Sunday, September 26, 2010

Judd Thompson as Norman Bates

So Vicki arrives at Judd's home and we get a little hint that at least she's not a virginal white as snow RTC like Chloe, with this little passage:

When was the last time she had been alone with a teenage boy without winding up drinking, smoking, doing dope, or worse?


That last part, the "or worse?" leaves us perverts plenty of room for speculation,oh yes it does, but it doesn't tell us much. In a world where young adult literature is addressing serious topics such sex and drugs, Ellanjay is a throwback to the fifties where these things still went on but no one talked about it.

Anyway, they talk and talk, carrying on long conversations in that Brenda Starr dialogue fashion, and Vicki mentions needing new clothes and Judd offers to let her borrow his mother's clothes and all I can here in my head is that orchestra sting from Psycho. If a recently orphaned boy starts trying to get you to wear his mother's clothes, that's a sign you should run. But I suppose this could mark the first step in Vicki's Stepfordization.

I had been picturing Judd as Rhett Van Der Graaf from King of the Hill (aka the guy Luanne dated in the episode she revirginized), but now I've got to picture him as Norman Bates.

Judd was talking about his mother as if she were dead. It seemed to Vicki his voice was about to break.
"I can see why you were proud of her," Vicki said. "If she has a lot of clothes like this, I'd be honoured to wear them. Remember Judd, she's not dead. If everything we believe is true, and we both know it is, she's in heaven."


Which means she's dead! She's passed on! She's ceased to be! She's expired and gone to meet her maker! She's a stiff! Bereft of Life, she rests. She's shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible! This is an ex-RTC!

Sorry about the Monty Python ripoff but really meeting your maker means the same thing regardless of whether or not there's a body involved.

Anyway back to everyone's favourite static duel, Lionel and Ryan. Well, basically not much is happening except that Lionel picks on Ryan for not helping him, even though a twelve-year-old wouldn't be much help against the guys in the first place, and goads Ryan into going back to Lionel's house and getting his bike. :beats head against desk: No more transportation logistics. Mommy make the bad men stop!

7 comments:

Firedrake said...

Or worse... MIXED DANCING!

And yeah, this whole "get to heaven without dying" thing continues to be bizarre to me. It seems a bit like, oh, "get your degree/certification without being tested".

Riby said...

Yeah, squicky...and I vaguely remember a scene from around this point where Vickie puts on Judd's mom's Mom Jeans and turtleneck, and Judd thinks she looks OMG HAWT.

Then one of them (don't remember which one) just conks out right on the parents' bed and sleeps for about 20 hours, which actually struck me as quite realistic.

Ruby said...

Riby? I wrote Riby. This headcold is really getting to me...

:D

Mink said...

I think some of the utter horror we experience as non-RTCs reading LaHaye's stuff, is that besides being bad writing, it's looking into a sort of Bizarro universe. Yes, the main characters are horrible people, but what's more horrific is that we can see people actually acting like this. Granted, they are not emotionally or spiritually healthy people, but we can comprehend their existence, and have in fact known people who act like this.

Well, mostly, at any rate.

That's what keeps drawing me to the awfulness that is Edge of Apocalypse: It's not the ridiculous technology, but the ongoing trainwreck that is the Jordan family. If anything its worse here: These are kids -- admittedly not terribly well-written kids -- who were probably not the best kids around, but then again who is?... and they are being twisted into awful, awful people. It's almost heart-rending at times, and I'm just glad that these are fictional characters.

Mrs Grimble said...

Oh my Goddess, what kind of person thinks this scenario is a good idea? A teenage girl goes to a teenage boy's home with him and happily accedes to his request to dress up in the clothes of his newly dead mother....? (And does so without even asking what size the woman was?)
If this happened in the real world, this would be the start of a bizarro BDSM relationship. And if it were in the hands of a good writer, it would be the start of a magnificently twisted horror / porn novel.
Or, or course, some really icky Vicki/Judd slash. Which I'm *not* about to write.

Choir of Shades said...

Tom Lehrer, on an apropos subject
I'm surprised no one left this here...

Apocalypse Review said...

I've been thinking about this, and I think it would be more likely for Vicki to hesitantly ask if she could get some clean clothes, and for Judd to go D: at the thought, then hem and haw and after getting the "But I need clean clothes!" spiel, grudgingly acquiesce and try to ignore what's going on, because geez DEAD PARENTS.