Veronica
Mars Season Two Review
“Overambitious.”
That single
word has always best described Veronica Mars, the former UPN,
now CW drama about a high school teenager turned amateur detective.
From the very beginning the series has been advertised as “part
Nancy Drew, part Buffy the Vampire Slayer,”
and its inaugural season did indeed live up to that billing with its
fair share of inventive sleuthing and witty quipping while likewise
venturing into both dark noir and coming-of-age innocence (as well as
the occasional Paris Hilton misstep). Season two builds upon this initial
groundwork—for both better and worse—and even throws in
some bad karaoke for good measure; since season one, however, had some
mediocre lip-synching of its own, that particular shortcoming can be
overlooked.
Season one also
had a specific focus: former member of the in-crowd, now outcast, Veronica
is determined to track down the murderer of best friend Lily Kane. Even
the side story arcs—why did her mother leave? who is her real
father? which boy did she most crush after?—all had ties to that
central mystery. And since each episode also centered around a separate
mystery-of-the-week, it was a serialized drama one could enjoy even
if you missed an episode or two.
While season
two likewise has a focus—who caused a bus crash that killed six
students, a high school teacher and the bus driver—instead of
being the engine that drives the season, it is really just a sliver
of a larger picture. It turns out that Neptune, California, is a tale
of two cities: there’s the rich, who enjoy all the perks of their
class, and then the middle-class-to-poor who have little-to-no perks.
Thus the true focus of season two is the polarization and friction between
the haves and the have-nots, a battle of the classes with Veronica thrust
in the middle.
The crash itself
reflects this. The kids from wealthy families called “daddy”
to send a limousine instead of taking the supplied transportation back
from a field trip, so while the bus should have had a cross-section
of Neptune High students, it was only those from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks
who perished. It doesn’t stop there, however. Almost everything
about season two focuses on this polarization and friction, from the
mundane (the senior prom is cancelled, but the wealthy kids throw their
own), to the serious (rich boy Logan is accused of killing poor biker
Felix). The mayor even has plans to incorporate Neptune in a way that
would legally divide the city based on economic class.
With so
much going on, it’s almost as if the series wanted to out-O.C.
the O.C. by becoming more soap than serial drama. And in some
ways, this paradigm shift makes season two superior to season one, because
it comes off as more consistent compared to the ups-and-downs a first
season show often experiences while finding its footing.
This consistency
is also what separates Veronica Mars from shows like The
O.C., for while The O.C. has the potential to produce
some truly spectacular episodes, they often come too few and far-between.
Veronica Mars, meanwhile, has a writing staff (especially Rob
Thomas, Diane Ruggiero and John Enbom) that can continually churn out
dialogue as snappy and witty as well as anyone.
But what
ultimately makes Veronica Mars so damn enjoyable are the characters.
Although much has been written about how Veronica (Kristen Bell) and
her father, Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni), have the best father-daughter
relationship on television, the supporting players are equally the best
in their respective roles. Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), for instance,
although given more (as well as less) to do in season two, is still
the finest “Dr. Watson” sidekick any teenage sleuth could
ever hope to have.
Even the not-so-likeable
characters are likeable. Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) has such a sweet
smarm about him that one can’t help rooting for the smart-ass
bad boy to ultimately win Veronica’s heart. Head biker Weevil
(Francis Capra), as well as “not-very-complicated” Dick
(Ryan Hansen), whose name says it all, have agreeable qualities that
save them from being clichéd afterthoughts. Even Sheriff Lamb
(Michael Muhney), the inept lawman and Veronica nemesis constantly outwitted
by the teen-detective, has moments where we see more than the arrogant,
self-centered law enforcer he would otherwise be stereo-typed as.
In some
ways, Veronica Mars manages to give its characters more depth
than even Lost, without the benefit of flashbacks, and Sheriff
Lamb could very well be Exhibit A. In the episode “Nobody Puts
Baby In a Corner,” for instance, Veronica investigates a case
of suspected child abuse (not sexual or physical, but mentally tormenting).
When Veronica and boyfriend Duncan are caught breaking into the parents’
house, Lamb ignores their explanation, handcuffs the two and puts them
in his squad car. But Lamb, under the pretext of taking a statement,
then re-enters the house to investigate. As the abusive father protests,
Lamb simply utters one sentence: “Funny, I heard my father give
that exact speech once.” And with that one sentence, coupled with
the sheriff’s silent release of Veronica and Duncan a few blocks
away, Lamb is transformed from a mere caricature into a deeper, even
sympathetic, character.
Despite
all these positives, however, there are still two minor missteps in
season two. The first is too many multi-episode mini-arcs that have
nothing to do with the main season long story: Wallace finding his biological
father, the departure from the show of Duncan, baseball great Terrence
Cook’s gambling problems, and anything having to do with his daughter,
Jackie. Although none are what you would call an “Oliver,”
in keeping with the previous O.C. analogy, they do act as distracting
detours. And when the show does eventually re-focuses on the bus crash
late in the season, so many potential suspects fly by so fast that the
plot becomes muddled and convoluted, leaving one to wonder if even the
writers know how to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.
But what a conclusion!
The final ten minutes of the finale is a rollercoaster of a ride, with
the rooftop confrontation-with-the-culprit scene an emotionally brilliant
display of writing, filming and acting. Although what then follows may
seem a little rushed—“OK, folks, five minutes to tie up
all the remaining loose ends”—the jaw-dropping, plot-twisting,
rapid-fire scene-after-scene could very well be the greatest adrenaline-inducing
experience any television series has ever produced.
Those final
ten minutes also sum up all that is right, and all that’s not
so right, with season two of Veronica Mars: emotionally charged
storytelling at its finest, but ultimately too much crammed into too
small a space.
Or, in a word, “overambitious.”
(This article
orginally was published in Flak
Magazine.)
October
3, 2006
