Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON TWO, EPISODE SIX 'Rat Saw God' (2005)

No one expected the return of Abel Koontz...but maybe
they expected how dark his story becomes.

"Wow. Where did you learn that interrogation technique?"
“"Harvard. Pretty convincing hysterical routine you got. Where'd you learn that?"
“Watching cheerleading tryouts results."

1) It seems like every season after the first, where everything was new and bright and Rob Thomas was setting up the ground rules for the VM Universe, there is always one or more episodes devoted to tying up loose ends from the previous season.  This is that episode from this season, as writer John Enbom and Phil Klemmer address the fate of Christian Clemenson’s Abel Koontz and his daughter.  As such, it’s a very, very dark episode.

2) You wanna know why I hated Clemenson’s recurring character in Boston Legal?  Just watch his performance here as the dying Koontz.  Clemenson only has two scenes, but those scenes run the gambit from compassion to despair to happiness as he is seeking out the fate of his daughter.

3) This is the first episode without Percy Daggs’ participation, as Wallace is off in Chicago following his own subplot.  And even beyond Veronica’s pointing it out, it’s very obvious that Daggs’ presence is missed.  Without Wallace (or for that matter, his mom) to provide a little light in the dark, dim world of Veronica, the world becomes oppresively noir.

Go away, BUFFY creator!  Stop stinking up my show!

4) This is, of course, the Joss Whedon cameo episode and, as much as the Kevin Smith cameo sucked ass, it paled to Whedon’s broad caricature of The Mean Boss to America’s Top Model’s Kim Stoltz.  The less said about him, the better.

5) Oddly enough, the most intriguing aspect of this episode is the presence of Christopher B. Duncan’s Clarence Weidman, and the strange respect that Thomas seems to be growing between him and Veronica.  Do they like each other?  No.  But as their respective investigations into Amelia Delongpre’s fate dovetail, they see something in each other that makes them reliable allies.

6) The surprising return of Harry Hamlin’s Aaron Echols results in two rather strong scenes.  What strikes me, and continues to strike me, about Hamlin’s performance is his absolute conviction that he is A Good Man Who Has Done Nothing Wrong.  Even as he tries to convince Logan that Duncan was the true killer, Hamlin doesn’t seem to understand how monstrous he’s become.  And speaking of those two scenes....

This is the last tender moment these two will have this episode.

7) Those of us, like me, who prefer our Enrico Colantoni hardcore will love his role in this episode.  Don’t be fooled by his more or less lighthearted moments at the top of the hour; once we get deep into the episode, Colantoni’s Keith Mars is all business, culminating in a downright bad ass scene where you expect Keith to be after one thing, only for us to realize what he’s really after and why Aaron should be very worried.  I’ve always said Colantoni is a major player in why I love this show, and this episode is further proof as to why.

8) I’ll call it--even for a show like this, the ending of this done-in-one, where we learn Amelia’s fate and how Veronica chooses to handle telling Abel as he’s literally dying is one of the grimmest ever.  It’s made especially grim by how, by the nature of the mystery, so much of the interaction happens off-screen.  Only when Veronica is face-to-hand with Amelia’s ultimate fate does anything happen immediately.

9) I never was quite comfortable with Ryan Hansen’s promotion to series regular, and this episode makes the argument for me.  The scenes of Dick Casablancas uilizing his father’s outlawdom to get into (a very green, acting-wise) Krysten Ritter’s Gia, or giving Logan the tacit approval to bang his stepmom just feels....weird.

(and if you think his behavior is strange now, wait until we get to next season....)

10) Look, I know that this single episode gets so dark that everyone felt that some serious comic relief was needed--but those scenes with Tracy Walter’s Motel Manager are not only unfunny but They.  Keep.  Coming.  Back.  To. Him.  I would accept an entire mystery built around Joss Whedon’s rent-a-car manager before I watch one more second of that toothless stereotype of a motel guy.

Overall...a truly grim little episode that actually gives some relief to the overarc by having the done-in-one story darker and nastier than it is.  Recommended, but be prepared; saying relief is sparse is being kind.

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE TWENTY-THREE 'Leave It To Beaver' (2006)

By the end of this episode, Lily will find some peace...

"You wanna know something about Joan of Arc, Veronica? God didn't really talk to her. Oh, no, it's true. I saw it on TV, you know, on one of those historical forensic programs. They decided she had a brain turmor. Burned alive. What a waste. She thought her death meant something, but all it meant was she was crazy."

1) This is it--the big season one finale and what was at the time, in Rob Thomas' mind, the series finale. Once again, a lot happens and it might be hard to keep up with all the balls in the air--but knowing what I know about Season Two, I can't help but seeing the role Kyle Gallner's Cassidy has in the way the story develops indicates that Thomas knew where he wanted to go if he got that renewal, and knew what sort of a person Cassidy was...

2) Of course, other loose ends needed to be tied up, and the resolution of the one involving Veronica's paternity allows Thomas to give us a scene that speaks volumes of the Veronica/Keith relationship. The way Bell unhesitatingly signs away her right to pursue legal redress against the Kanes says more than fifteen pages of dialogue could about the strength of that familial bond.

If you just went through what Keith Mars did for his
daughter, you'd be on the floor unconscious, too...

3) I've spoken in praise of Kyle Secor's Jake Kane before, and I'll speak again--the scene where Jake finally breaks it to Duncan that in his mind he killed Lily shows a remarkable passion. It once again proves that Jake didn't start out the cardboard villain he ends up by Season Three.

4) Perhaps the cleverness of this script is how Thomas just piles up the case against Logan in such a way that it compels Veronica to locate the one piece of the puzzle she's missing...which leads to her and Duncan discovering that the murderer was not Logan, but someone one step removed from Logan.

5) There's something truly, wonderfully creepy about how, when the moment of revelation happens, Thomas has the tape paused at a moment where it looks as if Harry Hamlin's Aaron Echolls is looking right at the viewer, a smirk of contempt on his face.

6) Incidentally, this episode--to the best of my knowledge the only one that ran without the opening credits while it was on UPN--has its own theme song, 'Bad Boyfriend' by Garbage. This song plays at several key times in the show, specifically during the final act's confrontation between Veronica and Aaron (and Logan and Weevil)...and, like the Dandy Wharhols song, acts as a de facto Greek Chorus.

He may look inocuous, but Cassidy
will prove to be something
truly sinister next season....

7) I really like the whole horror movie vibe of the whole Veronica/Aaron battle. Director Michael Fields keeps to a blue-and-black color palette, and choereographs everything as if Bell unwittingly stepped into a slasher movie, complete with an old house in the middle of nowhere and a villian who seems capable of the Jason Teleport.

8) The only thing that freaks me out more than the way Aaron has trapped Veronica in a fridge and tries to burn her alive? The trap the villain gets Veronica in next season.

9) You wanna know how convincing an actor Enrico Colantoni is? Not only does this balding, short and goofy looking man convincingly engage in a vicious fight with the larger and more physically fit Harry Hamlin which manages to wreck and entire backyard, he also walks literally through fire to save his daughter and crack wise as he's being sent to the hospital without us once rolling our eyes.

10) Now given that Thomas had not expected the show to be renewed (it may still hold the record as the lowest-rated drama to be renewed for a second season, and was the only new UPN show to survive into the 2006 Season), he expertly wraps up everything quickly. And while the resolution of the Lianne Mars storyline is prime hardboiled fiction, the true wonder is the final bit of magic realism that has Veronica unwittingly witnessing Lily's passing on to the afterlife. It's an ambiguous ending, but a magnificent one.

Overall...an excellent wrap-up of Season One that would have provided the few fans who watched it that first year a satisfying conclusion...if only UPN didn't have other plans for the show.

Next time we begin the Second Season--the last one before UPN is liquidated and becomes part of the CW--and talk a bit about why there really was a second season.

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE NINETEEN 'Hot Dogs' (2006)

"Hi...this dog is responsible for this actress'
inability to be act...have you seen it?

"Congratulations. You've been named the world's biggest cockroach. This award is given in recognition of your unparallell lack of decency and humanity. Bravo. You're gonna die friendless and alone."
"Hey everyone knows you're the biggest--"
"Shut up! If I want you to speak, I'll wave a snausage over your nose. If you use Mandy again to try to convince yourself you're not a loser, I will ruin your life, got it?"

1) This episode is a loose adaptation/take-off of the classic Ed McBain 87th Precient novel King's Ransom--that in turn served as the inspiration for one of my favorite Kurasawa films. High And Low. I mention that as a matter of establishing the historical position of the episode, and also to avoid talking about it much, because it's not very good at all.

2) So skillful is the way Thomas and his writers--in this episode's case Dayna Lynna North--have set up all their pins for this final act that an innocent scene between Weevil and Veronica ends up fraught with possible menace. Yes, Weevil inquires about who could have killed Lily out of a desire to know who murdered someone he cared about...but because we saw all of Veronica's re-enactment, the questions end up sounding sinister.

3) You'll notice that a lot is spent with the B plot focusing on the Ecchols family. Now on first viewing you'll prolly assume this is because Logan just took a big giant step into being Someone Important in the series...but Thomas has an ulterior motive, and it's to his credit, and the credit of Harry Hamlin, Jason Dohring and Alysson Hannigan that we simply don't notice what these scenes are really giving us until after the fact.

4) Boy...Dayna Lynne North hands Lisa Thornhill a scene that could serve to rehabilitate Celeste Kane's character, give us some insight and maybe some sympathy for her...and she cocks even that up. Why she was cast, I will never know.

Hell, after you act your ass off beating your daughter's
boyfriend, you'd want to take a rest as well...

5) Back to the B Plot again...once we get to the halfway mark, starting with the scene between Trina and Aaron, I have to marvel at the acting assayed by both Hannigan and Hamlin. The trick is you know one of these people is lying--you don't know that both of them are until this plot pays out. And in the long run, Thomas uses this scene to give us another clue-in-plain-sight to the resolution of the Lily Kane case. I think Hamlin knew this was a role worth giving a damn about and gave it his all to the benefit of everyone.

6) Okay...Jason Dohring. The amazing thing about what he does in this and the remaining episodes of this season is take a plot development that was absolutely necessary for the mystery to resolve (Veronica never gets vital clues to close the case if she doesn't enter into a relationship with Logan), and sells it totally, all the while giving Logan added depth and smoothing the prickly edges over enough for us to accept him as Veronica's new beau. Granted, in future seasons this relationship becomes an albatross to the show as if becomes something of a shipper's playground but right now, it's the best thing that could have happened.

Heh...a little something for the 'shippers...

7) And sadly, because we need to have Veronica and Logan together right now, we have to say goodbye to Max Greenfield's Leo, who gets dumped (and, to Greenfield's credit, behaves pretty realistically hurt about it) and provides some back-up for the resolution of the A Plot. Pity, because I liked his character, and had problems with how his storyline resolves when he's brought back next season.

8) And speaking of that A Plot...once again, you'll notice I spent very little time talking about it. And the big problem with the A Plot is that Claire Titelman, who plays Mandy, plays the awkward, withdrawn loner so earnestly--and the way her withdrawn-ness is broken is set up so obviously--that it's painful to watch her on screen. I have this horrible feeling that Thomas may have wanted her to be a semi-recurring character like Corny and the Casablancas kids (she does show up in 'Blast From The Past' later on in the series), but thankfully she faded from the series' rear view fairly rapidly.

9) It also doesn't help that, once again, the villains prove to be clots that it should never have taken Veronica that long to find them.

10) I love how this script seemingly exonerates Weevil as a suspect...only to have him thrown back into the active suspect's pool with the final scene of the episode. Granted, it's all one big red herring to keep us distracted while Thomas continues to put the final touches on the final act.

Overall...thankfully the last really bad A Plot episode that's still absolutely essential viewing to get some of the biggest clues to who killed Lily Kane. At least you'll get some great acting from the B Plot cast....

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE TEN 'An Ecchols Family Christmas' (2004)

This may be a Christmas episode--but it's not one fulla cheer....

"Annoy, tiny blonde one. Annoy like the wind."

1) How can you not love an episode (and I love this episode--it's one of my all-time favorites, and arguably my favorite of the first season) that begins with a riff on my favorite number from my favorite Christmas Special, The Year Without A Santa Claus? Keith Mars loves the Miser Brothers, thus he is empirically proven to be a good guy.

2) Diane Ruggerio's script cleverly gives Veronica multiple incentives to take on this week's case-within-the-episode..and also gives her reason to interact with many of the supporting cast to a degree she hasn't before. This is a good thing because....

3) Francis Capra, Teddy Dunn and Jason Dohring are waaaay at the top of their game. They've got the rhythm of the show down dead, and engage in these great back-and-forths full of wonderful lines. Hell, the line I use as the header, which is Dohring's, ranks as one of my favorite lines in the series ever.

There's a good reason these 09'ers ultimately opted out of
rushing for Weevil's budding fraternity....

4) This is prolly the most we see of Lisa Rinna as Lynn Ecchols...and she's actually extremely good. I like how, even before she kinda, sorta apologizes to Keith for not staying in touch, you get the sense that this woman, of all the '09'er parents, is the one person who didn't resent him for doing what he did, who genuinely liked him and still does. Pity she's not much longer for this series.

5) Compare Lynn's interaction with Keith to the way Harry Hamlin's Aaron deals with him...yes, on the surface Aaron is just as warm and friendly as his wife...and yet, there's a sense of panic to the way he guides him to the door, a strange undercurrent of discomfort in his voice. Ladies and gentlemen, you have encountered your first clue in the overarc...and I doubt any of you realize that it was presented to you.

6) Emmanuelle Vaugier is in this as one of the women who is suspected of being Aaron's stalker. As always, she's not that great an actress, but...Emmanuelle Vaugier.

Yes.  I think she's hot.  Deal.

7) Since Veronica's case is more of a standard drawing room mystery, I love how Ruggerio ends up revealing the solution in her version of an Agatha Christie last act, with our heroine bearding the (not very convincing) villain in the scene of the crime. And since the Ecchols Family Christmas Party is going on at the same time....

8) The scene toward the end where Veronica confronts Jake Kane is something else--just as much for Kyle Secor's acting as for Bell's. There's obvious confusion in the way both of these people are interacting, and the way they get even more frustrated in the mass of accusations is magnificent. It's to Secor's credit that when he practically screams 'I don't know,' you believe him...and it's to Bell's credit that when she retorts 'I don't believe you'...you suspect she might believe him a little as well. This, and the little exchange with Celeste that follows, is another indication that Jake Kane is far from a one-dimensional monster....

The beautiful thing about this scene is that things end up
bloody and unpleasant for all three of these people given time...

9) There is a sense of profane beauty to the way the Stalker storyline resolves...but a beauty that is intentionally artifical. And the fact that the stalker turns out to be literally a nobody, someone who walks on at the last minute to stab Aaron...well, let's say we've just been handed another clue we won't even know we had until the end of this season.

10) If there is one sour note, it is the overtly affected performance by Kevin Sheridan as Sean Friedrich. It's so arch, so mannered that it's hard not to think he's the villain in Veronica's subplot.

Overall...as I said, this is one of my favorite episode--not just because it is fun and exciting, not just because it shows most of the cast at the top of their game, but because during this forty-some-odd minutes we learn a lot about a lot of these characters in their behavior and interaction with each other....and in the course of these interaction, learn some things we don't realize we learn until the resolution of this season's mystery has shaken out.

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE SIX 'Return of The Kane' (2004)

"Yeah, and I bet this is how Jeb Bush did it, too..."

"Arrest records. Evidence Log. Autopsy Report. How many times do I have to look at this stuff? Until it starts to make sense."
 

1) Even before the credits, alot gets done--we finally get introduced to the Echols parents, played by real life celebrity couple Harry Hamlin and Lisa 'Fish Lips' Rinna; we see the storyline involving Jake Kane's pushing Duncan to be more involved progressed; we establish a little more about Wallace in setting up the central mystery for this episode; we are introduced to Abel Koontz (played by the highly underrated Christian Clemenson), the supposed killer of Lily; and we get Kristen Bell making sundaes. Okay, so that last part is only of interest to me, but still...it's obvious that Thomas--who wrote the story for scripter Phil Klemmer--is getting ready to start kicking things into high gear.

2) Oh, and one more thing...Amanda Seyfried pops up for the first time as a vision/guiding spirit, helping her piece together the mystery of her own murder. Supposedly, Seyfriend was only to appear in a small number of episodes, but Thomas liked the energy she brought to the set so much, he kept adding her to other stories...and boy, does the ghoulish chemistry between Veronica and Lily just supercharges every scene they're in together.

3) I'm still not sure why the whole 'Bum Fights' angle gets dragged into this story; it really doesn't interact much with the actual 'student election/Pirate Points' main spine...yes, it does help define the sort of home life Logan suffers through, but it could just as easily have been dropped into a dozen other stories.

Jane Lynch..torturing kids
since 2004...

4) Wow, Jane Lynch was being a bitch to high schoolers loooooooong before Glee, you Gleeks.

5) You really have to wonder if the whole storyline revolving around the school election was a reaction to the whole 'hanging chad' situation--which still rubbed some people the wrong way four years later.

6) While this may not look like a significant introduction, Madison Sinclair, played to Heather-y perfection by Amanda Noret makes an impression...and becomes a very significant thorn in Veronica's side as this season and next continues...

7) There's a definite parallel between Kyle Secor's Jake Kane who (at least at this point) is a well-rounded character who actively wants what's best for his son, and Hamlin's Aaron Echolls, whose only thoughts are of himself. This will play out as we go deep into Season One.

As we'll learn as we get deeper into season one, all families
are unhappy in their own way...and the Echolls family's
unhappiness is a dark and perverse one...

8) The sequence that begins with Logan picked out a belt from a large closet full of them and ends with Lisa Rinna sitting alone with an enigmatic look on her face, drinking while the sounds of a beating reverberate through the house, is powerful film noir manque. Rinna has never been a great actress, but she does have moments of greatness...this one, where she is a modern Sphinx, her reaction to the violence elsewhere unreadable, is one of those moments of greatness.

9) The whole throughline involving Wanda and Veronica may seem a little deux ex machina...but I do think it serves to shore up the film noir cred of the series--namely, that anybody can betray our heroine, and anybody can prove to be an ally.

10) The stinger, which sort of brings the Abel Koontz situation to the fore for future episode, works here--it's a cliffhanger-without-being-a-cliffhanger, driving us to follow on to next week.

Overall....this is a collection of great moments that maybe shouldn't be hanging out together, but is still a great lil' forty-some-odd minutes thanks to a lot of set-up and advancement of individual story arcs.