Veronica Mars

[lesbiassparrow]

And so I have finished season one and I have enjoyed it mightily. But I have questions! And points to make!



1. I don't dislike Veronica and Logan (mainly because I think the actors have a lot of chemistry) but I don't get how quickly she falls into his arms. She has no good reason to like him even though circumstances have flung them together and his personality has improved massively over the season. I guess going from floppy useless rich boy Duncan Kane to less useless rich boy Logan would make sense, but I would have expected her to be warier of people of his ilk.

2. How on earth would Veronica ever speak or be civil to people like Dick C. ever again? after all the party stuff was revealed? He is undoubtedly the biggest aristocratic waste of space since Alcibiades and wholly horrible - if I were Veronica I would be out slashing his tires repeatedly. And ruining his life as much as possible. I will be really annoyed if the show tries to redeem him because I think there are some things which are unexcusable.

3. I, er, don't like Lily Kane. She seems not terribly interesting and totally self-absorbed - I guess no different than one would expect from a horribly privileged 15 year old, but still there's nothing there to make her seem that interesting. I am sorry she died but it is hard to see her death as the GREATEST TRAGEDY EVER.

4. Aaron Echols is not only narcissistic but a fair twit. Who not only tapes themselves but keeps all of the tapes around and doesn't lock up the video set up?

5. The Kanes are messed in the head if their first idea upon seeing their son and their dead daughter is that their son killed her. Not exactly intellects of the ages.

6. Also I think the show would be more interesting if it actually had somewhat of a social conscience, which I am not sure it does. It sees there are inequalities in wealth and access to the good things of the world, but I don't know that it has a problem with that. Rather it assumes that all of this stuff will be sorted out on an individual level by smart as a button girl detectives. (And where did it get the idea that UCLA is a bad school? Or that you're settling to go there? Because I think the competition is rightfully fiercer to go there than many private schools. And most of the departments are far better than the private alternatives in Southern California, no matter what USC will say. I actually say this as someone who went to USC, too. )

Comments

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Also I think the show would be more interesting if it actually had somewhat of a social conscience, which I am not sure it does. It sees there are inequalities in wealth and access to the good things of the world, but I don't know that it has a problem with that

This crossed my mind too, it seemed more of "rich people also cry" then "rich are no better the poor".

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

A few times they seem to have other ideas (like the whole Weevil at the poker game thing, with the casual racism of the others), but then they back away from it. I guess it's because the writer thought that almost everything can be solved through personality rather than through thinking the system might be horribly messed up and producing rather horrible, self-indulgent people.

[chelseagirl47.livejournal.com]

I find the notion of "poor" on the show somewhat problematic, as well. I recognize that Veronica's car is mocked, for example, but it looks like a pretty cool semi-vintage convertible to me . . . OK, that was kind of shallow. I think Weevil was the character where the whole social divide thing worked best because it was compounded by racism and the fact that his family were actual servants and not just in a service industry. And yes, the Very Rich suffer from parental neglect and bad values and everything, but compared to the problems of others, hard to feel so bad for them. I guess we're supposed to enjoy their lifestyles voyeuristically, but at the same time be okay with the fact that we're probably more like Veronica and her dad (I personally would be in heaven in an apartment as big as theirs, but that's because I live in Manhattan where only the Very Rich can afford an apartment that big) because their values are solid and they love each other, but . . . that feels a bit manipulative.

Yeah, Lily impressed me continuously less and less as I watched; as you'll recall I was pretty negative about her while you were in the course of watching. Particularly in the big reveal -- ewww, Lily, think of all the places where *that's* been. I get that Veronica was star-struck that Lily chose her as her special friend, but I kind of wondered if that had something to do with "girl who is cute enough to be acceptable to hang out with, but poorer than me and kind of naive so I will not be overshadowed by her."

By the time Logan and Veronica got together I totally bought it and I totally felt manipulated into it at the same time. I guess she remembered him in pre-ahole days, so she could buy into the whole Not Such a Bad Guy thing, but . . . yeah.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Veronica and her dad seem to be doing okay to me - they talk a lot about having no money but they do seem to have stuff. Admittedly it isn't the nicest stuff and some of it may come from before the great disgrace but still, it's a lot more than poor people have. Her car is uncool more than it's rubbish (I teach at a school for the incredibly rich and I've seen a few cars like this in the lot. Not many, but a few.) And it runs reliably. It's like someone writing the poor who has never been poor but thinks of it as having slightly grubbier things and less disposable income.

I gave them a pass on the apartment because in TV land poor people (even in NY) always seem to have the nicest places. Unless they are Making a Point About Poverty, that it.

I liked Weevil a lot; I though he was the most interesting of the outsiders, because he doesn't really have a desire to be in at all. But in the end he seemed to come down to being the person who is the muscle and not much else - though I haven't seen season 2 yet, so I could be very wrong about this.

I buy them getting together for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because I thought the actors worked well together. But a deep, dark side of me thinks that she is clinging to him because he was Lily's boyfriend and that's all she can have of her friend.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

But...but...but...I like Alcibiades :)

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Lots of people do like Alcibiades! It seems fairly constant to insist that if only he had had his way the Sicilician expedition would have worked. I, on the other hand, think he was a toxic presence on the landscape of Athens. I think this also comes from my dislike of most of the circle of Socrates. Great ideas but terrible, terrible people. :)