Annotated 38-3
First time HR does anything sexual with Carol? Check.
First time HR threatens her with physical harm, not merely career-death and/or criminal charges? Check.
First time HR uses the “I’m kidding, can’t you take a joke” defense with Carol? I’m not 100% sure, but on-panel, at least, I think that’s a check.
Not that any of it matters right now except to show the reader—and to prove to HR himself—how thorough his hold over Carol is at this point. The only bad thing he’s not doing here is ignoring Carol’s signals, and that’s only because he doesn’t have to. She’s not resisting at all. She’s so caught up in separation anxiety, she’s at risk of initiating intimacy herself. He is almost her entire world now, her sole source of reassurance, and he’s leaving. It is fortunate for her, in the long run, that his only real lust is for power.
From the script: “He hasn’t kissed her yet, but as soon as he does, Carol will fully return it… This page is HR and Carol’s perverse relationship in miniature. His unbalanced emotions are all over the map, and this smart woman long ago made the foolish choices that shackle her emotional reality to his unpredictable moods.”
This is one of those “I’ll take your word for it, Annotations” situations for me.
Same here.
I interpreted the third panel as her being somewhat shocked, but not daring to do/say anything about it. My feeling was that this was getting weird a bit faster than she had anticipated, and that this was the moment where her doubts started to grow. HR notices her reticence and tries the “haha, joke”–defense.
Of course, Carol is still going along, and HR knows this, but she seems to feel a lot less comfortable with it than she was a minute ago.
But that’s perspective for you: The same words, by the same person in the same circumstances, can sound very different in someone else’s ears.
Yup, 💯 this for me as well.
Me reading this page:
Wow, red flag!
Damn, second red flag!
Oh dear, another red flag, HR is going for at hat-trick on this one!
“Kidding, i’m kidding!
The second extra tube is still there waiting, by the way, don’t forget.”
Thanks to this annotated run of Guilded Age now I know that I read Carol completely wrong the first time around.
It’s the Jar-Jar Binks reference that truly marks HR as a fiend!
And … is that in itself a reference to the two jars waiting for them?
Although, traditionally, vat is the proper term.
Heh, I wish we were being quite that clever here! A reference to Episode I Star Wars would certainly be in character for “sci-fi critic HR.” But IIRC, Jar Jar’s catchphrase is “Okie-day.” “Oh-bee-kay-bee” is just a silly version of “okay” that my friends and I used to say to each other when we were kids.
It’s from the little rascals
Ha, cool! We probably picked it up from that… I don’t remember much from that show, but I know we watched it at some point.