Bittersweet Candy Bowl

To you.

You missed this: Augustus gets away scot free with bullying Mike. Lucy also gets away scot free after being violent towards Mike. David shows his ass again. James fucks him over and refuses to listen to him and ditches him when its convenient at the words of people he doesn’t know. And now, Mike is in an even worse spot mentally and the only bright side I see, is that it might finally get him away from that toxic ass friend group who he should’ve ragged on more after the way they treated him. Lol. They literally got on his ass for not dating Lucy when he told them he wasn’t interested. Oh yeah, Paulo got off light with that nosebleed.

Oh youre a troll. Got it

Nah, you’re just immature and you can’t take the hits you put out. That doesn’t make me a troll, it just makes you toxic and cowardly.

Lol. Run away little coward. Much like the one you stan, it seems that’s all you can do.

@Letrell Walker I’m reporting any of your comments where you’re harassing others. This comic is meant to be a fun place to enjoy a cute story, not be aggressive and insult people. Chill out.

the track team WERE the new characters and he fumbled it 😭

Maybe he can hang out with a group of girls this time around. Doesn’t he get a lot of valentine cards from random girls anyway?

Remember the “cheated cheated” incident in earlier chapters?

Cheater cheater**

Also theyre literal teenagers and this is still deeper than some 30 y/os I know 😭

THIS. People are acting like James hasn’t actively turned to Mike for answers during this. All he got was Mike either not responding, saying that Lucy was leading him on and then this “I got mad, you don’t understand.”

I’m not going to not say the truth about James because you don’t like it. He is vapid and shallow, even his track team friends have said that.

It’s easy!

What’s easy?

because we can? lol

You can what?

Intelligence.

What intelligence?

The intelligence you lack. And the empathy.

Also, if you’re going to keep trolling, or attempting to, know that I always have time.

You’re intelligent but jump straight to ad hominem. I asked a question because your comment didn’t make sense. I have no clue what you are talking about.

Then you can clarify what you were trying to say. Whose intelligence are you referring to? The characters? Those who defend Mike? Generally speaking? Your comment made no sense. It sounds like you were trying to troll and it failed.

It’s easy to ‘defend’ Mike, though it depends on what exactly we’re defending here. But in general, to me Mike is more than just his fuck ups, so it’s easy to watch him stumble like an idiot through all of this and still root for him in the end! I want him to be a better person and to treat the people around him better. I KNOW he’s got it in him!!! GO MIKE GO XD

I appreciate you explaining. Years ago I liked Mike alot and I find him hard to stomach at the moment. But it would be nice to see him take some accountability

No problem! :) and its understandable that Mike lost a lot of fans over the years because even though I love him dearly he NEEDS to take accountability and grow up! he cant heal and become a better person without doing that! Taeshi has mentioned in blogs and such that while Mike is going to go through some serious, depressing stuff, he’s also going to get much better one day and honestly with her writing I cant wait to see how she’ll handle the development of his character!! Im pretty excited to see where this goes because WOW he keeps finding a new rock bottom to fall into!!

Unfortunately Mike has no backbone to come clean, this isn’t his first time dodging his guilt with excuses. I really hope he comes clean following pages but I think James already looks like he already given enough chances and is going to walk away.

I do have a hunch maybe someone from the main table group will go out to Mike once they find out what happened. I still don’t think it’s that easy where all the sudden everyone is inside now… except Mike.

To be fair to James, Mike has been acting guilty as hell here and fumbling every chance to explain himself. I don’t know if I’d be willing to give Mike much grace if I were in James’ shoes.

Of course, I am not bashing James at all, although as fickle as he is, he was giving Mike certain opportunities even now where everyone walked away and only James is there still Mike giving an excuse. I don’t excuse that from Mike, I really want him to open up and come clean and clear with the situation he had between him and Lucy.

It kinda sucks cause only one side is told and any chance to explain was shut down immediately.

This was def set up for Mike to eventually finally hit the bottom barrel.

It’s still disgusting what August did.

This isn’t a resolution on both sides, it was set up for one side to win

@sap Oh I completely agree with you, I was actually responding to Rocky’s initial post. I sent my reply before the page loaded and showed yours 😅

@Washington ahhh all good, it’s hard to know when someone responds to you or not on here lol

They need a way to highlight our names or something when we reply to someone

@Rocky I think I’m going to just start @ ing people

Same

Please let me boy win for once 😔

Weren’t these his new friends too? Track team was a fresh start (until David joined.)

Oof you’re right. Okay, he needs new ‘new’ friends lol and to be honest when called out

@Mearcyn Thought about it more and want your opinion. What do you think the odds are that Mike would still be able to sit at the track table? David’s going back to the main table, and James will probably follow because of course he would. The rest of the team already know that Mike’s a bit of a trainwreck and still let him join.

Yeah I think they’d let him sit with them until they found out what just happened from James. Oh no, is this going to lead to a rumor spreading around school? Could Mike be even more ostracized than I thought he already was?

@Mearcyn if that happens, he’s definitely going to try to kill himself. And I already have the likelihood somewhere at 75%-80%

Right? He’s even been given chances to make amends for what he did and put it in the past, but he keeps ruining them. Lucy would have forgiven him in Eternal Flame (but he went right back to Sandy), he told Augustus he’d leave Lucy alone and agreed to go back inside (then went back on his word).

James already knew Mike messed up and “lost his best friend” (from Date Night) and Mike seemed really remorseful at the time — but now James just saw Mike get violent, make excuses, and blame Lucy for what happened. He’s not acting like someone who “didn’t mean it.”

Yeah James said that as if he didn’t have his own issues. No matter, he may very well get the same treatment from David in his own right.

IDK, I would be more forgiving of December if Lucy had actually been doing anything wrong there. But she was just being his friend and was even supportive of Sandy, saying she just wanted Mike to be happy, and THEN he unloaded on her. I feel like a lot of people forget that she’d already realized she wasn’t treating him right for a while by that point, and had been trying her best to just be a good friend - so his blowup was really unjustified. Not like he’s an evil person or anything; I just haven’t seen him taking steps to actually grow and be better yet. As Todd said in Bojack Horseman, “you can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about it like that makes it OK! You need! to be! better!”

I don’t think the crash out was justified either. But like you said, she (and the rest of the group) have been treating him pretty badly for a while now, so I can understand if he had a lot of pent up anger by that point. The timing was definitely awful though.

@Snowstar837 I think by that point Mike had already been done with her and wanted her to leave him alone. IIRC at the start of that chapter he even threw a hissy fit because he realized he was paired with her for the project, or thought he would be. So by that point he had already decided he wanted to move on. Also, what Cauliflower said

Yeah except she was doing stuff wrong. She wouldn’t leave him alone. He wanted space. Then she tried to kill herself because a boy she bullied for years told her off? Lol. That’s pathetic.

They’ve been dogging him out for years at that point and after. He was well within his rights to go off even harder. Tbh, I think he should cut ties and find a new tribe. This one ain’t worth much.

(Edited out because what I was replying to is no longer there. And no worries!)

(sorry! I edited my comment down to just the last paragraph before Washington BC’s reply loaded!)

Adding onto my own comment because I forgot to put this in here:

He wasn’t saying any of that as acknowledgment. He said it because he didn’t want James to leave.

Yeah, if someone abused me for years, I’d be hard pressed to care about me telling them off.

That’s fair. I don’t think he should be on his knees begging for forgiveness or anything, again, their past friendship was toxic as hell. But ever since she returned he’s been NOTHING but toxic, his attempts to “apologize” always turn to “well things happened I got mad”- which…it’s better to just NOT apologize if you’re going to do that. He’s been lashing out at his friends, no real apologies there. Whenever an argument DOES happen now it’s essentially him pointing at Lucy and going “WELL SHE-” (like we just saw in this argument).

Nobody wants to be around that.

I kinda wonder if that will be brought to attention not by the track team, but David especially

Could make an interesting reality check for him and how he is

Worst part of all is that Lucy is being a massive hypocrite. She is really complaining about being led on when she rebounded to Paulo who she admitted didn’t have any feelings for whenever things weren’t going well with Mike.

She went so far as to have sex with him knowing fully well she was suppose to move away

Mike leading Lucy on is just completely false, that’s not at all what happened.

Mike was going to tell how awefull Lucy was to him, she shut him up with violence and upon realising what she did she went back to her old coping mechanism and played the victim. Twisting the truth to paint Mike as the bad guy while sweeping her actions under the rug.

It seems you’re mainly focusing on stuff that happened a long time ago, so what’s your take on how Mike used Lucy in Eternal Flame?

@Kiall I think saying “she shut him up with violence” is a mischaracterization, I think it was more of her temper flaring at (what she felt) was an outrageous accusation and lapsing back to old habits before realizing her mistake. Let’s not ascribe too much malice here, they’re all just stupid teens

When the stuff that happened a long time ago was Lucy being physically abusive to Mike i would argue more people should be focussing on that. Nothing Mike has done has come even close to that

As for Eternal Flame Mike made a mistake but same argument Lucy is being very hypocritical for complaining about it when she did the same but worse with Paulo.

Not to mention that Mike didn’t intent to use her, at the time he thought Sandy was gone and it was only later he found himself between 2 fires and had to choose which heart to break

It also didn’t slip my attention that Lucy wanted nothing to do with Mike untill she heard Sandy was out of the picture where she opened up for him again to instantly hate him when she found out Sandy was back, honestly more proof of Lucy being obsessed with having Mike for herself.

Not sure how cannon it is but in the what if story where Mike dumped Sandy that night it was revealed that Lucy was the one who initiated the kiss. Again not sure how much of it that is true but it doesn’t help Lucy’s “Mike lead me on” claim

Mike was 100% wrong in eternal flame but with them being overly emotional teenagers it was hardly a crime worthy of having to suffer like he’s doing now

The way i see it she didn’t attack him when he pushed her only friend to the ground but she did the moment he mentioned she wasn’t innocent at that time either.

Now to clarify i don’t think Lucy is acting out of malice, i think Lucy is delusional of what happened and put herself in a victim role to cope with it.

“It also didn’t slip my attention that Lucy wanted nothing to do with Mike untill she heard Sandy was out of the picture where she opened up for”

this is not what actually happened. when Mike revealed they broke up, Lucy tried to disengage again, because he was acting like she was just going to enjoy his suffering, at which point he forced her into a hug

@Snowstar837 I don’t think Mike used Lucy in Eternal Flame. He meant what he said. Because he was truly done with Sandy after learning she cheated. Which is why he’s not happy in the relationship with her now even after staying. Since he’s been checked out.

That night, Mike’s heart chose Lucy. Yet in the end, the things going on in his mind made him forgive Sandy after she called him back crying and begging for forgiveness, not because he loves her. But out of misplaced feelings of obligation. Feeling that Sandy’s actions were his fault and that he had to fix something he never broke.

Since Mike constantly feels like he needs to take the weight of the world on his shoulders. For example with his parents who are likely headed for a divorce. It’s not his marriage to figure out, yet he takes on his parents responsibilities at home out of obligation.

His decision had nothing to do with using Lucy or leading her on. Because Mike truly meant everything he said to her that night and his decision to stay with Sandy is more of a psychological problem than anything else.

Lucy did nothing wrong at all. His decision wasn’t about her or Sandy. It’s just another indicator that he needs to know that It’s not his place to fix everything. Mike needs to understand that he doesn’t have to cut a hole in his own boat, in order to use that piece of wood on another person’s ship to keep it from sinking. Which I believe will become more clear if he ever starts seeing a therapist.

Just reread the chapter, you are right.

I thought the forcefull hug happened before he mentioned Sandy but he does hug her twice.

Doesn’t really take away that Lucy is being very hypocritical and that her “Mike was leading me on” story is full of holes if you look at the entire story.

Lucy was planning to kill herself when she slept with Paulo. I really dont get why you keep making up stuff about her reasoning that night like that it was for fun or ‘when she knew she was moving away’ and refuse to just say ‘when she was planning to kill herself.’

After you

“I already agreed weeks before the play”

“It was my idea to leave the next day”

Talking to paulo about transfering out

“I thought i would get away with it and never have to see you again”

I don’t think she had concrete plans about her suicide attempt at that point, and honestly if she was that would make it even worse.

I don’t see how “let me break one more heart before i die” sounds any better then what i am saying

And regardless of if she was or wasn’t planning it, it doesn’t change that she led Paulo on and is being a hypocrit about complaining Mike did that to her. Especially when it questionable at best

I see it as karma tbh.

@Kiall I kind of don’t understand you. I’ve seen that you’ve said you tried to look at Lucy differently, but it feels like you’re just dead set on making her the fault for everything. Mike did lead her on. Not in every interaction, but it was obvious when he was using her as a stand in for Sandy. Sometimes he would act very romantically with her which would rightfully confuse her. With Paulo, Lucy wasn’t trying to “break another heart.” She didn’t think Paulo was in love with her, she thought he only wanted to have sex with her because he liked her body. Whether she made any concrete plans on what she was doing that night, her logic was that she was giving him what he wanted: her body. No it’s not right what she did, but that was the way she rationalized it to herself.

Yeah because she didn’t really own up to it.

Lol. Augustus pressured him into it and Mike is the bad guy for saying nah?

@Vito I can see that. By Lucy’s logic, she was doing what felt right that night. However, the same applies to all of these kids and the decisions made by them while thinking they were justified in their actions.

Lucy shouldn’t be the only one who gets the benefit of the doubt based on her mental state at the time. Not when all of these children have done something bad at some point, which was a result of how they were feeling at the time. Although some actions were worse than others, it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve all made questionable decisions when they weren’t in the right emotional or mental state.

I’m not blaming Lucy for everything that’s happened, and I never will, because all of these children played a part in what led up to December. Things that are still haunting all of them even now. So if you can see that what Lucy did wasn’t right, while also understanding how her mental state allowed her to internally rationalize those actions. Then you should be able to see that the same logic applies to Mike and the others who also contributed to the buildup and explosive conclusion of December.

How did he lead her on when he was telling her that he wanted her to leave him alone?

I did try, it is possible to have a stance on something, realise you might be wrong after discussing it and after reviewing it and looking at new developments to reach the same conclussion you had before.

I’ve critisised Mike’s actions in the past too, even in this chapter . So saying i want to make her the fault of everything just isn’t true. The difference between Mike and Lucy is that when Mike makes a mistake he shows regret and tries to make things right while Lucy twists what happened to put herself in a victim role.

Mike was not leading Lucy on, everybody including Lucy was leading Lucy on

After her confession she told the girls in the group what happened and they flat out called Mike an idiot for not following their favorite ship

If Mike deserves to live in isolation for leading Lucy on half the cast deserves to live in isolation

Mike was the only one who was honest with her instead of keeping the delusion of them being together alive

As for what happened with Paulo in Another Shoulder she made advancements to him and Paulo being the chad that he is turned her down cause her mind wasn’t in the right space. So that should have been very clear to Lucy he didn’t just want her body.

Also she told him “I thought i could get away with it and never have to see you again”. That’s not something you say when you give something you think someone wants, you say that when you took something you wanted and at the time didn’t care how it would hurt the other

So sorry but i think you are just wrong about that. Lucy very much used Paulo for her own pleasure and now is making Mike look like the big bad by accusing him of doing the same thing

Paulo did that, that day, yes. He turned her down because she wasn’t in the right headspace. Which, only makes me more disappointed that he didn’t do that again. Because as you point out, he’s demonstrated it’s a choice he’s able to identify and make for the right reasons so maybe I was giving him too much credit thinking a kid like him might just not have that occur to him yet in the moment. It’s a shame he couldn’t keep up that kind of decent behavior, that you point out is indeed the correct way to behave when someone tries that kind of thing when they’re not in a good headspace.

Used him for her pleasure? What pleasure, man. She didn’t enjoy herself. That much was pretty explicit. She was practically dead inside already. She threw herself off a parking garage right afterward. Yeah, she was thriving at that boy’s expense. Is that what you really believe? She let herself be used because she has a toxic relationship with her own sexuality and desirability.

I genuinely think you are projecting a comical amount of malice and evil onto Lucy where it does not exist. I don’t think Mike deserves to live in isolation. But he’s the one who invited the conversation about who was leading who on in the first place. And it’s very telling that THIS was the grievance he decided to bring up to defend and justify himself when what he said to Lucy was brought up. Because deep down, I don’t think he was lashing out at her the way you are convinced he was, as a scared victim of her abuse. She got too rough, that’s true. And it wasn’t okay. But I really think it was more a matter of them both growing up loving to roughhouse but then…things started going too far little by little, and neither of them realized for a long time. But he told on himself with this incident. what really came to mind for him to harp on, the REAL thing he truly resented her for wasn’t ‘she hit me a lot’ or ‘she abused me’. He could have said either of those things to defend himself, and might have if that’s what he felt. But no, he accuses her of leading him on.

That’s what was behind so much of Mike’s venom towards Lucy in the end. So much of the anger. Not being her scared suffering victim. He was jealous and resentful and set off by her looking at anyone else even after he turned her down. He was always sniping at her at any sign on it, even as late as December and acted possessive. How do you explain that if you really think Mike’s signals were never mixed and her being led on was only ever in her head?

How are you allowed to grow if you keep reminding someone of their past when they are actively trying to change

That isn’t giving them a chance, that’s making them suffocate and sabotage themselves more.

Again I’m still standing by my statement that what August did was disgusting.

This isn’t a resolution on both sides for them to finally open up and owe up and truefully healed

This was a situation set up for one side to win and to just make the other look bad with no chance to even explain or even a chance to grow or apologize.

August likely shutdown any chance for Mike to even explain himself or to even owe up without being look like this.

He dragged his ass through the mud, and shoved his whole face in.

No, we need to treat Mike like he’s an adult who can perfectly enunciate all his feelings. He needs to be held to a standard higher than a normal person. Its a good thing he’s not real and can’t hear all the crap people say about him, otherwise he’d REALLY spiral.

But isn’t that exactly what Augustus did? He never shied away from what happened with Daisy. He knew what he did was bad and nobody ever let him forget. It was brought up in almost every single interaction with him. Augustus admitted he was in the wrong, kept his distance from Daisy, did not talk to her, immediately left when he ran into her, and respected her new boundaries. The only recent interactions they’ve been having is b/c Daisy has been inserting herself into his space and even then he makes sure to behave himself. These are the things Mike should have been doing with Lucy. I think b/c of this he can kinda see through Mike’s flimsy resolve and self serving bullshit.

Also ya guys keep making it sound like Augustus did this for every single interaction Mike has had when the only reason this happened was b/c Mike deliberately went back on his word of staying away during lunch. It just highlights Mike’s inconsistency and his habit of shifting the blame instead of taking accountability for his own choices.

@Machias While I understand what you’re saying. You also have to acknowledge that after Mike kept the original promise, Augustus had no right to approach him a second time. Especially, not to corner Mike and pressure him into agreeing to something Augustus shouldn’t have even gotten close enough to ask in the first place.

I get Augustus was worried for Lucy and trying to help. However, she never explicitly said that her recent spiral had anything to do with Mike. Augustus assumed that on his own with no proof based solely on their past history.

That isn’t right no matter how anyone tries to spin it. At the end of the day, whether we like it or not. Augustus pressured Mike into agreeing to his unnecessary demands under duress.

If someone had done what Augustus did to try and obtain a confession from someone in the court of law. That confession would be thrown out at trial. So why are we pretending that Augustus pressuring him to stay inside was okay? And why do we believe Mike’s word after being pressured in such a situation should be binding?

Imagine that you witnessed me corner someone and then proceed to pressure them into accepting my demands. Would you tell the person that I cornered that they’re a terrible person for not doing what I said when you witnessed them only agree because they were pressured to?

Even if I were to think I was right in that situation. My actions still would have been wrong and the person involved would have no reason to follow through on what I made them promise me under duress.

P.S. the only people Augustus should’ve gone to concerning Lucy’s recent mental health is her parents. Yet if any of these kids were capable of talking to an actual adult about their current problems. Then we likely could’ve avoided a lot of the things that led up to this very moment.

@Elmanii But Mike didn’t keep the original promise though either. He approached her again after she left the arcade to get away from him in Link Play. Lucy even promptly had to remind Mike that he told Augustus he wouldn’t speak to her again. Which also confirms that Lucy is FINE with Augustus being her bulwark from Mike. Everything Augustus does, Lucy knows and he has her approval.

Augustus was right to worry for her and assume Mike was the cause b/c most of Lucy’s problems have to do with Mike. Not only that Lucy is known to not always be up front with her feelings. This assertiveness from Augustus is why HE was the one to save her when she tried to kill herself and not her other “close” friends. She also tensed up when she first noticed Mike running in the field during lunch so it clearly bothered her despite saying otherwise.

Also Augustus did NOT coerce Mike when he asked him to give Lucy space during lunch time. He didn’t corner Mike alone in some back alley, threaten him with violence, tower over him, blackmail him, or repeatedly cut him off in the conversation. Augustus approached/spoke to Mike politely, kept a respectful distance, they were in a populated school hallway with many onlookers, and he only cut Mike off the one time when he said he didn’t care how Mike feels which is fair b/c he is NOT Mike’s friend. Augustus also has a right to be cold to Mike b/c this is the SECOND time he has to tell him to stay away from Lucy. Mike did not keep his initial promise.

Now if Mike had initially refused Augustus’s request and Augustus did this then that would be another story. However Mike not only agreed to Augustus’s request, he then proceeded to do the complete opposite of it without any heads-up. Mike lied to Augustus’s face yet again.

Lastly this isn’t a trial and honestly Augustus did James a favor b/c Mike WAS taking advantage of James. There was an entire table of kids who wanted to hang out with Mike so what made James different? It’s b/c James had a romantic interest in Mike that made him the center of James world. Mike wanted that attention/affection to continue without having to commit which Augustus hit the nails on the head. Case in point Mike’s now even tried to guilt trip James over a book now that he’s trying to pursue a relationship with David & not focusing on him. That wasn’t friendship; he was just using James to make himself feel better.

I can see August doing that (spreading rumors to destroy friendships), not James.

He may hate Mike right now, but I doubt he is that spiteful! He may tell his friends about what happened, I don’t know how that’s gonna play out (probably not well.)

Augustus definitely cornered him in the hallway and pressured him into agreeing.

They hate Mike and they stan Lucy because they’re toxic like her. They aren’t going to stop roasting him.

@Ethan Mazur I think there’s a good chance that happens

At this point, I think we’d be more surprised if that doesn’t happen.

What?

Yeah, I blocked that dude last week because he was spamming and really negative/aggressive.

Okay so he was angry troll. Nice

I went back and read all the comments and I really don’t blame you ❤️‍🩹 thats one reason iv been way more quiet lately on the comments sections, so I definitely feel that ❤️‍🩹 good to know to for future reference.

yeah, not going to name names (besides, if you can read this, it’s not you), but they were getting absurdly aggressive in their “Mike did nothing wrong” stance

and honestly, when you believe a stance like that it makes the story less interesting! nearly everyone has done something blatantly, incredibly wrong! (the clean records would be Matt and Amaya, I guess) but they’re mostly trying to fix themselves, and in Mike’s case he’s made some of the biggest mistakes, and it can’t be long before he turns a corner (I know many believe that this won’t help, which is fair, but I do trust some of Taeshi’s comments that state that he will eventually get better)

Regardless of who you ‘stan’ or ship we’re here for the love of the comic and it should be fun to have debates over our favorite characters.

I also found it funny that said person said I ‘stan’ Lucy because Nope bro I’m a Sue fan alllll the way. My girl can do no wrong (sometimes)

Sue’s in a place where she’s done wrong but instead of causing long term social problems it mostly just backfires on her lmao

And I lovingly watch her grow every time she messes up

That would be a crazy turn of events

BUT ALSO (as I was rereading this comic *again*) this scene parallels, I think, page 31 of December??? Lucy (or Mike here) saying *don’t leave*, Mike (James) replying in venom??? (*And I have to wonder if December was a lot of projection on Mike’s part, with how he’s developed since; “nobody can love you for who you are, they only like you for your *looks*”, and Mike constantly has people displaying romantic interest in him left and right to where he doesn’t trust them to stick around if they *aren’t* interested in him in some way, which would explain him choosing to chase James over the track team friends imho. At least he knows James *used* to have a thing for him, maybe he can reclaim that loyalty. Fffft, Lucy and Mike are really two sides of the same coin!)

honestly, if you go back to the December speech, Mike confirms he’s projecting mid-speech. everyone only tolerates him as long as he tolerates Lucy, but if he leaves everyone will abandon her and follow him? sure, dude…

hell he didn’t even include everyone because it’s pretty obvious there’s no chance in hell Sue would pick him over Lucy

I really like the notion of this being a parallel to December. Truly hammers home how much of it was projection on Mike’s part. Also, if you compare what Mike said to Lucy vs what was said to Mike here, you can see the difference being one of lies (Mike saying hurtful things to push Lucy away) vs truth (Mike’s actions being brought to light, everyone missing Lucy, etc).