Date of airing: May 10, 2005 (UPN)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.99 million viewers, 2.2/3 in Households, 1.2/3 with Adults 18-49
teleplay by: Rob Thomas, Diane Ruggiero
story by: Rob Thomas
directed by: Michael Fields
And for the season finale, the writers and producers unpacked an action-packed hour, in which the characters for once had to fight for their lives or fear for it because they had to go up against a killer for a change. It was an entertaining, thrilling, and satisfying season finale, and it pulled all the stops it needed to not only conclude the Lilly Kane murder investigation, but also lead the show towards the summer hiatus and let its fans ponder over what is going to happen with some of the characters, now that they have been put at crossroads during this episode.
Like Logan, who has to face the PCH biker gang now, with them not knowing that he has been exonerated of Lilly’s murder (how convenient for Logan's character arc next season that Weevil has absolutely no patience). Like Lianne, whose hope to live a family life again has been destroyed by her own daughter and has now been chased out of the Mars house (and on the way out the door, stole the bounty that Keith got for bringing Duncan back home). Like Duncan, whose life has been sort of fixed with the revelations that neither did he sleep with his sister nor did he kill his other sister. An entire year of living in such a nightmare world and he is getting woken up like that? After therapy, Duncan should be a new man again.
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| Who's her daddy? |
For the first fifteen-or-so episodes, everybody could have been Lilly
Kane’s murderer, but ever since Logan and Veronica started dating, the
breadcrumbs were laid to turn Aaron Echolls into the killer, which made
me think that Logan was turned into Veronica’s boyfriend partially as a
plot device to move Aaron into position as that character. This made me
assume that the writers figured out the conclusion to the Lilly Kane
murder plot about five or six episodes ago, and one might be allowed to
ask whether it is a good or a bad thing that writers figure out a
conclusion to their series a handful of episodes in advance.
Then again, maybe Aaron was always supposed to be the killer, and the writers just waited until the absolute last second to plant the clues, because who knows when you get a much better idea that could swing the show into a much darker direction if you wanted to. In hindsight, it was a great decision to make Aaron the killer, because it adds an extra story for the next season: How to handle the media and your life when a Hollywood action star turned out to be a murderer? The writers could turn that premise into something of a satirical and critical look at how the pressurized Hollywood business might make some men evil (either they kill or sexually assault up-and-coming actresses) for the next season. The writers could create a story in which Logan completely loses himself, now that he lost both his parents, probably the trust of Veronica, and might even be in a bit of a pickle with Weevil’s gang. There is the black hole I always saw for Logan, and he was about to jump into it.
And then there is Duncan. After all that has happened, there is a way for the writers to bring him and Veronica back together. But only if it was him at Veronica’s doorstep at the end of the episode (what an unnecessary scene to end the season on). But if it were up to me, it would have been Meg or Mac or Wallace, simply just to make sure that season finale cliffhangers like Veronica opening the door and smiling at the welcomed visitor will always be meaningless.
The way Veronica found out about who really murdered Lilly was a bit convenient though. Logan tells the story of a letter he wrote, and all Veronica thinks now is that the letter was in Lilly’s secret vent of secret stuff. But it was not there and all she found were videotapes, which happened to have incriminating evidence on it, although up to this point, it was not even fully clear that Aaron killed Lilly, only that he had a sexual relationship with her. While Aaron made sure he incriminated himself after that – attempting to kill Veronica and then battling Keith in a scoreless scene that had all the tension it needed to almost be a brutal, R-rated scene on broadcast television – it does not necessarily mean that it was he who killed Lilly. He had the motive and the opportunity, but anything other than a confession would not suffice in this case.
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| It's been Mr. Echolls all along. |
It was quite courageous to not accompany that fight scene between Keith and Aaron with any music, which is something you do not see that often. Usually, editors always try to hide the fake punching noises with the score, but in the case of VERONICA MARS, they embraced the noises of a true struggle between a hero and a villain, to make the fight more real and therefore more tense, all while the other hero was trapped in a burning fridge and about to die. Not to mention that this kind of dark imagery is one heck of a way to bring the series into the summer hiatus and have the viewers ponder.
The rest of the episode was good enough. As already established, some
scenes were set up for character arcs for the next season, and other scenes were here to
conclude stories and send the characters involved packing (like Lianne).
Some characters did not get a lot of screentime (Wallace), and others
could have deserved more, just to showcase that they were as deeply
involved in the Lilly Kane murder case as the main characters of the
show (Weevil). But this episode knew what it wanted to do, and it
delivered all of the things it wanted to show the viewers. This was a perfect season finale, even if it was not a perfect episode.
