Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. I will cover each TV episode (and eventually the film), several days a week; this will conclude just as the revival (which I will also cover) premieres on Hulu. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on April 25, 2006/written by John Enbom; directed by Michael Fields): The Goodmans step up their demands on the Mars' attention as Gia hires Veronica to identify a stalker and Woody calls Keith to a motel for the most archetypal scandal one can imagine: the phony family man politician is sitting on the edge of his bed next to a prostitute who overdosed during a tryst. Keith drives her to the hospital and is caught on camera by motel security so Woody tries to throw him under the (metaphorical) bus and Keith strikes back - a war of words unfolding over several days in a newspaper. (Another headline will stir up trouble by episode's end when Terrence's thrown ballgame is exposed and Jackie, who has been visiting him in his hospital room each day to read him the sports page, tries to hide the bad news from her father.) Gia's crisis involves a man waiting outside of her house, and the situation only grows more complicated the deeper they dig. First the culprit appears to be good old ex-Deputy Leo, but he works for private security now and is only trailing Gia at the behest of her dad. When this protective force is called off, another threat emerges: just as Woody received creepy video footage from inside his house, so Gia gets a DVD of her brother's soccer game. Through some clever observation, Veronica tracks down another perspective of the sidelines and identifies the figure: it's Lucky, the veteran, Meg courtier, and school janitor. When encountered, he waves a serrated knife in the girls' faces before Keith leaps in to tackle him...followed rapidly by Lamb whom Woody called to take care of the situation more officially (or, perhaps, more evasively). Keith handcuffs himself to Lucky in a desperate move to extract more information while they share a cell but Meg's dad bails Lucky out just as he's about to explain why he doesn't like Woody.
On the lighter side of Neptune, when school officials call off the prom, Logan and Dick decide to throw an "alterna-prom" in Logan's suite (somehow the hotel doesn't seem to mind a flock of underage drinkers pouring into their facility). Several characters make cracks about the rich wanting to privatize everything these days but their revolutionary instincts - or, more likely, the desire to get drunk, laid, and have fun - lead many to crash to the joint, resulting in a humorous elevator ride, some awkward moments between Butters and his "forced date" Mac, and a super-awkward but also genuinely smoldering reconciliation between Veronica and an apologetic Logan. Their near-kiss is captured quite effectively by Fields, an especially strong moment in a particularly well-directed episode (a number of long takes let us sit with characters in a way that zippy network shows don't always allow). But when Veronica returns to the suite that morning, having run away before getting carried away the night before, she's greeted by a barechestered, hungover Logan. He is obviously mortified that she's ready to give him another chance. Sure enough, Kendall pops up behind him and the episode ends with a heartstricken Veronica staring out at a remorseful Logan as the elevator door closes between them. "Longest elevator ride everrrr," Madison sneered when forced to share the lift with her unwashed classmates - but the one facing Veronica is even longer.
My Response:
