Talk of Life

Thursday, September 29, 2005

VM 2.1: Normal is the Watchword

In case anyone hadn't heard, the season two premiere of Veronica Mars was last night: "Normal is the Watchword."

Wow. It's great to have a new episode of Veronica Mars again.

As with the last two episodes from last season, though, it seemed to me as if they were trying to cram too much plot into 43 minutes. So much happened and everything happened so quickly, that it was hard to take it all in. This show gives me whiplash sometimes. The dialogue in last night's episode in particular seemed to be very fast, almost Gilmore Girlsian at times. I had to use the TiVo replay quite a bit to catch what the heck they were saying because so much didn't make sense the first time around.

Normal is the Watchword. Veronica is trying her damndest to be "normal," whatever that means, but obviously that is never going to happen. Does that explain why she would go back to Duncan just "weeks" after dumping Logan? Does she think that being with Duncan, the boy who slept with her when he thought she was his sister, is in any way a "normal" relationship? Okay, I guess when you compare being with Duncan to being with Logan . . . man, that Logan is all kinds of fucked up. I thought he was in a bad place last year, but geez Louise. He is all kinds of messed up since finding out about his father and getting arrested for Felix's murder. I don't believe that he killed Felix, but I guess we are supposed to believe he committed arson. Hmmm, where would arson rank on the list of "bad things Logan has done"? Is that worse than paying homeless men to fight and drugging Duncan? It's certainly up there. And let's leave aside for the moment his, er, dalliance with the stepmother of his pals Dick and the Beav. Ick.

As much as I liked the episode overall, though, I had some very serious problems with it. Let's start with the Good, then move on to the Bad and the Ugly.


The Good:

1. Veronica Mars is back! It's a new episode! Whee!

2. It's Logan at the door! Woo hoo! (Spoiled for this, but it still deserves a woo hoo!)

3. Logan tells Veronica that he's in love with her. That was a great scene with Veronica and Logan in the Xterra, although far too brief. It shows us that they did have some happiness when they were together, despite the hell they were going through with Logan's arrest and all the tension and violence surrounding them in Neptune. It's too bad we weren't allowed to see more of V/L being happy together, but let's face it, this is VM we're talking about. It's not about happy endings. Also, it would have been nice if Veronica had told Logan that she loved him also but the look on her face was of such incredible joy that there was no doubt of her feelings for him. That was a beautiful and touching moment. And then I was so stunned by that gunshot! Was someone actually trying to kill them or was that intended as a warning? Did the shooter know they were in the car? Wow, this season is going to be even more violent than last year. That was hard core.

4. Wallace. He's still full of pimp juice. I like that Wallace has moved beyond being Veronica's lackey to becoming more of a "partner" in her escapades. Obviously the "case of the week" involved him personally, so he was going to take an active part in the investigation. But even though Wallace is no longer an office aide, he still took it upon himself to steal the master key for Veronica without her even asking. Of course ethically it means he has sunk to her level and is no longer the "moral beacon" he was last year, but I kinda liked it. I also liked Wallace's "Rastafarian" bit and I think he showed a lot more personality than he was allowed to show last year. I hope they keep that up.

5. Keith. Gotta love Daddy Mars. With all the horrible stuff going on in Neptune, I enjoyed the comic relief bits between daddy and daughter, and VM desperately needs those moments to keep it from getting too bleak. I also really liked that Keith and Alicia are together and happy, even though we never saw Alicia in the episode. It appears that they've been dating all summer and the entire Mars/Fennel clan is getting along famously. I'd like to see more of a happy and functional Keith and Alicia to balance out Veronica's totally screwed-up romantic life.

And even though it was incredibly heartbreaking to watch Keith rough up Logan, I had to applaud Daddy Mars standing up for his little girl. Keith has to have some doubts about Logan's mental stability and tendency towards violence and I bet he was being pretty watchful of Logan the entire time Logan was dating Veronica. I don't think Logan would ever be violent towards Veronica personally, but his destruction of the lamp and his outburst showed that he still has a long way to go before he could be considered quality boyfriend material. Boy's got issues. And then some. But still, it was so sad. How much more can Logan take before he kills himself or someone else? I guess that's going to be one of the themes of this season, based on what we've seen so far. Logan becomes increasingly tortured, while Veronica has to watch him self-destruct. I think she's still in love with him, but there isn't much she can do to save him from himself at this point.

6. The ending. Wow. Even though I was spoiled for the bus accident (dammit), it was still a pretty powerful scene. Does this mean that someone deliberately sabotaged that bus with the intention to kill everyone on board? Was someone trying to kill Veronica? Duncan? Dick and Beaver? Gia, the flaky new rich girl? Or all of the above? If someone was trying to kill Veronica, it's a pretty drastic move to kill a bunch of other people along with her. Just collateral damage? There are a million ways anyone could have killed Veronica without sending the bus over the cliff. It would have been very easy for someone to have sabotaged her car in the school parking lot if they wanted to stage an accident, so it makes no sense to me that the bus accident was designed to kill her and her alone.

Then again, if someone had tampered with Veronica's car or had made some attempt to kill her personally, that would have put suspicion on anyone with a motive to kill Veronica. Aaron Echolls, or someone working on his behalf, perhaps? They would know that any attempt on Veronica's life might have directed suspicion towards Aaron, so by creating the bus "accident," there would be no reason for the authorities to believe that Veronica was the intended target.

I have no idea where they are going with the bus accident, but the mind boggles. In the end, it certainly appears suspicious that out of all the kids involved with the newspaper, yearbook and news broadcast, Logan is the only one who apparently was not going on the field trip (as far as we know). And what was with that cryptic "I'm going to miss you" comment that Logan made to Veronica right before she got on the bus? Are we supposed to think that Logan was the one behind the bus accident? I'm not buying that for a minute. Logan is fucked up, but he's not a killer. (Although I wouldn't put it past RT & co. to make him a killer, because they have shown that they will do anything on this show. But I'm still not buying it. Nope. Not a chance.)

But if it turns out that the bus was sabotaged (as it must have been, right?), and this turns into a real homicide investigation, Logan again is going to be at the top of the list of suspects. He's already been charged with murder once, so there's that. And how is he going to explain why he didn't go on the field trip? He can't exactly tell the truth about where he was and who he was with (I'll get to that in a minute). So he ditches the field trip for no reason, and the bus carrying his ex-girlfriend and ex-best friend ends up going off a cliff? Mighty suspicious. (Of course they got off the bus before it went off the cliff but he'd have no way of knowing they'd get off.) But Dick and the Beav were on the bus also, or were supposed to be. The fact that Dick and Beaver were on the bus too would weigh in Logan's favor, I guess, because why would he want to kill his best buddies? And again, if Logan wanted to kill Veronica and Duncan, there would be easier ways to to it than killing a busload of people.


The Bad:

1. The mystery of the week. I really did not like the entire storyline about Boatloads of Fun, Inc. It made no sense to me and it still doesn't. Mainly I was annoyed that we had to endure scenes of Veronica investigating the drug tests, when all I wanted to see was Veronica dealing with Logan, Duncan, and Weevil, and everything else going on in Neptune. But I understand that RT&Co. are required to have a MOTW in each episode. (Rob Thomas explained this in his interview at Television Without Pity. The MOTW idea was central to the network picking up VM in the first place because they had no interest in a character-driven "teen drama" along the lines of Freaks & Geeks.)

Anyway, this particular MOTW just didn't work for me. We're supposed to believe that a bunch of parents of kids at Neptune High are all partners in a corporation called "Boatloads of Fun, Inc." that was set up for the sole purpose of what? To rent resort property in Cabo? WTF? And then, as a side project, these parents started talking about how their kids were not doing well in sports and wouldn't it be great if all the kids at school standing in the way of their kids were pushed aside so their kids could get the star positions? WTF, again? It makes absolutely no sense to me. And isn't Shelly Pomroy the daughter of the ambassador to Belgium? Her mother (Esther Pomroy, iirc) is going to participate in some conspiracy to rig drug tests just so Shelly can be on the chearleading squad? And risk a scandal for her husband and/or daughter? WTF? I know about the Texas cheerleading mom who arranged the murder of her daughter's rival and all, but let's get real.

Maybe I missed something, but the entire MOTW made no sense and I thought it was really stupid. And all those one-minute guest stars that Veronica had to question annoyed me, too. All I wanted to see was Veronica dealing with her dad, Wallace, Logan, Duncan and Weevil and I was annoyed that we had to sit through that Boatload nonsense. There was too much else going on with introducing all these new characters and all, that it just seemed like an unnecessary detour from the real story. Then again, I'm inclined to believe that the entire Boatload conspiracy is somehow related to the bus accident but we just don't know how it all fits together yet. I'm betting Steve Guttenberg is behind it all. He is up to no good.

2. Veronica getting together with Duncan. Just "weeks" after she dumped Logan. WTF? This bugged me. I love Veronica, I really do, but she sure didn't waste any time jumping on Duncan. What the hell was in that fortune cookie that could have made her suddenly jump into Duncan's arms like that? And did she ever get any kind of apology from him for treating like shit for a year and a half? Did they ever even talk about what happened between them?

I have no problem with Veronica's decision to break up with Logan -- if he really committed arson, he has some serious issues that he needs to address. Obviously. She was smart to take a break from him until he gets his head together. But the look on her face when he told her that he was in love with her sure looked like love to me. She must have had real feelings for him -- she stood by his side when he was charged with murder and that couldn't have been easy. I wanted to believe that she was totally heartbroken when she made the decision to end it with him, but if she waited only "weeks" before she hooked up with Duncan, she couldn't have been too heartbroken. It made Veronica seem callous and indifferent to the pain that Logan is going through, and I really didn't like it one bit. Maybe if she and Duncan hooked up six months down the road after she broke up with Logan . . . but c'mon. It couldn't have been more than a month or two at the most. Veronica, you disappoint me.


And the Ugly:

1. Dick Casablancas. I don't mean to imply that Dick is "ugly" or anything, but does Veronica have amnesia? Say what you want about the rape/not!rape and the relative culpability of Logan and Duncan in the whole thing, but if there is one thing we can all agree on (I think), it's that Dick is a scumbag. Dick is the one person who intended that someone get raped on the night of Shelly's party. We know that Dick put two doses of GHB in Madison's drink and it was strongly implied that he intended to rape her once she was out of it. That plan didn't work of course, but once he found that Veronica was unconscious, he actively encouraged Beaver to rape her. Rape her! Thank goodness Beaver has a conscience and refused to do it, but it doesn't absolve Dick. So by all accounts, Dick is a dick who, if given the opportunity to rape an unconscious girl, would do it without a second thought. And Veronica is now buddy-buddy with him? WTF?

Okay, granted, Dick's attempts at kissing up to Veronica were pretty funny ("Your quick wit is enchanting," hee), but still, the guy is a jackhole. There is no way that Veronica could have told Logan about what Dick had done, because I think Logan would have tried to kill Dick if he knew. Instead, Logan and Dick are still best buds. WTF? I can understand that Logan and Dick were able to get past Dick's comments at Logan's surprise party (Dick obviously has been kissing up to Veronica big time so he can stay in Logan's good graces), but what I can't understand is why Veronica would a) have anything to with Dick, or 2) not tell Logan about what Dick did, so Logan would not have anything to do with Dick either. If I were Veronica, I would have told both Logan and Duncan about what Dick did at the party so they would know what a scumbag he is. I wouldn't want anything to do with him and I don't understand why Veronica would either. I am having a hard time with Dick being added to the credits as a new main character when the guy is such a jackhole and an attempted rapist in my book.

2. Logan and the hot-to-trot new stepmom. My eyes! My eyes!! [/phoebebuffay]. I can barely bring myself to discuss this sordid turn of events. Ick. That was creepy in so many ways. I was spoiled for this (dammit!), but I refused to believe RT&Co. would go in that direction until I saw it on the screen. It's not the age thing -- I had no problem with Pacey and his teacher -- and it's not that she's married -- I don't mind Gabrielle and the hot gardener. I guess I'm just too emotionally invested in the characters of Veronica and Logan, because watching that scene made me physically ill.

I know Logan's a teenage boy and Charisma Carpenter aka Kendall is all kinds of hot, so it doesn't surprise me that he would be open to her advances, or vice versa. Especially given that Veronica has so recently dumped him and taken up with Duncan, adding insult to injury. (I'm assuming that Logan took up with Kendall shortly after Veronica dumped him and hooked up with Donut? Again, like last year, the timeline is fuzzy, probably on purpose.) But given everything that Logan went through with his father, the whole relationship just smacked of Aaron and his relationship with Lilly. It's almost Aaron/Lilly with the genders reversed, and that is what makes it seem so wrong. I have to believe that Logan would not be sleeping with the stepmother of his best bud if he weren't so fucked up by everything else that has happened to him, especially Veronica dumping him and breaking his heart. Yet again.

And since I identify with Veronica so strongly (even though I'm disappointed in her at the moment), it was quite painful to see Logan with that bimbo because I know Veronica will be crushed if and when she finds out. Yeah, she's with Duncan, she can't really complain, yadda yadda yadda. But I believe she broke up with Logan only because she felt that she had to, and not because she stopped loving him, and I want to believe that she still has feelings for Logan, fucked up as he is. I think I felt sick seeing Logan with Kendall because I know that is how Veronica is going to feel when she finds out. It won't be pretty. On the other hand, it sure must have hurt Logan like hell to see Veronica run into Duncan's arms so quickly after she dumped Logan. Payback's a bitch.


Other comments:

1. Wow, that Meg really grew a pair over the summer, didn't she? I'm not really sure how I felt about Meg's hostility to Veronica, but I can understand it. Meg went out of her way to be friends with Veronica last year when nobody else did, and now Meg feels betrayed. Okay, in reality, Veronica dated Duncan first and Veronica put aside her own feelings when she helped Meg and Duncan get together, and Veronica did make some attempt to be friendly with Meg even after Meg was with Duncan. Meg seems to have forgotten that.

On the other hand, I acted pretty irrationally at 17 and can totally understand where Meg is coming from, even though it's not really fair to Veronica. It's hard to be friends with the girl who "stole" your boyfriend, even though said girl really did no stealing and even though said girl dated the boy first. So I can understand Meg's not wanting to be pals with Veronica anymore, but the hostility is a bit out of control. Meg really doesn't have the right to be that angry with Veronica when Meg herself dated Duncan knowing that he was Veronica's ex, and Veronica didn't hold it against Meg. But I don't think Meg cares what I think. (I guess I should say "cared what I thought?" We'll find out next week what happened to poor Meg, I guess.) Interestingly enough, Meg's hostility to Veronica generated the most discussion during the commercial breaks with my VM viewing pals.

2. Weevil. He also has a lot of nerve being such a jerk to Veronica. Okay, Felix is dead. Weevil is pissed. I get that. Weevil says he thinks Logan did it. (I doubt that - see below.) Weevil is mad at Veronica for believing that Logan didn't do it and for taking Logan's side against the PCHers. But all that crap about how she's become "one of them" and how she "gives it up" for all the rich boys now, or whatever he said to her . . . that was too much. I really wanted Veronica to tell him to go to hell -- "Okay, dude, remember when you were in love with the queen of 09ers?" Veronica wouldn't sink so low as to throw Lilly in Weevil's face, but I kinda wanted her to.

Veronica may be dating Duncan at the moment, but she's still not an 09er and she never will be. After everything she did for Weevil last year (just how many times did she save his ass from jail again?), he has some nerve to talk to her like that. Give her the cold shoulder, okay. But he practically called her a whore for dating Logan and Duncan. Don't get me wrong -- I like that Weevil and Veronica have some tension between them, because they will never be BFFs, but I still wanted to see Veronica give it back to him a little harder than she did.

3. Poor Felix. I hated to see that he was the one killed (although I was spoiled for that also, dammit). I kinda liked Felix and he was a good sidekick for Weevil. But if one of the PCHers had to die and the murder had to be pinned on Logan, it makes sense that it was Felix because we know that Weevil and Felix were tight. It makes Weevil's anger and hatred of Logan that much more understandable.

Although, really, like Veronica, I don't see how Weevil can honestly believe Logan killed Felix. Logan was outnumbered by all those PCHers who were beating the hell out of him. They are going to watch him stab Felix to death, and they are going to leave Logan alive? Doubtful. If Logan had killed Felix in the presence of other PCHers, that knife would have been wrestled out of Logan's hands and Logan would be dead. And under the circumstances, it makes no sense that Logan could have stabbed Felix without anyone else around. The PCHers would not have left that bridge without Felix. I know Weevil hates Logan, but Weevil is not dumb -- it just doesn't add up that Logan could have killed Felix. I think that explains why Weevil came back for Veronica at the end. He hates that Veronica stood by Logan against the PCHers, but he knows that Veronica is probably right that Logan is innocent.

4. Duncan is staying in a hotel suite by himself now? That seemed a bit farfetched that Jake and Celeste would allow that. How would this be allowed by school authorities and social services, etc.? I guess Duncan turned 18 at some point also? And on that note, where the heck is Logan living? He is staying at Casa Echolls by himself now? He said himself that he's practically an orphan now. I guess he must have turned 18 at some point, or will be turning 18 soon, but I'd like to know what's going on with him also. These aren't problems I had with the episode, just questions. I guess we'll learn more about all that in the weeks to come.


Episode Grade: B+

Overall, I really enjoyed watching this episode, but my confusion at the "Boatload" MOTW and my disappointment at Veronica hooking up with Duncan so quickly, not to mention the extreme ick factor of Logan and Kendall, keep this episode from being one of my favorites. It certainly doesn't rank as highly as the Pilot, AEFC, ATttD or LitB in my book. On the scale of VM episodes, I would give NitW a "B+" in relation to other VM episodes, but of course, even an average episode of VM is better than almost anything else on television.

I can't wait for next week. It's going to be hard to go cold turkey on spoilers from this point forward, but I know that it would have been fantastic to watch last night's episode totally unspoiled. It must have been pretty shocking for the unspoiled with all those twists and turns, and I regret that I didn't get the chance to experience that.

Atrios Likes Veronica

Even Atrios likes Veronica Mars. Wow. Veronica fever is catching.

I'm still reeling from the season two premiere and putting my thoughts together. This show has way too much going on in each episode. I think they needed a two-hour premiere to get it all in.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Veronica Returns, finally . . .

Happy Veronica Premiere Day. Woo hoo!

If you aren't watching the season two premiere of Veronica Mars tonight (UPN at 9pm ET), then there is something wrong with you. Joss Whedon loves it. Kevin Smith loves it. You'll love it, too. I promise. Tape Lost if you have to - it'll keep.

Mr. Echolls, may I have a word?
Anthropomorphic. All yours, big guy.