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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 10 general entries.
Special Topics
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Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
o. 187
When Rita was giving her graduation speech, she talked about learning an expression that Garfield had told her to look up. What was the expression? | "187": Police Code For Homicide
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Pyrrhic victory. While helping her with her studies, Garfield had suggested Rita might want to present her essay at the graduation ceremony, and she said she couldn't get in front of all those people. Garfield asked her if she thought it would be a Pyrrhic victory. When she asked what that meant, he told her to look it up. Those of us who don't have a degree in English found out the meaning of the term at the end, as Rita gave her speech following the deaths of Garfield and Cesar. She could barely hold herself together as she explained it meant a victory gained at too great a cost. This was a powerful moment, of course, because Garfield had just gained a Pyrrhic victory of his own. He taught probably the greatest lesson of his recently defunct teaching career, by finally getting it through Cesar's and his boys' heads that their machismo act was empty and ill-fated, but it cost him his own life.
4. When they first gave him the gun, he pulled the trigger twice. Then he pulled again, just to show them he wasn't scared. Later, Cesar added a second bullet and Garfield pulled a fourth time. The fifth pull (which should have been Cesar's turn) was the one that killed him.
The Deer Hunter. The night before the climactic scene, Cesar had been sitting at home nursing his finger and getting drunk watching the scene in "Deer Hunter" when Christopher Walken's character was putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. This gave him the brilliant idea of making Mr. Garfield do the same at gunpoint.
R U DUN?. This was a reference to the part when Garfield was talking to Cesar in the schoolyard, trying to find out who trashed his classroom. Cesar went off on a tough-guy tangent, after which Garfield replied "Are you finished?". This resulted in Cesar and his boys getting in Garfield's face, and him walking off looking like he was about to crack. Later, when Cesar's precious trigger finger was mailed back to the school, the words "Are you done" were tatooed on it in shorthand.
none of these. Actually, he thought it was Native Americans. He was so intoxicated that he barely noticed it when the arrow (complete with syringe tip) hit him in the chest. His first reaction was "Ow", followed by "Stupid Indians...", then he collapsed. He woke up some time later with a bad headache, minus his right index finger. Of course we later discover that it was Garfield, not Indians, who shot him. We never find out what exactly he put in that needle, but chances are it's the same stuff he used to put a rat to sleep during the class experiment that saw Cesar steal his watch.
Puppet. Mr. Garfield asked her about it while he was tutoring her. She said it was nothing, but as we learn more on her reputation it becomes clear that it has to do with her being considered the local hussie, and her inclusion in gang life as such. The name Puppet also appears on a picture of her dead friend, who was killed by Benny, but she doesn't mention any connection to him.
Kapping Off Suckas. The gang was made up Cesar, Paco, Stevie and Benny (who is later found dead thanks to Mr. Garfield). Cesar's gang alias was Kartoon. Clearly, none of them had spent much time in English class.
Mrs. Escander. She had taken a break after her students (now Trevor's students) had badly harassed her, which was made all the worse due to the fact that she was pregnant. What started as a temporary substitute job turned into a year-long job when she officially went on leave.
Dennis Broadway. Garfield had failed him and word got back to him somehow. Since Broadway (played by Method Man) was on a form of probation, failing the class meant problems for him. He disappeared from Mr. Garfield's Science class (after having written 187 on every page of Garfield's textbook), and was not seen again until he stabbed Garfield repeatedly in the lower back with a nail. Garfield never taught in New York again.
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