This one is ‘The Crucible’ meets Operation Puerto.

The line about the fall guy and the pardon was a reference to Scooter Libby, who just got indicted in the Valerie Plame case.

Basso had yet to confess to doping. Sevilla was still without a team. Saiz just lost his job with Liberty Seguros, if I remember correctly.

Riders call drug testers ‘vampires’.

The last frame is a complete non sequitur, a combination of my obsession with Abu Ghraib and Schmalz’s obsession with Liquigas’ crotch chevrons.

That’s the witch scene from The Holy Grail in frame 2, and Brazil in frame 4. A double Monty Python Toto, and I’m a complete dork.