Mary Worth, 2/9/25

I have not really been talking about this Mary Worth plotline much, because it turns out that seeing a big beefy asshole act in a way that's clearly emotionally abusive towards his girlfriend and feels like it could become physically abusive at any moment isn't "fun" or "funny" the way most of the dysfunctional antics in this strip are. However, when the big physical confrontation takes the form of a shove to Jared's chest so feeble that even he seems surprised by it? And Dawn reacts with the supporting attack of "accidentally" dropping a bowling ball on Dirk's foot? And then he calls her something truly gasp-worthy, probably a "Christ-abandoned trollop"? Well, even I have to admit: that's pretty funny, and it gets even funnier when you see that poor Aeschylus, who wrote a civilization-defining trilogy about ghastly cycles of murder and revenge and divine wrath only being resolved by Athena founding of institutions of human justice, has been dragged in to provide a sheen of legitimacy to the proceedings. Don't worry, though: none of the bajillion websites that have this quote on them tell you which play it's from, which is a good sign that it's made up, so Aeschylus is in fact chilling in the Greek underworld and does not need to trouble himself with Dawn's romantic trials. (Google's Gemini AI on separate queries tried to tell me that the line is from The Remembered, which is not an actual play, and that while it's not from a specific play it captures the themes of the Oresteia, which is pretty funny in its own right.)

Blondie, 2/9/25