VM 2.9: My Mother the Fiend
Here are my thoughts on this week's episode of Veronica Mars, plus some brief comments on last week's episode as well.
Last week's VM episode was 2.8 - "Ahoy Mateys." I'm a week late on this one, so I'll be brief. Logan had a gun. He saved Veronica. Scary, but somehow hot. Is that wrong? Veronica was so upset that she forgot to thank Logan for saving her tiny blonde ass. But she cried because she was more upset about Logan carrying a gun than she was about the fact that she nearly got cut into pieces by an Irish thug. Logan didn't know what to make of that.
Then again, he didn't have much time to ponder Veronica's reaction before he was knocked unconscious, kidnaped, and tied up by some masked men. One of them seemed obviously "Thumper," the other bald PCHer, who was talking to someone on his cell phone the entire time he was threatening to shoot Logan unless he spilled the beans about what happened the night Felix was killed. Logan swore he didn't know anything, even after they threatened to shoot his kneecap (or other nether regions). In the end, Logan, clever boy, finds out that Weevil was on the other end of the line and was behind the whole kidnaping plot. Logan swears revenge. What a shocker.
The MOTW was not all that interesting to me, although we did learn more about another victim of the bus crash - Marcos Oliveres, aka Cap'n Crunk. Closeted gay teen who also ran a pirate radio show about the goings-on at Neptune High, a la Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume. The most interesting part of the MOTW was Veronica and Mac working together again to find the source of the broadcast. Funny stuff. More Mac, please.
More interesting than the MOTW were Duncan's weird dreams about Meg and Veronica. Apparently Donut believes that only he can save Meg, although it's not clear how or why that would be. Interesting, if only because this appears to be the first time we've been given any indication about what is going on in Duncan's head. The episode ends with Duncan opening the mysterious envelope he found in Meg's air vent last week and saying "Oh my god." Dun, dun, dun . . .
Episode Grade: A-
Favorite line: I've had a very bad year.
***************************
This week's episode was 2.9 - "My Mother, the Fiend." Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I loved this episode, even more than last week. It probably ranks behind "Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang" and "Rat Saw God" as my third favorite so far this season.
The theme was "mothers," and it was amusing how many different subplots involving mothers were all worked into this one episode. The main MOTW involved Veronica's search for the truth surrounding her mother's suspension from high school 25 years ago. Veronica was convinced that Celeste had broken up Lianne and Jake when she became pregnant after dating Jake briefly during an "off" period with Lianne, and then had dumped her baby in the girl's bathroom on prom night. Either that, or Celeste lied about being pregnant to break Lianne and Jake up. Either way, Veronica wanted to find out the truth about how Celeste had screwed over Lianne by "stealing" Jake away, because Veronica couldn't bear the thought of her mother being the "Mean Girl" instigator of any malicious gossip. As bad a mom as Lianne turned out to be, Veronica still wants to hold out hope that she is, or was, a good person underneath it all.
Veronica's search for the truth led her to discover that Trina was adopted and was the prom baby left in the bathroom. Although Veronica was tempted to "expose" Celeste as Trina's birth mother, she wisely thought better of it before learning the truth. Good thing. Unfortunately (from Veronica's point of view), Celeste was not the mother and had nothing to do with the prom baby. Trina's birth mother was a deaf student named Mary Mooney who had become pregnant from an affair with (then) Vice-Principal Moorehead. Heheheheh. They said more head. [/beavis] It was actually Moorehead who had left the baby in the girl's bathroom on prom night.
The title of the episode comes from Veronica's limited knowledge of sign language and her inability to distinguish "friend" from "fiend." I know enough about sign language to have figured that one out pretty early on, and it wasn't that difficult anyway, so it was a little hard to believe that Veronica didn't seem to suspect that Mary had signed "friend" instead of "fiend," but okay, I'll let that one pass. Veronica has had enough bad news about her mom in the past two years, so it was nice that she discovered that Lianne actually was a good person in her days at Neptune High, anyway.
In the end, the entire MOTW was a set-up by the oh-so-devious Van Clemmons, who totally used Veronica to get the dirt on Principal Moorehead and get him fired. It's not clear how long Clemmons knew about Moorhead's dirty little secret, but using Veronica to figure it out was pure genius. Machiavelli, indeed. Well played, Clemmons. He definitely jumped up a notch in Veronica's eyes for having the cojones to pull this off and getting her to do his dirty work for him. It's rare that we see Veronica get played so completely like that and having Clemmons be the person who does it was quite a nice twist.
Not only did we have a story about Veronica's search for the truth about her mother's past, and Trina's reunion with her birth mother, but we also had a visit from the uber-bitch of motherhood, Celeste Kane herself. She and Veronica traded their usual barbs as Celeste came back to Neptune to visit her precious son. Celeste had some choice words for Veronica about her "drunken whore of a mother," or something to that effect. Nice. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Celeste. At least Duncan had the good grace to be angry with Mommy Sneerest for that one. It only took him about three years or so to learn how to stand up to his mother.
Yet another subplot about motherhood had Veronica and Duncan pairing up to care for a "baby think it over" as part of a project for Sex Ed class. Yes, Mrs. "chlamydia is not a flower" Hauser was back this week, and was even involved in the MOTW as the true "Mean Girl" responsible for spreading gossip back in the day. Anyway, the fake baby subplot served only to provide some amusing moments as Veronica proved herself not all that interested in being a fake mommy.
More amusing than the fake baby was the meeting between Kendall and Trina. Sure, the whole scene in Duncan's hotel suite was pretty contrived, but it was hilarious. Rode hard, meet put away wet. It was pretty amusing how Trina and Kendall couldn't even muster any pretense at being offended because both of them are so accustomed to trading insults with Logan. Trina just ignored Logan's barb to move straight to insulting Kendall for dating a boy in high school. And of course Kendall gave right back, insulting Trina by lumping her in with Joey Travolta and other celebrity relatives of that ilk. Good times.
Speaking of Kendall, what are we to make of her comment to Duncan that she has "been in both of their beds," meaning both Logan and Duncan? Does this mean that she and Duncan did get it on in some fashion? Strangely, he didn't contradict her comment about having been in his bed, but at the same time, he appeared to give her the brush off as if he wasn't remotely interested in her come ons. I guess it's still supposed to be ambiguous then? It seemed weird to me that he had no response to that to indicate whether it was true or not, but I can only guess that something happened or otherwise she would not have been so casual about it with him. Or maybe not.
Then again, Kendall was pretty casual with Logan and even kissed him in front of Duncan and Trina, calling him "baby" (ewww), even though he very pointedly wiped his mouth immediately afterwards. It seemed to me that Logan was totally done with her, but she was just kissing up to him, so to speak, hoping he would be interested in buying the Maserati or something. After his very blatant kiss-off last week, it doesn't seem like those two will be knocking boots anymore, but I guess if she's still offering the milk for free, he's not going to kick her out of bed. Or whatever. I have to wonder what kind of conversation occurred between Duncan and Logan after Kendall left the suite. Would Duncan admit to Logan what happened with Kendall? Would they both just ignore it? I can't imagine that Logan wouldn't have something to say to Duncan about the situation, even if it's just a snarky comment. But Duncan would probably just ignore it.
Anyway, in other Kendall developments, she's been managing to make money by selling off Big Dick's possessions one by one, and in an effort to make her stop, Beaver offered her a chance to work for him in his new real estate venture Phoenix Land Trust. Our little Cassidy is all grown up, it seems. Or at least he's trying. He's using his trust fund money to start his own company, although it seems to me that few people are going to want to invest in any company run by anyone associated with the Casablancas name at this point. What with Big Dick still on the lam for swindling investors out of millions, and all. But maybe there are more suckers born every minute than I imagined. Perhaps there is more to the story with this Phoenix Land Trust business? Maybe Beavidy has some tricks up his sleeve? I guess we'll see.
And speaking of Beaver, his scenes with Mac were too adorable for words. Our little boy is growing up, indeed, getting the attention of an older woman. Go Beavs. And Mac was pretty cute herself, trying to get a piece of the action financially, as usual. Go Mac. Something tells me it won't be long before Beaver and Mac are, um, macking. Or something. Could those two be any cuter? [/chandler] Nope.
But the most amusing part of the whole episode, at least to me, was the Logan and Weevil scenes. Quelle surprise. Logan, true to his word, got revenge on Weevil by ambushing him at his uncle's body shop (apparently), and beating on him but good with his 09er toadies. (I'm guessing Dick was there, although we didn't see him.) Then Weevil found himself taped to the flagpole the next day. As Veronica said, "what goes around comes around." After what he's done to Logan, I found it hard to muster any sympathy for Weevs, same as Veronica.
The most amusing part, though, was Weevil's next confrontation with Logan in the bathroom. Finally clueing in to what VM fans have been hoping to see for weeks now, Weevil finally admits to Logan that he knows Logan didn't kill Felix and sort of makes a halfhearted suggestion that they team up to find out who killed Felix. Logan, of course, mocks Weevil for his non-apology and Weevil, of course, tells Logan that he's not really apologizing as he has to bash Logan's face in to make a good showing for his homies, after that flagpole incident and all. So the boys commence the fisticuffs, as I was yelling at my TV, "Not the face! Please don't hurt his pretty face!"
Both of them seemed to get some good shots in, but only Logan's face was bleeding profusely, and it looked as if he might have lost a tooth or something. Let's just hope those bruises heal fast, as his bruises from last week's kidnaping incident appeared to have healed fast. We don't want that pretty face mangled for too long, because the boys have to get their matching capes so Logan can ride shotgun in the sidecar. A show of hands as to who would pay good money to see that? Anyone else? Seriously, the Logan and Weevil show is always fun.
Last but not least was the final big reveal. Veronica managed to make her way into Meg's hospital room without the attack dog parents around (perhaps Lamb is keeping a good watch on them still at Casa Manning), and Veronica discovers that Meg is about to be . . . wait for it . . . a mother. Yes, comatose Meg is quite preggers and seems to be due pretty soon. Quelle surprise, part deux. Okay, not really, as Meg's pregnancy has been widely suspected for some time, but perhaps some viewers out there were surprised by that development. It certainly helps explain Meg's hostility towards Veronica in "Normal is the Watchword," at least a little bit.
The big question to me is whether Duncan knows that Meg is pregnant. Did Meg tell him before he dumped her? After? Did he know about it when he started dating Veronica? Did he learn about it more recently? Any way you slice it, if Duncan has known for any length of time that Meg is pregnant and didn't see fit to tell Veronica, he's a jerk in my book. Did he not feel like it was something Veronica ought to know? Add this little secret to the Kendall situation, and Duncan is really looking like the slimiest of slimeballs. In any event, Donut's got some splainin' to do.
Other miscellaneous comments: Evan Rachel Wood will be playing the "Veronica" character in upcoming made-for-TV masterpiece The Aaron Echolls Story Heh. And Veronica found out about the rat that Keith is not too discreetly hiding in a Ziploc bag in their freezer. Veronica's indignation at Keith not telling her about the rat is pretty funny considering how she has been keeping everything from him lately. I hope she comes clean with everything she knows so the two of them can finally start working together on the truth behind the bus crash. Team Mars generally functions better as an actual team.
Okay, once and for all: Where the heck is Wallace? I'm really missing him. Come back, Wallace! (Although feel free to leave Jackie wherever she is. There are plenty of other characters getting their own storylines now and we don't really need you, Jackie. Thanks a bunch.)
Episode Grade: A
Except for the big "Meg is pregnant" reveal, this episode did not move the main plots along in any dramatic fashion, but it was filled with great moments and hugely entertaining imho. And Logan and Weevil are finally making a move to end their bitterness and start to work together on solving the mystery of Felix's murder. I'm sure many moments of hilarity will be coming our way where that dynamic duo is concerned.
[The less said about the alternate ending gimmick, the better. I can't imagine that alternate ending was ever truly under consideration as the real ending, but you can never really count anything out on this show.]
Favorite line: Rode hard, meet put away wet.
As if there were any contest. This line had me laughing so hard, I think it's probably my favorite single line of the season so far, and perhaps my favorite VM line ever. Logan never disappoints.
Last week's VM episode was 2.8 - "Ahoy Mateys." I'm a week late on this one, so I'll be brief. Logan had a gun. He saved Veronica. Scary, but somehow hot. Is that wrong? Veronica was so upset that she forgot to thank Logan for saving her tiny blonde ass. But she cried because she was more upset about Logan carrying a gun than she was about the fact that she nearly got cut into pieces by an Irish thug. Logan didn't know what to make of that.
Then again, he didn't have much time to ponder Veronica's reaction before he was knocked unconscious, kidnaped, and tied up by some masked men. One of them seemed obviously "Thumper," the other bald PCHer, who was talking to someone on his cell phone the entire time he was threatening to shoot Logan unless he spilled the beans about what happened the night Felix was killed. Logan swore he didn't know anything, even after they threatened to shoot his kneecap (or other nether regions). In the end, Logan, clever boy, finds out that Weevil was on the other end of the line and was behind the whole kidnaping plot. Logan swears revenge. What a shocker.
The MOTW was not all that interesting to me, although we did learn more about another victim of the bus crash - Marcos Oliveres, aka Cap'n Crunk. Closeted gay teen who also ran a pirate radio show about the goings-on at Neptune High, a la Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume. The most interesting part of the MOTW was Veronica and Mac working together again to find the source of the broadcast. Funny stuff. More Mac, please.
More interesting than the MOTW were Duncan's weird dreams about Meg and Veronica. Apparently Donut believes that only he can save Meg, although it's not clear how or why that would be. Interesting, if only because this appears to be the first time we've been given any indication about what is going on in Duncan's head. The episode ends with Duncan opening the mysterious envelope he found in Meg's air vent last week and saying "Oh my god." Dun, dun, dun . . .
Episode Grade: A-
Favorite line: I've had a very bad year.
***************************
This week's episode was 2.9 - "My Mother, the Fiend." Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I loved this episode, even more than last week. It probably ranks behind "Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang" and "Rat Saw God" as my third favorite so far this season.
The theme was "mothers," and it was amusing how many different subplots involving mothers were all worked into this one episode. The main MOTW involved Veronica's search for the truth surrounding her mother's suspension from high school 25 years ago. Veronica was convinced that Celeste had broken up Lianne and Jake when she became pregnant after dating Jake briefly during an "off" period with Lianne, and then had dumped her baby in the girl's bathroom on prom night. Either that, or Celeste lied about being pregnant to break Lianne and Jake up. Either way, Veronica wanted to find out the truth about how Celeste had screwed over Lianne by "stealing" Jake away, because Veronica couldn't bear the thought of her mother being the "Mean Girl" instigator of any malicious gossip. As bad a mom as Lianne turned out to be, Veronica still wants to hold out hope that she is, or was, a good person underneath it all.
Veronica's search for the truth led her to discover that Trina was adopted and was the prom baby left in the bathroom. Although Veronica was tempted to "expose" Celeste as Trina's birth mother, she wisely thought better of it before learning the truth. Good thing. Unfortunately (from Veronica's point of view), Celeste was not the mother and had nothing to do with the prom baby. Trina's birth mother was a deaf student named Mary Mooney who had become pregnant from an affair with (then) Vice-Principal Moorehead. Heheheheh. They said more head. [/beavis] It was actually Moorehead who had left the baby in the girl's bathroom on prom night.
The title of the episode comes from Veronica's limited knowledge of sign language and her inability to distinguish "friend" from "fiend." I know enough about sign language to have figured that one out pretty early on, and it wasn't that difficult anyway, so it was a little hard to believe that Veronica didn't seem to suspect that Mary had signed "friend" instead of "fiend," but okay, I'll let that one pass. Veronica has had enough bad news about her mom in the past two years, so it was nice that she discovered that Lianne actually was a good person in her days at Neptune High, anyway.
In the end, the entire MOTW was a set-up by the oh-so-devious Van Clemmons, who totally used Veronica to get the dirt on Principal Moorehead and get him fired. It's not clear how long Clemmons knew about Moorhead's dirty little secret, but using Veronica to figure it out was pure genius. Machiavelli, indeed. Well played, Clemmons. He definitely jumped up a notch in Veronica's eyes for having the cojones to pull this off and getting her to do his dirty work for him. It's rare that we see Veronica get played so completely like that and having Clemmons be the person who does it was quite a nice twist.
Not only did we have a story about Veronica's search for the truth about her mother's past, and Trina's reunion with her birth mother, but we also had a visit from the uber-bitch of motherhood, Celeste Kane herself. She and Veronica traded their usual barbs as Celeste came back to Neptune to visit her precious son. Celeste had some choice words for Veronica about her "drunken whore of a mother," or something to that effect. Nice. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Celeste. At least Duncan had the good grace to be angry with Mommy Sneerest for that one. It only took him about three years or so to learn how to stand up to his mother.
Yet another subplot about motherhood had Veronica and Duncan pairing up to care for a "baby think it over" as part of a project for Sex Ed class. Yes, Mrs. "chlamydia is not a flower" Hauser was back this week, and was even involved in the MOTW as the true "Mean Girl" responsible for spreading gossip back in the day. Anyway, the fake baby subplot served only to provide some amusing moments as Veronica proved herself not all that interested in being a fake mommy.
More amusing than the fake baby was the meeting between Kendall and Trina. Sure, the whole scene in Duncan's hotel suite was pretty contrived, but it was hilarious. Rode hard, meet put away wet. It was pretty amusing how Trina and Kendall couldn't even muster any pretense at being offended because both of them are so accustomed to trading insults with Logan. Trina just ignored Logan's barb to move straight to insulting Kendall for dating a boy in high school. And of course Kendall gave right back, insulting Trina by lumping her in with Joey Travolta and other celebrity relatives of that ilk. Good times.
Speaking of Kendall, what are we to make of her comment to Duncan that she has "been in both of their beds," meaning both Logan and Duncan? Does this mean that she and Duncan did get it on in some fashion? Strangely, he didn't contradict her comment about having been in his bed, but at the same time, he appeared to give her the brush off as if he wasn't remotely interested in her come ons. I guess it's still supposed to be ambiguous then? It seemed weird to me that he had no response to that to indicate whether it was true or not, but I can only guess that something happened or otherwise she would not have been so casual about it with him. Or maybe not.
Then again, Kendall was pretty casual with Logan and even kissed him in front of Duncan and Trina, calling him "baby" (ewww), even though he very pointedly wiped his mouth immediately afterwards. It seemed to me that Logan was totally done with her, but she was just kissing up to him, so to speak, hoping he would be interested in buying the Maserati or something. After his very blatant kiss-off last week, it doesn't seem like those two will be knocking boots anymore, but I guess if she's still offering the milk for free, he's not going to kick her out of bed. Or whatever. I have to wonder what kind of conversation occurred between Duncan and Logan after Kendall left the suite. Would Duncan admit to Logan what happened with Kendall? Would they both just ignore it? I can't imagine that Logan wouldn't have something to say to Duncan about the situation, even if it's just a snarky comment. But Duncan would probably just ignore it.
Anyway, in other Kendall developments, she's been managing to make money by selling off Big Dick's possessions one by one, and in an effort to make her stop, Beaver offered her a chance to work for him in his new real estate venture Phoenix Land Trust. Our little Cassidy is all grown up, it seems. Or at least he's trying. He's using his trust fund money to start his own company, although it seems to me that few people are going to want to invest in any company run by anyone associated with the Casablancas name at this point. What with Big Dick still on the lam for swindling investors out of millions, and all. But maybe there are more suckers born every minute than I imagined. Perhaps there is more to the story with this Phoenix Land Trust business? Maybe Beavidy has some tricks up his sleeve? I guess we'll see.
And speaking of Beaver, his scenes with Mac were too adorable for words. Our little boy is growing up, indeed, getting the attention of an older woman. Go Beavs. And Mac was pretty cute herself, trying to get a piece of the action financially, as usual. Go Mac. Something tells me it won't be long before Beaver and Mac are, um, macking. Or something. Could those two be any cuter? [/chandler] Nope.
But the most amusing part of the whole episode, at least to me, was the Logan and Weevil scenes. Quelle surprise. Logan, true to his word, got revenge on Weevil by ambushing him at his uncle's body shop (apparently), and beating on him but good with his 09er toadies. (I'm guessing Dick was there, although we didn't see him.) Then Weevil found himself taped to the flagpole the next day. As Veronica said, "what goes around comes around." After what he's done to Logan, I found it hard to muster any sympathy for Weevs, same as Veronica.
The most amusing part, though, was Weevil's next confrontation with Logan in the bathroom. Finally clueing in to what VM fans have been hoping to see for weeks now, Weevil finally admits to Logan that he knows Logan didn't kill Felix and sort of makes a halfhearted suggestion that they team up to find out who killed Felix. Logan, of course, mocks Weevil for his non-apology and Weevil, of course, tells Logan that he's not really apologizing as he has to bash Logan's face in to make a good showing for his homies, after that flagpole incident and all. So the boys commence the fisticuffs, as I was yelling at my TV, "Not the face! Please don't hurt his pretty face!"
Both of them seemed to get some good shots in, but only Logan's face was bleeding profusely, and it looked as if he might have lost a tooth or something. Let's just hope those bruises heal fast, as his bruises from last week's kidnaping incident appeared to have healed fast. We don't want that pretty face mangled for too long, because the boys have to get their matching capes so Logan can ride shotgun in the sidecar. A show of hands as to who would pay good money to see that? Anyone else? Seriously, the Logan and Weevil show is always fun.
Last but not least was the final big reveal. Veronica managed to make her way into Meg's hospital room without the attack dog parents around (perhaps Lamb is keeping a good watch on them still at Casa Manning), and Veronica discovers that Meg is about to be . . . wait for it . . . a mother. Yes, comatose Meg is quite preggers and seems to be due pretty soon. Quelle surprise, part deux. Okay, not really, as Meg's pregnancy has been widely suspected for some time, but perhaps some viewers out there were surprised by that development. It certainly helps explain Meg's hostility towards Veronica in "Normal is the Watchword," at least a little bit.
The big question to me is whether Duncan knows that Meg is pregnant. Did Meg tell him before he dumped her? After? Did he know about it when he started dating Veronica? Did he learn about it more recently? Any way you slice it, if Duncan has known for any length of time that Meg is pregnant and didn't see fit to tell Veronica, he's a jerk in my book. Did he not feel like it was something Veronica ought to know? Add this little secret to the Kendall situation, and Duncan is really looking like the slimiest of slimeballs. In any event, Donut's got some splainin' to do.
Other miscellaneous comments: Evan Rachel Wood will be playing the "Veronica" character in upcoming made-for-TV masterpiece The Aaron Echolls Story Heh. And Veronica found out about the rat that Keith is not too discreetly hiding in a Ziploc bag in their freezer. Veronica's indignation at Keith not telling her about the rat is pretty funny considering how she has been keeping everything from him lately. I hope she comes clean with everything she knows so the two of them can finally start working together on the truth behind the bus crash. Team Mars generally functions better as an actual team.
Okay, once and for all: Where the heck is Wallace? I'm really missing him. Come back, Wallace! (Although feel free to leave Jackie wherever she is. There are plenty of other characters getting their own storylines now and we don't really need you, Jackie. Thanks a bunch.)
Episode Grade: A
Except for the big "Meg is pregnant" reveal, this episode did not move the main plots along in any dramatic fashion, but it was filled with great moments and hugely entertaining imho. And Logan and Weevil are finally making a move to end their bitterness and start to work together on solving the mystery of Felix's murder. I'm sure many moments of hilarity will be coming our way where that dynamic duo is concerned.
[The less said about the alternate ending gimmick, the better. I can't imagine that alternate ending was ever truly under consideration as the real ending, but you can never really count anything out on this show.]
Favorite line: Rode hard, meet put away wet.
As if there were any contest. This line had me laughing so hard, I think it's probably my favorite single line of the season so far, and perhaps my favorite VM line ever. Logan never disappoints.
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