Plastics.
A funny thought hit me at the end of Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour– is this comics’ version of Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate? Can you draw a connection between Mrs. Robinson and Knives Chau? Between a future in plastics and a future over the oven of a short order cook? The final book in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series opens up with Scott, having lost his Ramona, lying in bed all day long, playing video games on a old handheld gaming system. Now picture The Graduate’s Ben Braddock, lying on a lying on a floating chair in a pool, staring aimlessly up onto the sky, believing that Elaine Robinson won’t be his. Of course, Ben never had to face seven evil ex’s or had a gay ex-roommate telling him that he had to sleep with someone like Scott does but both Ben and Scott face an uncertain future without the person that they think they love.
O’Malley’s big finale to his Scott Pilgrim saga (and that’s what it is at this point with 6 volumes) delights in showing us just how much has changed over the past year in the life of Scott Pilgrim. Knives Chau, his high school aged ex girlfriend, was only a child of 17, infatuated with Scott in the first book. Now, all of 18 years old, she’s gotten it together, ready to leave her obsession with Scott behind and get on with her life. And a lot of her gro
wing up was during the last 4 months, during the time when Scott just laid on his couch playing Gameboy. It seems like almost everyone grew up quite a bit since we last saw them; Kim Pines, Stephen Stills, Young Neil (now just “Neil,”) and Envy Adams are all just a bit older in this book. Part of the beauty of Scott Pilgrim has been how O’Malley has created a complete cast around Scott and Ramona. There are no stock characters here; they all have their own lives and grow up just as Scott does, except for his ex-roommate Wallace who I hope never grows up and never changes his catty ways.
The thrust of Scott Pilgrim’s life has been keeping it the same as it’s always been; the same roommate, the same friends and the same band. Even as new elements like Knives and Ramona entered his life, he did everything he could to pull them into the life he already led. His friends became their friends. They got to know his past and his ex-girlfriends while he only got to know the surface levels of them, often preferring not to know Ramona’s past until one of the exes showed up. Even then, he didn’t want to know about them and Ramona beyond what he needed to know to defeat the exes.
Ramona always was a dream for Scott, a breezy and mysterious girl who always seemed distracted in their relationship, looking over her shoulder to the past. There was something back there in her past more than just the 7 exes. As much as Scott didn’t want to know, there was stuff that Ramona didn’t want him to know. This final book becomes both of their story as Scott and Ramona both have to try and fully commit to each other. And to do that, they have to face the ultimate of her exes, Gideon.
With each of the previous six exes, there have been great twists that O’Malley threw in to make them more than stock characters. There’s been skate-boarding movie stars, rock stars who are now dating one of Scott’s exes, twins, a girl and even the first boyfriend Patel, who barely even qualifies because they only ever had one kiss and broke up after a week. (Quick aside: It’s great how Scott’s close circle of friends are relatively normal guys and girls while everything around them is all ninjas, robots and video-game reality.) While there’s this great odd craziness to Ramona’s past, Gideon falls flat. Here’s been the character we haven’t seen but who’s been pulling the exes strings since the first volume. He sent them after Scott but when we finally see him, he’s this stock post-modern hip Snidely Whiplash character, with Ramona tied up metaphorically to the train tracks while he tests Scott’s ability to rescue her. Other than a bit of weak mumbling when it’s all over, we never even get an idea of what Ramona or a girl like Envy Adams would see in let alone be interested in Gideon. We’ve been getting this huge buildup to the ultimate ex-boyfriend and he ends up being the bad guy from so many teenage movies and stories.
Luckily, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour isn’t about Gideon. In the end, Gideon and all of the exes are just plot devices. They provide the fun and distractions while O’Malley tries to get to the heart of his story. “Change is… it’s what we get,” Ramona tells Scott. Gideon, and maybe this is why he doesn’t fit in the book that well, is about staying the same. He’s trying to force Scott and Ramona to be the same people they always were; to be as flighty and irresponsible now as they were when the story began. As the world around Scott and Ramona changes (Envy gets a solo career, Kim Pines moves home to find herself, Stephen Stills starts a new band, Knives leaves for school,) they’re the holdouts. They don’t want to go back to the way things were but they don’t want things to change.
“Plastics,” The Graduate’s Ben Braddock is told to set him on the path of a sure-fire future. “Go out and sleep with someone” is the advice that Scott gets. Way different messages but the goal of both is surprisingly the same; to get Ben and Scott moving forward. Maybe if you’re of a certain age, you can imagine Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” playing as Scott walks into Gideon’s new nightclub for the final showdown. “Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes.” (O.k. maybe I’m just showing my own age with that idea.) Ben and Scott are both two boys in love and waiting to grow up, waiting to be forced before taking control of their own lives.
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Tags: Bryan Lee O'Malley, Mike Nichols, Scott Pilgrim, The Graduate