Binging
“You’re not a complicated guy, are you, Dick.” – Logan Echolls, Veronica Mars
This series keeps raising itself out of the grave. The movie appeared long after the show’s initial demise, and the newest TV season has been released half a decade after the movie. The actors are the same. Apparently, they can’t get enough of this blend of high school soap opera and detective fiction.
Neither can I. It’s my third viewing. In 2011, I watched the three TV seasons that, to date, had been released. A few years later, I viewed seasons 1 and 2 again, with Stephen. The Veronica Mars movie was released in 2014. I didn’t view it. But now that Hulu has released season 4 of the TV show, my goal is to work through all this material with Karin – we’re in the middle of season 2 – and then, maybe, we’ll glance at the spinoff, Play It Again, Dick, which Karin discovered on the Internet. (Dick focuses on a minor character; it, too, boasts appearances by most of the actors from the main program.)
Dick Casablancas really isn’t a complicated guy, but it’s fun to watch him plunge into pleasure-seeking. He has a parachute: his trust fund. There are lots of characters with trust funds in Veronica Mars, lots of very rich emancipated minors, and one of the interesting themes is the recklessness that their wealth affords them. It rubs off on their poorer high school classmates, with whom they feud.
Veronica (Kristen Bell) isn’t rich – she’s the daughter of a hardworking private detective. She pursues the same line of work, mostly inside her high school and its environs in Neptune, Southern California. She’s very clever. But she’s infected with the heedlessness of her rich schoolmates when, really, she ought to listen to her father.
Veronica is complicated. Some of the rich kids are, too. One is Dick’s friend, the aforementioned Logan Echolls, who makes sparks fly in unceasing confrontations with Veronica, with the local biker gang, and with his movie-star father. Another is Dick’s younger brother, Cassidy “Beaver” Casablancas, who uses his own trust fund to correct imbalances of power. Another is the outspoken Lilly Kane, Veronica’s best friend, whose murder is the focus of season 1.
Hardly anyone – except, perhaps, Veronica’s lunch buddy, Wallace – is unambiguously good. Veronica’s father is wise and brave, but it’d be a stretch to call him a straight arrow. Sunny Neptune is a snakepit. The teenagers circle each other, hissing.
Meanwhile, in each episode, Veronica solves a mystery.
Sometimes, she finds a missing dog (or goat, or parrot). Other times, she’s hired to get to the bottom of high school intrigue (Who sabotaged the election for student body president? Who spread the nasty rumors about the cheerleading captain?).
Occasionally, things are more serious. Veronica reunites long-lost relatives. She uncovers domestic abuse or serial murder or organized crime.
She taunts the corrupt sheriff and other local powers. At school, she attracts grudges – and when others wrong her, she takes fierce revenge.
Let it go, says her father.
Let it go, says Wallace, her friend.
Veronica doesn’t let it go. For all its fantasy, the series gets at the truth in the hard-boiled detective genre. It’s about enacting retributive justice in a world in which no one is blameless enough to throw stones.
The first episodes are bubble-gummy. Then darkness gradually descends.
This series keeps raising itself out of the grave. The movie appeared long after the show’s initial demise, and the newest TV season has been released half a decade after the movie. The actors are the same. Apparently, they can’t get enough of this blend of high school soap opera and detective fiction.
Neither can I. It’s my third viewing. In 2011, I watched the three TV seasons that, to date, had been released. A few years later, I viewed seasons 1 and 2 again, with Stephen. The Veronica Mars movie was released in 2014. I didn’t view it. But now that Hulu has released season 4 of the TV show, my goal is to work through all this material with Karin – we’re in the middle of season 2 – and then, maybe, we’ll glance at the spinoff, Play It Again, Dick, which Karin discovered on the Internet. (Dick focuses on a minor character; it, too, boasts appearances by most of the actors from the main program.)
Dick Casablancas really isn’t a complicated guy, but it’s fun to watch him plunge into pleasure-seeking. He has a parachute: his trust fund. There are lots of characters with trust funds in Veronica Mars, lots of very rich emancipated minors, and one of the interesting themes is the recklessness that their wealth affords them. It rubs off on their poorer high school classmates, with whom they feud.
Veronica (Kristen Bell) isn’t rich – she’s the daughter of a hardworking private detective. She pursues the same line of work, mostly inside her high school and its environs in Neptune, Southern California. She’s very clever. But she’s infected with the heedlessness of her rich schoolmates when, really, she ought to listen to her father.
Veronica is complicated. Some of the rich kids are, too. One is Dick’s friend, the aforementioned Logan Echolls, who makes sparks fly in unceasing confrontations with Veronica, with the local biker gang, and with his movie-star father. Another is Dick’s younger brother, Cassidy “Beaver” Casablancas, who uses his own trust fund to correct imbalances of power. Another is the outspoken Lilly Kane, Veronica’s best friend, whose murder is the focus of season 1.
Hardly anyone – except, perhaps, Veronica’s lunch buddy, Wallace – is unambiguously good. Veronica’s father is wise and brave, but it’d be a stretch to call him a straight arrow. Sunny Neptune is a snakepit. The teenagers circle each other, hissing.
Meanwhile, in each episode, Veronica solves a mystery.
Sometimes, she finds a missing dog (or goat, or parrot). Other times, she’s hired to get to the bottom of high school intrigue (Who sabotaged the election for student body president? Who spread the nasty rumors about the cheerleading captain?).
Occasionally, things are more serious. Veronica reunites long-lost relatives. She uncovers domestic abuse or serial murder or organized crime.
She taunts the corrupt sheriff and other local powers. At school, she attracts grudges – and when others wrong her, she takes fierce revenge.
Let it go, says her father.
Let it go, says Wallace, her friend.
Veronica doesn’t let it go. For all its fantasy, the series gets at the truth in the hard-boiled detective genre. It’s about enacting retributive justice in a world in which no one is blameless enough to throw stones.
The first episodes are bubble-gummy. Then darkness gradually descends.