Bad blood
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Mary Worth, 5/18/26
A thing about soap opera comic strips is that it’s very difficult to understand how we’re supposed to read the passage of time. Like, Tommy’s big drug storyline happened over literally a few weeks of real-life time and seemingly even less time in-universe: he arrived at his mother’s condo unit, mentally set his intention to become a methamphetamine manufacturer, sold a kid some drugs, the kid immediately OD’d, and then Tommy got arrested. Later, he came back to Charterstone after he did his time and has been doing his thing for years ever since, mostly on the up and up except for a little detour into the prescription opioid scene.
So what’s Dawn’s problem? Admittedly, everyone has been more or less the same age for decades in this strip so you have to imagine that less time has passed for her, but still, she seems to have a real personal chip on her shoulder about Tommy’s bad behavior. Not sure if the blond kid who overdosed on Tommy’s bootleg “stuff” had been in her sights as her next romantic victim, or if he tried selling her some baking soda claiming it was “the good shit,” but either way something happened between the two of them that she has not forgiven.
Heathcliff, 5/18/26
BIG NEWS: Heathcliff has … a sister? Who looks exactly like him except she has a bow in her hair? And the two of them are doing fishcrime together? More on this story as it develops.
59 replies to “Bad blood”
Mary Worth:
The Tommy I knew would never take responsibility for his actions…which is why he reminds me of my father!”
Heathcliff:
“But enough about that dead fish.”
Ph – Er, Kit? Does Diana know about this Mark and Cherry Trail roleplay thing you and Guran do? Is she cool with it?
Mary Worth:
How does one become a “former” felon, anyway? — isn’t it “Once a felon, always a felon”?
MW: Am I forgetting something, or is this literally the first time we’ve ever seen Dawn and Tommy interact? I know they were in the same place at Iris’s wedding, but have they ever spoken to each other?
Also MW: You’re not a former felon because you’re out of jail, Dawn. You’re still a felon unless you receive a pardon.
GT: “Where’s Jami? For that matter, where’s my neck?”
RMMD-“Sorry, man. All I can get you is former astrophysicists.”
MW: Dawn’s final thought balloon seems like something a grade-school teacher hands out to her class to complete the punctuation.
MW – Does Dawn Weston really have standing to criticize Tommy this sharply? I mean maybe she’s just pissed because he has obviously stopped being the guy she could look at and say “well, at least I’m not that!“
S4th: Took the words right outta my mouth, Hil-ster…
MW: Dawn learned vocabulary from the master, Daffy Duck. She’s a veritable b**ch!! As for what her ‘problem’ is (good grief, where to start?) I’m guessing she holds Tommy somehow responsible for Irish not marrying her endearingly quirky dad.
JP: Oh, so hot.
JP2: Judgey Wudgey’s going to go find out that his car isn’t actually in the driveway (because he never just frikkin’ ASKED Ann what happened!!) and the go out searching for it. ‘Here, SUV! Here, Girl!’
MW: Tommy may be a former addict, a sleazebag, a moron, a felon, a tweaker, but he is not a pr?n star!
Heathcliff wants to impress his sister by taking her along on the high-class jobs. No Inferior Fish Market for them — they’re going straight for Elite!
@richardf8: Dawn is being unfair. She’ll always have her dad for that.
RMMD: It’s so cute the way they all think the people coming to look at “Lorna Starr” are going to buy anything. Fortunately both their customers are already in the diner.
MW: After realizing how out of character it is for the Tommy she knows to apologize to her let alone take any personal responsibility for his actions, she comes to the only logical conclusion possible: He’s stoned.
Pluggers: Here’s a tip on doing oil changes, plugger dog-man. When you unscrew the drain plug on the oil pan get out of the way real quick or you’ll get an oil shower.
RMMD: Well don’t just stand there like a useless lump, Fergus. Start washing dishes or bussing tables. Better yet, clean out the bathroom you just befouled.
Six Chix: The endangered carbon monoxide detector chirps away, sadly unheard by the family inside, who have already succumbed to CO2 poisoning.
Some versions of ghost stories say that they’re trapped in a sort of timeless state, forever forced to recall the events that led to them becoming ghosts as if it just happened every passing moment. I imagine it’s much the same for comics characters – those events happened over twenty years ago, but to Dawn and to Tommy, it’s fresh and recent.
Kind of appropriate for the medium, isn’t it? Heh. “Medium”.
Today’s Heathcliff is based on the Old Master painting, The Allegory of the Fishmonger Who Hasn’t Accepted His Fate and the Fishmonger Who Has.
Life is still brutal.
MW: Dawn inherited her father’s gift of wordplay. “Sleaze addict” is right up there with “ugly gorilla.”
Wary Morth:
“The solution to the mystery must be in the barber’s! I must go in and find out for myself!”
Fifteen minutes later Dusk emerges with a shaved head.
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Wrecks Moregone:
What makes Doug imagine that even if half the town turns up, they’ll order anything and not just gawk?
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Wrecks Moregone:
Moustache hears Hector summoning Luis and his crew and reaches for his phone.
“Now what’s the phone number for ICE?”
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Murk Tail:
Raccoons are good
Raccoons are great
Rusty might have been doing something
That rhymes with Master Gate.
HEATHCLIFF: Maybe Heathcliff’s companion is a larcenous cross-dresser. Ever think of that, Mr Elite Fish? Expand your world!
MW: Can you be a ” veritable former” ANYTHING? I mean, if you’ve stopped being something, you’re no longer a “veritable” that something, right?
RMMD: Has anyone thought to offer Lonnie a dishwasher job? He’s just sitting there crying, and he needs the money. Win-win!
GF: If a bitter ( and increasingly hideous) Mimi takes a golf club to Gil’s car, it will only BEGIN to make this arc interesting.
SF: Ted Forth may look good compared to his brothers, but still, only a certified masochist would voluntarily go on vacation with him.
Plugger hygiene is a true concern, as dog man has not washed his hair in months… depression, dementia, or just plain laziness?
Luann: Oh good, the story is going to acknowledge Luann’s delusion that she’s moving in with Phil. I sense the end of this relationship coming soon.
CS: Would somebody please stop this?
MW- with this much loathing, there can be only one reason- he broke up with her.
You know the Bald-Hairy theory of Russian leadership succession? The Mary Worth Hair theory seems to be that a man’s quantity and quality of hair correlates with his success in life, with the yacht-owning Dr. Jeff being the ideal. Too little hair, like Wilbur, and you’re a narcissistic needy schlub. Too much, like Tommy’s old hair, and you’re a drugged-out felon. With the latter’s current hair length, he may have a tiny taste of success but might still sample weed once in a while. “Can you trim it just above the ears? I’m hoping to buy a Lexus.”
@MKay: On RMMD – [smacks head] Of COURSE! You just figured out the final twist that will give everyone a happy ending before we smash cut to the next storyline!
Heathcliff: I sort of vaguely remember seeing Heathcliff’s sister before, but it’s been a while, say back in the late 20th century? I want to say she had a more prominent role in his animated TV series, but I could be wrong about that, and I definitely feel old and dirty and like I should go lie down again for a little while.
Mary Worth: Uh, Dawn? I think the phrase you’re looking for is “an individual living with sleaze dependence challenges who was formerly justice system involved, with a sassy new haircut.”
Wrecks Moregone:
Whatever one has to say about Moustache and Hector, at least they know how to hold mobile phones, unlike the entire cast of Mary Worth.
@Banana Jr. 6000:
On Crankshaft : Less than fully stopping it, Skip should interrupt to point out to Bat
iukTON THOMAS the implication of his first Chalk Talk being his LAST Chalk Talk, almost like his peers didn’t like his performance, and never invited him again.…Eh, who am I kidding, Skip is going to let stuff fly like “Every music teacher was a fan of my strip, but I wanted REAL success, you know? So I threw away all those gag-a-day marching band hijinx to focus on the character with no ties to music class to tackle the REAL issues, you know?” without the follow-up of “But you already had recognition. From music teachers. Why didn’t you feel like that wasn’t REAL? Do you think music teachers aren’t “REAL” ?”
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On Luann : I’m surprised to see Tara and Phil interact without Luann present, usually the cast keeps to their set without ever interacting with any of the other set (the Fuze stuff rarely bleeds into the Dorm stuff, and Toni and Bwad’s stuff is usually distinct from the rest of the strip).
I’m surprised to see that Phil actually wants to move into the Dream, when the last we saw, he was angrily storming off because the “Amenities Fee” was too damn high (okay, last we saw, he was eating at the Dream’s free ice cream bar, but I *THOUGHT* that was because he had realised he couldn’t storm off without eating something considering the pretext for this was “Look! A catered event! It’s a dinner date for the both of us!”)
I’m not surprised Phil’s reaction is “What? Luann thinks I want her to move in with me!? I never said THAT!!!”
(Phil getting Quill-ed/Aaron Hill-ed is unlikely, but would be funny. He lasted what, 2-3 years, with the first 3 months as “Random orderly at Mrs Horner’s retirement home that helps Luann organise a blood drive after explaining to her she can’t donate all her organs to Mrs Horner”)@Anonymous:
It’s been 2 to 3 years since Fill was introduced?!? Come to think of it, that’s about how long since Luann stopped being a hate read for me because it’s simply so boring that I can’t even summon the energy to hate it anymore.
“I didn’t know Heathcliff is a godlike being who can summon multiple variants of himself,” seems more apt. I can’t wait for him to start a multiversal, all-Heathcliff band!
MW: Ooooh, are we going to get a story about Dawn learning that the stigma of having been incarcerated socially alienates people to the point where recidivism is often their only option, and this ostracization is encouraged by a for-profit prison system and companies that exploit inmates for cheap labor?
…Of course we aren’t. This is Mary Worth we’re talking about.
Wizard of Id: Which of the Wizard’s friends needs a dose of lithium?
BG&SS : Looking at their clothes I can’t tell if they’re supposed to shipwrecked or not.
RMMD Listen to yourself – “if”. IF the video upload to WebsitesRUs somehow makes the news rounds, you might start to see some people coming – maybe wait till there is a developing crowd to hire more people for the café that currently grosses – what – 20 bucks at breakfast? maybe?
Oh who are we kidding – everyone’s mandated phone alert will now change from “Roots Country Event Countdown” to “Map Showing Fastest Route From Here to Lorna Starr” and they will drop everything, abandon business or school mid-sentence, and head over (rumour has it if you don’t there’s … the cornfield…)
GT Gil, you’re trying to imply that Keri doesn’t communicate with Mimi due to Mimi favouring Jami? The Jami that gets forgotten biking around Europe? Who barely makes it into the background of any story? *That* Jami? Dude, stick to believable jabs at your Ex.
GT: Merrill draws her characters while looking over her shoulder in a fun house mirror —probably.
Slylock: The mistake the goons were making could be a simple error due poor training.
JP: Like Richie Cunningham’s older brother, Judge Parker went out the door and joined Judge Crater, and the crew of the Mary Celeste.
MW: Given that Dawn seems to be completely incapable of believing that people can change, I can only assume that we’re being teed up for a storyline in which she becomes convinced that Tommy has been replaced in some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario. God, I hope she manages to pull Wilbur into it too…
Heathcliff: I love that this fish market seems to be called “FISH”, in a kind of hip, minimalist way, because it recontextualizes the entire scene. Rather than being a couple of honest-to-goodness old timey fish mongers, these guys are dressed up in a retro-ironic style to sell their wares. I mean, maybe it’s not even fish at all, just organic cakes shaped liked fish!
@Ukranazi Stepan: Not proud to admit that I originally began reading Luann because I’m a sucker for unrequited love stories, such as her and Aaron. But let’s just say that, where that trope is concerned, the Evanses are not Charles Schulz.
MW: will Tommy walk away judging Dawn as the Charterstone tramp? And will his name change to Tom or Thomas?
RMMD: the town will be expecting a skin tight cat suit and a perfect ass. It Lonnie hangs around he is a perfect ass but still.
LUANN: So where is the his cafeteria? Tara goes to the CC but Phil doesn’t. Phil works at the nuesimg home but Tara doesn’t. Starbucks? No wonder he needs a second job.
CURTIS: What- shes holding them all back so she can teach them again 26-27?
RMMD: Doug had also better get an extra dozen eggs. And check IDs of new workers or ICE will getcha.
6CX: Every home should be protected by Bird Watchers.
@lynn:
#16. CX: thanks, Lynn, I forgot about the chirping
Ugh, Dawn! If Mary calls you “a whiny judgemental bitch”, you won’t even be able to denounce the hypocrisy!
FC: If adult Jeff is going to change the text when he runs a strip from Bil’s private collection, he should also change the corresponding drawing. The slash marks around Dolly’s head no longer make sense.
The cheekbones, the eyes, the hair… I would say that Tommy is looksmaxing but his criminal actions are minimal compared to Clavicular!
MW – “He’s a sleaze addict! Not like me, I can stop being sleazy any time I want to. I just don’t want to.”
Tommy might as well face it, he’s addicted to sleaze.
Don Abundio, translated:
“We don’t accept Monopoly money, sir”
“What? I’ve purchased land and houses and hotels with this money!”
“He gave me my change from the Community Chest!”
Hard to say whether Tommy’s look of hopeful satisfaction comes from finally taking accountability for the wrongs he’s done, or if that’s just the look every man has when he’s walking away from Dawn.
MW: I hope I’m wrong, but the way I’m reading today’s and yesterday’s strips are as Karen Moy’s version of the “Enemies to Lovers” trope. It’s right there in Sunday’s strip, check out that last panel where’s she ogling Tommy’s butt.
C’shaft: BatTom’s smug superiority is so prevalent that it’s easy to forget he also has an open contempt for his readers.
Dustin: As someone who struggles constantly with self-doubt and fear of failure, fuck all the way off, Meg.
GT: “I don’t know, probably playing D&D or some sissy non-sports thing like that.”
JP: “It’s a prostate exam, Katherine, I don’t think either of those options will work.”
Pluggers are disgustingly filthy.
MW: “That guy’s a sleaze addict, I tells ya! He’s probably hepped up on sleazeballs right now! All you have to do is look in his eyes to see he’s been smoking the sleaze again!”
‘clff: There are five distinct stages of grief in coping with Heathcliff. Here, we see Anger and Acceptance. Trust me, you don’t want to see Bargaining.
Heathcliff:
One of the main features of capitalism is that the worker exchanges higher expectation for lower variance: they make less money than they might have if they owned and operated the means of production themselves, but they also are less susceptible to the vagaries of fortune because they make a set salary or wage regardless of how the business as a whole performs, with the capitalist absorbing the risk in their place. You may or may not consider this relationship inherently exploitative, depending on your political leanings, but it does explain the different reactions of the humans in today’s Heathcliff. The business-owning capitalist (as denoted by his bushy mustache, plaid pants, and fancy straw boater) reacts to the theft of his precious fish with fist-clenching rage, because he recognizes it as a threat to his bottom line; his employee, meanwhile, expresses mild surprise in reaction to new information about Heathcliff’s family, because he knows he’s getting that paycheck no matter what happens.
Pluggers: Pluggerman wants us to think those are motor oil stains but they’re really from deep fryer grease.
Heathcliff: over 80% of orange cats are male, so it is unusual that a sister cat would have identical orange coloring
Dustin The creators of this crap honestly think that there is nothing funnier than vicious, pointless cruelty.
I’m calling it right now, Dawn is going to start falling for him. She falls for any guy who just simply says hi to her.
Heathcliff is a criminal, so is his father, so is his sister. I wanted to play the edgelord and say we should reconsider eugenics, but then I remembered that sterilising cats is not controversial at all