Endtown by Aaron Neathery for September 14, 2018

Help. I need a Captain here.

“I have a dream… A dream in which a pig and a wolf can live in harmony…”

“You were merely wishing for the end of pain, the monster said. Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all.” Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

With predator and prey mourning the dead as one, hopefully the healing can begin.

There are good people on both sides.

Survivors.

Rarely noticed or published, communities oft heal themselves.

Or is the wolf telling her her time is up and to come with him?

So, a reconciliation of sorts. They feel each other’s pain.

Poignant… two community members mourning a friend, not concerned about outward appearances. What’s inside, their humanity, their caring, is what matters.

Do we know this wolf? Last encounter, there were no wolves who mixed with pigs.

You’ve got to give the wolf credit. If he is indeed there to help Jolene mourn her dead friend (and I feel he is) then he’s taking a huge risk. Jolene or one of the other Endtowners could interpret what he’s doing as an attack and try to take him down. It takes major cojones to be the first to offer the olive branch.

Remember that the cannibal ring has not been completely disbanded. i get the feeling that this is the last anyone will see of Jolene.

I think Jolene makes folded paper flowers.

Once more, into the breach.

I’m sure the composition of Panel 4 is deliberate: both figures are inside a large pair of jaws.

Only one of these two survived a slaughter.

Wasn’t there a wolf (street sweeper, maybe?) who asked Heather if she was ok, but she perceived him as ravenous and threatening due to her PTSD?

Maybe the high council are spiders and eat the way spiders eat. The high council called the rat lieutenant an insect. Wally had a dream about a spider coming through the ceiling before he was woken up during the food trial massacre.

Good lord… wasn’t the last six months dedicated to showing off how the wolves were a scapegoat, and the members of the actual pig-killing group have been shown to be diverse to the extent of having pigs themselves amongst their members? Like, multiple characters from every faction stating and confirming that the wolves as a whole were not behind it.

And yet people are still seeing a single wolf approaching a single pig and immediately suspecting the wolf? Even though the signs of the pig killers have been repeatedly shown – phonecalls, letters, that drug/poison stuff, abducting pigs from their homes – did people just forget about that? It’s like that one wolf who tried to shelter at Walt’s house during the bloodbath and people accused him of being a pig-killer in spite of his behavior being completely at odds with everything we know about the group.

Hmm, perhaps a sign things are not past the point of no return…

Two victims of a degenerate society. Wolves have become easily the most hated mutant species and that hatred will continue fueling their complexes. Pigs, while on the surface may have the sympathy of the people, are being eaten by the very same people. I hope there will be brighter days in Endtown and an end to their cannibalism.

The wolf looks a little sheepish..

I think the word for the expression on the wolf’s face is “chagrin”.

The wolves were never the villains in this story, just the fall guys. However, the real question should be, “How far did the manipulation go?” We know Denise was the butcher for the cannibals, but she was also the lawyer defending the two wolves that had harrassed Portia and been beaten by Walt. She got them free and back on the street to continue their harrassments, which eventually turned on Heather. Then, Portia acts as prosecutor against Heather, and never intended to get Heather sentenced, so her over-florid, “hammy” performance in attacking her character was simply part of the act in enflaming the colony’s resentment against the wolfen part of the community. However, if the cannibals planned this, then they would not have stopped at just relying on Denise during the trial. There’s a good chance the judge was dirty, and that the most bored, anti-wolf-biased jury members were also cannibal plants (flytraps?). I’m still thinking that Heather was intentionally set up to give the cannibals a distraction once Foxworthy stopped accepting Cooper’s faked food shortages reports.

I hope this is merely the beginning of a beautiful friendship.