#meanwhile tommy changes simon's life by fucking dying. and it's tragic but for me the emotional impact of this tragedy is tainted

[g36a2]

not the worst of lapham's crimes but tommy's short hair being a symbol of recovery was evil.

#this with tommy's ''saving the world'' line is so. #it should have been longer at the wedding. #g36a20p027 #like he doesn't get to keep any of the personality we saw him have prior to his recovery! #''a healthy happy man would not think badly of his brother's military service!'' all that really was the drugs + riley sr speaking #what about loving your brother despite believing the path your father's abuse has set him on is the wrong one... same as you? #what about reckoning with the fact that some of the things your abusive shithead father said were right? #tommy and riley sr shit on simon's service because they wanted to hurt simon. so it would have been the perfect plot twist #had tommy retained those views once recovered and in a better place. impactful even #but of course not. riley sr said those things BECAUSE he is an abusive shithead. and tommy because he was in a dark place #and it's so much more compelling to jumpcut to the most cartoonishly happy family of all time being fridged #like man simon changes the trajectory of tommy's life by loving him and staying with him through the worst of it #meanwhile tommy changes simon's life by fucking dying. and it's tragic but for me the emotional impact of this tragedy is tainted #because out of cowardice the writers kill tommy riley twice #first by discrediting what he stood for while an addict and only then by actually killing him off #you can even still kill him off. simon and tommy have a row about his being in the military and then boom dead family #keep everything about tommy as seen in the comics except have him be a counterweight to simon ''i kill killers not arabs'' riley #extra angst extra unfinished business AND tommy's character is not assassinated #FUCK! the comics could have been GOOD! #this is the exact same reluctance to depict anything even remotely anti-war that led mw3r's dogshittification #which is bizarre since my anti-war tommy conspiracy could still be vindicated through pro-boot eyes #since his role is to die his character coulda had a saving pvt. ryan-esque ''the naive are destroyed by the peace they advocate'' type deal #like them not having tommy believe the things he did post recovery reveal a genuine contempt for anti-war thinking #it's like the writers genuinely thought they wrote tommy overcoming multiple character flaws. nightmarish! #so i guess tommy's short hair is one of lapham's worst crimes as it reveals a disturbingly sincere veneration for the status quo during #twenty-fucking-ten of all times!!!