As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- The animated Pilot Movie has Mordecai inexplicably pull his punches when given a clear, even leisurely shot at Ivy. This, combined with a Freeze-Frame Bonus earlier in the episode, where a visibly shocked Mordecai spots a terror-stricken Ivy through her broken side window before he even speaks a line, potentially retroactively recontextualizes his stoically callous criticism of the Savoys as passive-aggressive, ultimately failed attempts to control them, avoid a confrontation, and minimize her risk of death. A complaint that they have more important things to do is followed by a complaint that their indiscriminate shooting is "profoundly unprofessional." Then he gives a pointed refusal to switch seats with either Savoy Sibling after the car windshield is blown, which would give him a clear shot at Ivy, with witnesses, and raise their suspicions of sentimentality even more than his avoidance already does. Then finally, a bitter complaint that the Savoys have scattered the runners, (he has now lost track of Ivy) and an ineffectual order to disable the vehicle, rather than its driver, perhaps in the narrow hopes of picking off the other runners before finding Ivy himself, and letting her escape.
- After crashing their car into a shed in the animated pilot, Ivy tearing off her sleeves with surprising ease can likely be chalked up to her having claws, which would allow her to cut into the fabric instead of simply pulling on it.
- A is for amygdala, as Mordecai pointed out. The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for emotional reactions and psychopaths (the actual mental disorder) have smaller than normal amygdalas with impared reactions. A psychopath is a person who (among other signs/symptoms): is cunning and manipulative, lacks remorse or guilt, has shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric), is callous and lacks empathy, fails to accept responsibility for own actions, and has poor behavioral control. In the Defiance arc, it's established that Mordecai's lack of emotion is rumored to be an outcome of a cranial injury. Now, what part of his brain would lead to such behaviour if injured? An amygdala.
- In a flashback, Mordecai is injured from a fight, but he refuses to let Elsa treat him. He only relents after Elsa injects him with morphine. In another scene, Mordecai is stiff as a board and clearly uneasy when dancing with a woman. In volume 2, Mordecai looks very uncomfortable when Zulie touches him. His discomfort at being touched by women may have something to do with his early 20th century Jewish upbringing. In very conservative Jewish communities, unrelated men and women do not touch each other or spend time alone. Even if Mordecai is no longer devout, he still has internalized inhibitions about being touched by strange women.
- The idea that Serafine (and, by that extension, her brother Nico) believe that honoring Maitre Carrefour by doing decidedly criminal acts might make more sense if one realizes that Carrefour is the loa of "the 'crossing' of bad luck, deliberate destruction, misfortune, and injustices"
, the which criminal acts would entail. - Mordecai's forcible induction into the Maitre Carrefour cult is a twisted parody of his own Jewish faith. Like the God of Abraham in Hebrew Bible, Maitre Carrefour demands absolute fealty from his followers, rescues underdogs from doom, and offers good fortune in exchange for devotion (at least according to Serafine). Both religions mark Mordecai's flesh to signify membership. Mordecai would have been circumcised as part of his Jewish faith, and Serafine carved a symbol into his chest to show Maitre Carrefour's ownership of him.
- When Serafine proselytizes to Mordecai, it's painfully obvious that she knows nothing about him. First, Mordecai is Jewish, so even if he isn't devout, he still likely has inhibitions about worshiping a strange god. Serafine presumably asked Zulie to flirt with him, which fails because Mordecai is an asexual man who hates being touched. She tries to tug at Mordecai's heart-strings with a story from her childhood, which fails to stir the icy, sociopathic Mordecai. Finally, she tries to impress Mordecai with claims about Maitre Carrefour's supernatural powers, which leave the rational Mordecai unmoved. Serafine clearly knows nothing about how Mordecai thinks or what he values, which will make it difficult for her to control him or predict his future actions. Now that the Maitre Carrefour cult has angered Mordecai, that could spell trouble for Serafine.
- Interestingly, the one remark she does make that seems to give him pause is when she makes him remember Atlas. But if you notice her statements, all her remarks are pretty broad - she talks about how Maitre Carrefour knew him and met him on a train when he was lost and alone, and gave him a path out of the darkness, all statements which apply to Atlas for Mordecai. If Serafine had directly appealed to his backstory with Atlas instead, even if she had used the same general Cold Reading sort of statements, she might have gotten through to him.
- The comic takes advantage of By the Lights of Their Eyes in several panels to great dramatic effect and ambiance such as this ...but it's not just for dramatic effect. They're CATS, the eye shine isn't just a stylistic choice when the characters have an actual biological reason for their eye's to glow in low light!
- It might seem like just a case of Hypocritical Humor when Mordecai suddenly freaks out about losing his cuff links after complaining about not understanding the "sentimental types" in "Lackadaisy Massacre". If one is familiar with crime stories set in the 1920s, there is actually another more serious reason for this. Cufflinks are usually custom-made, meaning that they are very easy to trace back to the owner due to their uniqueness. Mordecai is actually freaking out that he left evidence at the crime scene.
- In side materials, it seems rather odd that Mordecai is constantly featured, sometimes put together or even interacting with the Lackadaisy gang. This is something that none of the other antagonists have outside of comics featuring the whole cast. While his comics with Viktor can be taken as his time with Lackadaisy before the death of Atlas May, he also casually deals with Rocky on several cases like they are familiar co-workers. The latter can be seen as non-canon gag comics that reference his popularity, which hides his true allegiance in canon which is to Lackadaisy, at the very least to Atlas May, for over a decade. Well played, Tracy.
- Mordecai's great disdain towards the pigfarmer and the Savoy sibling's method of getting rid of the bodies was not just due to his hygienic and methodical nature. Years later, Mordecai was revealed to be Jewish, meaning that him viewing pigs as impure creatures is also a part of his religious background.
Fridge Horror
- Historical Fridge Horror:
- 1927 (the year in which the comic is set) is only two years before October 29th, 1929. While the alcohol industry wasn't greatly impacted by the Great Depression (at least until the Dust Bowl in 1933 reduced raw materials for making it, although St. Louis appears to get its supply from out of the country so they likely wouldn't be hit too bad by that either), Wick is going to lose everything in the crash. Tracy has said that the comic will end after the start of The Great Depression, but before the repeal of Prohibition, so somewhere around the 1930-1932 range. The full impact of the Great Depression may still be left to our imaginations, but we will most likely see the characters struggling- even more than they already are.
- Something the comic won't involve but is most certainly still going to happen—the event that happens after the Great Depression. And Freckle is old enough to fight. Ax-Crazy or not, it's going to be hell for him. And that's what's worse . Sure, some of the characters such as Viktor* or Ivy* may not have to worry about the draft and being flung into the front lines, but Calvin and Rocky, on the other hand...
- Given Rocky and Calvin's mental states and their screwed-up family history, it is very likely that the combination of the gangster life, The Great Depression and World War 2 will grant the duo a one-way ticket to a lunatic asylum, where they will receive all kinds of "help".
- Mordecai himself is relatively safe, being in the United States, but if he has family anywhere in Europe when the war begins, they won't be. And even then, Mordecai will have to deal with anti-semitism typical of the era, including the back and forth attitude of the citizens of the US towards helping European Jews escape immediate and worsening peril throughout the 1930s. There's also an uncomfortable subtext to the scene where Serafine scars Mordecai's flesh with a mark against his will - the same thing will soon happen to many Jewish people, for different reasons. Granted, while any idiot that actually tries to off him like his fellow Jews will find themselves face-to-face with the hatchet man of St. Louis, it is still a chilling thought.
- In supplementary material, it is revealed Calvin/Freckle was kicked off the police academy for his Gun Nut behavior, which led him to get recruited by Lackadaisy. Said force is one of the most corrupt police departments in the Prohibition Era (how else could Lackadaisy and Marigold operate that openly in St. Louis) with one of the biggest histories of Police Brutality and they kicked him out for being too trigger-happy with a gun. Let that sink in.
- I had a thought about Rocky's injuries and how his behavior changed. Considering where said injury is (in his forehead, where his frontal lobe is), it's possible he got brain damage. Usually, the damage from those sorts of injuries don't go away.
- Rocky is most likely suffering from a subdural hematoma. Erratic behavior, forgetfulness, confusion, lethargy, weakness, and apathy have been shown so far, which most of the cast has written off as Rocky being Rocky. Depending on the rate of the bleed he could be a very serious liability to the team in the very near future. It's recoverable, but he's going to need surgery very soon.
- In the animated pilot, it was Freckle who received a head wound instead of Rocky. While it's just a flesh wound and likely won't cause any of his cousin's mental problems like in the comic, it has remained unbandaged even after the trio returned to the speakeasy, whereas at least Rocky's was patched up for one night. This will likely result in an infection if not treated soon. Not to mention of how he's going to explain to his mother where the injury came from...
