blows outside.
Not a real girlfriend, by her own admission, but Rachel does a fine impression of one.
  • The reader never hears Mike’s confession. The page where he tells the group what he said to Lucy is completely wordless, carried entirely by their horrified faces.[11]
  • Paulo’s explosion at Mike plays out on a page washed in mottled red, and Mike’s admission that he “still really loved her” closes on a panel washed in dark blue.[12][29]
  • Per Veronica’s commentary, the party takes place in February, on the weekend of Rachel’s birthday.[1]
  • This is Matt’s first appearance in the series. Veronica has said he was “introduced in Happy Hour as a one-off character” before being fleshed out. She also describes Tiff’s good mood at the party as genuine, saying “she’s just giddy and drunk and in good spirits because Jordan isn’t at the party”.[30]
  • Veronica’s commentary defends Rachel getting Mike drunk on the grounds that “she wasn’t there when Mike ate all the chocolate liqueurs!”, a nod to his accidental first drunkenness back in Confrontation.[6][31]
  • Under the page where drunk Daisy asks Abbey about the condoms, Veronica notes that Oliver originally wanted Abbey’s reaction to be silent shock. She insisted on giving Abbey dialogue instead, to make it “pretty clear that Abbey would never do such a thing with an intoxicated girl”.[32]
  • Veronica has also said that watching Paulo attack Mike left Abbey thinking “wow, that could have easily been me”, and that Mike’s visible remorse at the party is part of why Abbey later cuts him some slack.[33]
  • The melting snow on the final page closes out the comic’s long winter. Veronica’s commentary under it reads “Spring is here... these kids can make it. It just needs some time.”[24]

Related chapters

  • December: Everything Mike confesses at the party happened in this chapter. His cruelest words to Lucy came during their paired history essay, and the flashback montage in Happy Hour replays them line for line, “You’re a parasite.” included.
  • Take Heart: The very next chapter opens with Abbey asking Daisy what she remembers about Rachel’s party. Her drunken outpouring over Mike becomes something the couple has to work through.
  • Curtain Call: The “stupid play” Sue blames herself for is her own production, staged there with Lucy in the cast. The dressing-room encounter behind Paulo’s drunken boasting happens right before the show.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 2
  2. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 4
  3. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 5
  4. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 8
  5. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 9
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 12
  7. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 15
  8. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 19
  9. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 22
  10. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 25
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 26
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 27
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 28
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 30
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 32
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 33
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 35
  18. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 36
  19. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 44
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 46
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 47
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 48
  23. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 49
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 51
  25. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 14
  26. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 45
  27. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 20
  28. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 50
  29. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 34
  30. ↑ “Ask response on Jordan, Jess and Rachel’s friend group”. 2026-04-13.
  31. ↑ Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 6
  32. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 13
  33. ↑ “Ask response on Abbey witnessing the party fight”. 2026-04-20.
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