Veronica Mars. S01E08.

I was prepared to start this review with another, “Argh!” Then I saw the last five minutes. Ahh.

Yes, they did make the revelation I’d been waiting for. Veronica really is Kane’s daughter. Or something. The question now is, why didn’t Kane marry Veronica’s mum? If they loved each other and continued to see each other, what made him choose Duncan’s mom? Since Veronica and Duncan are about the same age, maybe he got them both pregnant and Duncan's mom just happened to be more into shot gun weddings.

The dad is great in this episode, manly and everything. Maybe he and Wallace‘s mom will get together. Then Veronica will be related to EVERYONE. Yep, she gets into a polygamous marriage to both Logan and Weevil, then the entire regular cast will be related.

Also, I thought that having a female nerd was very progressive of them. And Veronica gets points for style for not having any problems with Mac’s involvement in the purity test affair.

OK. Here are the favorite quotes:

“I’d believe cartoon birds braided your hair.”

“Yeah ... in real life I’m actually a gym teacher.”

“Dear Mr. Koontz, my name is Ellen White.” (Great for a purity episode on several levels.)

Veronica Mars. S01E07.

Ah. Wow. Argh. So of course the cliff hanger of this episode is whether or not Veronica is really a Kane. Fortunately, I waited to watch this one until a time I could watch the next episode immediately after. I just have to write this thing first, then hopefully the question will be answered soon.

I really liked the Logan/Eli (aka Weevil) subplot. I just don’t understand how they pulled off the car prank. I’ll just suspend disbelief. It humanized Logan a little and helped us see that he’s not a total fiend in the class warfare of the school. However, one still roots more for a Veronica/Weevil pairing and a Logan untimely death.

The runaway pregnant girl plot served its purpose but was somewhat uninteresting.

Here’s the favorite quotes, both from the dad:
“I was thinking we’d watch TV and you could rub my feet.”

“Hello? Earth to Mars?”

Good. Now I can watch eight.

Veronica Mars. S01E06.

I loved the all-too-limited detective banter between Veronica and her dad, the homage to the gumshoe genre was just great.

This episode really makes Duncan look good; not only does he transcend clique-consciousness in Veronica’s flashback, but he makes the election results palatable to all involved. Logan, however, ends up seeming even more like demon spawn. Fortunately, we get to meet his dad and confirm that, yes, Logan’s ancestry really is demonic in origin. I was quite conflicted by the whipping Logan received. On the one hand, his impish grins deserve some form of punishment. On the other, he got his punishment for doing something that I thought was rather fitting. And what’s with the mother’s half-smile?

Of course I liked Wanda at the beginning. But, after she stepped on the pizza, there wasn’t a lot about her character that was particularly appealing. I do not see, however, what is so terrible about being a narc. On the one hand, I had enough class solidarity in high school not to tell our teachers when I knew some of my classmates had been smoking pot. On the other, if I had told someone, perhaps they wouldn’t have continued until they got into serious legal and personal trouble.

Now it’s time to get nitpicky. Television shows never represent computers well and it’s sad to see a show that otherwise does a decent job with verisimilitude failing so dismally when it comes to depicting computers. The software Veronica uses to organize her cases is just pathetic. It takes the folder metaphor far beyond its usefulness. Why can’t they just show a normal database? I mean, most Americans use computers daily and pretty much everyone in this show's target audience should realize how slow and unwieldy that interface would be.

To end, here’s a couple things I liked. The teacher in charge of the elections is the actress from A Mighty Wind, Forty Year Old Virgin, and Arrested Development. She’s awesome if a bit limited in this role. Second, the character I’ve always been most attracted to on the otherwise worthless Smallville is Chloe, the cute blonde investigative reporter. Veronica Mars is like giving Chloe her own show, cute, blonde, intelligent investigator who happens to still be in high school, but now with much more believable mysteries to solve.

Veronica Mars. S01E05.

"It's a ball!"

"Have you decided which parent you're going to live with after the divorce? And a follow up: What do you think of your father's mistress?"

Without the context, those lines aren't very funny. In context, I was laughing out loud. Perhaps I should have waited to watch the fifth episode at a time when my two roommates weren't asleep. Even though they were down the hall behind closed doors, I felt the need to stifle myself a few times.

What I didn't like was how little build up there'd been to the boyfriend's badness. I mean, if we'd learned about his former wrongdoings in another episode and then saw his actions in this one that would be one thing. But we hadn't had any gothic sub-currents swirling around his character previously (except perhaps the hotel reservations Mr. Mars had cancelled). It was almost as though the actor had pissed off the writers and they decided to throw him out in the span of one episode.

Logan is back to being his old, contemptible self after having had redeeming qualities in the last episode . . . though admittedly he does come off better than the other guys in this episode--not that that's saying much.

The mom is a mystery to me. I don't know why she left and the pictures of Veronica (i.e. fear for her family's safety) don't exactly clear things up. I know they're developing an arc out of it, but so far they haven't given us anything to really hold onto, just more questions. I suppose that's why I'm waiting for episode 14 (or was it 18?). Then the father dating, what's that about? It's been six months since the best friend died therefore the mom couldn't have left more than five months ago. If that's the case, he shouldn't be ready yet, not just Veronica. By all means, go have a social life, but don't call it dating until you've got the divorce in hand. The scene where he and Veronica were fighting about it was a bit disconnected from the rest of the episode stylistically (both in tone and cinematography) but the scene in which the girlfriend comes to the office to "talk about it" with Veronica is wonderfully comedic and realistic.

Mars, Veronica. S01E04

I've now seen episode four: The Wrath of Con. Of course I enjoyed it. I start seeing a little more of her and Logan (especially the foreshadowing of how hot he thought she was when they first met). The video editing was a good way to subtly bring them together.

I'm not sure how much I like their depiction of computer technology--it looked like the programmers were using Macs which no self-respecting programmer would unless they're programming just for Mac and I certainly didn't get that impression. They nerds were very much into appearances though, which fits with the Mac user profile. Also, Veronica is too good at everything. I mean, most girls I know couldn't find their own hard drive to save their life and it's OK for Veronica to know how, but she seems to know how to do everything else as well. Up until six months ago she was a trendy of above average intelligence. Now she's a specialist in all things investigative. I can see her having learned expertise in some things, but not so many.

On the murder mystery thread, I'm beginning to suspect the mother more. I'm sure that's what they wanted. But first there was her insistence on the anti-depressants for her son and now we see her blaming her daughter for everything wrong in the family and being a bit peeved at the realistic representation of her daughter in the video. It's all very mysterious, the next episode is only 29% done, and I know it wouldn't answer any major questions anyway.

junk post

Thoughts Concerning the Fountain in front of the Nebraska Union

Catapulted, kinetic force loaded, Drop
finds himself suddenly independent, an organism
distinct from the uncountable noun of his birth.

He shoots skyward, looks around, hopes someone
is watching, sure of his role in life: to go high, to go
higher, if possible, higher than any other energetic

drop, to refract particles of sun. He trades kinetic
energy for potential and climbs until,
transfer complete, for a moment,

just.
one.
moment .

he hangs motionless in the air. Perhaps
he wonders at the majestic view, the colonnades,
backpacks, and concrete—thinks the universe

conspired to create one sublime instant just for him.
Or maybe the universe was created for this
now? Perhaps he’s unsure of his role. Could I

have gone higher? Slowly curves the parabola,
Drop grabs what light he can manage. The ascent
dictated how he would fall: moment. one. just.

the descent felt in his molecules, ineffably wrong,
ominous, but necessary; molecules know the way,
they traveled this path as past drops, the way

back to uncountable. With a plunk and splash, Drop
will be forgotten, dissected, and replaced in the spray
by newer drops whom I will admire equally.

---


Background: This is not a Wordsworth poem, but somewhere in my head it deserves the title, “Intimations of Immortality.” Watching the mathematical chaos of a fountain can be mesmerizing and numinous. When I dig at those feelings, I find religious thoughts of transience and the beauty thereof. I hope this poem makes the instant of life something beautiful though it cannot quite replicate the beauty of the instant of refraction. It was written while reading Gaspar and thematic comparisons to him are in order though stylistically it is a very different creature.

another post

I need to use up some room here.
La
la
di
da
WHOOO
WHOOO
HOOO.