VeronicaMarsTalk

And tonight we have:

Mars, Bars. Without any evidence to hold her, Sheriff Lamb (Michael Muhney) releases Veronica (Kristen Bell) from jail. Josh (guest star Jonathan Chase), makes contact with Veronica and insists that he is being framed for his father's murder and, though Veronica has sympathy for him, she doesn't know if she believes him. Keith (Enrico Colantoni) learns that the coach's wife, Kathleen Barry (guest star Tracey Needham), hired Vinnie Van Lowe (guest star Ken Marino, "Reno 911") to find out if her husband was having an affair. Meanwhile, Logan (Jason Dohring) joins Mac (Tina Majorino) and Parker (Julie Gonzalo) on a Valentine's Day scavenger hunt. Harry Winer directed the episode with story by Joe Voci, Phil Klemmer, John Enbom and teleplay by Phil Klemmer and John Embom.

Hmmm...

Comments

[Gwenda]

Okay, okay, I know we don't talk about Gilmore Girls anymore, but the use of the Concrete Blonde song "Happy Birthday" made me very happy. (And it really has been better the last few weeks.)

[Dave Schwartz]

I'm with you on that, actually; I usually have it on while I'm waiting for VM to come on, and I thought the vodka/scotch/Quicken conversation between Emily and Lorelei was really well done. It makes me happy when they treat Emily as a real person.

[Gwenda]

Yep. There were some lines in tonight's ep.

Cliff!

(Also, that is one lucid coach for someone in the early stages of CJD -- and, um, lucky to be diagnosed _before_ his first 'episode.' Whatever that means, anyway; it's pretty much diagnosed _by_ rapid progression dementia. Anyhoo...)

Lamb! Didn't see that one coming. But I did find myself thinking early on, "Y'know, they should have just let Keith be chief."

[Dave Schwartz]

As to VM -- man, for the penultimate ep of an arc this feels really disconnected. Loving Mac, not loving the Logan/What's-Her-Face thing. And Keith becoming sheriff; a masterful way of giving the characters what they want and making it taste like ash. Poor, stupid, jackass Lamb. That was harsh. (Particularly having "I smell bread" be Lamb's last words. I'm seeing concussion stuff everywhere lately, it's weird.)

It bothers me that V. and Keith are both feeling less like they're driving the plot(s) than being driven by it, lately. I know I'm down on the show for all sorts of reasons (including the points that Karen F. made a couple of weeks about shifting moralities and selective memory), but I'll still be very sad if this season is the swansong.

[Gwenda]

I agree, definitely. It almost feels like they're desperately attempting to wrap up this season while establishing some sort of new framework to convince the network to give them a shot next season. Keith as Sheriff feels like that to me -- something we'll primarily benefit from next season.

I had forgotten this was the penultimate ep in the Dean's murder arc -- why is it that the pacing seems so off? Sigh.

The whole Logan/Parker/Mac/Veggie Boy plot was so contrived. I really buy Mac (and Parker for that matter) not worrying at all about Veronica's reaction to this. Yeah. Right.

[Karen F]

Very sorry about Lamb. Can't really think about the rest of the episode just yet, that was too sad and unexpected. I don't think Keith looks as good in the uniform as we were led to believe. Lamb looked really good in the uniform. Until he shot himself in the mirror.

[JeremyT]

Were there circumstances that led to them booting the actor who played Lamb, or was that really how they wanted to go about that? I agree that it was a nice twist to give Mars what he wanted but make it taste like Ash, but it still felt like an anticlimactic way of letting a character go.

[Gwenda]

This is pure speculation, but I'm guessing it was budgetary and something to try and convince the network to give them another season. Lamb was promoted to series regular this season and I'm still not sure why, other than everyone loves the actor who plays him.

I think one of the reasons it feels so weird is that usually we would now get to search for his killer -- there's something very unsatisfying about Lamb's death not being a mystery.

Papa Mars definitely needs to start pumping some iron.

[Karen F]

If I were going to kill myself, I would never ever ever ever make the last time I saw my son into an argument over whether he was showing me enough hustle on the basketball court. I know the coach left his ring, but still. I feel the show just doesn't stop and think. It drives me crazy. And doesn't it occur to someone that if they fake their own murder it's likely someone will end up arrested for it?
Like Gwenda, I'll be very sad if this is the show's last season. And yet I haven't really liked the show since season 1. I just love the characters. I'll really miss them. I already miss Wallace, Weevil, Mr. Woo, the principal, Butters. Lamb.
I feel this season they added new characters without taking the time to make us care about them and took away too many of the old characters we were already invested in. What was the point of Wallace this season? Do we even know if he passed his mechanical engineering class? (And what's that shit about Logan not being good at math?)

[Gwenda]

I know -- I don't buy that either, Karen.

Here's a snippet from The Watcher's post on Lamb's demise (and interview with him):

Lamb didn’t get much of a sendoff -- his character was bashed over the head by a lowlife played by Richard Greico, and the sheriff’s last words were “I smell bread.” That phrase comes from an episode of “M*A*S*H,”in which a dying soldier utters that non-profound sentence as he shuffles off this mortal coil.

"I guess there was no significance [to that phrase] within the borders of Neptune," Muhney said. "It apparently was some kind of inside joke."

"Personally -- 'I smell bread' is a line I'd love to think that Lamb thought out as his final snark. He was mentioning that he was gonna get rich from suing the owner of that house for his injuries. Lamb went out snarking...ahhh, a guy can dream, right?"

[Abigail]

I think in a lot of ways the episode was a Lamb showcase - he got a lot of screentime, including the first ever instance in which Keith comes to him with evidence of a crime and he just runs with it, there was a reference to his first meeting with Wallace (which might have been his first on-screen appearance), and then there was that so-pointless-it's-tragic death. It strikes me as an appropriate send-off. From day one, Lamb has been an incompetent jackass. The writers never lost sight of that fact even as the actor's charisma and their own snappy dialogue made him an audience favorite. A pointless, almost random death was the only way to go for this character. To do otherwise would have risked aggrandizing a fundamentally useless man, but the writers also managed to tug at the audience's heartstrings. It's quite an impressive balancing act.

[Karen F]

Didn't the president of Dick's fraternity sleep with the dean's wife a season ago? And was also implicated in the gambling? Is that actor going to be in the next show?