Veronica Mars: Annoy, Tiny Blonde One. Annoy Like the Wind.
[NAFDA] Spoiler Policy: Seasons 1-3 and the movie are fair game. Spoiler font two weeks for new content presented all at once (e.g. Season 4 on Hulu is fair game as of Aug. 9, 2019). New content presented as weekly episodes may be discussed with no restrictions as it is released.
When the prof. started explaining the experiment, I expected the guard-prisoner storyline was going to bother me a lot more than it did. I was afraid Wallace was going to turn, or that we'd see Logan as a jailer and that he'd be channelling his inner-Aaron. Honestly, I thought it was fairly unbelievable that one kid instantly went corrupt, and none of the other (guard) kids either also went that way, or gave him a stomping.
I've been mulling over what's changed- what I want/need from my tv shows, if I've become that reviled teevee consumer that wants everything handed to them and a happy ending (I don't *think* so, but hey, maybe), or if this show has gone over the noir line to nihlism and is so fucking depressing that I can't trust it with any of my emotional investment.
Couldn't your preference be changing in a way that isn't an indictment of your taste, ya goober?
I don't think the show has gone over any line it didn't leave in the rearview mirror in the season 1 pilot, because the first season was all about isolation, exhile, loss of trust, murder, possible-incest, and we knew from the get-go that our protagonist had been raped, and the law couldn't care less.
Of course I don't see nihilism in VM. I do see pessimism, but it's somewhat like the pessimism of
Angel,
to me: If nothing that we do matters, all that matters is what we do.
Veronica knows she's damned if she does, and damned if she doesn't, but she Does, and that, to me, makes all the difference.
I do think though, that these first two episodes have been lackluster. I've enjoyed them in the irrational-fangirl way, because I was jonesing for the show all summer, but when I try to imagine seeing it through the eyes of a new viewer, I decide it hasn't done anything to pull me in. If the season continues like this, I suspect I am going to have to prepare myself for cancelation, because I just don't think this it is getting the job done, so far.
So how did Keith get the paperwork for it?
That was my BIG WTF for this ep.
He probably already had it from when Kendall bought it (or maybe she didn't buy it, and Big Dick already had it in his collection). He might have been holding it for Kendall for all we know.
I'm disappointed, because the Keith plotline needed so much explanation here to make sense to me.
I suspect Keith either got the paperwork in the house or was given the paperwork to hold for safekeeping until the brothers thing could be resolved.
I very much liked/loved the first season, and I watched that less than a year ago. That was Good Stuff.
So, I'm not sure where my reactions are coming from and why... more fodder for commuter musings later, I'm sure!
I do hate to be all negative about TV stuff, which I feel I am a lot. I think that Buffy and Angel (in their primes- my carping on Buffy s7 and St. Cordy began my TV ranting and raving) as well as VM s1 really spoiled me for excellent, quality television that went to dark places, but made me laugh, often simultaneously. I feel like the difference between those shows/seasons and what just bummed me out is that previously, the shows would make me think, as well as feel, and be emotionally resonant. Last night's episode didn't have the humor or the emotional resonance that I think I need. It felt like it was hitting seasonal plot marks; which of course is important, but it left me very cold for whatever reason.
I was just bemused because we'd been discussing the Stanford Experiment in another thread recently.
Exactly!
So how did Keith get the paperwork for it?
That was my BIG WTF for this ep.
The painting and the whole Liam/Cormac/Kendall is still a huge question mark for me. Granted, I walked away for a minute when Cormac and Liam were in the desert, but I still don't get how Kendall got the painting, what she wanted done with it, when exactly Keith took it to the museum...
I'm sure I *should* be able to follow the threads, but the thing is I don't care. I care about Keith, but the rest of them? Not at all.
There were a lot of great moments last night, but I'm beginning to feel like RT played his best hand in S1. Nothing is ever going to seem as compelling and tragic as a young girl's murder, and how that rips apart the Mars family. I at least want more Keith and Veronica, and I want more Logan and Veronica. The other stuff? Is kind of not doing it for me. Yet.
Huh. I got enough explanation in last night's episode to get the Keith storyline.
Huh. I got enough explanation in last night's episode to get the Keith storyline.
Right there with you.
Huh. I got enough explanation in last night's episode to get the Keith storyline.
My big problem wasn't the picture itself, but how, even with the paperwork, Keith would be given a picture that should have been police evidence (due to the blood on it) so quickly.
Also, given that we still haven't seen the body, I still have doubts about whether Kendall is really dead. That may just be residual CC affection talking. Relatedly, I know they showed Liam about to pull the trigger, but did they actually show him pulling the trigger, or did they just cut to Keith hearing the shots, becuase if it was the latter, it might have been Liam getting shot by Kendall.
Basically I just get suspicious when they don't show the deed or the body (Kendall much more so than Cormac, though).
Also, I can't none of the Logan fans here has gone on about Streaking!Logan. It's like I don't know you people any more.
when I try to imagine seeing it through the eyes of a new viewer, I decide it hasn't done anything to pull me in.
Yes, this. In some ways, I feel like a new viewer -- I didn't rewatch S2 over the summer, and I have the memory of a gnat, so a lot of the Kendall stuff is completely gone for me. That storyline seems like it would be really unfathomable to a new viewer.
And if I had walked in with the S3 premiere ... I don't know. Last week we got that Logan and Veronica are involved and have great sex. This week we got pretty much nothing, between them. And there was no explanation of Dick showing up at Logan's last night, was there?
Don't get me wrong -- I loved the Wallace/Logan stuff, and I always love Veronica playing a role, but some of the details last night seemed iffy to me. For one, the den mom growing pot to deal with chemo? Kind of trite. And would she really grow *that* much for her own personal use? She'd have to be stoned all the time. (I mean, I've never grown it, so I don't know for sure, but that looked like a *lot* of weed to me for one person.)
I hate feeling nitpicky. But I was so in love with S1 and S2, and I'm a little underwhelmed. The rape story is interesting, but it's not personal to Veronica, you know? (Except in an echoey emotional way.)
