Scenic Route
| Scenic Route | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chapter | 84 of 129 (list of chapters) |
| Published | June 27, 2014 |
| Page count | 24 |
| Major characters | Paulo, Daisy, Tess, Abbey |
| Minor characters | Mike, David |
| Locations | Roseville Park, Roseville neighborhood, Tess’s house |
| Collected in | Volume Five |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Test Drive | Total Recall → |
| Read chapter | |
Tess herds the gang out to a forest park, with new driver Paulo at the wheel. One acorn war and a hurt foot later, Paulo and Daisy are having a big talk about the future, and Tess turns out to have secrets of her own.
Synopsis
Tess has organized a day out at a forest park, and Paulo, still shaky behind the wheel, drives everyone there under her passenger-seat coaching.[1] Sue couldn’t make it, but David turns up anyway, popping out from the back-seat floor where he’s stowed away the whole ride.[2]
Out on the trail, Paulo and David take to the trees and pelt Mike with acorns while he snaps pictures of flowers for Sandy.[3][4] Daisy, meanwhile, compliments the standoffish Abbey on his photography, and he warms up enough to tell her, “I think you draw pretty cute.”[5]
The rocky creek is where the day goes wrong. Daisy picks her way across the rocks with great care, since she’s leading cheerleading practice next week and can’t risk a twisted ankle.[6] David urges her to treat the stones as cheer practice, “EXTREME edition!”, and she’s hopping happily from rock to rock when her foot slips between the stones with a sharp crack.[6][7] At the picnic spot, Mike realizes the phoneless Abbey never caught up. Daisy’s rush to go back for him finally gives her hidden injury away.[8] Tess leads a search party back down the trail, while Paulo stays behind with Daisy.
Paulo passes the time skipping rocks and teaching Daisy the trick.[9] Before long the talk drifts to the future. Daisy wants to be a doctor, and the pre-med school she has her heart set on is overseas.[10][11] Paulo, who has no real plan of his own, admits he’s scared he’ll “just be one of those guys who won’t amount to anything”.[12] Daisy offers to bring him along to some career shows and promises to help him no matter what happens.[12][13] Once the search party returns with Abbey, his first concern is Daisy’s foot.[14] The picnic resumes, but Paulo stays quiet and faraway.[15]
On the sunset drive home, Abbey and Daisy are asleep against each other in the back seat. Tess tells Paulo that Daisy and Abbey were the real reason for the trip. She “didn’t really feel like they were back together until today”.[16] She just loved being with everyone again, she admits, and Paulo promises another outing soon.[17]
The drop-offs play out on the final page without a word.[18] Abbey and Daisy walk home laughing, while Mike heads off alone, looking glumly at his phone. And Tess, home in her room, lies in bed staring at a university acceptance letter.
Character dynamics
- Daisy and Abbey: An item again since Take Heart, though nobody would guess it from Abbey’s flat, one-word answers early in the day.[19][4] Daisy’s sincere praise of his artistic side cracks his reserve. Once he’s been lost and found, his first words to her are “No, forget me. Are you okay?”[5][14] By sunset they’re asleep leaning on each other, and Tess finally believes the reconciliation took.[16]
- Paulo and Daisy: They’re friends who admire each other, and each is convinced the other is the impressive one. She calls him “really grown-up now” for balancing a job with driving lessons, while he points to her honor-roll grades against his rock-skipping.[20] The stranded afternoon turns that into something like a pact, with Daisy pledging her help for whatever future Paulo lands on.[13] Paulo, for his part, blushes his way through the pledge and goes sullen when Abbey returns.[14] David has been needling him about Daisy since Take Heart, and whatever he says at drop-off leaves Paulo bright red.[21][18]
- Tess and the group: She’s the trip’s organizer, and the day plainly means more to her than a walk in the woods. She tells Paulo the appeal was never nature, just that being together is “Nice, y’know?”, and she goes quiet at his promise of another outing.[17] The acceptance letter she stares at that night puts all that wistfulness in a different light.[18]
Trivia & observations
- Oliver’s commentary under page 2 joked that “Sue died earlier that day” (she simply had other plans). Enough readers took it at face value that he was still clearing things up on Tumblr a year later: “i guess a lot of people believed me?? never believe me”.[2][22]
- David’s search-party name “Hotel Mario” is a nod to the notorious 1994 Philips CD-i game.[8]
- The riverbank talk got to Veronica, too. Her commentary admits the future discussion made her misty-eyed, since the characters “technically have only a year in their time before the comic ends”, and she calls Daisy’s closing pledge “such a freaken sweet line”.[10][11]
- Veronica has said on Tumblr that the comic’s pro-college outlook comes from its cast being a “bunch of nerds”, not from her. She dropped out of three universities herself, and says she relates more to Paulo, who “genuinely doesn’t want to pursue college”.[23]
- Daisy wanting to be a doctor isn’t news (the plan already came up in Safe Boundaries), but the overseas pre-med school is a fresh detail here.[24][11]
Related chapters
- Take Heart: Abbey breaks up with Daisy, and the two are patched back together before the chapter ends. Tess is referring to that patch job when she says she “didn’t really feel like they were back together until today”.[19][16] David’s habit of teasing Paulo over Daisy starts there too.[21]
- Search and Rescue: Tess’s previous big group outing, on the island trip, also featured a scenic waterfall hike, a member gone missing, and a panicked search party. That time it was Mike, who fell into the river.[25][26] Veronica’s commentary here jokes that Tess should have known better than to expect a peaceful walk.[3]
- Total Recall: In the very next chapter, Daisy runs her cheerleading practice on two good ankles, and Tess begins saying her goodbyes.[27][28] Her graduation itself comes in Class of 2008.[29]
- Golden Hour: The rock-skipping comes back around on the beach trip, where David tries to cheer up a miserable Paulo with the very line Paulo uses on Daisy here: “Hey, wanna skip rocks?”[9][30]
References
- ↑ Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 4
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 5
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 6
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 9
- ↑ Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 10
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 12
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 13
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 16
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 17
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 18
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 19
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 20
- ↑ Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 21
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 22
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 23
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 24
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 81: Take Heart, page 10
- ↑ Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 15
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 81: Take Heart, page 12
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 “Ask response on the “Sue died” joke”. 2015-07-19.
- ↑ “Ask response on Paulo and college”. 2026-06-06.
- ↑ Chapter 78: Safe Boundaries, page 7
- ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 3
- ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 11
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 5
- ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 39
- ↑ Chapter 88: Class of 2008, page 5
- ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 33