Discussion of "Epilogue: A New Beginning (?)" by dogdeity11

Um, yea, okay…so I couldn’t resist right? I figured why not keep the door open…just in case. You never know when someone is gonna get a wild hair up their arse and decide to launch into another season of ‘Toby.’
I used a tasty little tidbit crystalfoo dropped in one of her terrific chapters. Shirley had a husband. Living in Australia. Well, now he’s baaaack!

Yes Yes Yes!!! Oh you're the best! I wholeheartedly loved all three chapters (yes, even when I thought Toby was dead I still loved the chapter). And I love that you saved Egg too, he was by far one of my favorite characters. Spectacular!

Thank you, dog, for stepping it up and pounding it hard.

I'm confused about Wright's reappearance - I'll reread Flotsam 2, but if any explanation was given, I missed it on first perusal. If no explanation was given... hasn't he already died -- twice?

I'm lost in terms of the relationship between Wright and Shirley. Incestual Assassins sounds like a bad Cinemax script. I like the duality of their insincerity, but I still don't know if - make that _how_ - they're related.

Would've liked something more than grand red herrings to wrap up the color folders and the Florida deed, but I read the whole string several times and couldn't come up with anything better.

Thanks for staying true to Toby, all the way up to the moments of recollecting M*A*S*H reruns. He doesn't know who/what he is anymore; you carried that well.

Good job with the believable sequel potential. I doubt I'm riding any further with it, but I hung up my Toby shoes a waaays back. Glad to see you didn't.

-- Nash

Thanks Honey and Nash! I tried to have a little fun with it. Re-reading it now, several weeks after publication, I would probably do things totally different…but I suppose that’s part of the beauty of this MASH. (and many others) with so many different voices, there’s always a fresh direction one can take something.
I guess I’m a bit confused on Wrights appearance as well. I knew he was killed and then I thought he was brought back to life (?)…I don’t recall him being killed again? He appears in a later chapter on the airplane with the rest of the crew. I probably just missed a chapter someplace. Who knows…just add it to the long list of inconsistencies related to the grand Toby storyline.
Wright and Shirley’s relationship can be whatever one desires it to be. I don’t know that it was ever clearly defined and I don’t know that it really needs to be. At least for me it doesn’t. I like it left as a bit of a perplexing mystery. If it’s ever continued, maybe it can be addressed.
Agreed…the convoluted storyline surrounding the folders left too many loose ends to try and tie up in a nice little x-mas package. So I decided to make them unimportant. I thought it lent an air of hilarity to the production as throughout they seemed to be so urgent to the plot.
Thanks for taking the time to read guys.