Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON TWO, EPISODE SEVEN 'Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner' (2005)

"Duncan, I know Wallace Fennel...and you are no Wallace
Fennel."

" A ten year-old boy who voluntarily washes his hands, who enjoys quiet time, and does what he's told with a smile. If he doesn't pick his nose soon, I'm looking for wires."

1) While there is some lip service given to there being a done-in-one plot, this is really Diane Ruggiero setting up a whole slew of threads for the second act of this season’s mystery.  And it’s to her credit that some of these thread set ups are very, very subtle.

2) And that done-in-one is a Trojan Horse that advances Duncan’s subplot while foreshadowing the reintroduction of Alona Tal’s Meg, and her ultimate role as this season’s Lilly Kane stand-in.  And, quite frankly, the final reveal is truly shocking.

3) This may be the only time that Michael Muhney’s Sheriff Lamb acts like a human being.  After a healthy dollop of comic relief, Lamb actually acts like a sheriff when confronted with what Veronica and Duncan discover.  It’s a rare moment that gives this otherwise one dimensional character a little nuance.

4) While I understand that at this phase of the Kendall Casablancas’ character arc, she’s serving as the lead up to the Fitzpatrick subplot (more on this in later episodes), but too much is spent on her striving to stay a woman of leisure in light of her husband’s disappearance.  Now maybe some of this is my feeling that a little Charisma Carpenter goes a long way, but I could really do without her taking up so much running time.  On top of that, there’s that weird little grace note that seems designed to throw doubt into the Veronica/Duncan storyline that I don’t recall going anywhere.

This scene is the one that almost makes
it worthwhile.

5) Boy, Krysten Ritter is a touch broad at this phase in her career.  I gather that Gia is supposed to be a spoiled rich girl trying to hard to fit in and become part of the Cool Clique, but her forced cherriness and cluelessness seems too forced.  Even though she gets much, much better in the years following her one year tenure here but at this moment...Yikes!

6) I am still amazed at how subtle some of the clues as to the solution of the season mystery is.  There’s a single line of dialogue from the person who turns out to be the villain, and its not until you’ve seen the mystery play out that you realize he’s trying to escape the scene of the crime.

7) It strikes me that there’s what I assume to be a conscious parallel between a scene with Steve Guttenberg’s Wally Goodman an his son and the scene in season one where Logan enters The Belt Room.  What it says about Goodman speaks volumes once we realize the skeleton in his closet.

8) This is the beginning of the Dr. Thomas Griffith subplot.  Maybe it’s because Rick Peters isn’t that great of an actor; maybe it’s because I know how this storyline goes nowhere...but it turns out to be really, really awful.

Not the picture I would draw of Kristen Bell, to be honest.

9) You know, I would not have known that was supposed to be Amanda Noret’s Madison Sinclair at Gia’s pajama party landing zings against Veronica if it wasn't for the closing credits.  Given how massive an influence Madison has in Veronica Mars mythology (so much so that the movie goes out of its way to give us a scene of Veronica slugging her), making her appearance in this episode so generic is puzzling.

10) In this episode, there is an attempt to make Duncan into a Wallace Manque....and Teddy Dunn thoroughly fails to live up to the task.  His lameness in Watsoning Veronica only makes one yearn for Percy Daggs all the more.

Overall...the final third almost makes up for the scattershot nature of the rest of the episode, as the episode tries too much to cover all its bases.

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.