Look! The sign-post up ahead says you're entering "The Piss Off DreadedCandiru2 Zone."

For anyone who's been paying attention, we're about to enter an era that really starts to irritate the holy Hell out of me: the era in which the Pattersons start to create innocent victims of their asswipery. Before this year, it was okay that they were dicks to people because their shenanigans were those that police officers would refer to as no humans involved. It was okay that Connie and Ted and Steve and Anne and their ilk got mauled because they're vermin asking for a scraping too.

This is not the case with Martha or Rhetta. Martha is more or less an innocent victim with an unhealthy attraction to damaging people like Janice and Megan and her asshole first husband and, yes, especially The Delicate Genius. We all know that when Rhetta showed up at the Pattermanse for Senior Prom, Lana Kane from FXX's Archer should have pointed at John and yelled "JESUS CHRIST!!! HE'S GOT AN ERECTION!!!!"

We also know what a whiny little bitch Mike was when she put being on break on the table. I can't write headers for strips with them in it because they make me angry. I'm fine watching Annie blubber about Steve, I can deal with Aypo and I can tolerate Liz until she dies of being made aware that Anthony Caine exists but his being a shitty boyfriend and Elly whining about eating for millions....well, in an effort to make you understand the level of unhappiness with that, I'd be likely to editorialize too much. I've made arrangements with howtheduck to cover those arcs....and am willing to share writing duties about, say, Phil's reluctance to buy a house because he's Peter Fucking Pan.