This is a very interesting issue of “Mind the Gap” for many reasons. For one, it’s a “silent” issue; it doesn’t have any dialogue. For two, it features guest art by Dan McDaid, and – just like in issue #5, where Adrian Alphona took over art duties for most of the issue – the switch in artist signals a flashback. Esquejo’s smooth and colourful work portrays the present, while McDaid’s sketchy, limited-colour art style gives us an idea of what Jo is recalling.
Significantly, just before we enter the flashback, we zoom in to Jo’s eye. Apparently the emphasis of this issue is on what Jo has seen, and… yeah, it is an eyeful. Not only has she seen Hoodie himself, and now may be able to say who he is; she may also have watched, idly, while Lonnie died of anaphylactic shock, making her something like a murderer.
With these two big possibilities in mind, let’s go over this unusual and complex issue.
Icing Lonnie
Most of the action in this issue revolves around the plot to murder Lonnie. Originally recruited to deliver the false evidence against Dane, he quickly got too demanding, and has recently revealed that he recorded his phone conversations – not very good news for the Jairus Project. And so, last issue, Min ordered Hoodie to, erm, dispatch him. Lucky for the Jairus Project, Lonnie has a peanut allergy, and this is apparently something they knew about. Hoodie sets about injecting the toothpaste and soap with some kind of peanut solution, and Lonnie goes into anaphylactic shock later in the issue.
The serious-business looking vial and the case full of syringes used for the job hint toward Hoodie’s hospital connections – I’ve mentioned these before – and implicate Frankie more strongly than ever. But then, of course, there’s also Dr. Hammond to bear in mind, and – this is most unlikely – Dr. Geller.
It’s also worth noting that Hoodie takes something from the duffel bag full of money in the closet, but doesn’t take the bag with him (the one he’s carrying later is his case full of syringes). It’s not the money here that’s the priority, but Lonnie’s testimony, so my best guess is that he’s searching for Lonnie’s recorder here. We know that he doesn’t find it, though, because it turns out it was on Lonnie all along.
Holy Clocks, Batman
They’re everywhere. Apparently, McCann really, really wants us to know the exact timing of the events in this issue; but then, considering the “close call” as Jo and Hoodie pass by one another, and the very time-sensitive nature of Lonnie’s current state, this emphasis makes a lot of sense. It also means that it’s possible to set down a fairly precise timeline for this issue, so that’s what you’re getting here.
(N.B.: In terms of macro time, it’s still Thursday morning, the second day of the crucial four days that make up the Jairus Project.)
5:21 a.m. (Hoodie’s watch). Hoodie receives text order (I’m assuming from Min); proceeds to go into Dane’s apartment.
(I’m assuming that this is Dane’s apartment because it says “Miller” on the mailbox and we know that Lonnie, Dane’s father, has been staying at a hotel; however, the events of this issue, not to mention all the bottles of booze, show that Lonnie has a key and has been spending time here as well. This actually makes good sense, since it was mentioned before that Min had only arranged for Lonnie to stay in the hotel for one night – she knew that Dane’s place would shortly be unoccupied, since she orchestrated Dane’s arrest.)
5:31 a.m. (Hoodie’s watch). Hoodie leaves the apartment, having injected the toothpaste and soap with the peanut solution. Per his orders, he was in and out in ten minutes.
5:31 a.m. (wall clock in Jo’s apartment). Jo gets home and takes a shower.
6:07 a.m. (digital clock in Jo’s bedroom). Jo proceeds to look over her papers from the musical called [title of show] and seems to understand what kind of coded message Dane was trying to send her last issue when he referred to some song titles from it. At any rate, the meaning she infers (my guess, last column, was that Dane was asking Jo to trust him) seems to make her happy for a second.
Continued below
6:32 a.m. (shelf clock at Dane’s place). Jo enters Dane’s apartment (apparently she has a key).
6:33 a.m. (same shelf clock). Jo finds the note that Elle left and reads it. She hides as Lonnie walks in; he brushes his teeth, goes into shock, and collapses without being able to inject his epinephrine. Jo sits and thinks for while. The injector is right there; she has the power to save Lonnie’s life, and she’s clearly in something of a moral conundrum (more on this below). She finds the recorder next to Lonnie and plays it back.
6:54 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. (two panels depicting the same alarm clock at Dane’s bedside). Jo has just laid down on Dane’s bed, obviously deep in thought. However, the two panels showing these clocks are right next to each other; we don’t know what Jo does during this interval.
7:00 a.m. (church clocktower, and alarm clock in Dane’s apartment; these are the first pages of the issue). Jo is still on Dane’s bed, in shock; “flashes back” to the events that make up this issue.
[time unknown, but probably not much later; last pages of the issue] Jo leaves the apartment and runs into Hoodie, who is just going in. There’s a bit of confusion here, because this page is drawn by McDaid, and McDaid’s pages seem to represent the flashback that Jo was having while still in the bed. However, the next page, drawn by Esquejo, shows Jo deep in thought, sitting in a cab, so I think we can infer in that moment she’s having a mini-flashback of herself leaving the apartment… and all the moral implications of that action. A bit convoluted, but it works.
Jo’s Moral Conundrum
Medically speaking, my understanding is that six minutes is about the time that it takes for somebody to die from severe anaphylactic shock – that is, die without possibility of resuscitation. So: whatever happened during those six minutes in which we don’t know what Jo did, Jo basically decided whether Lonnie will live or die.
In terms of motivation, we can see why Jo would let Lonnie die: he set Dane up and is contributing to the conspiracy that got Elle attacked. He also lurked around and possibly molested Elle in her hospital bed. On the other hand, he’s more a pawn in the scheme than anything, and… well, he’s a human being, and Jo’s not a killer. We think.
As for evidence in one direction or the other: Jo did tear Lonnie’s sleeve with her boot, as though she was about to give him the injection, and she did this right after wiping blood from her lip. Blood on the carpet – which could be traced back to her – would be some pretty damning evidence against her, so she might have concluded that it would be better for her to try and save him.
But, she could have changed her mind after she ripped the sleeve; or, if she wanted to be clever, she could have mostly-emptied the syringe and then injected Lonnie with a very small amount, making it look as though a rescue had been attempted but botched. And, as Matt has suggested, the red colouring of this sequence would seem to suggest Jo’s anger, and vindictive action. At any rate, we don’t see any sign of life from Lonnie as Jo leaves.
The fact that she found the recorder may be the deciding element to all of this; she seemed about to leave him there before she found it, and when she did find it, she decided to wait there a few minutes. Does she feel guilty for having killed Lonnie, having found out that he has evidence against the Jairus Project? Or is she wishing she had killed him, because she perceives him as being part of the Jairus Project?
From a practical standpoint, a living Lonnie is a better tool against Min and Dr. Hammond and the rest of the Jairus Project than a dead one – but Jo doesn’t necessarily know that, or anything about the Jairus project at all, really, except that it appears to be harming Elle. Plus she already has the recorder, and that’s as good as – or better than – a living Lonnie’s testimony.
Continued belowElle’s Letter
Like I said, this is a complex issue: besides Jo’s moral dilemma, there’s the disturbing implications of Elle’s letter. On the one hand, this could be read as an obscure sort of “it’s not you, it’s me”: Elle wants to leave Dane before she “wusses out” because she’s gotten too close to him or too used to having him around or what-have-you. But then, the possibility of reunion brought up at the end seems kind of incongruous.
So we might have to interpret it another way: this letter is Elle warning Dane that she’s about to voluntarily play her part in the Jairus Project, something she’s known about all along and has accepted as necessary, if dangerous. That is, she’s heading for the subway and knows she’s about to be “attacked”, and undergo whatever mysterious process is going on at the hospital right now. In this case, the fact that she does entertain some hope that she and Dane will be reunited indicates that she has a chance of coming out unscathed, but it doesn’t sound like a very strong chance. I mean, that “everybody’s gotta die sometime” part is dire enough.
What does gesture toward the latter reading is the timing of it all: so far as we know, Dane and Elle had a fight the night before she was attacked, and she possibly spent the night at his place. She would have left this note as she was leaving the apartment in the morning, after he had left; he would therefore have no power to stop her by the time that he had read it. (Remember, he only stepped into the house for a moment when he got the call later that day and heard about Elle). Unfortunately, he hasn’t had a chance to read the letter since then – he hasn’t gone back to his apartment since Elle was attacked. So: since the note appears to be intact, and in the kind of place you leave a note, it looks like the sequence of events the day Elle was attacked went like this:
1) Dane wakes up and leaves,
2) Elle wakes up, writes and places note,
3) Elle leaves, gets attacked,
4) Everybody goes to the hospital.
Interestingly, back in issue #7, when Katie/Elle was falling asleep while talking to Jo, she told Jo that on the morning of the attack, she left Dane a… something (she trails off here). This could be her trying to say, “Left him a note”, and an important one at that: it might clear Dane’s name.
Recap
This issue was less of an infodump and more of a play-by-play of some dramatic moments indeed, so there isn’t exactly a list of new facts to rattle off here. However, I think we can begin assuming that, regardless of how much she actually knew about the Jairus Project, or whether she was deceived as to its nature, Elle went into it voluntarily; her letter says as much.
Occam’s razor would also make Elle a willing participant; how do a bunch of conspirators make plans that apparently span years and years without knowing for sure whether an essential party will ever go along with it? After all, if everyone is a suspect, and nobody is innocent, that implicates Elle as well.
Now, of course, the big question is what Jo is going to do with all the things she’s seen. What do you think? Be sure and leave your thoughts below!
