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Veronica Mars 3.09 - "Spit and Eggs"
I had a very rocky time with the last few episodes of Veronica Mars, but the mystery arc resolution at least mollified me, even if it didn't completely satisfy me.
The good:
* Logan and Veronica's breakup felt organic, Logan came across as mature and self-aware, Veronica didn't try to argue him out of it because she knew in her heart of hearts that they had been papering over rather than solving their issues, and it was generally lovely to see two characters who are in a lot of ways older than their years face the fact that love isn't enough to sustain a functioning relationship over the long run. And it was perfect that Veronica put the brave little toaster face on until she could break down in private, and that after that one cry, she was done.
* Related to that, I really loved the scene where Veronica approached Logan for help at the Pi Sig party, because both actors were able to convey a wealth of longing and pain and regret with just body language and because Veronica asked Logan for help--despite the breakup, she took him at his word that he actually would be there for her, and he was instantly ready to do whatever needed to be done. I think it's another sign that they're both being really mature about the breakup; Veronica isn't turning it into a you're-with-me-or-against-me situation, and Logan really did mean what he told her. It strikes me that the two of them were friends, and then they were lovers, and then they weren't really talking to each other, and then they were lovers again. I think it might be really good for both of them to just work on being friends in the immediate future as they sort through their own crap. There is a world of difference between the way Veronica handled Duncan breaking up with her after Lilly's death and now; she's a lot harder, but this isn't actually making her more bitter, just kind of sad.
* Mac was just generally awesome, and I also loved the teamwork between Piz and Wallace, and the air between all three of them that Wallace and Mac are old hands at this, Piz is inexperienced and puppy-eager but useful.
* It was very important to my reconciliation with this show that Veronica fought her own battles, and that when she was forced to rely on outside help, that help came from Parker, someone else who had a direct stake in catching the rapist. I don't mind that Veronica can't karate-chop her adversary into submission; one thing I've always appreciated about the show is that it has consistently portrayed Veronica as someone who uses her wits, and who has no problem trying to defend herself physically when necessary, including using the taser, but who is not actually a superhero, just a teenager who doesn't even take martial arts classes, and is not actually going to start in with the flying kicks. The scene of her getting away from Mercer (unicorn stab!) and ending up drugged in Moe's room, still trying to use her wits through the fog, eventually using the whistle because it was the only option left, struck what I felt was a realistic balance between her capabilites and the fact that she does not actually have superpowers and is in the end human. I was shouting at her not to drink the tea, but I understood why she did. She had mentally put Moe in the "safe" camp--he drove the safety carts, he had seemed helpful before, she actually gave him her phone number and asked him to call her if he saw anything before the Pi Sig party, treating him as one of the team and part of the plan--and she had no way of knowing that Mercer had a partner, and she'd also just had a rather bad beating, including a blow to the head, on top of barely escaping from an extremely frightening situation. So it wasn't vigilant for her to drink the tea, but I don't hold it against her that her vigilance was not at its peak. Veronica's had to become hard enough in her life; if her trust levels were really that low on an instinctual level, she'd be in a lot of trouble in the other parts of her life, and she's already having enough trouble with trust as it is.
* I also liked that Mercer's motivations were so straightforward--he was just an overly entitled asshole who believed he should have the power to take what he wanted, and who looked at women as objects of gratification. It was all about the power.
* I was sad to see Dean O'Dell bite it, both because he was a refreshing twist on the "evil dean" trope from numerous college comedies from Animal House on and because I loved his rapport with Weevil, who I completely believed when he told Veronica's class that staying out of crime was difficult and sometimes unrewarding, and for whom, I think, respect from someone on the other side of the class divide in Neptune was an important experience. But this season so far has made the main characters personally involved in the next mystery arc (without dredging up Veronica's rape again, even!) in an organic way--he had gambling problems tied to Mercer's casino and Logan's casino habit; Keith will probably feel like his revelation of Mindy's infidelity set something in motion; Veronica will probably feel like her telling Keith about Mindy's infidelity in the first place probably set something in motion; Weevil will probably be considered the most likely suspect (Lamb is, after all, itching to rearrest him), and will probably also want to find the killer because of that rapport. And then there are the angry feminists, about which more later.
* Looking back, I think they did a really good job of salting the previous episodes with clues that point to Mercer. And while I am still uncertain about the mini-arc format, I do think it frees the writers from the need to add more convolutions to fill out an entire season's worth of mystery, so the clues and the revelation actually made sense. There were two things that gave Mercer an alibi: his trip to Mexico with Logan at the time of one of the summer rapes and the radio show. The alibi was demolished last week, but not in an obvious way--it was left to the viewer to put together that if the other rapes were faked, the summer one probably was too, and thus the Mexico trip was worthless as an alibi for the real rapist. The second facet of the alibi was demolished at the party, and we knew as soon as Veronica did who did it.
BUT, there is also the bad:
* I will never be okay with the angry feminists portion of this arc. It's offensive and makes no sense. Or, rather, it makes sense if one is willing to accept that campus feminists are such angry man-haters that they are willing to ignore actual sexual violence on campus--including muddying the evidential waters on real rapes (Parker's, Dawn's, the Alia Shawkat character's), committing sexual violation themselves (on a guy who may have been a jerk, but was not actually the rapist), and providing a false alibi for the real rapist--in order to get some frats shut down. You know what helps women? Handing out those coasters that detect date-rape drugs and the whistles, and raising awareness. You know what doesn't? Egging the dean's car because he didn't kick all the fraternities off campus. You know what most feminists are interested in? Helping women. ARRRRGH! Unfortunately, we're probably going to see more of this part of the plotline when the angry feminists turn up as murder suspects in the next arc, but hopefully their presence will be minimal.
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The Office 3.09 - "The Convict"
I don't have a lot to say about this episode, which was solid but not spectacular. I was telling brynnmck that I have yet to get more than 5 minutes into an episode this season without saying, "Oh, Michael."
* Jim is being VERY squirrelly about his relationship with Karen to the interviewer, and he says that it's really new. He's always been pretty close-mouthed to the cameras about what's going on with his romantic feelings, and that's often been part of his charm, but his behavior here did nothing to remove my suspicion that he might have started actively dating Karen after his conversation in the parking lot with Pam, after he ran the idea by her and didn't get the reaction he wanted.
* I was initially uncomfortable with the idea of Jim setting Andy on Pam, but apparently Jim knows Pam better than I do, because it became another prank between them, a prank on Andy. I did not like the idea of Jim letting Karen into the prank, because it felt too much like the two of them teaming up against Pam. But it seems like the prank was something that Jim wanted to keep between him and Pam, something they shared. That's interesting for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it means that Jim is interested in reactivating that part of his friendship with Pam; this is a pattern for them, something they feel comfortable with, something they've shared in the past, and it's safe territory for them to reconnect in because it's them against the madness of Dunder Mifflin but it doesn't touch the scary fraught parts of their relationship. For another, I think Jim is enough of a girl that he knows Pam would have very different feelings about him setting Andy on her than on him and Karen setting Andy on her. And thirdly, I think that if Karen were in it, Pam's reaction might expose to Karen the funky undercurrents in Pam and Jim's relationship, and I'd be willing to bet that Karen is completely oblivous at this point to the fact that Jim ever had feelings for Pam--he would have been very careful about how he talked about her, as part of his own self-protection, and Pam is extremely discreet around others (she waited until she and Jim were alone in the break room to ask him out for coffee), and lord knows both of them are aware of how undesirable it is to be the object of Dunder Mifflin office gossip, if nothing else. brynnmck told me her husband's theory that between Jim and Pam, even though Jim was technically setting Andy on Pam, Andy was the target of the joke, whereas Karen thought Pam was the target, and that wasn't something Jim wanted to do. I think that sums it up perfectly.
* I really enjoyed the return of Michael's unseemly mancrush on Ryan. I do think Ryan is going feral in the office, and I think Michael's unintentionally inappropriate interest in him is what kicked his survival instincts into high gear, with an extra helping of Kelly Kapoor to spur him on.
* Dwight and Angela share the same views on criminals. They truly are a match made in heaven, or someplace else.
* Oh, Michael. He was so eager to be "understanding" (in that special Michael Scott way) of Martin's prison experience (and I love the way the writers played against stereotype by having Martin be the ex-con but having him serve time for securities fraud) until he perceived Martin turning the office against him, and then, because Michael is five and everything is personal, he became the enemy. I loved how Michael was all set to compete with prison in terms of working environment, and his "Prison Michael" routine was such a great illustration of what a sponge he is, sucking up every stereotype and cliche he's ever encountered and internalizing them seamlessly and unquestioningly.
* Toby is a HERO. He played Michael like a fiddle. How great was it that they called him to rescue them, because of course Michael wouldn't be including Toby in any of the reindeer games, since he's the nemisis, and he knew exactly how to bring Michael back to reality by appealing to his sense of himself as someone the office would tease gently.
* Martin, who is after all somewhat sane, gets the hell out. But Hannah is still there with her baby. It looks like Hannah and Andy are fitting right in.
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Linksssssss, precioussssssssss...
Via cofax7, a Slate article on the BSG writer's room. As I said to her, I don't think any of us who have listened to the podcasts (or, better yet, benefited from asta77 listening to the podcasts so we don't have to--her "Heroes" podcast roundup is here) are laboring under the illusion that Moore has a grand, long-term plan. Amusingly, the writer [edited to clarify: the writer of the Slate piece] seems to single out Chris Carter as someone who maintained a long-running story arc, with the implication that he did have a plan, but then touches base with reality again by evincing skepticism of JJ Abrams having a plan for Lost.
According to whedonesque, next week's BSG is the episode written by Jane Espenson.
molly_may has a very good roundup of this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Awards.
I have been reading this dissection of the first book in the Left Behind series with more than a little fascination (link via the Sideshow). It's part theological meditation, part examination of the book's agenda and how that plays out in the story elements, and above all a point-by-point discussion of storytelling mechanics, what makes good writing good and bad writing bad. The blogger does not have an anti-religious or anti-Christian viewpoint at all, but finds the book's particular type of premillennial dispensationalism to be deeply troubling and contrary to his understanding of Christ's teachings. But along the way, the discussion ranges from what makes a character an obvious authorial insert to the importance of detail and coherent worldbuilding in any good sci fi or fantasy piece to the ways to identify the central drama of a situation (or to miss it entirely) to, above all else, the importance of showing and not telling. And there's snark.