I like Drinking the Kool-Aid a lot.

Well, I said as a whole. I didn't mean every episode from that point on was better than every episode that came before. Looking at it though, the first season is just so wonderful.

1.01 "Pilot"
1.02 "Credit Where Credit's Due"
1.03 "Meet John Smith"
1.04 "The Wrath of Con"
1.05 "You Think You Know Somebody"
1.06 "Return of the Kane"
1.07 "The Girl Next Door"
1.08 "Like a Virgin"
1.09 "Drinking the Kool-Aid"
1.10 "An Echolls Family Christmas"
1.11 "Silence of the Lamb"
1.12 "Clash of the Tritons"
1.13 "Lord of the Bling"
1.14 "Mars vs. Mars"
1.15 "Ruskie Business"
1.16 "Betty and Veronica"
1.17 "Kanes and Abel's"
1.18 "Weapons of Class Destruction"
1.19 "Hot Dogs"
1.20 "M.A.D."
1.21 "A Trip to the Dentist"
1.22 "Leave It to Beaver"

M.A.D. solidified for me that L/V would probably never satisfy me as seen through RT's eyes. the rest of fandom was squeeing over stolen bathroom kisses and i was saying, "where's the angst about all the shit you've put each other through for the past year?!?!".

Yeah, I'm with tiggy. They got too schmoopy too fast. I think Rob later said he didn't like that either.

IAmNotReallyASpring, first up, I have to say your board name delights me, whenever I see it. The phrase itself, the caps...it just makes me smile.

Thank you, Cindy. I'm delighted to have delighted.

As for your question, I think it's a good one. Veronica's not a hero, and it's not a hero-story, so I'm not sure how much of a comeuppance she'll get. She seems to get bitten on the ass in other ways, although sometimes she gets bitten because of the assumptions she makes.

See, there's an instance of me delineating my points from my meaning badly. It happens a lot. I don't really mind if Veronica makes amends or if she realizes that there are faults in her thinking as long as the writers communicate to the audience that Veronica should make amends and that there are faults in her thinking. Watching the bellhop reveal made me feel as if the writers were encouraging me to think 'Oh, naughty Veronica, do your wacky revenge hijinks know no limits? Girl's got moxie.' While, say, the revenge of the culprit on Veronica in 'Clash of the Tritons' is hardly treated in the same way. I'm uneasy about the writers' proclivity for shifting the moral complexion of their universe so we can feel two different things for what is essentially the same instance of behaviour. I mean, if tomorrow the series were to shift protagonists from Veronica to the bellhop while retaining its current sensibilites, sometime in the next episode the bellhop would carry out an ingenious sting that would out and shame Veronica. There shouldn't be an incongruity between how we're asked to view the regular characters and the one-off peripheral ones.

Aside from the last vengeance-quest (filling the bellhop's trunk with the hotel supplies), and one of the earliest (where she commissioned the bong and planted it in Logan's locker), when else has she been vengeful? I'm not denying she has been. Those are the only two incidents that I can think of, right now.

She banjaxed Dick's car and crushed his surfboard out of spite, if I'm recalling events properly. However, I think that's spillover from the subtler ways she has of articulating her vengfulness. That's why I loved Logan's line about her having a thing for bad boys not because she wants to make them better but because she likes having someone close at hand to judge; that seems to me to be a lot of the reason she private eyes. She says as much in 'Welcome Wagon' while she watches excitedly as the police bring the thief around to the garage. The woman in that scene isn't a person basking in the knowledge that soon property will be restored to its rightful owners; that's a person basking in someone else's suffering. She's smart and she's also an inhabitant of Earth in the year 2006 so she knows the best way to vent one's righteous anger is at someone guilty of a crime. Everybody is guilty of that, to some extent, I think, but, then again, most people haven't built their lives and sense of self worth around it.

Also, 'Drinking the Kool-Aid' has my favourite sequence of the series as Veronica works backwards from the photo to Clarence Weidman. That was a stunning piece of writing.

Well, at least M.A.D. ended with Veronica learning about GHB and Logan alone in the boat with "Crimson and Clover", which is one of my favourite VM episode endings.

I really can't wait for Veronica and Logan to break up. They are SO MUCH more interesting apart than together.

Also, 'Drinking the Kool-Aid' has my favourite sequence of the series as Veronica works backwards from the photo to Clarence Weidman. That was a stunning piece of writing.

Ooh, I just watched it. That is very nice. Also, it very clearly shows Clarence Wiedman's name.

I'm just glad I didn't spell it 'Hulking Security Guy'.

You could have followed Heroes' lead and spelled it "Mysterious Black Guy."

Heh.

It's a fandom pet peeve of mine, like people who can't spell "Lilly."