Saint James Infirmary 332: Broken Vows, Broken Spells.

[Daphne]

Tuesday, September 23rd.

[jmundt29]

Yea...aw, damn!

I was all set to get excited because maybe this would be an unqualified win for the SJI harem...and then, the title got expanded. 

[Haight]

Well, if we call what the crystal does a 'spell' then it might be ok.

[Haight]

I love the background in panel 4, though I have no idea where it's supposed to be. Kinda heavy metal-ish.

[GodWilling]

I love the background in panel 4, though I have no idea where it's supposed to be. Kinda heavy metal-ish.

It's the inside of Nick Drake's head.

[laguna85]

I'm thinking that Ezra Cantor Had Miriam or Pearl mind reprogram to tell on Jacquelyn and put her in jail.
Also have Miriam that she can not be up the ass by a man.
there more to the story. (Friday)
here come the watch and the power of the red shell.

the moon and hilly landscape

 Panel Pink cotton ball

[jmundt29]

I...actually, based on previous conversations, I think Pearl was programmed to believe she was a Clueless-style "technical virgin" like Dionne.  Her true memories would seem to indicate that neither is the case.  Is her fetish for being spanked the result of her encounter with Jakob? Please say "No."  Please say "No."  I am BEGGING YOU...Please say "NO!"

Ahem, there were conflicting images in that sequence.  The one in her eyes in the last panel is apparently a shell.  Oh, are those things shells or crystals, or haven't we decided yet?

However, earlier in the sequence, you can see the housing of The Watch near Pearl's head.

Another question--will we be meeting that lady cop who cuffed Jacqui at some point in the "present?"

[Daphne]

will we be meeting that lady cop who cuffed Jacqui at some point in the "present?"

You already have. That's Cherry.

[Werdna]

will we be meeting that lady cop who cuffed Jacqui at some point in the "present?"

You already have. That's Cherry.

Whaaaaaaat?!!  I ... Don't know how to react to that.  Am I the only one stunned by that revelation?

[GodWilling]

It's hard to know what to make of it, but then this is a dream-like rendering of events, and we have reason to believe that Cherry could have been around in Miriam's hidden past. So it could be Miriam's memory mixing things up a bit. Or it could be that an amount of what went on in the past was staged for someone's benefit. Or it could be that every woman in Kearsarge who isn't a main character in the story is played by Cherry. That last one might need a bit of work.

[jmundt29]

Or it could be that Cherry was a patrol officer in her extreme youth.  Don't police academies take applicants who are 18 and 19?  Still, Werdna beat me to the perfect reaction to that revelation.  I find that even more confusing than when I thought the color stripe denoted Raven and not a back view of Pearl.

Maybe the Kupplers just have a taste for women in positions of authority.  After all, that Scandanavian chick with the unpronounceable E-name was an officer in someone's air corps and a skilled pilot.  Maybe a taste for women authority figures was passed from father to sons.  Better question--why does Jakob look about 40 years older than his brother?  Was Papa Kuppler like an evil Picasso?

[Haight]

 Also note that the shell is *broken* in Pearl's eye in the last panel.

[GodWilling]

The Pink Clouds-related guest pages took place about 3.5 years ago - and presumably Jacqui's arrest came after that. So the arrest didn't occur in Cherry's extreme youth.

That appears to be Jacqui's house in Kearsarge, as depicted in 46. The conversation across the first two panels all seems to be between Cherry and Pearl, even though Pearl is sitting way off in the background in Panel 1, so I don't think it's an exact representation of something that happened. And an officer doesn't typically openly question the likely legitimacy of the supporting evidence whilst making an arrest.

In 316 Miriam told Erin that she reported Q to the authorities because of what he was doing to Jacqui. Here the suggestion is that Pearl definitely reported Jacqui, believing her to be guilty. That tallies with Jacqui's version of events (224). So it appears that someone did change Pearl's recollection of that specific detail after the event.

Is that Yves effecting "improper disposal of hazardous materials" in the background of panel 2? The implication would seem to be that Yves framed both Q (panel 2) and Jacqui (panels 2 to 4). And presumably the implication of panel 4 is that he used Pink Clouds on Pearl to create a false witness. And if that's his penis in panel 3 (and it looks just like it...) then I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he'd have had to use Pink Clouds to make that happen too. (I think that's Pearl's earring in panel 3. She has suitable headwear for being a girl with Pearl's earring. Was that an alarm going off...?)

In the guest pages Yves appeared looking over Q's shoulder (we can't actually see the knife) in the last panel of g17. Then in g18 we have Pearl flirting with Q and first becoming vaguely aware of Pink Clouds, and then the scene with Annie in g19 and g20. So one reading of this would be that g18 is the start of a fictitious relationship between Pearl and Q that formed a cover for something we probably can't call a relationship between Pearl and Yves. (And if that scene is entirely fictitious then perhaps "Annie" really is Katie, whom Yves may have picked up at Sawyers.)

Just supposition. And I'm not sure where Jakob would come into all that. Unless Yves has a false beard tucked away in a drawer somewhere. At this point I'm guessing Cherry's presence indicates that Jakob has an interest in the Pink Clouds story. We've already seen Cherry doing a kind of An Inspector Calls act at the SJI. Her line of questioning as this less Goole-ish police officer still seems to be delivering a guilt trip.

The shell appears to have shattered (into shards?), but perhaps that's more indicative of its effect on her mind. This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there's something of an association between scallops and pearls.

[jmundt29]

By the way, that is a glitch right there.  Not being able to view a comic while typing a response and having the act of checking the comic, even in another window zero out your response is...frustrating and unnecessary.

Okay--So how old is Cherry here?  25?  So 3 and a half years ago she'd be about 22, maybe 21.  Not extreme youth, but youth.  Young enough to wonder how she made it across the country and through a police academy in a place she never intended to go (particularly under Jakob's thumb).

I think the conversation we're seeing is Pearl and Erin start to finish, Pearl is just reliving one of her memories over the top of it as we start.  My initial thought was that maybe Dani was standing in for the lady cop who cuffed Jacqui and started the exchange herself (as a veteran of the horror that Jakob could inflict).  Wrong.  Again.  Naturally.

[GodWilling]

I think the conversation we're seeing is Pearl and Erin start to finish, Pearl is just reliving one of her memories over the top of it as we start.

I think that's correct. But (Erin's) speech is attributed to Cherry in these two panels, which is odd. The question would be: was Cherry actually there or has Miriam's memory put her there? If she wasn't there then is there a reason why this line of questioning has been associated with her?