Annotated 27-14
Carol has developed another tell, crushing her coffee cup between panels 1 and 3 while she struggles to maintain some control of this conversation. (As the cover has revealed, that cup isn’t entirely empty and the coffee will start oozing out of it after they go.)
Shanna’s swerve in panel 2 pulls Carol further off balance. Carol thought she was going to have to make the case that she wasn’t a murderer, which at least had the advantage of being true. But Shanna isn’t just attacking her, she’s also getting a clearer and clearer picture of who Carol is, and where Carol’s real weaknesses are.
Bringing up the tubes is a bit of a bluff: Shanna cannot let Carol walk away from this meeting, not when she senses Carol’s beginning to crack. All Shanna really knows about the tubes is that they exist, they have life-support equipment, and they’re clearly a secret, otherwise fanboy Ferris would’ve mentioned them when she toured the company. Standard interrogation technique: act like you know more than you do. It gets the suspect/target thinking less about hiding information and more about trying to tell their story right, whether that’s to slant it to their side… or to confess.
Poor, poor Carol. For a person with her inteligence, she really is….stupid.
Girls stop yelling, you’re upsetting Matt Mercer!
Lol. Dude’s thinking about how he’s gonna put together that battle map by Thursday.
But the crumpled cup.on the cover has a Starbucks logo, and Carol brought her own coffee in!? Must be part of the conspiracy…
Y’know, it’s AMAZING how you can look at a thing dozens of times, probably obsess over it as much as anyone, and still miss something about it until someone points it out to you. I feel like editing that commentary text now, but also I feel that would be dishonest.