Is Tom retarded?

The critique group went well, and I think I'll stick with 'em. A good number of people showed, and they'd mostly all read the works up for crit and brought copies that they'd marked up. The discussion was thoughtful, and everyone found the good in each piece and talked about it before moving on to things they thought could be better. Everyone was kind, which is good. No one was therefore reduced to tears. Also, guy who talks a lot wasn't there, and everyone else took turns in a very civilized fashion.

I got lots of useful feedback. I'd been worried that everyone might be too kind, but they weren't. All in all it was a good experience.

There's a character named Tom who comes in at the end of my story to cause problems for my protagonist, and I foiled him in an extremely stupid way. I'd already decided to ax him before the crit group. So the first comment I read was "Is Tom retarded?" which I thought was funny. Yes, dear reader, Tom is retarded. And now he's dead because I killed him. So put that in your literary pipe and smoke it.