Veronica Mars finale thoughts

[angela_o]

A lot of bandwidth has already been used over the VM finale and most of it seems to be squeeing of the "it's the greatest thing evah!!" variety. I found it to be, well, disappointing isn't exactly right, but strangely unsatisfying comes close to summing things up. I'm still mulling over exactly what didn't work for me and will in all likelihood post more about that at a later point, but there were some things that I great enjoyed.

So, here's a random sampling of the very good.


Loved the use of "Boris and Gilda Kane". What a great shout out to the noir comparisons that have been bandied about all season. Boris Ingster was the director of the film that's generally considered to be the first full length noir and Gilda and Citizen Kane are two prime examples of noir. Someone on the writing staff has been doing their homework. :)

Loved that Veronica had absolutely no hesitation about signing away any claim on the Kane money. She's made her unequivocal choice. No matter what, Keith is her dad. And he is. The relationship between Keith and Veronica is one of the most loving parent/child relationships that I've ever seen depicted on television.

Wallace's mimic of Veronica's head tilt paired with the "I need a favor" was very funny. Girlfriend is going to need some new tricks next season.

Also loved that Backup liked (and licked) Logan while attacking Aaron. Animals know more than people think that they do. Too bad Veronica isn't as discriminating.

Veronica's last "vision" of Lilly was incredibly bittersweet. Floating in their hot pink bathing suits in a pool of lilies. For all Lilly's faults, she did burn brightly and Veronica's life is never going to go back to the way that it was before.

Loved that Veronica called Alicia to come to the hospital. Veronica's letting go of her childhood illusions, painful though that may be.

Celeste's comments about becoming Republicans. It was a touch of humor from the Ice Queen. Who knew she had it in her.

Veronica checking her seat belt before crashing the car. I guess she read up on the statistics that show you should do whatever possible to get out of the car with a suspected killer. It ups your survival rates.

There were a number of great continuity elements. Veronica deciding to keep her walkie talkies in the car due to the dirt in her locker is one that jumped out at me.

Beaver, I mean Cassidy, deciding to think for himself and do the right thing. There's hope for him as a human being yet.

The double entendre of the title. I'm amazed that one made it past the censors. Although the fact that there are brothers named Dick and Beaver also amazes me for much the same reason. lol

The acting. Was almost uniformly excellent. Even Teddy Dunn was tracking closer to the rest of the cast in this episode. Although Veronica might want to stop and think about the fact that even though it turned out that she and Duncan aren't related, he still thought that they were siblings when he had sex with her. Uh, disturbing.

More later I'm sure.

Comments

[chrisjournal.livejournal.com]

You know, I loved it. Really loved it.

But I would say that as an episode in a vacuum, I liked 1x21 better. There were technicalities about it as an episode rather than as a season-ender that bugged me. Too much time on the action scene. Weird assed pacing. Too much, probably, packed into a single ep so that it felt like there was a good bit of lip service.

The dangling threads don't bug me -- I expected, even wanted, some of those. Everything wasn't tied up neatly with a bow, so there's more to tell next season.

What I find interesting is that I very often feel this way about season finale eps -- they work really, really well as capstones to seasonal arcs, but not very well internally as episodes. In VM, I think the difference is more pronounced because we've become trained to expect really well done A *and* B plots, and this one was single-threaded. Less metaphor, more action, etc. That created a bit of a gap for me, too.

But ultimately, I honestly found this particular way to wrap up the Lilly mystery more emotionally satisfying than any that might have been more technically "correct" for genre or surprise factor or twistyness. The show, for me, is all about Veronica. I find Logan equally fascinating, but it's about her. The mystery is (mysteries are?) just a frame for her journey -- from that standpoint, this ep worked exceptionally well for me.

I'm babbling.

Hi!

[angela-o.livejournal.com]

Babbling is good. Feel free to babble away. And hi back to you.

I totally agree with you that season finales often work better as cappers to arcs rather than as rigorously internally consistent standalones. At least part of my sense of dissatisfaction stems from the fact that I found Veronica less an empathetic character in this episode than I've found her previously in the season. That casts a pall. I've also got some issues with the resolution of the murder, but I'll probably spell those out in a later post.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)

[marcolette.livejournal.com]

I agree with every single one of the things you mention. These are all things I love about this episode.

I also really liked seeing Veronica giving up her illusions about her mother, painful as that is for her. It's good to see her grow, and love, love her relationship with Keith.

I was not anywhere near being on the Aaron-did-it bandwagon. I think it basically works, and there was definitely textual evidence for it. But I somehow expected something a little less obvious than abusive-psycho-dad did it. I know it works thematically, with the repeated themes of parents, parentage, cameras, etc. I'm not sure what I was expecting - I guess I expected something more subtle, insidious, less sordid?

That said, I'm still satisfied. And I think they've set up some fascinating possibilities for Logan next year with this conclusion, and I hope they do it well. There are so many opportunities for really good character development and growth in all of the characters, but especially Veronica, Logan and Duncan. I'm just keeping my faith in this crew for now!

[angela-o.livejournal.com]

So agree with you on the obviousness of Aaron. I actually found him to be a creepily compelling character and thought that he added quite a bit to the canvas and I don't really buy logically the progression that the show tried to sell as to his motivation. At least, not based on the insights that had been given regarding his character over the season. Perhaps my expectations were too high going. Previous episodes were often so clever, that I thought this one would be as well. The conclusion, though it was certainly action-packed, still felt anticlimatic. This is not to say that I found it to be an awful episode, just not great.

As for Logan, perhaps this is my previous fandom disillusionment coloring my expectations, but I'm just not that optimistic about his future. Even at the depths of Veronica's isolation and ostracism she still had a very supportive parent. Logan has been left with nothing and no one. That's a very difficult spot to rebound from and he has absolutely no incentive to rebound. I've seen posts about how the message on Logan's cell phone was foreshadowing of his character arc to come, but I read it more as sad irony. A friend and I were IM'ing after the finale and spun an entire arc for next season based on Veronica trying to discover what happened to Logan with visions of Logan taking the place of visions of Lilly. Here's hoping that won't come to fruition.

Thanks for adding your comments.

[marcolette.livejournal.com]

Eek! That's a scary thought! Which fandom has left you with that taste in your mouth?

It is definitely true that they could go there, and they're not afraid of darkness. But I don't know if I could watch very long if they didn't give him the same chance at "a better life yet to come" (from the pilot) that the rest of the core characters are at least glimpsing.

[angela-o.livejournal.com]

There are two fandoms to choose from actually. Roswell (which was my entry into the whole world of internet fandom) and the JossVerse. The former ended up being a cautionary tale on how not to make a television show and the latter had some bleak messages about life.

I've got my fingers crossed that this turns out much better than those. :)

[marcolette.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I also meant to say - some of the posts I've read that have best pinpointed my dissatisfaction with th Aaron conclusion have talked about the fact that we don't really have a trail of clues leading us back to him. We just have the whack-you-over-the-head characterizations of him as abusive, manipulative and womanizing. I always discounted the speculation pinning the whole thing on him because I felt like there should be more subtlety, that the murder should be solvable based on discreet clues about people and motivations rather than just the fact that he was capable of it. I don't think I'll learn much more about the murder in re-watching the season, and I thought I'd be able to.

But I still love the show. I'm going to stay optimistic and say the flaws in this season give them room to improve next season. :)

And now I'll stop rambling on in your journal and maybe update my own. Or do some work, I don't know.

[angela-o.livejournal.com]

I guess I was just wrong in what I internalized from the clues about Aaron. I thought the show indicated very strongly that he had a explosive tendency to violence, but we never saw that directed at women. In fact, once his violence was triggered *because* of violence towards women. As far as the womanizing is concerned, all of his known affairs were with women, not nubile teenagers. One of the most bizarre elements about Aaron was the disconnect between his espoused love for his family and his actions, but I would have thought that sex with his son's on again/off again girlfriend would have been just a little too close to home for him. I saw that decision as making him a more two dimensional villain. But, obviously my reading of the textual clues was off. You can't win 'em all. lol