Veronica Mars (season 1 & 2 spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I just finished watching season 2 of Veronica Mars, and I was wondering what people’s opinions are on it…

My thoughts:

-Season 1 was a LOT better than season 2, which had its moments, but which seemed to have lots of plot threads that went nowhere, and a not-very-satisfying conclusion

-The character of Logan is fantastic. You never quite know what he’s going to do. He’s frequently genuinely decent, but frequently an ass

-Does it strike anyone as remotely plausible that the entire time the Aaron Eckolls sex tapes were in police custody, (a) no one else saw them so as to testify, and (b) no copies were stored anywhere else? For that matter, why would the deputy who sold them to Logan not make additional copies?

Anyhow, overall, quite a good show. I’m eager to see what they do with season 3…

2

The whole Season 2 court trial thing was stupid. I threw my remote across the room when they allowed Veronica’s STD to be considered convincing character evidence in regards to her testimony. Ditto with the rooftop Scooby discussion (“I am holding a gun at you! But check out my expository confession!”), Beaver killing the kids instead of just killing Woody, the Meg pregnancy plotline blahblahblah.

However, it’s still one of my favourite shows and I think Kristin Bell and Jason Dohrig are good actors (and they have excellent chemistry).

I am a sad sad clam. I don’t have cable because even when I pay for it I don’t have the consistency to sit down and watch shows I like at their scheduled time, but I got sucked into Battlestar Galactica & Veronica Mars via DVD. I’m going to have to figure something out for the upcoming seasons of these shows.

3

This got discussed at the time pretty ad nauseum, but Beaver couldn’t just kill Woody and expect his secret to stay secret. Beaver was trying to keep his being sexually abused secret and the other victims were going to tell. Killing Woody doesn’t stop them from being able to tell.

4

I thought season two had issues because thematically, they were trying to stick to this “Normal is the Watchword” mantra, but the problem is no one wants to see Veronica trying to be normal. We want to see her be a badass. The season got much better in the last few episodes, but there’s a long drag in the middle where she’s not really doing anything on the season long arc, and the show spends so much time laying pipe to flesh out all the new characters that it seems like we’re just seeing red herring after red herring.

Also, the show plays pretty loosy goosy with law enforcement in general, the trial is just the most infuriating example of it. I felt like Aaron could have gotten off in a much more believable manner. And while I wouldn’t be surprised that a shady lawyer would try to make Veronica’s medical condition known to the jury, usually the judge would throw that right out and tell the jury to disregard (which of course they aren’t going to do.) You see that ploy all the time.

I’m hopeful for season three. I actually think keeping the big crime arcs to eight or ten episodes and having two or even three per season will help the storytelling and avoid drag. And I’m confident the writers will find a way to make them all tie in at the end anyway. (Although the fact that this change was made in order to make it easier to cancel the show mid-season sucks donkeys.)

5

I came into the game late, so I wound up watching season 1 after season 2. Maybe that’s why I’m not quite so disparaging of s2 vs. s1. However, I will say that s1’s climax came across as much more intense than Beav’s denoument. (I gulped a little when it was implied that Keith died on the plane, but I came to my senses quickly.) The one thing I did not like about s1 (which was mercifully in short supply in s2) was the story being constantly told in flashbacks. I understand that, given that we come into the story after Lily’s murder, it was necessary to go back for some plot points, but there was just too much hopping back and forth in those episodes. Season 2 was better in that sense, that most of it played out in a more linear fashion. (Given that most folks think the s2 plot was too complicated, telling a lot of it in flashback would have made it completely maddening.) Overall, I liked most of what I saw in both season, and I’m eager to get to the new episodes.

And no, I didn’t get too bent out of shape about the plot holes/inconsistencies/stupidities. I’m more concerned about the characters than the story details, so the oddities of the trial, for instance, didn’t ruin anything for me.

Other notes:

Yes, Kristen Bell, good actress. But, Jason Dohring, very good actor, potentially great actor. I think of everyone on the show he has the brightest future, if he keeps working it.

The biggest issue with the show may be the character of Jackie. Yes, she was there in season 2 as a bridge between Veronica and a chief suspect (Terrence Cook), but she also complicated things as she needed her own storyline to be present and accounted for. The whole s2 story arc might have been more straightforward without her. I’m wondering how she’ll fit in–if at all–in season 3.

My favorite part of the show–aside from the wiseass dialogue–is the interplay between Veronica and Keith. Bell and Enrico Colantoni have that relationship at just the right pitch. They’re great to watch together.

Bring on season 3!

6

There are so many things to like about the show, I tend to neglect what is bad, even though it means being in denial:

1, Best father-daughter relationship in any visual media, ever. The anxiety Keith feels for her, knowing that she really is a very smart and capable young woman, but at the same time being as over protective as fathers tend to be when it comes to girls, and without making a tomboy out of her. Veronica’s love and respect for Keith, her trying to please him, even when he thinks he’s wrong. Their bantering. All working perfectly wihtout ever becoming mushy.

2, Veronica-Logan: I second what **Max ** said, and agree that Dohrig is a great actor, possibly the best on the show (I see him as a new Ed Norton), being able to portray spoiled and abandoned, vulnerable and asshole, smug and confused, all in a single take. The chemistry is gold and though I’ve never been a shipper, I find the relationship interesting.

3, Mac. Commputer geek girl who’s cool and good looking.

4, Veronica’s friendship with Wallace.

5, Sheriff Lamb. Creepy…

However…

a, Nancy Drew of the week gets kinda lame.

b, It’s not possible that the very good loking Bell, as the character VM, would be shunned at a SoCal High School. She’d make the rules and if some vapid cheerleader tried to give her some lip, she’d go all Samuel L. Jackson on her ass*.

c, I realize that they had to write part of the story around some financial restraints, which is why Wallace had to go to Chicago for a stretch, but it got pretty contrived and didn’t work when used as a mystery.

  • I’ve had it with you muthafckin’ cheerleaders in this muthafuckin high school
7

Damn it Lion, your post wasn’t there when I started typing mine. Thanks for making all my points for me, before I got around to it. :stuck_out_tongue:

8

No problemo.

However, I didn’t make all your points. Specifically:

Yes, Mac (Tina Majorino) is smart, funny and a hottie. Kind of a “stealth” hottie; she flies under the radar, until you notice her just right.

And double yes: there’s no way in hell anyone as good looking as Kristen would be an outcast in any high school, let alone a SoCal “precious little richies” school. That, in fact, struck me as one of the weakest story elements of season 1. No matter what went down, no girl that cute and hot would get dumped on by everybody in the ruling clique. More likely, there’d be a schism, with some of the elite shunning her and some moving over to her side. Not this whole lone, scapegoating thing.

Finally, I don’t think Lamb is creepy, just asinine. I actually found it refreshing when, at the end of last season, he actually cooperated (to an extent) with Keith in bringing in Woody. I’d like to see a little more complexity introduced to the character this season.

Again, bring on season 3!

9

I base my opinion on (whatever) episode where he was talking to someone while working out and admiring his own pecs. I found that disturbing and creepy and thinking that he really is a narcicist. Which in turn explains his asinine behaviour.

10

This may revolve around different takes on the meaning of the word “creepy.” To me that was just stupid and–as you say–narcissistic. Still, it’s not like I’d invite the guy over to my birthday party or anything.

11

Not a Tame Lion: They’re dealing with the problem of Jackie’s character fitting in by not having her on the show at all anymore. She’s done.

I agree that Season 2 got a little too convoluted and anything dealing with any of the trials seemed to indicate that none of the writers were even regular Law & Order: Original Flavor viewers. Still, the core of the show is very enjoyable and I’m completely invested in the main characters.

And yes, Jason Dohring is an amazing actor. Maybe he can escape the cult-show curse that plagues a lot of very good but little-seen actors.

12

They did a schism. Meg was an 09er and in S1 she sided with Veronica. Still, considering how much Neptune High was set up to favor the 09ers it’s not that implausable to me that Veronica would be ostracised. But even if ostracism reads false to you, she was still abandoned by all of her so-called friends in short order and it can’t be easy to deal with going from having friends to none overnight.

They may have been going for “creepy” (although I don’t think they were) but all I got was “hot.”

13

I think the primary reason given for that scene was “by popular demand.” Ladies love the Lamb, apparently. He doesn’t do it for me personally, but I approve of the concept of eye candy.

Above someone referred to Veronica’s being a “badass.” One of my favorite things about the show is how she’s extremely intelligent and has a lot of emotional fortitude, but physically she’s very vulnerable. She’s not Buffy or Sydney Bristow; in the few situations when Veronica has been in a physical altercation, if she lost her stun gun she was helpless. She’s a tiny little thing, and it makes sense that Aaron could lock her in a fridge or that whichever Fitzpatrick nearly tattooed her face in the bar could do whatever they wanted, and she couldn’t stop it. It’s realistic, and it serves to ramp up the tension when she’s in physical jeopardy.

I really like seeing Keith kick ass though. He’s the best TV dad ever!

14

Along with the fact that there was a slight schism (with Meg siding with Veronica and a few more token “nice 09ers” showing up along the way), Veronica being ostracized makes sense within the show’s internal universe: Being an 09er is based upon only one thing, and that’s being rich. Veronica’s family, as she states in the pilot, was never rich. But her dad was sheriff, which has the next best thing: power. So when her dad not only goes after the richest and most powerful family in town, and then loses his power, it’s not hard to see how Veronica’s social standing would have slipped several notches.

Btw, I agree with basically everything that’s been said here. Now that Arrested Development is off the air, this is my favorite show on TV.

15

By the way, the actresses who play Lily Kane and Mac are both on the excellent HBO show Big Love, playing the daughter of the main character and her friend, respectively.

16

But see, it’s not just them ostracizing her, it’s also her choosing to no longer be part of that crowd. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but in season 1 she says something to the effect that when her dad accused Mr. Kane, she was given a choice between her friends and her dad - and she chose her dad. With Meg, you can see that there are some 09ers who’d be friends with her if she’d let them.

The way I see it, you’ve got V.0, a nice, fairly intelligent girl who didn’t seem to have a lot of ambition and has a bit of “The world is filled with sinshine and kittens and bunnies” mindset. Then you’ve got V.1 who’s cynical and a hardass and got into Stanford. V.1 probably thinks that now she’s seen the 09ers for who they really are and she wants nothing to do with them except to show off the chip on her shoulder.

I liked season 1 and most of season 2 - season 2 had lots of problems with plot lines and pacing (and legal understanding - one angry veronica anyone?) and I didn’t care for the resolution at all. The thing with Cassidy just seemed…bizarre and the retcon of the season 1 resolution was annoying. I kinda liked how emotionally messy the rape plotline was; there was no real villain, just a terrible combination of events. But then suddenly Cassidy is the #1 bad guy! Yarr.

Also, Meg’s baby. I would think that a judge would award Duncan custody before Meg’s parents and he wouldn’t have to run (though I did enjoy the “CW?” “Done deal” bit).

17

sunshine :smack:

18

Why no love for Francis Capra?

When I watch this show, I really have lost all interest in the plot holes, as the acting is superb, and the cast is excellent. This is really undoubtedly the best ensemble cast on all of TV right now.

19

Much as I enjoy the VM, that is going a bit far. Although, technically, Deadwood is now done, and The Wire is between seasons…

20

Regarding the “schism”: Meg only came in as Veronica’s friend later in the game, well into season 1. And it didn’t seem that Meg was really part of the ruling clique, the group that was headed up by Logan and Duncan. She was an 09er and cheerleader, and higher up the social ladder, but not at that top perch which is the focus of the show (and Veronica’s life, if only by contrast).

And while it might make sense in the internal universe of the show, that Veronica would be outcast like that, I think some of us were viewing this from a real world perspective, not simply via the show’s internal logic. And the point still holds: on this side of the looking glass, hotties don’t get shunned like that. Even the rich vs. poor thing wouldn’t really apply; beauty and wealth go hand and hand in this world–the one begets the other, and vice versa. Only within the tube would Roni be on the outs with that many people.

Frankly, I’m glad to hear Jackie has gone her way. It’s a shame that Wallace needed to be left hanging at JFK like that, but the boy was asking for it. He needs to get back with that hottie Jane, pronto.

And yeah, **light strand, **Francis Capra is a hoot as Weevil. Always good for some great one-liners.

Oh, yeah, and Achren…

I’m not sure what you have in mind this weekend, but count me out.