So… Lot of things brought up in this episode regarding the bus crash, but not a lot resolved. I think the list of suspects is longer than ever. And I’m definitely gonna need to watch it again, because there was so much info it was a bit confusing.
Having said that, a lot of really good smaller moments in the episode. I liked Veronica kicking Logan, and the flashback to the summer when they dated. Wallace and Logan working on a school project. Keith finding Veronica in Clemmons’ closet. And as many Brokeback Mountain jokes as there have been recently in pop culture, Dick’s still managed to be really funny.
No real followup to the events of last episode, but it looks like (from the promo) that at least some of that will be addressed next episode.
It was better than I expected it was going to be. I usually find shows with long dream sequences in them to be excrutiating so I was pleasantly surprised when the dream sequences didn’t totally suck. Nice misdirection with Keith at the school and on the speed dates.
I found a lot of the episode hard to follow–the script very choppy in places, lots of small references to prior plot elements, and characters on the bus who were unrecognizable to me. I suppose I shouldn’t complain if the writers present a challenging episode for the viewer, but I think it could have been slightly less opaque. And it all seemed to be a bunch of red herrings in the end (except perhaps for the implication that the crash really was about killing Veronica–but even that still feels uncertain).
I kept feeling that the “I AM GOD” reference was pointing in some way toward Weevil. Isn’t Weevil’s given name Eli? Doesn’t “Eli” mean “I am God” or something like that? Though I can’t imagine what would be Weevil’s motivation for taking out the bus.
As you said, Amok, this requires a second viewing.
Well, yeah, I mean the red herrings aspect was kind of the point, right? VM goes off on a tear about the drawing and the cryptic I AM GOD message and it turns out to be an innocuous album cover.
I guess one of the biggest revelations in the episode was about the life insurance on Dick and Cassidy. Did the boys know about it? The policy was taken out right after Big Dick married Kendall, and everything related to her is suspect. Did she take out the policy Double Indemnity-style? It’s not like she was terribly devoted to being a stepmother.
Also, Dream Meg told Veronica she had some important information, but we don’t know what it is because Veronica’s subconscious hasn’t sorted it out yet.
Also also, ha-ha on Dick for needing to go to summer school instead of graduating. If only he could have been demolished in the stadium. He has absolutely nothing to offer the human race.
That girl Dick was working with was awful, though. If your lab partner tells you to stay away from her project (putting aside the fact that Dick wouldn’t have wanted to anyway), then she can’t vey well blame you for not working on it. And how little sensitivity must she and her mom have had to make such a public thing out of getting into Stanford when so many other people in the room would have gotten rejected?
One thing we did learn was that Dick thought that Rhonda was on the pill, while her friend said she wanted to get pregnant, so she was probably lying to him about it. Either that, or Dick is lying now. She may have been pregnant during the bus crash.
Why was Weevil here to pick up Veronica, anyway? Do we know? And why Peter would have been on the trip is a good question, considering he was so uninterested in baseball that he threw out the free tickets he won.
I’m surprised Veronica was so open with that guidance counselor. I wonder what her ulterior motive was, because she’s generally much cagier about her fears and feelings. Maybe she started out pumping the counselor for information and then realized it felt good to unburden.
How did Veronica figure out that it was a song title in the end? What made her look it up on a music site? I wasn’t clear on that.
The word “Eli” can mean “my G-d” in Hebrew, but the biblical name is spelled differently. Presumably, the modern name is derived from that, rather than the “my G-d” word.
The episode was a bit confusing. I’ll probably watch it again before next week.
The mayor is gay and was having an affair with the radio student who was going to out him. The gay student went to the stadium in order to see or confront the mayor. Either the mayor or his daughter (I’m betting on the daughter) blew up the bus in order to keep the secret. I’m probably completely wrong.
That was Tina actually, who was sneaking around with Dick. Rhonda was the girl who called her friend and left a message (and whose sister Veronica talked to).
I haven’t seen “Normal is the Watchword” since the week it first aired, but no, I don’t think Weevil ever says why he was at the gas station. And it seems like it was outside of Neptune too (the stadium didn’t seem to be so close by), so it’s a pretty big coincidence (if that’s what it was). I don’t see how Weevil could have triggered the bomb with Veronica sitting right behind him on the cycle though.
Well, she did ask her about Lucky.
I wasn’t quite clear on that either. I do know that the song that was playing over that scene (which Veronica is listening to via an mp3 of Marcos’s pirate radio show) was the song in question. So maybe there was something in the lyrics that tipped it off, but if so, I missed it.
Yeah, but they’re going to be repeating it in the old Wednesday timeslot for at least this week.
No, that’s what we’re supposed to think, I believe, especially after the workout scene with Logan from last week. Whether that’s the direction in which they’re ultimately gonna go, I dunno, but they did mean for us to pick that notion up.
You know, after a stellar first season full of intrigue and complicated mysteries, I was a little worried that the second season would never be able to measure up, especially after the first couple episodes, which left me a little cold.
But I repent. This season has to be one of the most complicated TV mysteries I’ve ever seen – each of the eight victims (and even a potential ninth, tenth, and eleventh victim) had seperate reasons to be murdered. I’m guessing there are at least 20 outstanding mysteries and loose ends that need to be tied up in the next couple of episodes. I can’t, for the life of me, put all the pieces together in a coherent way, but I suspect everything’s going to tie together in the end with the revelation of a major conspiracy, probably involving several major characters (adios, Beaver). Either that, or we’ve been fed a massive amount of red herrings.
I’ve read an interview with Kirsten Bell, who knows the resolution, and while she doesn’t offer any hints, she mentions that it involves several really shocking twists that make the first season look straightforward by comparison. Awesome!
I can’t say it enough – this show is brilliantly written. It’s sad that so many people assume it’s just another vapid teen drama for the young female demographic. They couldn’t be further from the truth. Unfortunately it’s one of those shows, like Buffy, that’s really hard to jump into without having seen all the previous episodes, which is great if you own a Tivo and love long, complicated storylines, but it’s bad news for the casual viewer. I can’t see a solution to this problen unless UPN wants to start running Veronica Mars-athons every week, but perhaps someday, when more shows move to a pay-per-episode format (and aren’t beholden to advertisers and the flawed Nielsen rating system), the long-form drama will be able to capture a larger audience.
To reply to myself, I just wanted to point out that I did watch the ep again last night, and during the scene when Veronica is writing “I AM GOD” on the blackboard, you can hear the lead singer of the band saying the same thing. It’s kinda faint, but it’s definitely there. And then Veronica wakes up and hears the song end and Marcos’s voice come on.
So, yeah, definite clue in the lyrics. Don’t know how I missed that the first time, but I tend to tune out songs in TV shows, so that’s probably why.
I rewatched the episode last night, and a thought occurred to me: I don’t think the “I Am God” stuff is a red herring. Remember, one of the earlier episodes was titled “Rat Saw God”; the reference being to the rat that was found on the bus. I just don’t think that’s a throwaway coincidence. I’m not sure this points to Weevil, as I posted earlier, but I noticed that at one point in Veronica’s dream discussions with the dead kids, she explicitly asks one of them, “You think it was Weevil?” I still can’t see what would be his motivation, but I don’t think we can rule him out. And, as the same ghost made explicit, the killer had to be in line of sight with the bus, to make sure it would go over the cliff. That means, if not Weevil, then probably one of the people on the limo. I don’t think we have a roster of everyone on the limo, do we? Anyway, I think it’s been narrowed down for us considerably.
Rats Saw God is also the title of one of Rob Thomas’ young adult novels that he published before Veronica Mars was on the air, so it was a play on that and the fact that the episode’s plot involved a dead rat. So maybe it means something, and maybe it doesn’t.
