VM 3.04: Depudor gets her hate on
I’ve had a lot of trouble articulating how I feel about this season so far, so I’ve been reluctant to write up my thoughts, except when I’m promoting Lamb for Mayor. But this episode bothered me so much, I had to write it all down.
What bugs me is that it had the potential to be really good, but the writers are just lazy. They wasted a good idea. This is like the horrible S2 episodes where every single storyline fell apart due to implausibility and the total lack of continuity and research. The research here, as in so many episodes, would’ve been really easy to do. California law is sparklingly clear and easy to access on all of these subjects. And as for continuity, the easiest research to do is researching your own show, but they can’t seem to be bothered even to do that.
Two continuity things bothered me right off the bat, in the teaser: Logan at dinner and the new date for the rape. They try to act like Logan and Keith have barely interacted, but they’ve actually had not one but two intense and emotional encounters. I haven’t forgotten when Keith threw Logan up against a wall, and I’m sure Logan hasn’t. (I’d like to see Keith apologize and acknowledge that he overreacted, that he realizes now that Logan would never physically hurt Veronica, and that he didn’t know that Logan was abused by his own father.) And then there was the storyline in OAV where Keith interviews Logan at the sheriff’s department and later finds him crying over Lilly. Then there’s the fact that Logan’s actions contributed to Aaron’s acquittal. These guys clearly have some issues. But all that? Who needs continuity when you can have cuteness!
Also, the dinner scene made me uncomfortable. I guess the V/K banter was supposed to show how tight and cute they are, but it just felt to me like Logan was the third wheel on Keith and Veronica’s date.
As for the rape getting pushed back six months… Seriously?
Like last year’s horrible “Happy Go Lucky,” none of the storylines in this episode worked for me. I should’ve loved Logan’s story, since Logan going emo over wanting a family is a popular topic for the fanfic I write in my head. But I couldn’t enjoy the emotion because none of it made any sense, so none of it felt real.
My first problem was with the whole notion of Logan’s trust fund being siphoned off of to make payments to Charlie Stone. Huh? Logan’s trust fund is for Logan. That’s what a trust fund is - money set aside for a particular purpose or person. If Aaron hadn’t designated a trust for Logan, and this were a matter of Trina and Logan divvying up the estate, that would make much more sense. Avi Kaufman would be the executor of the estate, and Logan would be trying to find out how much money there is altogether and where that money is going. But if Logan has a trust fund, that money would have his name on it and would be just for him, and the rest of this would be moot. Trina would have a trust as well, and then there would be a separate trust that pays out money to Charlie Stone (and whatever other illegitimate children Aaron might’ve had), plus trusts that might be set aside for other relatives or charities or whatever, though it’s more likely that they would get lump payments when the estate is executed. But as it’s set up here, there’s no way the Charlie payments would’ve been coming out of Logan’s trust fund. This is just the writers being too lazy to be accurate because they just don’t care. I can’t forgive that in a mystery show.
Then Veronica, by use of a flowchart diagram, somehow figures out where the money is going. Hmm… Where can I buy a magic whiteboard? I’m looking through my Staples catalog, and I don’t see one. So, whatever. She tells Logan about this, and Logan immediately contacts Charlie and then, by virtue of the fact that they both surf, immediately starts telling him all of his deep, dark secrets. Since we soon learn that Charlie is a reporter, what would’ve made this a better (and more plausible) scene is if Logan had been reluctant to talk about this stuff, because it’s painful/embarrassing/whatever, and Charlie had found a way to draw it out of him. I think that would be more in character for Logan, but what makes it really sad is that Studio 60 is right now doing a (really good) story arc with Christine Lahti as a reporter for Vanity Fair who is interviewing everyone for a big story and wants the scoop on the behind-the-scenes action. No one wants to tell her anything, but she manages to get them all to talk. She’s very above-board about everything and extremely professional, and yet they all give up beautiful gems about their personal lives, because that’s what she does. A good reporter gets people to talk who don’t want to talk. I think Matt Czuchry could’ve pulled this off. I’ve loved the guy since Young Americans, and he’s smooth and charming enough to get someone like Logan to open up. That would've been cool to see, and a better pay-off: "That's why he was able to get Logan to open up right away! He's a reporter!"
I would believe the Charlie storyline if they hadn’t chosen to use the words “Vanity Fair.” Not only would Norman be a better reporter, but I also don’t buy that a VF writer would commit several felonies to get a story. If this had been some trashy tabloid, I could believe a reporter engaging in such horrifically unethical and illegal behavior. It’s bad enough that he fraudulently poses as someone else (which he would get sued for), but then we learn that he tapped the real Charlie’s phone (which he would go to jail for. That is hugely illegal in California. Even the police can’t put a tap on your phone unless they get a court order from a judge). And then he pours salt in the wounds; when he’s outed by Veronica, he actually mocks Logan over the pears incident. So the guy has no heart at all?
Vanity Fair is a reputable magazine. Reputable magazines get interviews by being reputable, not by lying about who they are. That’s why VF gets such good scoop (like the recent Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes cover story, where the VF reporter actually got to go live with them at their ranch for a few days, the kind of access that few other magazines ever get). But instead of stopping to think about whether it makes sense, the VM writers just picked a magazine that sounded good and didn’t give it another thought.
In so many ways, this had the potential to be a really clever and compelling storyline, but instead they took every possible shortcut. They completely abandoned logic in favor of emotion. That works for One Tree Hill, but it doesn’t work on a mystery show, where details and clues matter, or on a show that promotes itself as “smart.” There was nothing smart here. It’s never clear how Norman discovered Charlie, why it happened now. How did he know that real Charlie wouldn’t call Logan back, at least just to tell him that he wants to remain anonymous? And if Norman has known Charlie’s identity for some time, why didn't he go ahead and break the story before someone else caught wind of it? I can’t imagine that a reporter as unethical as this guy would put off the story because he respects the wishes of Charlie Stone to remain anonymous.
I hated this storyline. It just made no sense to me. And on top of that, I’m getting tired of having to rewind and turn on the closed captioning every time Jason speaks. I don’t hear his dialog anymore; I read it.
But back to things that don’t make sense: the Keith storyline may have been even worse. Keith used to be the sheriff, the head law enforcement officer for the county. He knows what the law is, and I’d like to think he has some respect for it. Putting a bug on the husband’s tie was illegal. Again, this is something that would’ve been very easy for the writers to find out if they’d bothered to do any research. When Veronica did stuff like this, I felt like we knew that it was illegal, but we let her get away with it because we believed that her motives were understandable. Here I just feel like it was glossed over, and we’re supposed to keep thinking Keith is a good guy. Maybe I’m wrong; it would actually be more interesting if Keith willingly broke the law because he’s smitten with this woman and is desperate to prove that her husband is cheating. But we're never told that. Plus, PI’s know how to do these things the legal way. For instance, sitting out in his car, Keith could’ve used a directional microphone that would allow him to hear the conversation that the husband and his wannabe mistress were having across the street. Keith used to have scruples on this subject, like when V put a bug in Lamb’s office. Keith refused to use the information they gained from it because he knew it was illegally obtained.
And then there was the bizarre way that Keith shows the pictures to his client and lets her believe that her husband is cheating, and then plays the audio that exonerates him. WTF? Shouldn't you lead with, "He's not cheating on you?"
As with everything having to do with Keith, I was bored by this storyline, which at least wasn’t true of the Logan/Charlie plot. And I am really sick of this show being used for TV reunions. I didn’t need to see Willow and Cordelia together on VM, and I don’t need to see anyone from JSM. And I always liked Laura San Giacomo more than those actresses. This show has a cast budget so small they can’t even afford their own regulars half the time. They don’t need to be wasting money on big-name guest stars who are going to do nothing to help bring in the target demo. I shudder to think what they’re paying LSG.
Lastly, we have the rape storyline. The sooner this is over, the better. I really, really hate it. I won’t repeat what others have complained about with the shallow way the feminists and frat boys are represented, but I will chime in that as someone who has always considered herself a feminist, but who also collects Barbie dolls and loves the color pink, I am offended by the way they portray what they call feminists. And I’m offended that they think they should be tackling this issue when they have no women on their writing staff except for DR, who has only survived because she’s “one of the guys” and is known for some of the raunchiest dialog (and is RT’s lapdog and thus completely incapable of calling him on any of this shit if she did have a problem with it).
As for the parts that don’t make sense, I’m not as nitpicky here because I don’t pay much attention to this storyline due to all the hate. A couple things did bother me, though. I’m not an expert on fraternities (since they’ve been banned at my college for like a hundred years), but I’m under the impression that they have a lot of money, particularly ones like the Pi Sigs who have wealthy alumni. Those alumni would make sure they got the best possible representation to clear the frat. They would hire a real PI firm to investigate all this, not a teenaged girl. LA and SD are two big cities full of top-tier risk management firms. It’s completely implausible to me that they would go to Veronica.
Then there’s the stuff with the ATM photo of Claire. *Now* they start talking about court orders. I can imagine that if you're a cop or a lawyer and you wanted a bank to turn over an ATM photo, you would need a court order. But Keith said a bank representative would have to request the court order. Huh? Why would a bank rep have to do that, to look at one of their own pictures? I’m not positive that’s wrong, but it certainly sounds wrong. And why hasn’t Lamb already tracked it down? Is he really doing nothing to investigate? There’s a serial rapist running around; if he doesn’t catch this guy, he’s going to be out of a job soon. Rich people don’t put up with this kind of crap. In the previous two mysteries, they already had a culprit - it was just the wrong one. But this is an open and active case. Lamb would be working on this, and if not, the university would’ve hired their own investigators by now.
So, yeah. Lots of hate here. I wanted to like this one, but I couldn’t. I just wish the writers would work harder. It’s not that hard to keep track of important events, like when your title character was drugged and raped.
P.S. If you liked this episode and don't want to be brought down, just skip ahead to jascott's post of ultimate happiness.