AC: Bush43 Daily Week Two

[Tom Russell]

Review: BUSH43 # 25-29
   or, "Week Two" :-)

SPOILERS.
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...

Last week's daily installments of BUSH43 had a nice, slow-building
rhythm.  Noir mood pervaded over the story, our hero struggled to do
right in a bad place, and the unabashedly sexy Cassandra Trellis caused
some curious stirrings in my bat belt.  It was compelling and I could
tell it was building towards somewhere...

... and, apparently, it was building to the fight scene in # 24/25.
Though I suppose "build" is the wrong word: the fight scene isn't so
much a climax point in the story as it is a rhythm climax; that is,
it's not so much something that's built to by the four preceeding
issues as it is a carthartic action point.

After that point, the series slows down quite a bit, entering the
"downtime" stage that typically follows a climax; it's for this reason
that I designate the fight scene as occupying one of the climax points
in the story's structure.

The story does start building again, but it seems to do so at a
considerably slower pace than the previous episodes.  And the reason
why is very, very simple: these last few issues are about numbers,
about public perception and straw polls.  And numbers are very, very
boring.

(Ooh!  A crossover with the ONION LAD # 9 thread!  Now I've offended
all the mathematicians out there!  Five b... five people offended!
Yes!)

Kenney keeps it kind of light, and the dialogue has a quality somewhat
reminicsant of screwball comedies, full of wit and playful
back-and-forth, and one-upmanship.  But.  It's still numbers.  And, I'm
sorry, but the whole numbers/spin thing, for me, is dreadfully dull.
(For example, I absolutely can't stand WAG THE DOG, Mamet script
aside.)

And I realize, what with Jeffrey working as a spin doctor, that there's
a fair chance there's going to be more of this as the series
progresses.  So I might not be the ideal reader.

But, on the other hand, Jeffrey's moral dillemia is of interest to me,
and I trust Kenney as a writer.  And I know that, as Jeffrey gets
better and better at spin, that moral dillemia will be amplified.  So
I'm definitely going to stick it through.

And, besides, I wouldn't mind spending more time reading about
Cassandra Trellis and her bush.  Er, Bush.  43, that is.  Jeffrey.
About Cassandra and Jeffrey.

Oh, never mind. :-)

--Tom