Mattyboy

That's plausible, I guess. Or is that just what the secret-ops guy would want me to think?

That the Major's whole staff regularly sleeps over during ops seems to me to be a bit unusual. There seemed to be a lot unsaid in those first conversations; the screwing around about whether they were eating duck covered for a lot of otherwise pretty standard questions for a meeting of this type. They even put off "what foods do you like?", although they agreed it was a topic. We had none of "What was your school like? do you play any sports?" "what have you been up to since West Point?" And also no "how's Loretta doing?" (although the major may have done some research on that) So I'm not all that sure about "straight forward;" as getting-to-know-you conversations go, the major steered that one into very low-information. This may be a don't-overwhelm-the-poor-kid strategy, but it seemed very spare to me, to the point of maybe secretive.

Richard needs to stay up until the bus brings Vicky and Sizzler Stu back to his house shortly.

Absolutely! It's too bad Richard only thought of trying to be the main character in his own life (and this story) after he got home, he had some great chances at the ball. But tomorrow hasn't even dawned yet.

Trying is a new thing for Richard, and it's not really working all that well, but the positive energy seems to be good for him.

Well maybe? Richard jumped from one assumption to another with not an awful lot of conclusive evidence. It appears I was wrong about Richard being double booked and the Ball is next weekend. Actually trying with Nicholas isn't something Richard has tried yet; guessing it won't work all that well, but he might as well give it a flyer.

Richard has yet to realize that he's double-booked himself for Saturday night. Hehe.

The many faces of Anthony Greiss.

I love this story, but I feel I was led to expect a little more actual turmoil.

Stu: I should have the right to go to the dance Mr Jane: You can go with any student who asks you Richard: Stu, will you be my date for the dance? (I'm pretty sure I have never read the earlier version, but that's where this is going, right? It fits the story arc that Richard is scared but smart enough to think things through, and it's the funniest possible thing that could happen at this point)

“There’ll be no more secrets,” Dad says. I say nothing. Right now, secrets are all I have. This is a great couple of lines. The refraction effects created by the interaction of shallow conversations with deep thoughts are wonderful.

Richard has quickly gone from feeling pretty trapped and choice-less to realizing he has options and possibilities ahead of him. And maybe some of those choices will be a bit scary, but options! What fun!

Sean something something indeed!

I have this guess of a theory, and its nothing more than that. My Only Escape might have been more important to Comsie, and I'm really glad he was able to bring that to a conclusion. New Kid was his first story and first characters, and maybe he wanted to leave Randy and Ryan as an ongoing thing. My thought is that New Kid as a story is basically finished and the climax was Randy coming out to his Mom in episodes 67-68. Time has started moving really slowly in NK; Monkey Blowtorch Day (NK #47) was written 14 years ago, but it's only been a couple of weeks over spring break in NK time. Comsie really loved the frisson of desire and the tension of what-will-happen-if-they-know, that's kind of all sorted out now in New Kid. Randy and Ryan have Tyler and Ariel, and don't seem to depend much on people at school outside that. Coming out isn't all that scary any more. The only thing left seems to be "what if Hailey throws a fit?" and while chapters have been worked up out of less than that, I don't feel that's really what we're all waiting for. So what's left? The boys eat lunch in the cafeteria again? Hailey acts up? Sean something something ? Ariel has some unfinished business alright, and I've poked at @MrM over whether he feels he could work that out, but Ryan and Randy? They seem to have landed on solid ground. We might be done here

Sheriff is handling this is in a pretty A+ manner. He's managing to balance Colt's two premeditated attempted murders and also recognizing that there's not much prospect of a jury convicting Colt and /or Noah of anything here. And bonus points for one of the victims was his son and he's treating Colt fairly (as he should , of course, but that ups the degree-of-difficulty here).