This long story arc is starting to enter a return trip?

No comment on yesterday’s installment, the inane dialogue, the lack of continuity…

But today we are offered hope!  The return of Dirty Dyer!  To Lost Forest!  Or is it?  Did Jimmy & Sarita’s line go dead?  Or did the phone get ripped out of the wall at Lost Forest?  Did both lines go dead simultaneously?  And don’t be too quick on the draw, Sarita, I’m guessing the cell coverage out in your neck of the woods is pretty sketchy!

I would think that it’s more and more difficult today to do anything without laying down tracks… Electronic ones, anyway…  The Surveillance State has been well established and one need not be of the tinfoil-hat-brigade or reading a Tom Clancy novel to acknowledge that we are being watched, or at least have the opportunity to be watched at any given moment… Such is the case with our current story line.  There are so many breadcrumbs, you’d almost have to try NOT to see what’s going on here.  Although the motives of the bad guy remain an absolute mystery.  Almost like he wants to get caught!

But what the heck did the Sheriff have to say??  Does he know about the robbery?  Did he agree that there might be a connection?  There is no connection between the first and subsequent panels in today’s installment, but then there’s nothing new about that!!

Now that Baldy has made it so incredibly easy to follow his trail, we have to wonder whether Mark has done anything at all to help his own cause…  Baldy just keeps leaving bread crumbs, starting with revealing his face and getting tagged by the Facial Recognition Software to hooking up with Mark and his rental car… now he’s been very careless in not keeping his folding money stowed…  and as a result, Cherry is now going to get a second call, this time from Sarita (her twin sister) after having also been contacted by the FBI, for crying out loud!

Sheriff Don!!  Oh boy!  I can’t wait to meet him!! And witness the inevitable fight over jurisdictional prominence…

Let’s hope not… otherwise they will have to Jimmy (ha! get it??) their way into the car and probably set off the alarm…

And so while Jimmy worries about a little rain, Sarita looks about as determined as a person can be…  taking inventory of what she sees… to what end I wonder?  What clues could he have left them?  Never mind the fact that between Mark and Johnny they now outnumber the bad guys, and assuming that Blondie wouldn’t get in the way of an insurrection, they could have this all wrapped up in less time than it takes to put on their ponchos…

And good point, andysowner, Storm’s a-brewin’… like on Tatooine…  And we have to wonder whether Baldy and Blondie have ever mounted a horse in their lives… I mean, this isn’t Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid we are talking about here…

So as they all ride off for the Ghost Town, with bags packed with money (I’m thinking) and not camera equipment, I am still wondering what Baldy’s end-game is here…  Looking for logic and reason, and finding none.  But in the words of one Ulysses Everett  McGill,  it’s a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart…

…while Rome is burning, figuratively speaking…  Maybe by Independence Day we’ll know what Mark has on his mind, up his sleeve,as it were…

I have to admit I didn’t catch the “If Mark is determined” when I read it the first time- only after I read today’s installment did I catch the fact that Mark ordered up the horses…

…which brings me back to the original (and I know, friends, tired) premise that Mr. Baldy Getaway doesn’t know crap about “getting away.”  How on earth does any of this further his objective of eluding the FBI?

Now that everyone is mad at Mark, even Jimmy, judging by the look on his face in panel three, Sarita is making the gross assumption that everyone is going to the Ghost town as planned, even though nothing has gone to plan ever since Mark showed up with his  new “friends…”

And what the heck s going on with Sarita in panel three?  Is she so mad that her Cherry mask is going to fall off?  Maybe that’s part of the game that they like to play when Mark comes over.  Sarita dresses up like Cherry, and well, who knows…  More than I want to think about!

Should I stay or should I go… ba da da DA DA da.  Should I stay or should I go now?  If I go there will be trouble… If I stay it will be double…

WHY DID YOU YOU GO TO THE RANCH IN THE FIRST PLACE??? Why do I care?  You know, this used to be more fun!  See you all on Monday.

Look who’s getting the dig in now!  Sarita is being accused of harboring a fear or prejudice against bald people, and she fires back against the mullet of the new age- the man-bun…

I meant to mention this yesterday… that Jimmy Ryan sort of reminds me of an old Mark Trail character Johnny Mallotte…

Johnny owns a fishing camp has has produced about 17 children… now there’s a man’s man!!  What’s crazy is that the child nearest him, stage left, bears a striking resemblance to Rusty, but in fact is not… hmmmm… speaking of which, I wonder what’s going on back at Lost Forest…

And what exactly does a “Professional Camera Crew” look like?  Do they have little black berets and pencil-thin mustaches?  And speaking of not looking like something we’d expect, what’s with Johnny Lone Elk?  Long hair, unshaven, prize-fighter’s nose, scowl… He has every marker of a bad guy in the Trailverse… why he looks like he’s even done hard time!

I am still totally befuddled how any of this advances the “get-away” objectives of Baldy.  Now he has three more people who can easily make him, that he will have to ice…

And look at Johnny Lone Elk in Panel two.  He’s gone and got his feelings hurt…  “But, but… Mark said I was going to be his Camera Crew!  How am I ever going to get my film career off the ground if people keep horning in on my projects??”

And sorry to have assumed, but with a name like JLE, I sort of assumed that Johnny would be Native American??  Maybe he Identifies as one?  Sort of like Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man?  I guess anything is possible these days…

Sorry for skipping a day, kids, but now for the twofer!

Quick cut away from the Rapid City, SD FBI field office and all the bad hairlines to the home of Jimmy and Sarita (Wow, how exotic is that??) And Johnny Lone Elk lives with them?  What’s up with that?  I guess that’s what happens when you major in film… a life of dependency.  Wow, too, I can’t wait for weeks of clumsy and stilted dialogue pertaining to Mark’s unexpected “friends” or film crew or whatever…

Jimmy Ryan!  Now there’s a hairline worth writing home about…  Graying around the temples, paired up with the beautiful Sarita!  And her well placed hair band… and hand on the pane of glass making for beautiful smudge marks!

Yes, Mark is normally not so rude as to bring others along on his own invitation…  but there he is!

Imagine you’re sitting at home in Lost Forest, scrapbooking or something, and the phone rings…  It’s the FBI…  Asking questions about what you know about your husband’s travel plans… You know they aren’t going to come right out with what they know, they want you to tell them what you know… and only after your story hangs together will they share the reason they are calling and to not worry about a thing, they are sure that everything’s all right…  But Cherry ought to be used to this by now… every time Mark leaves the house shit happens…

But in other news, it’s the hair!  The Hairline in panel one.  Yikes, that’s a sight.  It’s like a putting green surrounded by a sand trap!  He needs to pull some more money out of his retirement account and finish the job!

Yea, and I am growing weary of waiting to hear what “thing” Mark did at the Rental Car counter, other than invoke the name of Leslie Joyce, friend and apparent benefactor to Woods and Wildlife Magazine..

By the look on his face, Boss Man is getting a big kick out this whole thing …  Mark Trail!  Huh! Really?!

Oh, tell us!! Please!  What’s so weird about Mark renting a car?  Did he flash gang signs at the security camera on his way out of the terminal?  What exactly did he do?  He had an idea… a long shot, as you may recall…

Is anyone but me creeped-out by the surveillance state?  I mean, it took about two seconds for them to ID Mark, the fact that he had booked a flight and rented a car, probably in town on business… do they know the contents of his suitcase, for crying out loud?  Oh well, I guess we don’t have anything to fear unless we are up to no good, right??

Drawing people having a conversation I’m guessing isn’t as easy as drawing an Elk or a Water Buffalo, but let’s not strive to capture every mouth shape, OK?  The last panel is positively creepy, lips all pursed and puckered.  Sort of looks like the typical Trumpian shot- what I like to call the “bugle mouth…”

Well, hallelujah… they have a lead- a positive ID on the suspect that also involve/implicates Mark.  Mark will have some ‘splaining to do once all this unravels, but certainly a famous person like Mark Trail would be in the facial features database!  Surely they have to be able to recognize him as well!!  Which is really funny… Mark Trail… Breaking Bad…

Or more likely a “Be on the Look-out” alert, if I had to guess.  But look at the slack-jawed, mouth-breathing look that the boss is offering up… At least I think he’s the boss, otherwise he wouldn’t be asking all the questions.  And I have to say, his hairline is the most disturbing feature I have seen for a while, even including Rusty’s mug…

And with a dismissive, “let me turn my back to you while I explain how modern surveillance works” move, the field officer offers up that they DO have the facial recognition software, just like Mr, Ponytail said they would.  We still don’t know what’s odd or strange about the whole thing however…  maybe tomorrow.

I thought FBI had to wear coat and tie… Not open collar shirts that haven’t seen the laundry in weeks… Thinking right now about Agent Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks fame… of course he had hair, too… But what the heck?  They are resurrecting Twin Peaks in May of this year?  Huh.

Something strange, you say?  Body Language?  Like what?  Did he walk on all fours?  Does it take an Analyst to make observations?  Are duties at the Bureau now so specialized that Agents can’t do their own analysis?  I can’t keep from wondering about hairlines and facial expressions.  Today’s installment certainly doesn’t disappoint… I guess tomorrow (or next week) we will learn what an FBI analyst considers “Weird…”

But what the heck is going on with the the guy in the middle panel- his hair line?  I have seen widow’s peaks before, but this is off the hook!  Maybe he’s gone in on Hair replacement and decided to start in front and work his way back…

But it does seem to be a fair rendering of the office itself…

Well, there’s your Federal Tax (or borrowing) dollars at work.  Guessing it’s a sleepy post that one is either relieved or disappointed by… as in, “Rapid City?  Really? I wonder who I pissed off…” or “Rapid City? Awesome!  I’ll be home for dinner every night and be able to hunt and fish on my days off!”

It does seem, however that Baldy’s hubris may be his undoing- taking off his mask so the guy he beat up could see his face…

But can Mark lie?  Is that in his nature?  Can he fib without giving himself away?? And when Mark or Baldy and Blondie go to take pictures, all his camera gear will be where?  And in its place will be what?  Cash?

Meanwhile, the Prairie Dogs/ Groundhogs/ Woodchucks are watching the (I assume) sleeping deer with great interest… Not like a deer to sleep in broad daylight without any cover whatsoever…  Highly irregular…

I am speechless.  Wordless.  Without  ideas.  I rely on random word generators, like a virtual Mad-Libs to write my scripts and related dialogue.  I am James Allen.

And Heaven forbid Mark you should question any of what Baldy says, lest he threaten to “shoot the girl.”

Please Mr. Allen, for the love of Mark, collaborate.  Find  a writer.  Elrod had Dodd for all those years… there’s no shame in admitting you are out of your depth here…