Zeb Larson reviews Nailbiter #9…
Are the children of Buckaroo, Oregon all going to grow up to be serial killers?
This is a middling issue of Nailbiter. Not a bad issue by any means, but not an interesting issue either. It’s a placeholder while we wait for the plot to unfold, which must inevitably come when Carroll wakes up. I will be discussing spoilers ahead, so read on at your own discretion.
The issue begins with the school bus driver and a retrospective of a few of the Buckaroo Butchers, each of whom the bus driver watched grow up. Finch manages to escape from the crazed beekeeper, though he’s forced to leave behind the other farmer to an unpleasant fate. He ducks into the tunnels underneath town and emerges to find Alice. The pastor breaks into Sheriff Crane’s house, though his lecture seems to irritate her more than anything else. When Finch and the investigator go back to the beekeeper’s place, they find it empty. Warren has a creepy but harmless moment underneath Finch’s bed, which is interrupted when she’s notified that the bus driver, along with a bus full of children, has disappeared.
It’s sort of frustrating that here, at the ninth issue, we don’t really have any more answers about the Butcher, the town, or even where the investigation is going. The narrative really hasn’t advanced much since the fifth issue, since we’re still waiting to see if Carroll will wake up. At least with the sixth and seventh issues, the sidestories and tangents were interesting and funny. There’s no humor to speak of in this issue, and the gag with Warren under the bed mostly falls flat because Crane doesn’t have enough time to react to it.
Part of my frustration also stems from the fact that the bee plot didn’t really shed any light on what’s going on. Ok, so now we know that Buckaroo has fared poorly since the honey farms started to fail, but that’s pretty much it. The beekeeper didn’t share any new information and didn’t really do much apart from look grotesque and laugh maniacally. And now he’s gone too, so I guess we move on to the plot with the bus driver. The bus driver plot at least has some potential in showing how Buckaroo is falling apart under the strain of all these crimes, a sensible reaction given everything else that’s happened. Still, it can’t help but feel like a conceit to buy time until Carroll wakes up. The most interesting thing that could happen here is if Carroll didn’t, and the investigation proceeded another way.
If I’m frustrated with this issue, it’s only because I’ve seen this series give us more interesting material. Nailbiter will be back on track sooner or later, and I’m hoping that issue #10 will give us some answers.
Zeb Larson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszFJHnpNzqHh6gswQ0Srpi5E&feature=player_embedded&v=Z2vq4CudKRk
Originally published January 8, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
