Was I the only one who watched last night? Good episode, though I figured out the identity of the blackmailer about halfway through.
How evil is Logan? He plays to win, doesn’t he? If he’s this capable of manipulating people at age 18, he’ll probably be president at 40.
I’m not sure Logan isn’t conflicted. I think he’s definite sticking the screws to Hannah’s dad, but I think he actually does dig her. It’s hard to tell with teenagers, who often have conflicting motivations going on at the same time. I guess this means Jason Dohring does a pretty good job of portraying Logan, in all his teenage glory.
I didn’t think there was much interesting in the blackmail storyline. Pretty tepid stuff by VM standards. It was obvious that the jock kid was gay, almost right from the start. The pieces of the muggings/blackmail puzzle were disjointed and ultimately didn’t have anything to do with each other. Not very satisfying.
I thought the stuff with Keith investigating, and the Logan/Hannah thing, was more intriguing. I was kind of surprised that Sherrif Lamb held his own when Keith and Terrance tried a bit of blackmail themselves. He’s right though; Terrence has a lot more to lose.
Overall, a so-so episode, though it’s still nice to spend 48 minutes with Our Girl, especially after a string of re-runs or no shows.
Yeah, I also figured one of the guys making fun of Dick must be gay, but mostly because I rewatched the Buffy episode “Phases” last week (the one where it turns out Larry the jock is gay, and overcompensates by harrassing girls and acting like a dick). 
The pieces of the mugging/blackmail puzzle didn’t fit? I didn’t analyze it to death, but considering the resolution I think it fit just fine and the red herrings were just part of the process.
I bet the freshman kid who was trying to get into the gang turns up again. They spent a few extra lines on him that they didn’t have to. I loved how Veronica left him for the cops Spider-Man style.
Yeah, I immediately thought of Spider Man when I saw the kid taped to the lamp post with the evidence hanging down.
I thought it was a solid episode, but not an outstanding one, and I don’t really have much to say about it.
I do like that VM doesn’t typically drag out plot developments. Last episode we met Hannah, and this episode Veronica learns about her and there’s the confrontation between Logan and the (not so) good doctor, rather than dragging it out and leaving us waiting for those things to happen over several more episodes.
That’s one of my favorite things about the show.
The episode wasn’t one of the more exceptional ones, but I always enjoy it. Wallace was MIA yet again, and I like my VM to contain a bit more Weevil when possible. But we got some Mac, so that’s good.
Not that they didn’t fit, per se; it’s just that that whole thread was more like three or for separate stories that got shoehorned together with only the most tangential relationships. But I suppose that’s like life–things that have only tangential connections sometimes lead to each other like a trail of breadcrumbs, without any of the breadcrumbs themselves being significant. In this case, I just didn’t find it particularly enthralling. Though I think it’s a good call that the PCH wannabe will show up again.
The producers really need to do something about this whole “not everyone shows up in each episode thing.” It’s OK when a character isn’t there for a legitimate reason–Wallace is in Chicago, Duncan is on the lam–but it’s odd and very noticable when characters are talking about another character in the immediate sense, but that third character is nowhere to be seen in the ep (a la Veronica and Jackie talking about Wallace last night). I really wish they’d just pony up and pay these people to appear in each episode. Maybe “the CW” will have deeper pockets.
The producers would love to have whoever they want in as many episodes as they want, but it’s just not in the budget. I really hope the show gets picked up again and as you say, the CW gives them the cash to let them do what they want.
Yeah, they really need to give Wallace a full time contract along with Veronica and Keith (and Logan?). He’s too integral a character, and when he’s absent, it’s very conspicuous.
I didn’t mind the unconnected story lines – it added a bit of realism. It gets annoying when shows are overly dependent on convenient coincidences to tie seperate threads together.
The blackmailer “mystery of the week” was uninspired but not terrible. I like the abiguity in Logan and Hannah’s relationship. Was he telling the truth when he said he didn’t know who her father was? In that case, is he attracted to her because she reminds him of Veronica?
I both agree and disagree. In the specific case of Wallace, I do think they should line him up for every episode (as they did last season) and then if there’s an episode where he just absolutely doesn’t fit, or they want him out of the picture for story reasons, that’s fine, but they wouldn’t have to leave him out of episodes for budget reasons. Because last night did feel a little odd with him apparently around, but us not seeing him. And since he’s V’s best friend, I think he can almost always be fit into an episode, even if it’s just a small role.
However, with some of the regulars who are more tangental to V (Beaver, Jackie, etc), I’m fine with them not being signed up for every episode. I don’t think they’d really fit in all the episodes.
One thing I noticed this season is how large a cast VM has for what’s basically a private eye/mystery of the week show. I mean, shows like Magnum PI, Remington Steele, Simon & Simon, and other 70s/80s detective shows, usually had, at most, 4 cast members, and often times less than that. For a contemporay comparison, WB’s Supernatural (which isn’t a PI show exactly, but close enough) has only 2 regulars, I believe. VM, on the other hand, has 9 cast members this season (or 8 with Duncan probably gone, even though he’s still in the credits). Last year it started out with 7 and ended up at 6. That’s huge for a detective show. Buffy (not a detective show, but again, close enough) was similar, but usually the cast were part of a team that helped Buffy investigate or fight every week. Veronica might get help now and then from her father, or Wallace, or whoever, but there’s not a single cast member that consistently helps her out. The vast majority of her detective work is done solo, and much of the cast is primarily there for the social/teen drama aspect, though pretty much everyone will at least occasionally get involved with a mystery, either as a client or helping out.
So, that’s my long winded way of saying, I like having some of the regulars pop in and out of the show and miss weeks. I think it would be too crowded if all of them appeared every week. But some (including Wallace and Keith) should at least be available to appear every week.
I was disappointed with how obvious the clues were that gay jock boy was faking it. He couldn’t even keep his story straight for 2 minutes of air time.
And everyone in my house laughed hard when Mac looked quizzically at VM’s request to get onto the gay chat site and VM said “No no, I’m not gay; I’m just curious.”
Every scene with Mac is a good scene.
Yeah, the “I’m just curious” line was a good one.
Did anyone else notice that the blackmailer was at one point identified as being “Rick Santorum”? Another nice in-joke.
Back to the subject of characters “disappearing”: my main beef is with the awkwardness of the scenes–a la the Jackie and Veronica discussion after the hoops game–where the characters are talking about someone who, in context, should have appeared somewhere in the episode, but didn’t. I’m not saying everyone should get equal air time.