Date of airing: November 30, 2004 (UPN)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.40 million viewers, 1.7/3 in Households, 1.2/3 with Adults 18-49
teleplay by: Russell Smith
story by: Rob Thomas
directed by: Marcos Siega
VERONICA MARS cannot always be a satisfying television series to watch, as this episode has proven. The case of the week turned out to be running on empty this entire time, with Veronica and Keith not finding out anything serious to make the hipster teens and young adults lose their not-so-secretive cult no one knows about, but Veronica also decided not to open the paternity test and find out whose daughter she really is. This episode had two different stories, and their conclusions were handled in the ways of "Naah, let's not deal with the fallout of something dramatic here." I would love to know why the writers have decided to take that step and essentially end this hour without any type of resolution. Maybe Rob Thomas decided to tell his writers to work beyond the established stereotypes of the crime and investigative TV genre, or who knows, maybe I never knew before that cases ending differently from the expectations of the private investigators are part of the noir genre (I really do not know because the noir genre is still foreign to me).
For a TV show from
2004, this episode seemed like an intended effort to have the audience
be a bit frustrated by the end, that there is not always a satisfying conclusion to a story, and considering the difficult market that
was network television that year (and UPN desperately wanting to get
viewers to the network, as their continued existence was threatened – I am sure that talks about a merger with The WB, which happened in 2006, were already transpiring behind closed doors), it was very much against the
unwritten rules of network TV to end a crime episode without the
main case of the week getting a proper conclusion, or even depicting that the intended victim of the episode turning out to be an asshole at the end. I mean, Casey turned from a nice and understanding guy who had great friends and could even convince me that his family was a constant nightmare for him to an egotistical asshole trying to make
use of all the money that has been handed to him by his
grandmother. I guess that the $80 million turned Casey from a pleasant guy into a rich dick because that is what a bunch of money does to a person.
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| This is the scene of the photographic crime. |
I would have wished for a more elaborate confrontation between Veronica and Keith, however, especially after the episode started with Keith excited and giggly about showing his daughter her new and first-ever water bed. Not only was I extremely envious of Veronica having such a giggly and happy father (I wish I would have had such a parental unit, but naah, I was given the distant kind who did not bother caring about me), but it would also have been a nice contrast to show that the relationship between father and daughter can be the best it has ever been at the beginning of the episode, just to turn into the worst it will ever be by the end of the hour. And there was definitely some conflict between the Mars detectives midway through, which happened to be the most intriguing plot point. Veronica and Keith were working on the same case, but then their investigative methods were crashing into each other, and both of them were unhappy about it. Veronica got involved in the cult a little too deeply, and Keith probably feared that he would lose his daughter to them, like some parents have lost their kids to the group already.
Besides that, it would not hurt to
have more dramatic and emotional conflict between the two Marses, simply
because father and daughter cannot always be happy and nice to each
other. At one point, Keith will have to punish Veronica for something bad she has done (house arrest, no allowance for a month... something like that),
and at one point, Veronica will have to be disappointed in one of her
father’s decisions. I would have loved for that to happen in this episode after Keith saw Veronica at the compound, but what followed was just an argument between two people who were not necessarily father and daughter in that scene.
Meanwhile, the cult storyline was a bit weird, to say it nicely. First of
all, I was glad that the group did not turn out to be crazy
culters, and I was positively surprised that they were not growing weed
in their greenhouse to make some money illegally, essentially throwing Veronica into the pit of doing some bad stuff for the sake of her father’s investigation. No, just a
bunch of young people getting together to make some delicious-looking
food, sing songs and recite poems around a campfire, and nurse a horse
back to health, all while growing non-smokable plants in the
greenhouse and smooching around like this is just the warm-up for
Burning Man. In a way, the only way the group would have shown to be a
threat was them taking all of Casey’s money, but a) that did not seem to have happened (was Casey still part of the group in the end?), and b) the group was not looking for money anyway, even if it would have helped their cause if they had a steady flow of income. But after this episode, we all know that this group would not end up dead after deciding to kill themselves for a higher being, because everyone in that group just lived their best and happiest lives after having run away from trauma and pain.
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| Veronica is jealous that she does not get this kind of greeting every day. |
Then there was the actual disappointment of the episode, which was depicted via Veronica shredding the DNA test. Dang, I really would have loved to know whose daughter she was, but it looks to me like the writers intended to cut the story at this time, to potentially bring it back for later episodes, and have it be one of the questions the Summer hiatus is made for, instead of dropping a conclusion to that story halfway into the season and completely changing the dynamic between the characters for the next couple of episodes. Unfortunately though, Veronica’s decision to shred the DNA test does not conform with her voiceovers – she wanted to make the Kanes pay, she wanted to be the heir, she attempted to become the Casey of this episode and be a rich high school student in need of a much sweeter car (and maybe a house for her and Keith if she would have decided to stay with him). But at the end of the episode, she shredded the test and we are none the wiser. At the end of the episode, she stopped caring. Her decision was probably a result of looking at Casey and seeing what he had become after receiving money (so, there was a purpose behind that “sweet ride” scene?), but considering how major the story of Veronica’s DNA test was for the majority of the hour, I was a bit surprised that it was dropped like this.
