Total Recall

From Candypedia
Total Recall
Chapter85 of 129 (list of chapters)
PublishedAugust 25, 2014 (2014-08-25)
Page count42
Major charactersPaulo, Rachel, Jordan, Daisy, Augustus, Tess, Matt, Mike, Lucy
Minor charactersJessica, David, Tiff, Abbey, Stacy, Madison
LocationsRoseville High School, Paulo’s house, Prom venue, Hospital
Collected inVolume Five
Chapter navigation
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Rachel finally works up the nerve to ask Paulo to his second junior prom, and the night goes wonderfully right up until the drive home. When Paulo wakes up in a hospital bed, his first visitor is the last person anyone expected to see.

Synopsis

Rachel corners Paulo at his locker to ask him to the junior prom, though it takes a few false starts (and one loud “HA” from a passing Tess) to get anywhere.[1] At lunch, Paulo’s hope that everything “goes better than last year” quiets the whole table.[2]

Augustus catches Daisy alone in the gym after cheer practice. He says he only wanted to know how she’s doing, and she pointedly answers that she’s happy with Abbey.[3] When he insists he’d only ever meant to kiss her at the carnival, Daisy darkens. “That IS far..”[4] He calls himself a fuckup, hints he might not be around school much longer, and turns to go. Daisy stops him with a hand on his arm to say he needs help, even if it can’t be from her.[5]

At his closet on prom night, Paulo crushes the dried rose still pinned to last year’s suit.[6] Rachel arrives in a limousine with Matt, Jessica, Jordan and Jordan’s date Tiff.[7] Tiff bolts the moment they reach the venue and later leaves for another party altogether.[8][9] Rachel promises Paulo an awesome night regardless, and gives him one.[10]

At the prom, Paulo and Jordan put an old grudge behind them. Jordan swallows his pride at the punch table and asks how Paulo gets girls to take him seriously.[11] After hearing about all the gifts and dinners Tiff never noticed, Paulo delivers his verdict: “This is some Sandy bullshit right here.”[12] He makes Jordan pick a different girl and shoves him onto the dance floor toward Roxy.[13]

Bad oysters put Paulo behind the wheel for the drive home. Jessica falls ill in the parking lot, Rachel leaves with her, and the boys take Matt’s car.[14] On the road, Jordan quietly apologizes to Paulo for “how it hurts”,[15] and Matt is still trying to end the night on a high note when another car’s headlights flood the cabin.[16] The page goes white, then fades into a long darkness.[17]

Lucy, of all people, is Paulo’s first visitor at the hospital. He sleeps through it, bruised and in a neck brace.[18] She slips in wearing a private school uniform, rests a hand on his forehead, and says exactly one word: “Idiot.”[19] The next time Paulo jolts awake, it’s Daisy at the foot of his bed, in tears and hugging him hard.[20] Once she leaves to check on Jordan, he decides Lucy’s visit was just a dream.[21]

The rest of the gang files through in turn. David leans in to ask “DID YOU DIE?”[22] Mike admits the accident scared him and that he cares about Paulo. Paulo mocks him for it, then calls him back with a sincere “Me too.”[23] Tess visits last, with news of a senior prom date and some wistfulness about the class scattering after graduation.[24] Weeks later Paulo is back at school, waited on hand and foot by his friends, at least until he suggests he should get into car accidents more often.[25]

Character dynamics

Lucy, wearing a private school uniform, rests her hand on the sleeping Paulo's forehead and says "Idiot."
Paulo’s first visitor doesn’t stay long.
  • Paulo and Jordan: Paulo and Jordan move from a standing feud to something like friendship. Jordan once threw Paulo out of Lucy’s house and recited Lucy’s insults at him, which is why Paulo’s first instinct at the punch table is to plead for his life.[26][11] But Jordan comes wanting advice, and Paulo genuinely gives it. By the drive home, Jordan is quietly apologizing on his sister’s behalf for how much she hurt him.[15]
  • Daisy and Augustus: Their first conversation since he forced himself on her at the carnival in Love My Way, and this time Daisy holds the ground.[27][3] She is plainly still frightened of him, but she refuses to let him downplay what he did, and rather than simply walking away she tells him to find help elsewhere.[4][5]
  • Paulo and Mike: Rivals whose fondness usually hides under needling, until the accident scares it out into the open. Mike says outright that he cares, Paulo deflects with a joke, and then the joke gets dropped for something honest.[23] By the last page Mike is carrying his books.[25]
  • Paulo and Tess: Their prom history still stings a bit, from the crushed rose to Paulo’s reflexive jealousy over her senior friends.[6][24] But Tess has mended fences with the people she lost in freshman year, and Paulo, after a sulk, tells her he’s happy for her as she drifts back toward her own class.[28][29]
  • Paulo and Daisy: Old friends with something new and unspoken in the air. Her relief at his bedside spills into a hug that leaves them both blushing, and neither says a word about it afterward.[30]
  • Paulo and Rachel: Paulo and Rachel are all blushing nerves at the lockers, then settle into open, comfortable affection. She promises him an awesome night and delivers. By the ending she’s doting on him without a hint of awkwardness, favorite soda included.[1][10][25]

Trivia & observations

The headlights of an oncoming car flood the inside of Matt's car as it speeds toward them, only feet away.
The drive home comes to a sudden stop.
  • Veronica’s commentary places the junior prom in mid-May, and notes that Daisy’s leg trouble from Scenic Route is “long since over with”, so a good stretch of time has passed since the previous chapter.[31]
  • Augustus debuts a tidier haircut here. Per Veronica’s commentary, he “grew his other hair part out so he looks less like an asymmetrical weirdo”.[32]
  • The Tiff and Jordan situation is older than it looks. Veronica’s commentary says their dynamic was “covered heavily in the super old series” she wrote at age twelve and resurfaced in the members’ comic “Dinner Time”, making this chapter her “late bringer-upper”.[33]
  • The crash is a nearly blank page of white fading into mottled darkness. Veronica painted “three or four separate watercolour pages” for the fade from blackout to the hospital room.[34]
  • Veronica has said the friend group regards what Augustus did to Daisy as abuse, and that they rarely bring it up out of respect for her. It comes rushing back whenever Augustus reappears, as it does here.[35]
  • Per a 2025 ask response, one Kickstarter-commissioned BCI began from the prompt “what if Paulo actually died in Total Recall?”. Veronica wrote a script and plan for it before reworking the idea.[36]
  • Two characters make their first appearances at the prom: Madison, scowling beside Jessica on the dance floor, and Roxy, the girl Jordan ends up dancing with.[9][37]
  • The commentary under page 2 is an in-memoriam for “Insanity Streak”, a longtime Australian reader who died the week the chapter began. He had helped proofread book drafts and attended nearly every Australian convention appearance.[38]

Related chapters

  • Love My Way: The “last year” that hangs over this whole chapter. It covers Paulo’s first junior prom with Tess and her gentle rejection, Mike and Daisy’s disastrous carnival date, and Augustus forcing himself on Daisy among the trees, the incident his apology in the gym is reaching back to.
  • Breaking Up: Lucy’s hospitalization and departure from Roseville. She hasn’t been seen in the present day since. Her silent bedside visit is her first time on panel since she left, and “Idiot.” is her first spoken word since then.
  • Piece of Cake: Jordan throwing Paulo out of Lucy’s house and reciting her “self-centered manwhore” verdict at him. That’s why Paulo greets him at the punch table by begging for his life.
  • Small Fry: Rachel teaching Paulo to drive at the drive-in theater, the only reason he can take the wheel of Matt’s car on prom night.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 1
  2. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 3
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 6
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 8
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 9
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 10
  7. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 11
  8. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 13
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 15
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 14
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 16
  12. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 18
  13. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 20
  14. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 22
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 24
  16. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 25
  17. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 26
  18. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 28
  19. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 29
  20. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 31
  21. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 34
  22. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 35
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 37
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 38
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 42
  26. ↑ Chapter 70: Piece of Cake, page 11
  27. ↑ Chapter 39: Love My Way, page 16
  28. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 39
  29. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 40
  30. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 33
  31. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 5
  32. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 7
  33. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 12
  34. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 27
  35. ↑ “Ask response on Augustus and Daisy after the carnival”. 2024-09-28.
  36. ↑ “Ask response on deciding what BCIs to make”. 2025-11-25.
  37. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 19
  38. ↑ Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 2
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