Tonight’s the one with the big alternate ending afterward at AOL AND the Willow v. Cordelia scene. Here’s the cap:
"My Mother, The Fiend." Veronica stumbles on her mother’s permanent record at school and learns that she might not have known her mother at all. Alyson Hannigan, Tina Majorino and Lisa Thornhill guest star.
And Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Tribune’s Watcher blog has a lengthy post raving about the ep and VM in general. Watch!
Updated to add two things:
I’m chomping at the bit for tonight’s episode.
I’ve posted a summary of most of the S2 arc mystery stuff (http://www.chrismclaren.com/blog/archives/2005/11/30/keeping-track-of-veronica-mars-s2/) that will definitely be of interest to you.
Oh, me too! I’ve spent a shameful amount of time at the TWP boards, considering how much stuff is piled up around me.
Excellent Season 2 postage, dearie!
AAAARGH!
Connecting to the AOL site for the ‘alternate ending’ gets me a video window with an AOL logo and the message “This content not available outside the United States”.
Nice. Because, of course, the show is not broadcast anywhere outside the United States.{insert curse}.
Now I shall have to wait until the alternate ending becomes available by some other means.
If someone who can see it could post a short summary of the difference, I would appreciate it.
Very minor differences in the last minute, and yet annoyingly they posted nine minutes. (I’m sure someone will have it up elsewhere by tomorrow; I’ll post a link here if I see one.)
Basically, Meg’s mom comes in just after the pregnant belly reveal and Veronica hides behind a door, watching. You hear Meg’s mom say something about her socks being turned down and then something else and the heart monitor stops. Cut to: Veronica taking a pillow off Meg’s face just in time for a nurse to barge in and ask what she’s doing. End of episode.
Thanks.
So, about tonight:
1) I totally called that there was no way VP man puts Veronica in the file room unless he _wants_ her to find something. My wife thinks I am psychic.
It would have been even better to show us the nameplate switch without the exposition from Veronica, but I guess they need to spoonfeed the audience a bit.
2) Loved Weevil & Logan’s scene, but let’s be honest–there is no way Logan has a chance at all in that fight. It looked much closer than it should have, even considering that Weevil was damaged.
3) The Rat is back.
4) Wallace, why have you forsaken us.
5) Am I wrong, or was this the first time VM has realised, and of her own accord, that there might be consequences to running one of her scams? Convenient how that all worked out in this case.
6) “I’ve been in both of your beds”? But no stick-shifting? Why are they trying to create a did he / didn’t he if they are going to be this obvious that he didn’t?
7) I hate to say it, but Hannigan was over the top. It was too much/
8) In original ending, are we meant to think that the coma is a trick to hide the pregnancy, or that she just woke up coincidentally at that moment. I lean towards the first, which makes me wonder if Duncan already knows–the previous hospital visits that VM didn’t know about…
One little note on the alt ending: I have now seen another interpretation of the audio (which was pretty crappy on mine) where socks = psalms and the mom turns up the music is the other sound.
Mostly agree with your thoughts — I enjoyed the Cordy and Willow scene so much though, even if Hannigan was a little bit much in other parts of the ep. But it’d be hard to play that character any other way and I think it’s probably intentional. Overacting to the right degree is a hard trick to pull off.
Love Mac and Beaver the Budding Couple. So cute. And did they style him for tonight’s episode or what?
Oh, for Duncan’s death next week, but of course it won’t be. Sigh.
Enough already: BRING BACK WALLACE!
(Mr. McLaren, you should really read Rats Saw God if you haven’t already; very much sympatico with VM.)
Regarding the original ending, I assume that it was a coincidental wake-up. Faking a coma is pretty much impossible.
Regarding the alternate ending, yes, the mother turned up the music that was playing in Meg’s room. But what’s with the pillow over the face? The heart monitor was giving its flatline alarm. Are we supposed to believe that the mother smothered Meg in a matter of seconds (with no struggle or increase in heartrate), and Veronica will be blamed for murder? Or did the mother just disconnect the monitor?
And how is Celeste Kane not in jail for obstruction of justice?
I didn’t mean “faking out the doctors”, I meant that the family was announcing coma and paying for a private room in order to hide the pregnancy.
The biggest logic (and/or continuity) problem for me this season is that I still don’t understand why double jeopardy wouldn’t apply in Logan’s case. I talked to a lawyer the other day who said if the case got to a courtroom and Logan went free that it wouldn’t matter who came forward afterward, he’s scot free except for potential civil suits.
I don’t really get the alternate ending. The only thing I can think is maybe that was the original ending, but the network balked and said “OK, we’ll test it”? I like the dark, but I don’t like the detective-looking-suspicious-at-the-scene-of-the-crime cliche.
I am in love with Mac, but did Beaver have a personality transplant or what? He was acting very unlike the Beaver I have known and looked upon with a sort of head-shaking affection. Now he is suddenly confident. It’s weird.
I thought the Kanes’ legal fates were being drawn out by the lawyers, but now that you mention it, Ted, that was weird.
And Yes on the Wallace thing. Last night I was sorely tempted to spoil myself on if and when he might return, but I was able to forbear. For now.
Poor Hannigan. Charisma can do bitchy (and, um, Hawt) just about anywhere, but I can’t look at Alyson without seeing Willow, so everything she does seems slightly off to me. I am the Fan Who Can’t Forget.
Okay, on the Hannigan question — as someone in LA, it was DELICIOUS to see her play that character, b/c those people exist (though the drama teacher bits were bad, it’s true) and Hannigan is clearly REALLY BITTER about them existing. The “pervy messages on my voicemail” line was pitch-perfect. I care not about the overacting. It was nearly… cathartic.
Why did the nurse just come in and yell at Veronica and not do anything about the FLATLINED HEART MONITOR? She treated Veronica like an annoyance, and seemed to ignore the patient. I cannot deal.
I liked the mom mystery, but it felt like such a placeholder. The whole episode, I’m like — and why are we doing this again? The episode felt scattered. And I am no longer buying Charisma Carpenter’s character at all.
And still. I left satisfied.
They never really make it clear how far Logan’s case goes when it stops going forward, so I squint my eyes and pretend there is no double jeopardy.
MAC! Don’t you touch the Beav-you have no idea where that boy has been. (Really Mac is far too awesome for him. Not that there is anyone remotely awesome enough for her.)
Gwenda – double triple ditto on give me back my Wallace.
I am tired of Willow and Cordelia. I want them both gone now. (I also think the Beav business storyline is one storyline too many in a pretty full season where storylines seemed to get dropped and picked up in a very ragged, unsatisfying manner.
I also though Meg was faking at the end because she looked so very awake when she woke up. (No, I have no idea how someone actually looks when they wake up from a coma, but she looked fresh as a daisy.)
As much as I hated Wallace’s girl running the scam on Veronica, I love love loved the Vice Principal for doing it. He played her perfect.
Liked the episode, and I didn’t really mind that it was a bit of placeholder – I liked being able to catch my breath a bit.
I think Veronica suspected she was being played by the VP. She should have suspected; I did, my roommate did, the dust bunnies under the couch did. But then, she couldn’t figure out that Mary meant “friend” and not “fiend,” so maybe she’s selectively brilliant.
In defense of Veronica mistaking “friend” for “fiend,” she was primed to hear bad news: she’d just read that her mother spread false and malicious rumors, and the health teacher had confirmed this.
As for Meg’s family pretending that she’s in a coma, that’s a pretty expensive way to save face. A hospital bed costs upwards of $1000/night; why not just send her to “a relative’s house to recover” (or wherever families used to claim their pregnant daughters were at)?
I would think there’d be some likelihood that the bus crash and any real coma that resulted after could warrant Meg being kept in the hospital until she delivers. (She looks REALLY preggers, which makes me wonder how much time has supposedly elapsed since the season opener.)
I always got the sense that Meg’s family isn’t quite as rich as the other 09ers, but that could just be because she had babysitting gigs. And pretending she’s in a coma seems unlikely on more than just a financial front — that would seem a very risky strategy in general, of being found out.
However, this show has made more bizarre stuff work. So…
I wonder if Meg’s family (who are, after all the crazy fundies who lock their youngest daughter in a closet) have developed some nutty theory about the pregnancy. If nothing else, the pregnancy explains their attitude towards Duncan. Who is probably NOT the father, but is becoming so passive and low-key as to be wallpaper. I hope this is part of a plan, because at this point I would rather watch paint drip than watch Teddy Dunn.
The biggest logic (and/or continuity) problem for me this season is that I still don’t understand why double jeopardy wouldn’t apply in Logan’s case.
Logan never went to trial. The case was dismissed for lack of evidence. Now that a new witness has turned up, the DA can re-file the charges.
I’m unclear about this alternate ending thing. Is it supposed to be canon? Because it strikes me as a rather major departure from the show’s current storyline.
I totally knew Meg was pregnant (not that this was a major leap). If the baby is Duncan’s, she’d be about 5-6 months along by now (which, of course, doesn’t work with her perfectly flat belly in the season premiere. Couldn’t the wardrobe mistress have put her in something baggy?). But there’s been some indication that Duncan might not have been Meg’s only boyfriend – the intentionally vague comment by the uptight mother last week about ‘that boyfriend’ might not have referred to Duncan. Either way, I suspect the pregnancy was what Duncan learned about from Meg’s letter. If Meg’s letter didn’t also reveal that he isn’t the father, he’s being awfully sanguine – especially given the health assignment.
What does it say about Weevil and Logan that they make up by beating the crap out of each other in the boys’ bathroom?
I don’t think the alternate ending is canon. I think it’s either an indication that the writers were playing with the idea of having Veronica have to prove Meg’s mother murdered her daughter in order to prove V’s own innocence–my half-baked theory here being that in this case it would turn out the reason the mother acts now is because Meg had very recently come out of the coma*–or they’re trying to throw off the scent of what’s coming next because the alternate ending is giving the spoilery types confirmation of a scenario they believe plays out in the next several episodes.
I guess we’ll see: yay!
Oh, and agree, Abigail, on the slugfest.
*I could definitely see Meg’s creepy parents letting her live while comatose pending the baby’s delivery (another child to lock in the closet room!), but not being willing for her to actually wake up and be able to talk to anyone about anything.
Yeah, I’m totally down with the “selective brilliance” on the fiend/friend thing. Not least because lunch lady clearly “dipped” her hand six times–even if you can’t keep up with a faster signer’s letters you can count how many are being signed and fill in. And, this being network television, it was easy to figure out that newly introduced lunch lady was going to figure in bigger and, thus, to tag her as Willow’s mom.
But I come here to praise VM.
I buy the Weevil/Logan fight because, while it’s true that Weevil should be able to kick any typical Joe Oh Niner’s ass, we mustn’t forget the fact that Logan is CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY FUCKING CRAZY.
I like how they’re complicating the heavies: first Lamb, now the Veep.
My guess on the letter in the vent: it was the letter Meg was going to send to Duncan but hadn’t/couldn’t.
The letter was addressed to Meg from someone in Seattle called Chris Talley.
I was wondering last night about all the kids from the previous generation getting married straight out of school, having babies in school, reliving old school rivalries in the present day, staying in school to become teachers, and in general never leaving town. Then it finally hit me – Neptune High is Hogwarts.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, a bunch of Babylon 5 fans with poor reading comprehension skills have infested my blog. It would be wrong of me, wouldn’t it, to just ignore their comments and go watch Lost?
Abigail said: The letter was addressed to Meg from someone in Seattle called Chris Talley.
And I say, did I miss that? Or do you have one of those Bladerunner “zoom in on sector 33” televisions?
And yeah, Neptune might be Hogwarts, but it’s also every small town American high school. My parents and all their friends did pretty much exactly the same thing you describe there.
I actually don’t watch VM on the TV (I don’t watch anything on the TV anymore. I think we only keep it around for the news). We BitTorrent the episodes and watch them on the computer, which makes it easy to pause and rewind.
That, and the folks on the TWoP forums are pretty intense detail-sniffers.
Neptune might be Hogwarts, but it’s also every small town American high school. My parents and all their friends did pretty much exactly the same thing you describe there.
I assume your parents weren’t millionaires, though. I’m not quite sure I can buy the idea of Neptune as the home of multi-generational millionaire families. Maybe if it were an east coast, old money town, but most of the 09er parents we see are first generation millionaires who moved to Neptune after they made their fortune.
I assume your parents weren’t millionaires…
Good call!
Do the TWoPpers say what city Neptune is a stand-in for? I kind of get the idea it’s between San Diego and Tiajuana (like maybe where Google Maps shows a town called Imperial Beach), but I guess it makes more sense for it to be between San Diego and Los Angeles. Solana Beach maybe? Oceanside?
Does your computer have a big enough screen that y’all can sit on the couch together to watch programs?
Not so sure about what city Neptune’s supposed to stand in for (doesn’t help that I’ve been to southern California exactly once in my life), but I think San Diego has come up. It’s where the show is filmed, after all.
Our computer is an iMac G5 with a 20 inch screen. It’s a very good screen which makes it possible for us to sit on computer chairs in front of the desk, not on a couch. The real problem, I suspect, of watching shows from a greater distance would be the file resolutions, not the screen – at 350 MB apiece, the picture starts to lose clarity when the file is played at full screen.
I’ve always thought it was a bit of a stand in for La Jolla personally, though possibly a bit further north than La Jolla is. `
Logan’s mom jumped frome the Coronado bridge which is in San Diego, and also the transexual dad lived there.