Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mary Worth 488

It's Mother's Day in the United States -- except, that is, in Santa Royale, California. After the Dharma Initiative suffered its mysterious "Incident," no one could have anymore children. In fact, there are no mothers in Santa Royale (unless you count Mrs. Good who stole her husband via email, but what kind of mother is that?). Sad really. Especially when we spent the entire week watching Dr. Adrian Corey's biological clock furiously ticking away. Ever since her fiance Ted turned out to be a bigamist delinquent on his child support, she's been suffering from a lot of self doubt and gorging herself on a lot of cupcakes.

In a desperate effort to help his daughter lose her appetite, Jeff Corey suggested that she join Mary and him at the Bum Boat for dinner. Despite Adrian's attempts to dodge that bullet, Mary showed up at the hospital eager to meddle.



Finally, Adrian had no choice but to insinuate that she had other plans. She didn't exactly lie; she simply grasped onto another desperate romantic fantasy. Of course, living in Crazyland is better than another dinner at the Bum Boat.

47 comments:

hekates said...

well I guess the question of "how do you mend a broken heart" has now been answered.

Debby Boone fan said...

And who will be their 4th guest at the Bum Boat??? Officer Robert Redford! Or Chester the dog, sigh.

Chester the dog said...

In Sundays panel, we see that Mountview hospital allows students from a local third grade class to man the reception desk, in exchange for detention. Santa Royale is so progressive! Knowing the dullness at Mountview, I'd go for detention anytime!

SFrederick said...

THIS took a week? We raced through a potentially interesting con-man swindler story, in like, four panels, and now it's taken a week just to say "Come to dinner!" "Maybe."?

Oh, well played, Moy. Well played. Show us that you're capable of writing something snappy and intriguing, but don't actually do it. Take our starving asses right up to the door of McDonald's and then haul us right back into the car and drive away, stomachs growling.

I've underestimated your sadism, woman. Now you're back to the normal, continental-drift pacing, huh? Entire civilizations will rise and fall before we even see them order their food.

What circle of Hell prduced such a cruel thing?

Ted Honestfey said...

Is promising with your hand on someone's left shoulder with the other one raised sort of like swearing on a bible?

Vicki said...

Chester: Yes indeed--it does look like Mountview Hosp. has initiated an intern program with the elementary school down the street--something to do with budget cuts, I suppose. That older blonde pinheaded woman from yesterday's strip must have been their teacher. Having briefly trained the children for their important clerical duties, she has returned to her classroom to attend to her other students.

And Mary, who has donned a black blazer today (instead of her usual green volunteer frock), must be in charge of supervising them. Those poor little darlings!

Anonymous said...

I think that Mary looks a bit mannish in that black outfit... and it doesn't seem like Adrian want anything to do with her.

Barbara L. Hanson said...

Mary looks like she is buying her clothes at the House of Hank O'Hair, who retired from the Flash newsroom to established her line of tastefully tailored suits for women. Beret optional.

Anonymous said...

I loved that shot of the two male doctor passers-by in shadow as Adrian says something about not being able to trust again. Oxygen and Lifetime will produce dueling made-for-TV-made-for-women movies, with Oxygen painting the "all men are misogynistic and deserve to die" picture, while Lifetime will convey the "all men with pencil mustaches are misogynistic and deserve to die" message. I can't wait! Who will star in each one?

--wheelhead

Chester the Dog said...

Well, well, we see in todays strip that Mary has interrupted Adrian from actually doing some work.

Those urine samples will just have to wait, as the two discuss their upcoming dinner at the Bum Boat.

Lets just hope Waiter McSnooty does not wash his hands in the same place Ted took his radiophone call.

To the two residents of Santa Royale who were waiting for the results of their swine flu test, they better head over to the local "Right Aide" and pick up some "Tamara flu!"

duckduckgoose said...

wheelhead,
Based on my limited experience of the Lifetime channel, and relying heavily on Google images, I'll have to cast Crissy Rock as Mary. A young Sissy Spacek should play Adrian before Ted's arrest, and a young Lindsay Wagner should play her post arrest. Patrick Bergin could play Dr. Jeff. And I would cast Ivan Sergei, just to put him in there.

Anonymous said...

Adrian, in your heart you know Detective Redford can be trusted. He doesn't have a pencil mustache. But considering that he is apparently interested in Adrian suggests serious emotional problems which makes him a good match. And Sissy Spacek as Adrian? NEVER !!!! I'd have to go with Morticia.

duckduckgoose said...

Carolyn Jones (circa 1960) would make a perfect Adrian, but I don't think we'd ever find her on the Lifetime channel.

Who to play Ted?

Robert said...

Mary was watching "The Hills," hence her completely realistic junior high-ish "Wow, what's he like?"

Anonymous said...

There is only one actor who could play Ted convincingly: Guy Williams in his TV Zorro days. The mustache was perfecto.

Vicki said...

Oh, what poor unfortunate soul is lying beneath the blue bedding down the hallway?

duckduckgoose said...

My first thought that it was a mummy, down the hallway from the girls.

And when I thought that, the idea of a well-preserved, desiccated body didn't seem in the least bit out of place for some reason.

tuffenuf said...

What in the world is Mary thinking?!!!

In the agonizingly slow time lapse of the MW panels, a panel is oft times merely a second in time. This being said, Mary encouraging Adrian to "go out" with the detective is a little hasty, seeing it is a mere second, or perhaps hour (Adrian has changed out of the magical striped tunic) after the love of her life got hauled away in handcuffs!

Let the poor girl grieve, Mary... Start up your OWN story line again!... Perhaps another Aldo Kelrast-type nutball character would work well here.

Anonymous said...

Mary will probably suggest that Adrian invite Scott to have dinner with Jeff and Mary so they can check him out.

duckduckgoose said...

Perhaps it's been longer than you think, tuffenuff. Enough time, in fact, for Mountview Hospital to move its entire operation out of the Spanish Colonial two-story building we saw last Sunday, which as located on a beautiful desert lot, and into a taller building downtown, somewhere in Chicago.

Chester the Dog said...

"Everything's happening so fast!" Oh, dear, stupid Adrian, if ONLY things were happening so fast!

Tony said...

Mary says to Adrian, "If it's just dinner, maybe you should go out....." Really, Mary, with a police detective who looks like Robert Redford, what else could it be?

But if, as Anonymous suggests, they do all have dinner together, it would be an opportunity for Jeff to hit on the cop for a donation -- although probably not as impressive a figure as Ted offered.

Anonymous said...

Duckduckgoose: That is SO weird how the hospital changed locales like that!!!

I think it would be more fun if Adrian and Robert Redford sat at a different table at the Bum Boat so's Mary and Jeff could SPY on them! Adrian is so childish anyway, she could pretend she "didn't know those two geezers who keep staring at us!"

And I wish R.R. would do a background check on Mary and Jeff! (Of course Mary's would come up with red flags due to that all-too-convenient Aldo Kelrast "accident".) Yep, that would be fun.

Anonymous said...

I only hope Scott has regained his Robert Redford appearance.

Because as gorgeous as his hair remained during those few minutes with Adrian, it really didn't offset the visible deterioration of his face. He was no Robert when she left his office.

Debby Boone fan said...

I'd rather think that Officer Robert Redford will hit up Jeff...tickets for the policemans ball?

Anonymous said...

DDG and Anonymous: I was so confused by the first panel, I thought that Mary and Adrian had left the hospital and stopped in at the Santa Royale Museum of Weird Art Involving Free-Standing Sheets of Corrugated Tin Roofing Material. I seriously didn't know what to make of that bluish, metallic-looking thing just standing there between our two heriones and that odd cityscape mural. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the hospital has floor-to-ceiling picture windows.

--wheelhead

Anonymous said...

Oh, Adrian, don't be coy. You just think men find you irresistible and you want to rub it in with Mary, who isn't so young anymore.

Anonymous said...

I think that Adrian looks like a nut case in today's first panel. If this were real life, I would recommend Adrian wait a bit before dating again. Since she is definitely not in reality,lol, she should go for it. It will be interesting to see what Det. Redford thinks of being checked out by daddy. lol.

Anonymous said...

What's with the look on Adrian's face when Mary suggests Daddy meet Det. R? If she is concerned that a meeting might scare him away, she needn't be. If meeting Adrian didn't send him running the other way, nothing will.

duckduckgoose said...

This is the price you'll pay if at old-enough-to-be-a-doctor years of age, you turn to your father for post breakup comfort. You should have instead spent the time at Santa Royale's TGIFriday's with the nursing staff, crying and laughing over a strawberry daiquiri. But you didn't.

Oh sure, your father will feed you pink cupcakes and assure you of his protection, which feels safe if not a bit surreal, at the time. But then you'll have to explain to Jeff (who's all fired up about protecting you) and Mary (who you didn't even turn to in the first place) why you'd prefer not to share your rebound date with them at the Bum Boat.

P.S. After you'd had a few daiquiris, the nurses would have taken you to have your hair cut and restyled.

Vicki said...

yeah, characters in the Mary Worth strip rarely have any friends and I've always found that quite disturbing. Even Mary's ONLY female friend is the much younger Toby! She should have a group of gray-haired gals she meets for lunch and shopping and planning out their next motorcoach trip. But noooo... her only purpose in life is butting into other people's business...(haha--kinda' like my sister-in-law!)

Anyway, if we had ANY doubts Adrian was a nutcase, well... today's first panel should answer that!! Run detective, run!!

Chester the Dog said...

More importantly, will Adrian and Officer Redford take Adriens sterring wheel-less car to the Bum Boat?

Will they touch each others faces they way Adrian likes to be touched?

Will he call her Queenie? (I, for one, hopes he calls her Sarge!)

duckduckgoose said...

If Detective Redford is half the man I think he is:
they'll take HIS car to a classier joint, like the "Schooner or Later".
He won't touch her face (to avoid accidently touching the hair).
He'll call her Adrian. And before the evening is over,
I, for one, hopes he calls her a cab!

Birdie said...

Watching Jeff check out Detective Redford, whole Detective Redford checks out him, could be fun, in a spy vs. spy kind of way.

Chester the Dog said...

So Detective Redford is coming to the man cabin...sounds more like Mark Trail than Mary Worth.

duckduckgoose said...

Look at the grimace on Mary's face in today's second panel.
I imagine she's thinking, "Oh, you pathetic ninny. My position on this entire matter is to support your dad should he decide to seek legal guardianship over you."

Vicki said...

Those surgeons or nurses or whatever, are certainly amused by something! (I can't help but wonder if they operated on someone and deliberately sewed something back the wrong way?) And if they had blood on their scrubs would they be parading out into the patients' hallway like that? This hospital's standards are lower than low!

I'm sure Det. Scott Robt. Redford is already wondering what kind of Dad lets his daughter live out of her car....a steering wheel-less car no less!? No WAY is he gonna' be scared by Dad Corey!

Anonymous said...

It has just occurred to me that Mary seems to be all over this potential relationship between Adrian and Scott. Where was she when Adrian really NEEDED relationship advice? This shows what we have already known,that Mary only buts in where she isn't REALLY needed.

Chester, stuffed on pink cupcakes said...

I see Adrians medical notepad now..."note to patient stuffed in broom closet, take two pink cupcakes and call me in the morning"

duckduckgoose said...

I like Adrian's top today.

Robert said...

That keyhole neckline is awfully daring for Santa Royale. It may even be against some city ordinance to dress like it's 2009. I wonder how this strip would look if drawn by the artist for "Judge Parker."

From Jeff's expression, I guess he's going to ground Adrian for daring to blow off his invitation to the Bum Boat with Mary.

djangosmom said...

Wow! Adrian has the audacity to blow off Mary and Jeff and the Bum Boat to go out on her own with Detective Scott. Nothing good can come of this...lol

Chester said...

Dad, I'd rather fawn over Robert Redford than scrape seafood scampi off paper plates with plastic silverware, while being hovered over by an overworked snooty waiter.

Dad, he likes my cupcakes! Pink and round and not nearly as depressng as you and Mary. Plus he knows all the words to 'The Way We Were"

Numbat said...

And the hands are back.

duckduckgoose said...

5/17: I don't know which panel I enjoy more: Adrian's repugnant appearance in panel 2 near the words, "I have a date".
Or panel 4: Adrian brazenly touches her own face, in full view of her father, while he recoils at the thought of her, "saying YES"!

Tony said...

Jeff says (to his 30-something daughter), "I want to meet him, Adrian....he'll have to pass my standards." Or what? Will he ground Adrian for a week? Take away her TV privileges?

Anonymous said...

Tony: I think it's clear what Jeff could take away from his daughter, because he already has. Let's see how long Adrian can go without father/daughter coffee hour.