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 ONE, EPISODE ELEVEN 'Silence Of The Lamb' (2005)

Sometimes there's a reason someone acts like Bizarro-You...

"It is big--like, life altering big, so you should really think about if you want to hear it or if you'd rather just forget it and go on with your life. And may I suggest Option B."

1) Since we're now into 'Act Two' of our longform story, some of the 'Done-In-One' mysteries get a little more serious--thus the E-String Strangler serial killer investigation that Keith Mars has to collaborate with Michael Muhney's Sheriff Lamb on. It helps give us a fuller idea of Lamb's personality and back story, just as Veronica's case illuminates Mac.

2) And a new Act means a few new characters. In addition to Madison Sinclair returning to take a fuller role, we're introduced to Max Greenfield's Deputy Leo, who will be Veronica's romantic interest for the next stretch of stories.

Veronica's new romantic interest is more virtuous
than her last one...but has his own edge.

3) The script by Jed Seidel and Dayna Lynn North effectively builds up Mac's parents as loving if boorish. In fact, both the parent sets are pretty decent. But then, when you have Amanda Norel making like the Prep-School Devil as Madison, that makes up for the older characters being decent variations on a theme....

4) As the cases get more intense, so does Keith Mars' behavior. Watching him knock down a suspect he's interrogating when he makes a comment about Veronica drives home how this is Not A Man To Fuck With.

5) There's a whole Nature Versus Nurture angle that I'm not sure sits well with the episode. It sort of muddies the water a bit, and isn't really addressed fully.

6) It's interesting how Lamb and Keith, the deeper into the case they get, begin to act as a unit.

The transition is seamless in spots, and I have to attribute that to Muhney and Colantoni's skill as actors to build a chemistry out of antagonism...and tear it apart once this sequence of their character arcs are done.

7) The chemistry between Greenfield and Bell is genuine--which somewhat covers up the fact that at least at this point, Veronica is using Deputy Leo solely to advance her own agenda regarding the Lily Kane case. This scene, by the way, also locks in Veronica's age as 17.

This episode illuminates Mac, while cementing her relationship
with Veronica.

8) The scene between Mac and Bridget Hoffman's Ellen Sinclair are truly heartbreaking. Part of this is because the casting agent took the time to make sure there's a definite resemblance between Hoffman, Tina Majorino and Carlie Westermann, who plays Madison's sister Lauren. Seeing all three in the same room emphasizes that this should have been Mac's family...which makes what transpires all the sadder.

9) As much as I enjoyed the whole Keith Mars/Strangler storyline, it does irk me that the mystery is resolved--after a whole lot of hardcore detective work--with a hunch that would not have come to Keith if he hadn't worriedly tracked Veronica down.

10) And here, at the very end, we get the first in media res appearance of Clarence Weiderman, indicating that the next phase of this overarc is firmly on....

Overall...a fairly good episode that shows how much more confident Thomas is becoming. Both plots balance well, both plots illuminate different relationships, and both--more or less resolve well. And it gets better from here.