Veronica Mars -- There's Got to Be a Morning After Pill

Seriously, this show is KILLING ME. YouTube is one of my personal deities.

Okay, I totally forgot in the last four years or so what it's like to be obsessed with a show that's actually on the air. And you can only watch one episode at a time. And now I am having flashbacks to being fourteen years old and I am SQUEALING in the staff computer room of a French middle school, because goddammit, Veronica, you do not ERASE messages before you have listened to ALL of them. And it's not like I enjoy it either but TV taught me many years ago that you have to listen to all of them ANYWAY or you look like an IDIOT and become a HORRIBLE PERSON.

You see? I told you. Fourteen.

Also, is it me, or does Veronica actually getting Weevil to bash in Madison's car remind anyone else of asking Anya (from Buffy) for a wish? It's like, yes, it is always tempting to imagine your ex-boyfriend with no balls, or the girl he cheated on you with or whatever living on the street in a cardboard box. And imagining those things is just the sort of thing that you do when you're moving on from a breakup (not that, uh, I've ever thought like that or anything). And then you meet someone else and let it go except when your old friends email you to tell you something stupid your ex is doing now that you're not there to keep him in line.

But it's so much less cool to actually knowingly take steps to go through with that. I hate to have a TWoP link in every review I write, but I'm almost positive they said something very similar -- I think I'm copying them, actually -- in a seventh season Buffy recap when Anya was trying to mutilate Xander in some way. Like, it seems justified, especially when it's Madison, but then your boyfriend's psycho ex stalks you, and you're all, "move on, lady, get a life, it's over." So I'm glad Veronica didn't go through with it. I mean, I don't think I would have stopped watching or started hating her or anything, so I hope the network didn't force the creators not to do it for that reason, but it seems much better to have her walk the line -- have her really seriously consider tracking Logan -- and showing us that she's serious by actually setting up the device -- and then backing out. It illustrates the line that Veronica is constantly walking as a PI, because in some ways, of course she does want to use her PI skills in her personal life. That's what solved Lilly Kane's murder, that's what let her figure out who raped her, that's what she does, and does well. And it's a strength that she can care personally about her clients, even when they're monkeys; otherwise she wouldn't do her job as well. So then it obviously does become very difficult for her to find the line between when she should be investigating, and digging, and blackmailing and avenging, and when she shouldn't. I thought this episode especially does a fantastic job with that.

Really, this is my favorite episode of the season. Despite the Logan/Veronica stuff, and it wasn't as funny as last week, but it highlighted a couple of things this show does really really well, aside from, like, witty dialogue and intelligent storylines. One of them being, obviously, Veronica's line-walking, but also the show's willingness to really deal with issues and present a variety of viewpoints without getting especially preachy.

Because that was another really well done thing this week, and it's a direction the show is taking this season that I really like. The first two seasons with the rich kids and the biker gang were also really well done, but I think the fact that they've been willing to deal with gender issues this season is fantastic. It's a good time for it, in the show, first year of college, and they're doing it really well. Okay, the rape storyline got a lot of shit, but this episode actually makes me like that storyline better in retrospect, I think because they handled this issue sensitively; it's like there are more layers than I thought in the other one too. Okay, I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that, but it left a good taste in my mouth, for what it's worth.

I especially liked them showing the double side of the religious extremists' reaction, and that that element wasn't cut and dry. That was really well done, and there are a lot of shows that wouldn't bother showing both sides of that, by a long shot. And I liked the roommate's reasons -- I mean, I don't approve of what she did, obviously, and it is of course not her choice to make and offensive that she made it. But she did point out some things, that having a kid at that age is a big deal, etc., etc., that the show presented a lot more sensitively than I'm able to.

Oh, and it helps that I totally didn't see it coming until right before the reveal (which is, of course, the best possible time to predict the ending, unless you're me when I was reading Ender's Game) and that was one of my complaints a few episodes ago, that the show was getting too predictable, so it's nice that I got to be surprised.

Mopey Logan -- well, I've enjoyed it up till now, and obviously I'm still totally invested in that relationship, but I do miss how snarky and fun and evil he can be, especially back when he and Veronica were sort of dodging around the fact that they really liked each other. Sadly that interaction seems like it won't ever make a comeback, but I'd still like to see him being snarky to other people.

Oh, and the apocalypse should hit in half an hour or so, because I did not hate Dick or think he's a waste of space or want him to fall off the balcony or get his head squished like a grapefruit or wish he wasn't taking up so much of the other characters' oxygen and screen time hardly at all this week.

Anyway, all in all, a really really good episode. My biggest complaint is that Mac didn't even get any screen time for her birthday? Good god, writers, throw her a bone. I know she's on other shows too, but Mac is cooler than whoever she plays on them.

Current Dean O'Dell prediction: Gah, I keep trying not to pick whoever the writers throw in my face week by week (this has been a failure, clearly), but this week, I think it actually might possibly be Ex-husband Whasisname or one of the kids. With a twist that I don't know about, sure, and it doesn't make much sense at the moment, but the timing is right. Anyway... I am a complete failure at guessing, I shall never complain again about the big mysteries being too predictable.