Thursday, August 10, 2006
Life On Mars
Veronica Mars, Living TV, 8.00pm
First of all, a quick apology: yes, we are aware that there are other programmes on the television on Thursday that aren't Veronica Mars, but we've been a little pushed for time over the past few weeks and writing these updates takes a lot out of us. We're loathe to discontinue them because we hate giving up on something halfway through, but we will try harder in subsequent weeks to write about the other stuff that's on telly that doesn't involve teenage private detectives, okay? Even though you know you love it, you slaaaags (etc).
Previously on Veronica Mars: in brief: Aaron Echolls murdered Lilly Kane, Celeste Kane tried to screw over Veronica on more than one occasion, Veronica's drunken, promiscuous mother had an affair with her highschool sweetheart Jake Kane, Keith lost the sheriff's election, the anonymous caller who witnessed Logan's ill-fated battle with Felix and the PCHers on the bridge came forward at Lamb's victory party, the bus went boom and left Meg in a coma, leaving Veronica and Duncan to come to the rescue of her little sister Grace who was being mentally abused by her parents, a routine hiring of Veronica by Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas to prove that Kendall was cheating on his father backfired when they failed to catch Kendall in flagrante, but did catch Large Penis extorting his customers, so Large Penis fled town and left Dick and Beav with their trust funds and Kendall with next to nothing. Deep breath. Keith investigated the wreck of the bus and found a dead rat taped underneath one of the seats. Weevil told Veronica that the Fitzpatricks wouldn't have blown up the bus, as the money Cervando hustled from them was small fry and more deserving of a baseball bat in an alleyway than the deaths of several innocent people. Veronica met the Fitzpatricks and one of them tried to tattoo her face, but Logan saved the day. Weevil had his goons beat Logan up, but reckoned without Logan figuring out who was behind it. Duncan visited Meg in the hospital without telling Veronica. And a whole bunch of other shit, but that's the main stuff, right? We hope.
We're back in Sex Ed class (the purpose of which is, surprisingly, not about sexing someone called Ed) and Ms Hauser presents Veronica's class with their very own babies to look after. This isn't really relevant, aside from the wider theme of parenthood across the whole episode. Veronica leaves Duncan holding the baby when she gets called into Vice-Principal Clemmons's office, and he is not in the mood for Veronica's smart mouth today. He asks her to hand in her copy of the key to his office, and threatens her with suspension. Veronica is NOT happy with this plan as it would render her ineligible for the Kane Scholarship (which she needs to be able to afford to get the hell outta Neptune come graduation), so Mr Clemmons offers her detention instead, which Veronica accepts. Elsewhere, Beaver hires Mac to create an online presence for his new company, the Phoenix Land Trust. Mac assumes it's for his FBLA homework. Beaver's abashed (and heavily eyelinered) expression begs to differ. The school PA system announces that Trina Echolls, who we know as a D-list actress and Logan's older sister from season one, will be directing the school play this year (Veronica: "That must mean she was the first one booted off The Surreal Life this season.") Veronica's punishment turns out to be sorting all the permanent records back into alphabetical order after the janitor had an accident mid-transport. While sorting, she finds her mother's permanent record, and being Veronica, can't resist having a nose. It turns out her mother was suspended for three days back in 1980 for spreading "false and malicious" rumours about another student, along with her friend, Debra Philipina Drummond - that's Ms. Hauser, to you and me.
Elsewhere, Weevil's working at the garage and the lights go out. He goes to trip the breaker back, and as soon as the lights come back on, he gets a punch in the face from Logan for his trouble. Logan and a gang of his 09er chums set about delivering payback. Veronica catches up with Ms. Hauser to ask about the rumour - Ms. Hauser refers to it as "an embarrassment" and says that Lianne should have known to keep her big mouth shut and not spread gossip - a lesson that Veronica would do well to learn from. While debating whether she wants to take that advice, Veronica heads into school, and in a callback to the pilot episode, spots Weevil naked and duct-taped to the flagpole. It's a shame Wallace isn't around to note this reversal of fortune.
Having decided to ignore Ms. Hauser's advice, Veronica goes back to see VP Clemmons. He admits he was a lowly science teacher at the time and wouldn't know the details (which were blacked out on the permanent record). He does, however, tell Veronica that the following people were also present at the school in 1980: Ms. Hauser, Mr Moorehead (the principal, who was vice-principal at the time), and Mary Mooney (who was a student). Veronica tracks down Mary Mooney, who's now a lunch lady - and who's also deaf. Since Lianne's aunt was deaf, she knew sign language and taught Veronica the alphabet years ago, so Veronica slowly spells out a greeting to Mary. Mary signs back that Veronica's mother was - according to Veronica's translation - "a fiend". Veronica's all, "yeah, a drunken, slutty, college-fund-thieving fiend. Tell me something I don't know." Veronica goes to see Principal Moorehead, who refuses to give details of the suspension, but remarks that Lianne was "vicious" during her time there.
Veronica heads in to the play rehearsal and encounters Trina Echolls (and Alyson Hannigan reprises the role, having a lot more fun with it this time around and consequently being far more convincing than either of her appearances in season one). Trina greets Veronica with the exciting news that Evan Rachel Wood has signed up to play the plucky teenage PI who won't be called Veronica because Veronica and Keith didn't sign the waiver in The Aaron Echolls Story, then returns her attention to the play - Hamlet, by the way. Kendall turns up at the penthouse and either tries to seduce Duncan, or sell him a car, or possibly both. We were too busy clawing our eyes out to be entirely sure. Just when Duncan's fending her off, Logan turns up with Trina in tow, for no real reason other than because everyone wanted to see Alyson and Charisma in a scene together for a quick Buffy reunion. Logan introduces them with the best line of the season: "Kendall Casablancas, Trina Echolls. Rode hard, meet put away wet." Trina and Kendall engage in something of a bitchy snarkfest, and Trina leaves again.
Veronica goes for a meeting with Patty Wilson, a friend of her mother's from high school. Her initial fears seem to be confirmed when Patty talks about how they used to spend all day gossiping, but then the juice starts flowing: Lianne and Jake Kane were on/off/on/off throughout high school, but on again for the prom, until the girl he dated over the summer turned up and claimed she was pregnant. That girl? Celeste, of course. Her family were moving out of the school district and she wanted to break Jake and Lianne up. She made it back for prom, but there was no sign of any baby, so Veronica theorises that either Celeste pretended she was pregnant to break Jake and Lianne up, or Lianne got dumped and claimed it was because Celeste was pregnant. Back home, Veronica asks Keith a few questions about her mother, wanting to know what kind of person she was. She wants Keith to check the birth records for 1980 to see if her mother was telling the truth about Celeste, but Keith is reluctant - he thinks it's a little too convenient that Veronica's arch enemy gets painted as the big bad wolf in this story. Veronica heads back to rehearsals, which are looking painful - even more so when Trina trips on Yorick's skull and wipes out on the makeshift stage.
Beaver arranges a meeting with Kendall - partly to tell her to stop selling their property for less than its market value, and partly to make her a deal, whereby she'll be the public figurehead of the Phoenix Land Trust, since at 16 Beaver is unable to meet clients or sign legal documents. Kendall scoffs at the idea, but begins to come round when Beaver offers her a not-too-shabby salary. She still patronises Beaver about it, however, because that's what every single other member of the Casablancas family is there for. Meanwhile, Keith checks the scans and finds no baby under Celeste's name, asking Veronica why she's so desperate to know. Veronica replies that she wants proof that her mother wasn't a mean girl (in-joke referencing Amanda Seyfried? Maybe), or one of those girls at school she hates who makes life miserable for everyone else - so Keith admits to finding a Jane Doe, found in the girls' bathroom during the Neptune High prom in 1980.
Veronica drops her "baby" with Duncan, who's acting all secretive - wow, there's a surprise - and is in the middle of snarking on the good name of his mother when who should walk in but Celeste Kane herself, ready for her secret dinner date with her son. Celeste and Veronica bitch each other out, and Celeste sends her assistant Astrid in to fold Duncan's laundry. Veronica starts dropping veiled threats about prom babies, but Celeste doesn't take the bait. After a particularly low blow about Veronica's mother, Duncan shuts his mother up and asks Veronica to leave them alone for a second. Veronica takes Kane-Mars Jr. into the bedroom to chat to Astrid - who Celeste has uncharacteristically generously offered to put through college, and is 25 years old. Veronica's brain starts whirring.
At Neptune High, Logan heads to the bathroom, and is met by Weevil. They're not sneaking out to settle their sexual tension, but rather to act out their grievances over the hits that each called on the other. Now that it's clear Logan didn't murder Felix, it becomes clear that they ought to pool resources because they both need to know who did - but since neither's reputation will allow an alliance between PCH and the 09, they proceed to beat the crap out of each other for appearance's sake. Mac shows Beaver the designs for her website, and these two are just the cutest together right now. She banters with him about his business prospects, and utters the adorable line: "You're admiring my moxie, aren'tcha?" At this stage, shippers everywhere ditched LoVe and declared BeaverMac their OTP.
Posing as a sleeker, more adult version of herself, Veronica quizzes the prom baby's foster mother to see if she knows from whence it came, and is a little disturbed to find out where it went - the foster mother confirms it went to a wealthy local family, but not the Kanes - the Echollses. Trina's the prom baby, folks. Veronica goes to see Trina in hospital and, under the guise of an audition for the play, tricks Trina into filming a "heartwarming" appeal for bone marrow to save her life. Leaving the hospital, Veronica realises she's tapped into her inner mean girl and has an attack of conscience, which forces her to come clean to Trina. Upon hearing that the moneyed Celeste might be her mother, Trina's eyes light up and she immediately phones an Entertainment Editor friend to get Veronica's tape on the evening news. Veronica probably needn't have worried about her conscience after all. The next day in rehearsals, Mary turns up looking frantic - Trina refers to her as "Lunch Lady Doris" and notes how Mary was always so kind to her in school and gave her extra cake. And we now know why: Mary is Trina's birth mother and wants to donate her bone marrow.
Using her laptop as an interpreter, Veronica confirms that Trina was the prom baby. She asks what Lianne did to hurt her, and Mary types that Lianne was her "friend", thus bringing Veronica to the conclusion that the rest of us guessed at the beginning of the episode. Keep up, V. Anyway, Mary tells Veronica via the laptop that Lianne knew sign-language and would sit with her at lunch most days, and was the coolest girl in school. Veronica is heartened to hear such good words of her mom, and tries not to think about the fact that she stole all of Veronica's money to buy booze around six months ago. The full story on the prom baby: she told Lianne she was having an affair with a faculty member, and Lianne made the mistake of asking Ms. Hauser for advice. Ms. Hauser promptly spread it around the school, and she and Lianne ended up being hauled across the coals for it. Lianne retracted her story when Mary didn't want to get the faculty member in trouble. She left the baby on his doorstep, and he panicked, not wanting to take it to the hospital because that would arouse suspicion. So he dumped it at the prom, where people would assume it belonged to a student. And which faculty member was this? Why, none other than Principal Moorehead, who gets a public shaming from Trina when she interrupts a school board meeting to ask why her birth daddy wasn't going to give up his bone marrow to save his prom baby daughter. Buh-bye, Principal Moorehead.
Meanwhile, in the "OMG! Finally!" area of plot-almost-developments, Veronica finds the rat from the bus in the freezer at Mars Investigations and asks Keith what gives. He explains that he found it on the bus, and Veronica assumes that it's a message meant for her, and that she's the rat. Popping by later to see Vice-Principal Clemmons, Veronica lets him know that she's worked out he masterminded the whole thing - getting her into detention, to ensure she'd find her mom's permanent record and expose the prom baby scandal. And why? So he could get the principal's job, of course. Veronica's admiration for the Machiavellian genius of the man she considered to be a giant useless thing one episode ago is quite considerable. And finally, Veronica gets a call from the hospital asking her to pick up Abel Koontz's belongings. She does so, and pops in to visit an unguarded Meg while she's there. Noting the unusualness of Meg having two heart monitors, Veronica pulls back the bedtray over Meg's midriff and spots Meg's big pregnant belly. Veronica leaves in shock, and Meg blinks awake. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
This week: Veronica gets jury duty, and it's probably the worst episode of the entire season, if we're honest. But there's a marked increase in quality after this one, so don't let it put you off.
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3 Comments:
It's ok to give up on things halfway through! What kind of world would we live in if people hadn't given up on things halfway through? A world without Smart cars, mini-skirts and acronyms. A world where Shabaz would probably still be in Big Brother! A world without ellipses... Not a world that any of us would want to live in, anyway. So PLEASE give some very serious thought to giving up on this particular thing halfway through, or even sooner. For the love of God.
By 
, at
8:32 am
Yes! Especially since the second series is really quite dreadful. And even if the programme was still any good, I imagine very few people care.
By , at
9:30 am
These veronica mars entires are way too long. I give up reading them before I am halfway through. It would be good to give up writing them too!
By , at
1:09 am
