VM 2x02: A Short Review
If I have to wait this long for my fix of Veronica Mars each week, I might get cranky.
'Driver Ed'
Written by Diane Ruggiero
Directed by Nick Marck
Of course, if the episodes I have to wait for are like this one, I might still get cranky. Diane Ruggiero wrote two of the smartest and best-structured episodes in season one ('An Echolls Family Christmas' and 'A Trip to the Dentist'), so I was looking forward to 'Driver Ed'. In the event, all I can say is that it was aggressively average.
Admittedly, things got off on the wrong foot. The revelation that Meg is still alive was disappointing; I like Meg, but it's the sort of cheap plotting I hoped was beneath the show. But the rest of the episode, too, was just going through the motions. The bus crash mystery was never going to be as simple as a suicide--we know it, and the writing never tries very hard to convince us otherwise--so it looks like most of the episode was just marking time.
With the exception of Wallace solving Jackie's mystery car park scrape, which was plenty of fun (although being questioned by the reporter was a bit too convenient) everything of importance in the episode was a grace note. Keith deciding to run for sheriff, Veronica and Duncan sleeping together, Logan's relationship starting to come into the light, the newspaper article about Servando (sp?), various new characters who could reappear (I liked both Jackie and Jessie): none of them were convincingly tied together, and I have no larger sense of the episode than 'stuff happens'.
I think the problem is partly of structure, and partly of context. The mystery starts up ok (even if Jessie's fake punch was the fakest fake punch ever seen on network tv), but then it stops for most of act one while we check in on the status of everyone else in the cast, but none of it really felt like it was taking place in the aftermath of a tragedy. For all that we visit the site of the crash, for all that there are reporters crawling all over the school, there's no real sense of heightened emotional tension. The one example that worked for me, actually, is when Veronica snaps at Duncan, and he retreats, and only later apologises; you can see the faultlines that will cause trouble later, but you can also see them both trying. It was nicely realistic (compared to the scene where Logan and Veronica bump into each other in the hotel, which felt contrived). There's an attempt at symmetry regarding Jessie--seeing how others treat her convinces Veronica to help her at the start, and convinces Keith to run for sheriff at the end--but it's not enough to make the episode feel cohesive.
I do think it's a shame that we haven't seen much of Mars Investigations yet, not just in terms of Keith getting something to do but in terms of the actual physical location. They seem to be setting up Veronica's workplace as the sort of meetingplace that the office worked as last year, and I don't think it works as well. Also, it was only at the very end of the episode that I realised there hadn't been a single flashback--is this a first? I'm still trying to work out whether that might be part of why the episode felt off to me; I suspect it is.
(Oh, and Kevin Smith was great, obviously.)
Other takes, almost certainly more interesting than this one because I don't seem to be thinking clearly today:
bluehyacinth here.
vonnie_k here.
coffee_and_ink here.
oyceter here.
comice here.
'Driver Ed'
Written by Diane Ruggiero
Directed by Nick Marck
Of course, if the episodes I have to wait for are like this one, I might still get cranky. Diane Ruggiero wrote two of the smartest and best-structured episodes in season one ('An Echolls Family Christmas' and 'A Trip to the Dentist'), so I was looking forward to 'Driver Ed'. In the event, all I can say is that it was aggressively average.
Admittedly, things got off on the wrong foot. The revelation that Meg is still alive was disappointing; I like Meg, but it's the sort of cheap plotting I hoped was beneath the show. But the rest of the episode, too, was just going through the motions. The bus crash mystery was never going to be as simple as a suicide--we know it, and the writing never tries very hard to convince us otherwise--so it looks like most of the episode was just marking time.
With the exception of Wallace solving Jackie's mystery car park scrape, which was plenty of fun (although being questioned by the reporter was a bit too convenient) everything of importance in the episode was a grace note. Keith deciding to run for sheriff, Veronica and Duncan sleeping together, Logan's relationship starting to come into the light, the newspaper article about Servando (sp?), various new characters who could reappear (I liked both Jackie and Jessie): none of them were convincingly tied together, and I have no larger sense of the episode than 'stuff happens'.
I think the problem is partly of structure, and partly of context. The mystery starts up ok (even if Jessie's fake punch was the fakest fake punch ever seen on network tv), but then it stops for most of act one while we check in on the status of everyone else in the cast, but none of it really felt like it was taking place in the aftermath of a tragedy. For all that we visit the site of the crash, for all that there are reporters crawling all over the school, there's no real sense of heightened emotional tension. The one example that worked for me, actually, is when Veronica snaps at Duncan, and he retreats, and only later apologises; you can see the faultlines that will cause trouble later, but you can also see them both trying. It was nicely realistic (compared to the scene where Logan and Veronica bump into each other in the hotel, which felt contrived). There's an attempt at symmetry regarding Jessie--seeing how others treat her convinces Veronica to help her at the start, and convinces Keith to run for sheriff at the end--but it's not enough to make the episode feel cohesive.
I do think it's a shame that we haven't seen much of Mars Investigations yet, not just in terms of Keith getting something to do but in terms of the actual physical location. They seem to be setting up Veronica's workplace as the sort of meetingplace that the office worked as last year, and I don't think it works as well. Also, it was only at the very end of the episode that I realised there hadn't been a single flashback--is this a first? I'm still trying to work out whether that might be part of why the episode felt off to me; I suspect it is.
(Oh, and Kevin Smith was great, obviously.)
Other takes, almost certainly more interesting than this one because I don't seem to be thinking clearly today:
bluehyacinth here.
vonnie_k here.
coffee_and_ink here.
oyceter here.
comice here.