2021 Geek-A-Long Sweater: Clue 12

Welcome to week 12 Geek-A-Long Nation!! You’ve made it to the half-way mark and I hope you’ve been having as much fun as I have so far.

It’s been a wild and very wet week in Philadelphia, and I hope that this Sunday finds you safe and dry. Hurricane Ida left an enormous amount of destruction in her wake. We got very lucky. Tornados touched down extremely close to my house, but my neighborhood was left unscathed. Our basement got wet, but just a few streets over homes and cars were completely flooded. I grew up in Indiana, where “Tornado Season” is an annual event, so I’m well trained as far as what to do if one touches down…but I never expected that to be a skillset I’d be calling on after I moved to Pennsylvania. Downtown Philly flooded to the point of being a canal system.

This Clue 12 features includes a few duplicate stitch sections, though I would advise waiting until you’ve finished clue 13 next week to work some of them. The green “Pay Day” spot on the life board (chart B) and the edge of the red and blue sections of the Sorry! logo (chart C) are much easier to work once you’ve completed those spaces. For the Pay Day square I worked the square blank with white on the front and black on the back. Then, I used duplicate stitch to fill in the green background on the front (not working double sided duplicate stitching), and leaving the stitches for the lettering “blank” so that it was white letters on a green background. On the back I duplicate stitched the words “pay day” in green for green letters on a black background. The result is really nice, and I’ll show you a photo of it next week.

I know that this is a Geek-A-Long post, and I try to keep those on topic, but I have something really important I need to talk about with you right now: The Paw Patrol Movie.

Friday night we took Mabel to the Drive In to see Paw Patrol. I love the drive in, it’s the absolute best place to take a kid to see movies. She can be antsy and talk without disturbing other movie goers. It’s COVID friendly since you sit with just the people you came with, and are outside, and they have funnel cakes. I’ll go pretty far out of my way for a funnel cake. But guys, this movie is BANANAS.

I guess maybe I just never paid enough attention to Paw Patrol? Has it always taken place in a horrific dystopian future? I’ve seen *a lot* of episodes of that show, or anyhow I’ve been in the room while they were playing. And it usually takes place in this small town where Ryder and his band of pups go and save the day. That’s cute enough when the day is saved by rescuing the Mayor’s pet chicken from a tree, or stopping the rival town’s Mayor from stealing all the pies for the pie eating contest. So I never really noticed that they are THE ONLY EMERGENCY RESPONDERS IN THIS WORLD.

But that point becomes really uncomfortable when, at the start of the movie, they move to a major city (clearly meant to be New York City), and they are still the only emergency responders. The art museum is on fire, people are trapped inside and their lives literally hinge on a teenage boy and his pets making it through gridlocked city traffic in time. They make it to the museum in time to save lives and artifacts but the cop-dog, Chase, get’s his parachute caught on something and almost burns to death while hanging upside down over the burning building. The other pups rescue Chase and put out the fire, but Chase develops a hard case of PTSD and starts having crippling anxiety attacks.

At this point we’re maybe 15 minutes into the movie. Since none of the paw patrol members cosplay as a mental health professional, Chase does not get the help he needs. When the burden of his anxiety becomes too much he takes off his collar (which has the tracker in it that Ryder could have used to find him) and runs away. Meanwhile, the villain mayor from the show moves from his small town to be the mayor of NYC. I guess “Mayor” is a lifetime appointment like being on the Supreme Court. He is a cat person, and has his cronies start rounding up all the dogs to throw them in dog jail. Ryder and the Paw Patrol have noticed Chase’s absence, but since he is, as previously mentioned the ONLY cop in the entire world, there is no one to make a missing person report to. So they tell the Bodega Lady. Obviously. She has a board up in the bodega with photos of all the dogs that have been stolen from their families in the last few days. It’s a big board. There is a lot of allegory here, and I appreciate the efforts to make mass incarceration and family separation at the border accessible for young audiences…but maybe warn the parents next time Nickelodeon!

Chase is thrown into dog jail, then escapes from dog jail. While looking for him, Ryder falls and is trapped under a rock. Chase finds him, and frankly, with how the movie has gone up until now I really expected Chase to hand Ryder a pocket knife and then it fades to black while we assume they are paying homage to 127 hours. Ryder has a James Franco look.

The day is sort of saved. Chase talks about his feelings and Ryder validates for him that it’s normal to be scared or freeze up sometime. The Paw Patrol is reunited and they expose the Mayor as the dog thief. They add a new dog to the Paw Patrol, and she rides a Vespa. The construction dog, Rocky, rebuilds from the massive structural damage caused during this movie. But Chase still hasn’t gotten any professional help for his mental illness, and he never will.

I’ve got a theory about the Paw Patrol cannon: This is actually a secret Purge theory sequel. 500 years after the events of the Purge franchise, the world has descended into lawless chaos. All purge, all the time. The lack of law and government are so normalized that you become the leader of a town by moving there and announcing loudly that you are in fact, now the Mayor. Ryder is actually a scientist from the 21st century that invented a potion that could prevent aging. He took too much though and is now permanently stuck in the body of a 13 year old boy. An immortal teenage boy. That was bad news in Twilight and it’s bad news here. Desperate for a return to civilized society, and with the unlimited resources of someone that’s had centuries to amass wealth, he begins building his doggie super soldiers. He models them after the Village People and begins his quest to restore order to the world. They will eventually turn on him, but for now he can create small bubbles of peace in the apocalyptic dystopia that is his reality.

Released so far:

• 2021 Geek-A-Long Sweater: On Board Project Sheet.
• 2021 Geek-A-Long Sweater FAQ
• Practice Swatch 1: Electric Company
• Practice Swatch 2: Railroad
• Clue 1
• Clue 2
• Clue 3
• Clue 4
• Clue 5
• Clue 6
• Clue 7
• Clue 8
• Clue 9
• Clue 10
• Clue 11

View On Board: Clue 12 by clicking this link or download it by clicking the button below. When you download the pattern from our website instead of through Ravelry, you will NOT receive automatic updates. You will have to come here and download the next clue every time. Please download it via Raverly if you are able, so you have immediate access to the clues as they are released and any errata that may appear.

~Megan-Anne

Mabel enjoyed the movie very much.