Annotated 31-14
Joel is seemingly ready to conclude his part in the story by slipping into the time-honored role of “guy who knows a guy.” But as it turns out, he won’t quite have the last word in this interaction.
I think the “Don’t be a hero” bit was important for two reasons. It reminds us that Shanna is carrying around some guilt about Ferris. As far as she knows, he died because he leaked some key information to her, and she very much doesn’t want that to happen again. That desire will drive her to do things she didn’t think were possible for her, before her arc is over.
The second reason is to remind readers not to expect everyone to be heroes, especially not in Sepia World’s less “heroic” reality. Most of us would not, in the heat of the moment, be all that hard for someone like JJ to crack. And we shouldn’t be judged for that just because we watched a TV show where some other guy was all “YOU WILL GET NOTHING!”
I wasn’t totally sure the story would follow up with Joel or just imply he’d followed her advice the next time we saw JJ, but the ominous thrill of that final panel ended up being too much for Flo and me to resist.
I would honestly love to hear Joel’s top three stories if this one only POSSIBLY made the cut…
Well, after chatting with JJ over there I’d surmise this story is going to jump up two or three notches.
This is true.
Actually, thinking on it…probably more like it’ll swap to a different category. Single most terrifying con story that he can’t tell until he knows JJ is dead.
Number one is still that time he sold the Sci-Five T-shirt.
I’m still baffled by Shanna’s certainty about being chased by a hitman. So far, she has only very circumstantial evidence. The readers know that she’s right, but if I had only seen what she has seen, I would not be half as convinced.
As I was thinking of her at this point, she only considered “hitman” one of a range of possibilities. She could’ve been fleeing a squad, some bribed cops, a weaponized online mob… the options were various. And she didn’t know how much of a lead she had: she could’ve been advising Joel about something that would happen to him in months, not hours. It just seemed like she’d be near-certain that Carol, with her resources, would find some way to menace Shanna and her associates, knowing that Shanna herself could not be bought.