With Jill still missing, both communities are feeling her absence. Bianca has to run the neighborhood watch meeting in her absence and Val is trying to keep everyone at Open Arms calm since no one knows that she has been shot.
At the end of the last issue, we discovered that Jill has a file on Open Arms Collective as they are seen as a terrorist group and this issue uncovers more of what’s going on.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Neighborhood Watch #3!
The issue starts off with Bianca hosting the neighborhood watch meeting in the morning since the police want to warn the residents of Willow Haven about the Open Arms Collective possibly being terrorist affiliated. One of the police officers is Erik Hewitt, Jill’s husband, who caught Bianca snooping in his house last issue. The way this first scene is presented, especially with the art, makes it seem like Erik knows that Bianca knows something about Open Arms and she doesn’t seem to be hiding it very well.
BOOM! Studios
A similar meeting is happening at Open Arms Collective with Val hosting a brief meeting to update the collective about Jill’s disappearance. Once Aurora, Jill’s daughter, is gone, she asks the collective to find out if anyone wanted to hurt Jill.
Like previous issues, this one flips back and forth between Willow Haven and Open Arms with the change primarily being noted by the color that borders the page and the shape of the panels.
Back at Willow Haven, we see the aftermath of the meeting with some of the neighbors expressing their concerns about opens arms, which really seems to be what stereotypical suburban neighbors complain about, such as stolen lemons and kids playing in the neighborhood without adult supervision.
Biance makes her way back to Open Arms through the tunnel in a beautiful sequence that spans two pages. In these two pages, we see some flashbacks to Bianca finding both Jill in the tunnel and finding her husband.
BOOM!
Bianca and Val meet up in the kitchen of Open Arms and they each have to tell the other something important, which is the information that they found out last issue. (Jill planning to move to Open Arms permanently and Jill having a case file on Open Arms)
The tension between Val and Bianca is palpable in this scene, especially since they both can’t believe what the other is telling them. Val ends up telling Bianca that Willow Haven has always been the cause of the issues between the two, in which we end up finding out the history between the two communities.
I have to say that they way these two communities are connected isn’t what I expected but I’m curious to see how this develops and if there’s anything else between the two communities that has to be uncovered.
Its discovered that Willow Haven was built to be a company town for a Distribution Hub for a weapons company and the tunnel was a metro to get the people to go to their house and work without having to go over the hill that separates the two. Bianca says that Jill’s dad built the hill, which is hollow, and that’s why she grew up in the community. Bianca and Val seem to be bonding and trusting each other more when Aurora calls Val to the infirmary since the police are hassling Yves.
This scene is one of my favorites – it shows how different the cops are when they’re dealing with Open Arms compared to when they’re dealing with Willow Haven, and Bianca experiences it in real time. She touches one of the cops on his arm while asking him to explain the exigent circumstances and he responds in a very hostile way, which Bianca is shocked by. Val has to tell Bianca to don’t say or do anything multiple times which shows that she’s just not used to dealing with the police in this way. We see earlier in this issue that the cops are very friendly and work with the community in Willow Haven. As the officers are leaving, he warns her to not touch an officer of the law and tells her that she’s lucky she’s only getting a warning this time. Artist Haining and colorist Rebecca Natly do a great job at showing just how shocked Bianca is at this situation and how the cops are treating her.
After the cops leave, Val and Yves are freaking out since it seems the cops are now looking for Jill and Bianca and Aurora are catching up since Bianca didn’t know that Aurora has seemingly transitioned. As they are catching up, Bianca lets it slip that they found Jill.
While Sarah Gailey does a great job at storytelling in this issue, especially with Bianca and her experience with cops, the pacing is a bit confusing as we are a little over half way in this miniseries and its only been a day and a half. There seems to be a lot that left to be answered and I’m a bit worried that all of these different plot points won’t have enough time to be fully wrapped up in these next two issues.
The art by Haining and Natly is very expressive and is still following the color coded motifs for each community. The tension between Val and Bianca is thick and that shows in the panels when they’re interacting with each other, both in how they’re positioned and in how the backgrounds are shaded.
Neighborhood Watch #3 is great issue that puts Bianca in a position that deals with the cops in both issues. Sarah Gailey writes an amazing story with the lore to match and leaves you waiting for the next issue with another cliffhanger.
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