Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON TWO, EPISODE FIVE 'Blast From The Past' (2005)

Admittedly, a chicken outfit is not involved in any of
the fantasies I have about Kristen Bell.

"I'll need an orchid wristlet, preferably in the fushia family, a Rolls Royce limo, and some Kane Software stationary."
"Seriously? Stationary? What for?"

"You're here for your looks. Why don't you leave the heavy thinking to me, sugarpants?"

1) We start a couple of minutes after last episode ended, with Wallace confronting his mother about Nathan. This storyline is coming to a head pretty rapidly, and will result in Wallace disappearing for a stretch only to return in a diminshed role, and Alicia disappearing altogether. However...

2) this is the first 'let's get Veronica and Jackie to bond' episode...and if you've been following my journey through the show, you'll know how much I'm down on that. To be fair, there is another one of these episodes that's a little more effective down the line, and the neat little inversion (Jackie wants to hire Veronica to prove her friend Cora didn't do it in spite of all the evidence, but this outing just doesn't quite rid us of Jackie-stank to work.

This episode is a showcase for Percy Daggs...just in time for
him to be sent away for a while...

3) Boy, Percy Daggs got some pipes on him...and he chooses to rebuke his dad with Motown!

4) You know what I find really, really strange? It's established very early on that this is all taking place during the days leading up to Homecoming--and yet the Bus Crash Overarc is not mentioned at all. It does get brought up elsewhere (as we'll get to in Point 5), but the fact that it doesn't come up during this rather important part of the school year is odd; especially since it could've been solved with a single line of dialogue claiming the Dance is in memory of the Bus Crash dead, or that some students are questioning holding it. A strange misstep for a script crew that's usually spot on.

5) The moment where Veronica listens in to a phone message left by one of The Bus Crash Dead is truly horrifying...and Kristen Bell sells it, and sells it well..

6) I like how director Harry Winer handles Veronica's bugging of Lamb...when she fast forwards through the recording, we cut to the squadroom in fast motion...until, of course, we're hit with the revelation of Terence Cook's secret shame.

7) And here's why this episode does not succeed in getting us more on Jackie's side...by having her get some digs at Veronica through the psychic, she comes off as even more petty and nasty than we've been assuming up to this point...especially given how Veronica has spent quite some time helping her out. Being played by Tessa Thompson doesn't help endear her much, either...

"...and then our growing closer will be stunted by my doing
something petty against you...it's to laugh, right?"

8) Now here's why I am so going to miss Percy Daggs when he is demoted to secondary sidekick soon...there is a scene here where he confronts Veronica and basically gets her dead to rights. It's a brilliantly written scene, all the more so because Wallace is correct in his assessment about the situation. But it would not have worked if Daggs wasn't able to give it the emotional heft it needed. Hell, the contrasting of how he speaks to Veronica, with passion and anger, to the way he speaks to Jackie in the next scene, drives home how close these two characters are.

9) We get another example of Enrico Colantoni's physical acting--the anguish on his face after hearing the phone message speaks volumes about how conflicted he is about telling Veronica he won't use the Bus Crash as leverage to win the election.

10) If you thought wasting time with a Dandy Warhol was a good idea, keep an eye out for the band at Homecoming. That's The Faders, an all-girl group who had the first in a series of...let me check...one hit, getting a rather generous chunk of air time.

Overall...this episode could have been a disaster, but it is salvaged by the reintroduction of the Overarc in the back end. There's some truly choice elements in here, so try to ignore the screechy performance by Erica Gimpel, the hamhanded handling of the Nathan Cook storyline and other missteps and enjoy the diamonds in this pile of chiffon.

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE EIGHTTEEN 'Weapons of Class Destruction' (2006)

Yes, yes, this is the one..you can calm down now.

"Dear Seventeen Magazine, how can I tell if the super-cute boy in my class likes me? No, scratch that....Dear Seventeen, how can I tell if the super-cute boy in my class killed his own sister?"

1) This and the next couple of episodes, in keeping with the tying up loose ends before the climax idea, comprise a little mini-arc involving Keith's dating of Wallace's mom (a returning Erica Gimpel), and the return of Lianne Mars. This is the strength of this very, very weak--dare I call it bad--episode.

2) Joey Lauren Adams, she of the lil' girl voice in the early Kevin Smith movies, suddenly makes her only appearance as Geena Stafford, the new faculty advisor of the school newspaper. This is pretty much a clear indication that Sydney Tamiia Portier was not coming back, as her character is never mentioned again. And after this episode, neither is Adams'.

3) I've sung the praises of Duane Daniels' Mr. Clemmons before, and I'm going to again--while he may be an impediment to Veronica in the A plot, the beauty of Jed Seidel's script is that there's a grain of truth in what he's saying...namely, he does have an obligation to protect the student body that Veronica and Ms. Stafford interfered with. Daniels continues to add more and more nuance to what could have been a cardboard character, a process that will culminate in an excellent episode down the line.

"And I learned this trick from watching Jackie Chan movies."

4) What's not excellent is the performance of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. He is thoroughly unconvincing throughout--the man seems to feel the best way to sound sinister is to channel his inner Christian Slater channeling his inner Jack Nicholson--and because the effectiveness of the A Plot rests on him, the A Plot fails.

5) And its doubly aggravating because it takes away from the performance of Theo Rossi as Norris. Rossi manages to create a very three dimensional character from what could have been a stereotypical thug. He allows us to see a bit of his inner life, and his true nature during his interactions with Veronica.

6) There is a scene at roughly the twenty-one minute mark between Veronica and Duncan that acts as a showcase for Teddy Dunn; he goes through a number of emotions, and what's even more amazing is what his body language tells us he's really thinking.

Mr. Taylor Thomas, you're sending this episode down that
toilet....

7) But you don't want to know about all this stuff...you want to know about The Kiss. Yes, what Rob Thomas and his room of writers have been leading up to finally goes off with Logan and Veronica's first kiss. I remember how shocked I was at seeing this moment when I viewed the episode for the first time, and it continues to have a sort of impulsiveness even now after five years. But then, pulling the trigger on their relationship is vital to getting Veronica in position in the coming episodes to put the pieces together.

8) The one thing that puzzles me about the A Plot--besides why we had to put up with Jonathan Taylor Thomas' cliched performance--is that it's established very clearly that Norris' bullying stopped around Junior High School. We never quite learn why, however, which is doubly puzzling given that the ultimate reason why Norris was set up ties in with his history of bullying. I suspect that Seidel's reference to Norris' father giving him an incentive to keep up his grades with a tour of Japan has something to do with it, but it's only a fleeting reference. Usually I'm not that worried about dangling plot threads, but here it bugs me.

9) I sort of wish the tension between Veronica and Wallace over their parents' romance had extended beyond a couple of act. It just seems like there was a wealth of quipping and interactions that goes to waste after they get all chummy again....

10) As corny as it is, I still rather like how Veronica takes up the just fired Ms. Stafford's mantle in the moments after she exits the journalism room.

Overall...the real good moments in the overarc aside, this is a pretty poor A plot built around an atrocious performance by a failed child actor. Try to suffer through the bull and focus on the few good moments...and try not to realize that an even worse episode is coming up next time.

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE EIGHT 'Like A Virgin' (2004)

Needless to say...in my dreams, she's not wearing a bra.  But
then, sometimes in my dreams, she turns into a giant bird and
pecks at my eyes....

"Meg, you're the last good person in this school. I believe cartoon birds braided your hair this morning. If you want, I can find out who posted that test for you. It'll clear you name, and make somebody pay...unless there's a fairy godmother already on it."

1) While it is true we get two new character introductions--Alona Tal's Meg, who will become very significant towards the end of this season, and Erica Gimpel as Wallace's mother Alice, who becomes extremely significant to Keith Mars' character arc--I can't help but point out the second appearance of Daran Norris' Cliff McCormack, who plays a part in this episode's B plot surrounding Abel Koontz. I really, really like Cliff...he's funny, and an excellent foil for Veronica.
 

2) I enjoy how, in the last scene before the credits (we're still in The Land of The Extraordinarily Long Teaser), Veronica is basking in the chaos caused by the Purity Test Purchase scheme...until she sees that it hurts someone she cares about. That slow transition from schoolgirl taking some pleasure in karmic payback to the private detective seeker of vengeance for Meg is another indication of why Rob Thomas needed Kristen Bell for this series to work.

3) And here, at the 9:30 mark, we are introduced to Tina Majorino's Mac. Mac becomes the Willow to Veronica's Buffy very, very rapidly--there's a large chunk of Season Two where she pretty much replaces Wallace whole--and, much like Alyson Hannigan in the Whedon-verse, Tina Majorino injects some serious nerd cool into the series.

4) Alona Tal does fulfill a vital function in this season--namely, she gives the 09'ers a human face. Up until this point, all we've seen of them outside of the series regulars are a bunch of douches up to no good--Tal is an inherently likeable actress, and that likability rubs off on Meg to give Veronica an ally on the inside. Granted, next season she gets pretty badly messed up, but now...

This may not be The Face of Evil...but Christian Clemmenson
makes you believe it is.

5) Since this episode revolves around reputations, we get a fairly keen insight into how Veronica feels about her present reputation--and it's very telling that the only time she's upset by what is being said about her is during a scene with Wallace where she learns what his mother thinks of her.

6) To this day...whenever I think of Enrico Colantoni, the first thing that pops into my head is the scene in this episode where he bullies Alice Fennel's tenant into moving. At turns ice-cold and humorous, Colantoni thoroughly sells us on how Keith Mars is Not A Man To Mess With. The sight of him howling, mad eyed and pointing at the con man, who is practically driven to tears, is priceless.

7) The final resolution as to who put up the Purity Test website is subtle, and serves to shore up the cred of the person behind it--and since the true, nasty villains are exposed as not being connected to this mastermind, it assures us that this person will be back.

8) I know that the scene with Abel Koontz is there mainly to set up what will be a major thread in the overarc's second act...but get a load of Christian Clemmenson. Starting out as cordial and buying into Veronica's deception, he effortlessly becomes more and more sinister until he mocks her for not knowing certain facts about background. Clemmenson (who will go from here to become a sideshow in David E. Kelley's Boston Legal) is truly scary in this moment.

9) I know I have praised Bell in the past for her acting...but as much as I understand how Clemmenson's performance should be enough to send Veronica into a teary panic attack...well, I don't buy the teary panic she evokes.

Every hero needs a nerdy, technologically gifted sidekick,
Veronica...here's yours...

10) You know...I'm somewhat shocked at how much each episode is crammed with. Between the A and B plot, and the Keith Mars/Alice Fennel subplot and all the introductions, I didn't realize this is missing such major characters as Logan and Weevil.

Overall...a whole lot happens here, and a whole lot of it is good on so many levels. A definite improvement after the 'very special episode' of last week.