There she is!  Bedroom eyes and all!!  And what is that on “Gil’s” chin?  is that a shadow or a soul patch??

Apparently Boss Man Gil has caught wind of Mark’s attempt at identity theft…  but wait… how?  I mean well… OK, I get it now… even though he rented the car under the account of Leslie Joyce (hey, why not??) and given that WaterWorld had not removed Mark’s name from the list of approved renters (tsk, tsk) and they probably still had to take his personal information- Driver’s License, etc.- and this transaction then hit the account of WaterWorld, well, voila, Leslie is being called into the office for a grilling…  Pretty sneaky, Mark.  Still highly improbable, but let’s suspend disbelief long enough to just go with it.

Dread the thought?  How about Perish the Thought??

Check out the Master… Josh at the comics curmudgeon as he riffs on the latest Mark Trail plot “twists.”

Some vestiges of the old Mark Trail still sneak in, despite laptops and cell phones telling us that we are in a more modern age…

Like the scene above, “Miss Joyce?” calls the white male boss.  “Yes, Mr. _____,” as we apparently don’t use first names…  Terribly old school.

And what’s with Leslie Joyce?  Good Lord she ain’t lookin’ so good… certainly not compared to the siren we were introduced to a while back…

Is that a look of shock, complete with hand to mouth, or is she going to call out to someone??

…because Cherry has to get back to her Pinterest boards…

Like I said, Mark is a safe a a kitten no matter where he finds himself…

But what about all the wildlife wee have been treated to during this exchange?  Bear, Owl, all manner of furry rodent.  Beats looking a people, I guess…

So, it’s back to the Badlands and questions about what Baldy’s next move might be since he has lost all control of the situation!

…my husband?

Yes, Agent “JP,” trouble follows this guy like white follows wonder bread, and rice, and well, you name it.  But he has the greatest defense of all- he is the namesake for a serial comic strip which provides a relatively steady stream of income that provides a lifestyle for a person lucky enough to inherit this franchise…  Sort of like the a manual transmission being the greatest theft deterrent in a car (Damn!  I don’t know how to drive one of these!! I’ll have to go onto my next option…)  And Mark always wins!  It might take months to get through a single day in Trail-time, but he always wins!  So fear not, Agent JP, you might as well just sit back and watch this play out…  meddling will do you no good!

As Cherry lets us in on her little joke, suddenly it’s like she has known this FBI agent (JP?) for years…

Not to mention her impressive use of department slang… BOLO?  Well, YOLO back at you… might as well get in all the slang you can while you can, right?

But really?  Did Mark have Leslie Joyce’s Credit card?  ID?  How exactly did he rent the car in a stranger’s name?  Doesn’t that border on/constitute Identity Theft?  How does Leslie become aware that Mark Rented a car in her name?

So.  It’s coming together… slowly.  I think.

Leslie Joyce (provider of the radiation-proof diving suit that Mark used to foil an international terrorist plot along with Mississippi Ken) is somehow connected to Waterworld, the scene of unknown but probably destructive hijinks with Johnny LOne Elk…  And Mark rented a car under her name in order to send a message to the outside world that he is in trouble?  What? is this a code word/name that he and Cherry agreed to for use in such occasions as the current one?  Kidnapping/ False Imprisonment or some such thing where Mark wants to put the world on notice that he’s in trouble and needs help?

Thank goodness I went into the woods this weekend and only have to wait until tomorrow morning!  The suspense would have otherwise killed me!

Couldn’t have been the FBI’s… As Agent Paul continues to run his mouth and share info that Cherry doesn’t have a need to know, he is soiling this crime scene almost as if he intended to!

And what does this 1960 281 series tanker truck have to do with anything except that the GPS was planted on it to take people off the trail- quite frankly the first smart thing that Baldy did in this entire story line…  Remember the all-white ghost truck?  I guess it’s toast now…

As Nature, oh Cruel Nature, plays out at Lost Forest, and the sun has yet to set on day one of this saga, Cherry offers more information and in return gets more of the story…

The Station Chief looks mighty pissed at Ol’ John Paul… I’m guessing that he doesn’t appreciate the way that he is offering information that Cherry doesn’t need to know and using language that is euphemistic and metaphoric… Literally a dead end?  I don’t think so…

When on earth would he have time to do that?  Or maybe it’s a compendium of all the “articles” he as written over the years… re-use, recycle… that’s one way of getting through life… I’ll bet it sold at least 100 copies…

Nice sensible attire, Cherry.  Looks like you just returned from a parent-teacher conference or something… assuming Rusty actually goes to school.  We’ve never heard ‘boo’ about any academic pursuits pertaining to their adopted ward…

But really, Cherry…  do you really know what Mark does when he is away?  Why he could be a regular Charles Kuralt, complete with second family…

…that we know too well.  As in, what trouble has my husband gotten into now?  As in, this is getting really old.  As in, what have I gotten myself into?

How the heck would Cherry know that the phone lines are down? And that Jimmy only has a land line?  And doesn’t Mark have a cell phone?  And why didn’t Baldy take that away from him?  Why hasn’t mark sent a text?  Or something?  What was his big idea anyway?