Nice owl! Well, the gift wrap is quickly falling away from Rick, and Peach is not happy with the present. I’ll leave it to you to look up the phrase “love bombing”, if you don’t already know it. I had to look it up, so why should you get off easy!?

That said, do you think Rick’s pleadings are sincere acts of contrition and love? He sounds desperate!

From my angle, Jules Rivera has drawn Rick’s gestures and expressions in a way that dispels any notions of sincerity and caring. Once a narcissistic control freak, always a narcissistic control freak. To her credit, Peach isn’t buying his act. And speaking of acts, I think this is Dirk’s cue to step onto the stage and deliver a performance that will have Rick exclaiming “Exit, stage left!”

The elements of this morality play are quickly falling into place. I would be stupefied if Rivera pulled a fast one and changed the expected outcome.

Special Tip: If you also read this strip in the newspaper, feel free to get a marker and blacken out the narration box in panel 4. I hereby give you permission to do that to all future narration boxes that are irrelevant, redundant, or pretend to be humorous. I’d do it here, but I’m stopped by the pledge I took to maintain an accurate record for posterity.