Veronica Mars - "Silence of the Lamb" (season 1, episode 11)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on January 5, 2005/written by Jed Seidel & Dayna Lynne North; directed by John Kretchmer): The E-String Strangler strikes again! An old case brings Keith (temporarily) back to the Neptune police force when a dead body washes up on shore. The guitar chord wrapped around her neck suggests the work of a serial killer who had supposedly been captured; in need of Keith's expertise in the area, Sheriff Lamb swallows hard and partners up with his nemesis to track several suspects. They seem particularly close when they detain an amateur pornographer (Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad's Jesse making a second appearance in my spring viewing diaries), but Keith - constantly butting heads with the arrogant but insecure sheriff - has doubts about all the circumstantial evidence. Sure enough, just in time to save a suffocating victim locked inside a safe, Keith discovers the real murderer: a jovial guitar store owner (Steven Monroe) who was right there in front of them all along.

Veronica uses her dad's return to the sheriff's station, and young desk officer Leo D'Amato's (Max Greenfield's) flirtatious overtures, as an opportunity to sneak into the evidence room and retrieve a CD with the anonymous tip about Lilly Kane. With the help of techie friend Mac, she figures out who left the distorted phone call that identified Abel Koontz - it was Kane employee Clarence Wiedman (Christopher B. Duncan), who took those threatening photos of her (and whom she implicitly threatens with photos as well by episode's end). Mac is returning a favor for Veronica, who looked up her parents (part of a thriving side business which Mac would like to launch as a global web service), discovering that Mac was accidentally switched at birth with spoiled rich girl Madison Sinclair (Amanda Noret). Crashing the 09ers' birthday party, Mac discovers a family as interested in art and literature as she is, and a little sister who looks and acts like a junior doppelganger. She makes her peace with the painful truth, but before leaving on a family trip with her adopted parents (who have no idea what she knows), Mac finds her biological mother (Carlie Westerman) watching her from a parked car. The melancholy teenager places her hand on the window longingly, and the teary-eyed Lauren returns the gesture, both of them wishing for something that never was but should have been.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "An Echolls Family Christmas" (season 1, episode 10)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on December 14, 2004/written by Aury Wallington; directed by Guy Bee): The Echolls estate anchors both big storylines this week. Weevil joins an elite poker game at the 09 mansion and wins, only to discover the pot has been mysteriously stolen. The other players strip down to demonstrate their innocence, but the money’s gone somewhere, so Weevil vows to terrorize them until the culprit is revealed. Veronica's on that case, while her father is hired by the elder Echolls to identify a stalker - first he's mostly in touch with Aaron's wife Lynn (Lisa Rinna), and then with the movie star himself, once Aaron realizes the gravity of the threats (and the possible scandals intertwined with it). Reluctantly admitting that he's had multiple affairs, including a fling on the night of the family's Halloween party, Aaron insists that none of his mistresses is the jealous type. Both Keith and Veronica must narrow the culprit down from a small but convincing stable of suspects, while keeping their eyes open for personal motivations and visual evidence.

Keith realizes who the stalker is at the last minute - a server whom Aaron had fired when she came across him and another woman making love at the party - and he attempts to crash the family's Christmas party, only arriving in time to tackle the woman (Alexandra Fatovich) after she's already stabbed Aaron in a rage. Most of the guests miss the violent altercation, as they've already filed outside to enjoy carolers under an expensive fake snow shower - a Hollywood touch from a Hollywood star (or, one could say, a phony gesture from a phony guy). Veronica's investigation has a less bloody but no less clever conclusion; she is able to identify specific reasons why each player didn't steal the money before revealing that "the butler's son did it" by stuffing the cash in a recyclable bottle and picking it out of the trash the next morning. The surprise isn't just his guilt but the fact that he's a butler's son at all...he pretended that his family owned the house his father worked at. There’s a racial component to all of this (highlighted when Logan continuously slurs Weevil) - the Latino player isn’t the only one at the table from the wrong sides of the track, but the white guy is able to pretend otherwise and use his appearance to both fool his peers and rob from Weevil.

Finally, before the "Echolls Family Christmas" climax, Veronica confronts Jake, asking why he hired someone to take photos of her (a confrontation Keith witnesses on his way to rescue Aaron). Jake denies any knowledge, but Veronica sees him angrily demand answers from his wife a minute later - it looks like perhaps the Kane behind Veronica's many woes (and perhaps more, besides) may actually be the wife, not the husband.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "Drinking the Kool-Aid" (season 1, episode 9)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on November 30, 2004/written by Russell Smith, story by Rob Thomas; directed by Marcos Siega): The Moon Calf Collective sounds for all the world like a dangerous cult. An agricultural commune located in the country, it's led by charismatic guru Josh (Chris William Martin) and promoted by Holly Mills (Amy Laughlin), a flaky English teacher who has roped in Neptune student Casey Gant (Jonathan Bennett). The young man has abandoned his wealthy family and now spends all his free time with Moon Calves, so his parents (Rebecca Kitt and Albie Selznick) hire Keith to dig up some dirt, bust the cult, and break their son free. They've even employed a "deprogrammer" (Ray Proscia) to convert Casey back to their way of thinking once they've exposed the collective. There's only one problem: the dangerous cult isn't actually a dangerous cult. The more time Veronica spends with the Moon Calf Collective, the more convinced she is that they are harmless, even beneficial. Besides, Casey's parents have less than pure motives. Casey is about to come into a vast inheritance from his dying grandmother, and they're terrified he'd give it all to his newfound community.

One thing's for sure: Veronica much prefers the new, improved Casey over his bratty earlier incarnation. And Keith has to admit she has a point about all of this, even though the $5,000 reward is pretty tempting. Ultimately, they decide to sit on some potentially damaging information they've acquired (a member of the collective, played by Megalyn Echikunwoke, is a minor, who ran away from abusive but legal foster care). Nonetheless, Casey is kidnapped by his parents at his grandmother's funeral; when the episode ends he's back to a more materialist "normal." Veronica has her own familial concerns, tricking Keith into drawing blood and sending their samples to a DNA-testing company. Initially convinced that she must find out if Jake Kane is her father, Veronica finally changes her mind at episode's end. If Casey's true family can be compassionate strangers rather than his much colder blood relations, then Veronica's real father can definitely be the man who loves her deeply rather than the tycoon who never raised her. The loyal daughter shreds her DNA results before reading them, confident that she's better off not knowing.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "Like a Virgin" (season 1, episode 8)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on November 23, 2004/written by Aury Wallington; directed by Guy Bee): In a gesture possibly inspired by the Harvard scandal that launched Facebook a year earlier, a Neptune High student has created an online quiz asking students to see where their sexual and other (but mostly sexual) experience ranks on a "How Pure Are You?" scale. As a bonus twist, the myster quiz-crafter emails the student body with a follow-up: pay $10 and find out anyone else's score. Veronica, with her scandalized reputation, gets a 14. More shockingly, archetypal "good girl" Meg Manning (Alona Tal) lands somewhere below 50%. Veronica goes on the case, discovering that between the IT guy Renny DuMouy (Rudy Dobrev) and Meg's jealous friends Pam (Shanna Collins) and Kimmy (Annie Abrams), who's sleeping with Renny, passwords were stolen and quiz results were forged. Veronica is assisted in her investigation by Mac (Tina Majorno - I knew I recognized her!), a computer whiz who, it's eventually revealed, designed the quiz in the first place to fleece '09ers for new car money, an angle Veronica has to respect.

There aren't too many other storylines in this particular episode. Veronica's father gets in good with Wallace's mother Alicia (Erica Gimpel) by intimidating a deadbeat tenant (Jeremy Masterston) off her property. And Veronica gets a "meeting" with Abel on death row, posing as a Southern crime reporter from his hometown. Abel takes the meeting but reveals that he knows exactly who she is, and refuses to deny culpability for Lilly's death. Worse, he presses the point I brought up in yesterday's entry (which I didn't expect to become relevant so quickly): she's probably not the daughter of some "schlubby sheriff" but "the king and queen of the prom." This observation was so shockingly on-the-nose that I initially thought it belonged to a dream sequence. It doesn't, and it forces a stunned Veronica out into the parking lot where she weeps in her car.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "The Girl Next Door" (season 1, episode 7)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on November 9, 2004/written by Jed Seidel & Diane Ruggiero, story by Jed Seidel; directed by Nick Marck): Often Veronica Mars likes to surprise us, but in this case it plays its cards right up front. We begin with classic flashback framing: someone is being transported out of the Sunset Cliffs Apartments (the Mars' home) into an ambulance as Veronica watches and wonders if she should never have gotten involved with her neighbor's problem in the first place. The credits, so often postponed for seven or eight minutes, begin right after this introduction and we jump back a week, slowly leading up to that fateful night. Sarah Williams (Jessica Chastain), a pregnant, troubled young woman, lives with Andre (Adam Kaufman), a painter with whom she frequently fights. When she vanishes, Veronica suspects the worst. Sarah's mother Emily (Eve Gordon) and stepfather Randall (John J. York) show up in Neptune and hire Keith to find their daughter but it's Veronica who eventually tracks her down.

Veronica may solve the case, figuring out who stole Sarah's journal, where she was hiding, and that Sarah was raped and Andre isn't the one who got her pregnant. But she misses one crucial detail, hinted when Emily casually identifies Sarah's change around the time she remarried. Randall is the father of Sarah's child, and when she reveals to her mother that he assaulted her, a fight over a gun ensues. Keith fires through the window, and so the person we see transported to the hospital at episode's beginning - and end - is Sarah's stepfather, not Sarah, and as it turns out Andre has nothing to do with any of it. Veronica speculates that perhaps digging into Sarah's past only exacerbated the situation, openly wondering if sometimes secrets are better left unexplored. This is a question which has additional meaning given some of the other discoveries in this episode (and incidents from earlier ones too).

On a lighter note, Weevil and Logan end up sharing detention and their revenge on Mr. Daniels (Steven Williams), spiking his car on a flagpole - I still have no clue how this was accomplished - almost gets Weevil expelled, until Logan takes credit and essentially bribes the principal into letting them both off easy. Even this storyline, however, hints at a broader significance. Weevil's buddy mocks Logan in the bathroom, noting that Weevil slept with the white boy's girlfriend (Weevil protests that it wasn't like that), and at one point Logan notices a Lilly heart tattoo on Weevil's back. Despite lying and saying it's his sister's name, Weevil clearly had some involvement with the dead girl, a fact hinted in previous episodes (he cried at Lilly's memorial service, and Wanda asked Veronica if the rumors about Weevil and Lilly were true, which Veronica denied). Veronica also discovers another hidden relationship when she's assigned a class reunion montage and finds out her mom was one half of the Class of '79's star couple...with Jake Kane.

Indeed, when she says that some secrets should remain secrets, it's hard not to keep that revelation in mind. The episode's flashbacks dwell on Duncan's break-up with her, which actually precedes Lilly's death, and there's just the slightest hint that Veronica wonders if she herself is actually a Kane. When her father says something to the effect of, "You have to really love someone to raise a child that's not yours," Veronica pauses and has what looks like an epiphany. It could be the realization that Sarah was abused by her stepfather...or it could be something closer to home.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "Return of the Kane" (season 1, episode 6)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on November 2, 2004/written by Phil Klemmer, story by Rob Thomas; directed by Sarah Pia Anderson): It's election season on the series, as it was in the U.S. at this time (this episode aired the very night that George W. Bush defeated John Kerry). Rebellious student Wanda Varner (Rachel Roth) launches an impromptu campaign for student council president, which takes off like wildfire. Condemning the "Pirate Points" awarded to wealthy students for "09er"-dominated activities, Wanda attracts constituencies among excluded groups like artists and band members, tapping into a widespread resentment among the school's have-nots. Veronica herself finds Wanda's message - and her energetic delivery - attractive, and when Wanda loses to Duncan (who didn't even want to run but has been put forward as the figurehead of the school's elite), Veronica is able to prove that the results were manipulated. A recount ensues, as does as a negative smear campaign condemning Wanda as a narc. Ultimately it works and, more surprisingly, it's true. Weevil tells Veronica that a friend of his was busted soon after he began dating Wanda, and when Veronica tests this theory, it leads to her own near-bust...and Wanda's confession (she was caught with drugs herself a year earlier, and informing is the only way she can keep this off of her record and get into a good school).

Anyway, Veronica was already having second thoughts about Wanda; although she condemns Duncan at one point for "standing idly by" while other rich kids act badly, she also remembers a time he let a less popular kid sit at their lunchtable, shutting down a bully from his own class. Sure enough, when Duncan officially wins he offers a reform to the Pirate Points, preserving the perk but expanding it to other clubs at the school as well. Logan makes a stand of his own this episode, albeit a generally less noble one. Having arrogantly bribed homeless men to box for him and his pals, the story is blown wide open by gossip columnists...after all, Logan's dad is the movie star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin). Humiliated by this event, but only because it makes him look bad (not because he actually cares about his son's greedy abuse of the town's underclass), Aaron forces the boy to volunteer at a soup kitchen and make a public apology. Logan turns the situation on its head by announcing that his dad has decided to donate half a million to the town's food bank, a subversive fuck-you to the old man that earns a literal whipping but seems worth it to him.

Meanwhile, Veronica finally reveals her interest in - and pursuit of - Lilly's real killer to her dad, showing how a sneaker cited as evidence for Abel Koontz's guilt was actually still at the crime scene when photographers arrived. Koontz has fired his lawyer and seems ready to be executed, but Veronica believes in his innocence - and in someone else's guilt (we're not just sure who yet). As one Kane leads the student body, another leads Veronica and Keith back into a case that caused them so much pain, and may cause more yet to come.

My Response:

Patreon update #19: Twin Peaks in the In-Between Years/1992-2014 & The Lobster (+ getting back into Twin Peaks & more)

For many years it seemed like the post-1992 era of Twin Peaks was a kind of “forever epilogue,” not really part of the story at all. Twin Peaks burned bright, it burned out fast, and that was that. Everything else was an afterthought. In 2014, of course, all of that changed with the announcement of a new season. Looking back on those years now we can see the creators move in different directions, shaped by the experience they had on that show, as fans (aside from a few small Lynch contributions) kept the spirit alive. As I prepare for the Return rewatch, this episode - one of the longest “Twin Peaks Reflections” yet - explores this long “In-Between Era” in depth.

I also muse about the amusing international co-production of The Lobster (whose whimsy nonetheless feels distinctly Irish), share a Twin Peaks cartoon, and recall my own personal experience of re-discovering Twin Peaks at the tail end of that very “In-Between” era.

One last thing, an invitation (including to those who are not or not yet members): next week I'm going to be covering my own speculation and questions heading into the third season as a whole, as well as the finale. What were some of your own, and how were they fulfilled, disappointed, exceeded, answered, or subverted? I will include these as part of the next episode.

Episode 19: Twin Peaks in the In-Between Years/1992-2014 & The Lobster (+ getting back into Twin Peaks)

Line-up for Episode 19

INTRO

WEEKLY UPDATE/recent posts: "3 first seasons" intro, Veronica Mars series

WEEKLY UPDATE/Patreon: moving to Mondays soon

WEEKLY UPDATE/work in progress: character runners-up

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: The In-Between Years, 1992-2014

FILM IN FOCUS: The Lobster

OTHER TOPICS: Jeffries teapot cartoon

LISTENER FEEDBACK: Value of Twin Peaks season 2 (*correction: this is feedback for Episode 17, not 15)

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: "Getting Lost in Lynchland" (March - June 2014)

OUTRO w/ preview for next week - including invitation to send feedback about speculation/questions going into season 3

BECOME A PATRON

Veronica Mars - "You Think You Know Somebody" (season 1, episode 5)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on October 26, 2004/written by Dayna Lynne North; directed by Nick Gomez): The good vibes of the previous episode overflow into this one...at least initially. All is well with Veronica and Troy, even after he "misplaces" his dad's car on the ride back from Tijuana with Logan and Luke (Sam Huntington). He's freaked out that his father will probably send him away when he discovers the theft, but not so much that he doesn't still grin and joke his way through his "last days," trying to get frisky with Veronica while she attempts to do her detective thing and locate the stolen vehicle. The stakes are raised when she learns that Luke was transporting a pinata full of steroids across the border. But, of course, everything will work out in the end, right? Right? Things seem less rosy with Veronica and her dad; he's trying to warm her up to his new girlfriend (no dice, and he eventually dumps her due to Veronica's hostility) and she's suddenly concerned about her mom after seeing her as the villain for a long time (a visit to a safety deposit box yields photos of herself with a target painted onto her head, suggesting that Lianne may have fled for her daughter's safety, rather than selfish pride). Indeed, the episode ends with Veronica, her hearing blocked by a Discman (every episode manages to remind us that the world has changed a lot in fourteen years!), receiving a call from her mother, hinting at an explanatory (and exculpatory) secret.

Meanwhile both Mars provide background checks on each other's partners, and so Veronica learns that Troy was kicked out of many previous schools for drug trafficking (which he dismisses as some minor dope-dealing). She confronts him and he offers the plausible excuse that he wanted to wait before telling her, denying that he knew anything about the steroid deal (a claim even Luke backs up). After a number of episodes where the central investigation is neatly settled in the end, Veronica fails to find the car or the drugs, Troy's dad follows through on his threat, and Troy is shipped off. If that seems like an unexpected turn of events, what follows goes much further: a cocky Troy arrives at the border stop, retrieves the pinata he stole from his own backseat, and roars away in his car, calling up his old girlfriend to let her know everything went according to plan. Or did it? When Troy tears open the pinata he discovers a bunch of candy and a note from Veronica letting him know how she found out and what she's done with his stash (somewhere between her toilet and the Pacific Ocean). It's a hell of a kiss-off for a character who turns out not to be a recurring part of her circle at all, but simply another opponent to be bested.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "The Wrath of Con" (season 1, episode 4)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on October 19, 2004/written by Diane Ruggiero; directed by Michael Fields): A homecoming dance provides the central pole of "The Wrath of Con," serving as an upcoming event to solidify Veronica's romance with Troy, a flashback revealing more of Lilly than we've seen before, and a subversion of the Lilly memorial's video into which footage has been spliced from that earlier dance (or rather from the night of the dance - Veronica, Duncan, Logan, and Lilly skipped the actual event in order to drunkenly ride around in a limo and party on a beach). The titular investigation shifts our focus elsewhere - Wallace's crush Georgia (Kyla Pratt) has been conned, and Veronica uncovers hotshot young techie college students (Robert Baker and Adam Wylie) who hire unwitting actors to enable a phishing scam. This leads Veronica and Wallace to explore college life as well as the geekier subcultures of Neptune (gaming and anime, or as Wallace calls it in the one dated element of an otherwise prescient topic, "Japanime"). Veronica's dad meets (and intimidates but approves of) Troy, Georgia kisses Wallace, and with the con artists caught out, all seems to end well. There is, of course, still a reminder of the town's tragedy in the memorial dedication to Lilly but even there a spirit of good cheer prevails. The home movie of a drunken Lilly disrupting the otherwise gauzy montage takes the audience by surprise, but ultimately charms even her uptight parents, bringing a poignant tear to their eyes.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "Meet John Smith" (season 1, episode 3)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on October 12, 2004/written by Jed Seidel; directed by Harry Winer): As Weevil takes an episode off, and Wallace takes a distant backseat for the second time in a row, "Meet John Smith" focuses on five different storylines, sometimes overlapping but mostly distinct. On the investigative front, Veronica helps Justin Smith (Bobby Edner) find his missing father. Initially the whole conceit plays as the nerdy Justin's desperate attempt to spend time with a girl he has a crush on; the dad's name is, suspiciously, "John Smith," and as we quickly discover he died when Justin when seven. Then, in an unexpected twist, Veronica's scholarship scam scheme (letters sent to various John Smiths in the area) pays off when one person writes back. It turns out Justin's other parent is still alive, and eventually the hunt leads Justin and Veronica to a parole officer...and then to his wife. Realizing that Julia (Melissa Leo), a frequent, friendly customer at his video store, is in fact his post-transition parent, Justin is heartbroken and lashes out cruelly, rejecting her overtures. Later, however, he reconsiders, calling Julia to let her know a DVD has come into the store and tacitly letting her back in to his life

In the Kane melodrama, Duncan goes off his meds, becoming more euphoric, outgoing, and hallucinatory: injuring his head in a spill, drawing closer to Veronica, and then returning to the antidepressents after a vivid dream in which Lilly, bleeding profusely from the head, cuddles up to him on the couch and says the story surrounding her murder was bullshit and he knows it. Still drawn to Duncan, Veronica nonetheless chooses Troy, first for a date that goes well before ending in an aborted kiss and finally for an embrace at episode's end, signifying - it seems - a more ongoing relationship. Her father initiates a romance of his own, with Veronica's concerned guidance counselor Rebecca James (Paula Marshall), and Veronica gets close to finding her mom, only to discover she's skipped town.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "Credit Where Credit's Due" (season 1, episode 2)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on September 28, 2004/written by Rob Thomas; directed by Mark Piznarski): At a beach party, thrown by the elite 09ers on the PCH bikers' turf, a confrontation between Logan and Weevil gets personal. While trading barbs, Logan is keen to remind Weevil that his grandmother Leticia (Irene Olga Lopez) cleans Logan's house - no matter who wins any physical confrontation, it's clear who has the upper hand in the broader cultural clash. This connection comes back to haunt both of them soon after, as Leticia is arrested for committing fraud with the Ecchols' credit card. Given the nature of the expenses, everyone is positive Weevil himself was the culprit and sure enough, the gang leader eventually turns himself in so that Grandma can be released. But Veronica isn't so sure. Helping her father out on behalf of Leticia's lawyer, she initially suspects Logan himself - did he steal his own mother's card in order to set an enemy up? The deeper Veronica digs, the more her focus shifts from Logan to his girlfriend Caitlin Ford (we'll save her actress attribution for the "response" section). Turns out Caitlin was cheating on Logan with Chardo Navarro (Wilmer Calderon), Weevil's cousin.

With Veronica busting the case wide open, Weevil is released, Logan is humiliated, and Chardo is kicked out of the PCH before fleeing town alone, foolishly believing until the last moment that Cailtin would join him. Maybe she wishes she had - after her relationship with Chardo is exposed, she, like Veronica before her, is marginalized and excluded by the social class she took for granted. Veronica, meanwhile, may be moving in the other direction. A stint with the school newspaper, under the friendly tutelage of Mallory Dent (Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Sidney's daughter), hooks her up again with Duncan, while new kid Troy Vandegraff (Aaron Ashmore), already part of the popular clique due to prior connections, is eagerly pursuing Veronica despite her outcast status. Did she make the wrong decision siding with her father rather than her peers? Though the focus is mostly elsewhere, Lilly Kane's presence lingers in "Credit Where Credit's Due," appearing in flashbacks, photos, and of course haunting all the social interactions. And at episode's end, Veronica wonders aloud why her father suspected Jake Kane at all. He won't tell her yet.

My Response:

Veronica Mars - "Pilot" (season 1, episode 1)

Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. Every day, except Saturday, I will offer a short review of another episode until I finish the first season. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.

Story (aired on September 22, 2004/written by Rob Thomas; directed by Mark Piznarski - extended version): In a highly eventful premiere, many of the most significant events have already happened to and around Veronica (Kristen Bell). Veronica Mars sets the stage by establishing the title character's identity at its present stage: she is an outsider with experience as an insider - or at least a fellow traveler of insiders. Even a year earlier, when her father Keith (Enrico Colantoni) was still the sheriff of Neptune, California, Veronica was afforded dual status. She dated Duncan Kane (Teddy Dunn), the son of enormously wealthy tech innovator Jake Kane (Kyle Secor), and ran with the "09er" crowd who live in the area's most fashionable zip code. As protector and popular elected official of the local elite, Keith Mars and his daughter held a privileged place within this community. This position, however, was tenuous and reliant upon the goodwill of those with actual power as demonstrated by a town tragedy (which we witness via flashback).

Several months before the pilot's opening scene, Veronica's best friend, her boyfriend's sister Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried), was found murdered by the swimming pool in her family's luxurious home. Veronica's dad made the mistake of taking his job too seriously, following the evidence to investigate Lilly's own father for her murder. A confession from one of Jake's employees, Abel Koontz (Christian Clemenson), promptly ends Sheriff Mars' case, his political career, and his marriage to the alcoholic Lianne (Corinne Bohrer). Veronica suffers worst of all. In addition to experiencing public humiliation, social isolation (including the end of her relationship), and her mother's abandonment of the family, Veronica is raped at a party. Having been drugged, she doesn't know who raped her, and when she tries to report the crime to her father's replacement, Sheriff Don Lamb (Michael Muhney), he mocks her and refuses to investigate any further.

The old Veronica has essentially been broken, generally by an entire community, and specifically by a few unknown individuals: the murderer of her friend (assuming, as Keith does, that Abel is a patsy) and her own rapist. But a new Veronica emerges, determined to carve her own space within Neptune, conducting much of her father's new work as a private detective, befriending fellow outcast Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), and even forming a tenuous alliance with Wallace's tormentor, bike gang leader Eli "Weevil" Navarro (Francis Capra) against both Lamb's corrupt department (the revelation of a deputy's sex scandal, spurred by Veronica, derails the bikers' trial for theft) and the spoiled, sarcastic, vaguely sinister Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), whom Veronica framed with a bong in his locker, for both personal vengeance and to set up a larger purpose: swapping videotapes so that the scandal video would be the one shown in court.

This whole operation demonstrates that Veronica is willing to subvert the legal establishment for a just cause and exploit high-up connections for the benefit of the downtrodden (the fire chief swaps out the evidence for her). In other words, she's a consummate pragmatist dispensing with propriety to do the right thing. These skills are put to their greatest test by the end of the episode, when she discovers that her mother is back in town, having an affair with Jake Kane, and that her father has re-opened the Lilly Kane case. Veronica follows suit, quietly and independently: she will work toward the same goal as her father, but on her own path, because even he can't be trusted to tell her everything. The course of this first season has been set.

My Response: