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--No, Wait, Eleven!About....VERONICA MARS (2014)

Welcome back, O Angel of Vengeance...I agree with Logan
when he says you should always wear this!

1) I know that making a film liberates you from certain things, but it’s still weird for me to hear the characters cursing from time to time.

2) I love how writer/director/series creator Rob Thomas finds a way to squeeze in as many of the show’s recurring characters as possible I was particularly happy to see Veronica bailed out by my favorite character of all, Daran orris' Cliff).  The second act set piece of the high school reunion does allow Thomas to drag in such obscure characters as Korny while also setting up the plot thread that will lead Veronica to the solution of the mystery.

3) There are a couple of really shocking cameos.  Besides Jamie Lee Curtis, whose presence in the film is spoiled by the trailer (and, to be fair, has her cameo extremely early in the film), there’s a surprising and extremely funny extended cameo in the second act that totally blindsided me, and also provides the basis for the post-credit sequence.

4) I am somewhat disappointed that Kristen Bell only dons what I like to call her ‘Angel of Vengeance’

It''s interesting how this shot echoes the first shot of the
pilot...

black gear once, a outfit that makes her look so good that I had to agree with Jason Dohring’s Logan when he says “You should dress like this all the time.”

5) The violence has been upped--there’s a moment involving a hit and run that is as graphic as it is shocking because of the victims involved--but it doesn’t seem out of place in Veronica’s world.  After all, Thomas consciously patterned the series after classic hardboiled detective fiction.

6) If there’s one frustrating thing, it’s the way the subplot about the corruption in the Neptune police department, headed by Jerry O’Connell’s Sheriff Dan Lamb never goes anywhere.  This is established very early on, and there are implications that this corruption has a hand in both the A and B plots, but it’s never resolved.  Even Lamb’s final comeuppance is unconnected to this subplot.

7) I am heartened that the film is very clear that the central relationship is not the one between Veronica and Logan, but between Veronica and Enrico Colantoni’s Keith Mars.  The chemistry between the two is still palatable and immediate, and watching them interact together is a joy to behold.

The Three Musketeers of Neptune High are on the case again!

8) As the series always did, the use of music is very effective.  The way Thomas sneaks in an acoustic version of the show’s theme in the first act to represent Veronica’s distance from her former life is great, and this is probably the only film that would think to use a Luther Vandross song in a suspenseful action sequence.

9)  It is amazing how some recurring members of the cast--Francis Capra’s Weevil, Amanda Noret’s Madison, Brandon Hillock’s Deputy Sachs--seemed to have not changed a bit.  On the other hand, it’s rather shocking to see how other cast members--in particular, Ken Marino’s Vinnie Van Lowe and Duane Daniels’ Principal Clemmons--have not aged well at all.

10) I sort of gathered where Veronica’s character arc was going to end up, but it still didn’t stop me from feeling a frisson of pleasure when she reached that final moment, kicked up her heels and finished her monologue about being an addict.

11) Perhaps the single coolest moment?  The title card at the end where Thomas thanks all of us Marsmellows for their undying devotion and the legions of us who kicked in to the Kickstarter to make this all happen.

Overall...I admit, I’m biased.  I love returning to Neptune and spending two hours with my beloved friends.  I just hope this film makes enough money that a second film will be warranted, because I missed seeing Kristen Bell as The Angel of Vengeance.