Happy Halloween, kiddos:
President Evil. It’s Halloween at Hearst and while Veronica (Kristen Bell) is looking for Logan (Jason Dohring) at the underground campus casino, the place is robbed and the thieves take Veronica’s necklace, given to her by Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried, who does not appear in the episode).
Meanwhile, Dean O’Dell (guest star Ed Begley, Jr., "Arrested Development") and his wife Mindy (guest star Jamie Ray Newman, "E Ring") seek Keith’s (Enrico Colantoni) help in tracking down Steve (guest star Richard Grieco, "21 Jump Street"), the biological father of Mindy’s son, who is deathly ill. Wallace (Percy Daggs III), distracted by a new group of friends, struggles to pass his Mechanical Engineering class. Ryan Hansen, Michael Muhney, Tina Majorino, Chris Lowell, Francis Capra and Julie Gonzalo also star. Nick Marck directed the episode written by Jonathan Moskin and David Mulei.
Looks like a lot going on…
I hope that Weevil’s sole function this season won’t be to act as the perpetual red herring. Why this season should be different that the first two is beyond me, but I’m optimistic. I’m sort of hoping he’ll assist Veronica more, since he has shown a certain penchant for detective-work in his brief stint working at her fathers agency. But I found it odd that Weevil would think that he was a good enough friend of Veronica’s to be above her suspicion. She’s suspicious of everyone, except for her father and, perhaps, Wallace. (Speaking of which: what’s up with him? What’s with the Lee Press-on Subplot? It’s good to see him, but it would be better if his subplot didn’t make me think of “Felicity”. And if he actually interacted with the rest of the cast.) Veronica is suspicious of her boyfriends, her mother, you name it; and THEY weren’t regaling Veronica’s class with the stories of various biker-gang misadventures. Part of being Veronica’s friend is that you’re always under suspicion. Which is why you shouldn’t do anything wrong if you’re V’s friend; if you do, it will out.
Am I the only one who always likes to see Cliff? For some reason, I just like his unapologetic smarminess.
I was unaccountably pleased by Veronica grabbing the locket off that bratty little kid. For a moment I was afraid that Veronica was feeling guilty about turning in the girl’s father; and maybe that’s how Veronica felt, until she saw the locket around the girl’s neck. It helps that the girl was very unsympathetic.
I love to see Cliff too, and he was especially terrific in this episode.
They crammed in a lot of plot, some of it pretty silly. They had to create a whole voice-over studio and play-act goofy roles just to put the (oddly preserved) Grieco in contact with the couple? Couldn’t they just go to his apartment? I wondered if this was a deliberate homage to 21 Jump Street.
But I enjoyed the whole episode, and it was a relief to see mysteries get resolved. Lots of great moments between the characters, Veronica in top form, and a tiny but classic Logan scene when Veronica meets the film student.
The only thing that bothered me was Weevil, who seems to have lost his edge and become a jolly cartoon version of his old self. Also, something was wrong with his face; even through makeup, it looked like he was covered in boils. Maybe it’s an actor problem rather than a script or direction problem? There was nothing wrong with his lines; if he’d played them differently, he would have felt like real Weevil.
I miss the Weevil/Logan alliance.
The plot around the campus rapes is thickening; I hope we see some progress on that soon.
And I still love the opening credits, y’all.
So Claire’s “rape” is a red herring? Who was it that said something about the feminist cabal having more of an agenda than was already apparent? Odd. I’m feeling a disconnect with all the college stuff, because so few of the characters have a history with Veronica; at the high school everyone was either a former friend or a lifelong enemy. These people are just faceless. And their “bald” wigs are really bad-looking.
I liked seeing more of Backup. He rocks.
The Keith storyline was strange. I don’t think I really got it. Also, with Veronica I think they were trying to make us feel like she lost her head over the necklace and thus went after Weevil; but I wasn’t really buying it. She was too obviously wrong, and since 99.99% of the time she’s good about keeping her emotions out of the way of the facts, I wanted more evidence of her head-losing.
I’m still waiting for this season to click for me, overall. Still love the show, but I’m not hooked on any particular aspect at the moment. But I would like to make a prediction about season mystery #2: someone kills the “study guide” guy. Just a shot in the dark.
I was exhausted when we watched this last night, so I really need to see it again. That said, always good to see Cliff (welcome back, Bill!).
Of course, Claire’s rape is “staged” — but I honestly don’t know how I feel about the portrayal of the overt “feminists” on the show if this is where they’re taking them. Even if the intent is portrayed as good, I hope this goes somewhere more nuanced than we’ve seen with the peripheral players to date.
I’m actually liking Ed Begley Jr. And puh-leeze, like Grieco needs his bone marrow. The man is — as someone else noted — apparently pickled.
Oh, Wallace. I don’t like where this is going. Unless it gets him off the sports team. I’d prefer studies-a-lot Wallace to sporty Wallace, I think.
Looks like maybe we’ll get the Logan/V split next week and I am beyond ready. Logan has just not been nearly as interesting this season; he’s like neutered Spike sorta, only less funny.
Where is Mac?
The Keith subplot this week was riddled with holes. Bone cancer can’t be treated with a bone marrow transplant – it’s the bone that’s cancerous, not the marrow (I’m guessing the writers meant to say the kid had leukemia, although it’s strange that they messed up given that it’s such a common TV trope). Also, why did the parents go directly from begging for the father’s marrow to kidnapping him, without passing through bribery, especially given that they were willing (and able) to resort to it in order to stop him from pressing charges? Finally, am I supposed to believe that the kid shows up at a San Diego hospital with either an unconscious father or a cooler full of bone marrow and the hospital performed the transplant? Ridiculous.
It’s not exactly unheard of for VM to twist or ignore facts in order to tell the story they want to tell (see Duncan having to kidnap baby Lilly because no court would grant him custody, or the Aaron Echolls trial), but I think it’s been happening more and more often lately. This isn’t the kind of indulgence that a detective story can demand from its audience for very long.
I really don’t know what to think about Veronica taking the necklace off the girl’s neck. On the one hand, I was cheering (although I think the writers cheated by making the kid so objectionable) because it’s so very hardcore Veronica. On the other hand, I’m wondering if the word I should be using is ‘hardened’. There’s been something a little off about Veronica this season – she’s too prickly, too distrustful, too combative. She acts like she’s got the world figured out, as if she already knows that everyone’s out to get her so she’s going to get them first. I’m hoping the writers plan to go somewhere with this, rather than that they’ve fallen into the Buffy trap of turning their character into such an extreme version of herself that no non-fiction human being could possibly like her.
I can definitely see your point about how combative Veronica has been. I wonder how well the mini-mysteries are going to help with that; with the arcs for both of the first two seasons, the mysteries had profound personal significance for her. That did a lot to humanize her. I don’t see that happening if she is just solving various mysteries that are around her.
Matt noticed something–in the scene where Veronica’s at the police station and the sheriff does the robot? You can hear a guy in the background saying “Hey, guys, Sheriff’s doing the robot again! Where’s my cameraphone?”
We heard that too — so funny!
Sheriff Lamb is more likeable now, isn’t he? Same old jerk, but since his petty authority is less central to the other characters’ lives, it’s easier to take. And I felt like, after all the neurotic college anxiety swirling around in the air, it was refreshing to see him just being himself.
Whatever their past history, just by having been through so much stuff together, Lamb and Veronica do know each other in a way that’s kind of comfortable. It’s good to see, after a few weeks of all-new interactions with people who, as Dave said, we don’t really know or care about yet.