Date of airing: May 2, 2006 (UPN)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.09 million viewers, 1.4/2 in Households, 1.0/3 rating with Adults 18-49
written by: Diane Ruggiero
directed by: Steve Gomer
How is it possible for a jury pool of twelve people to find Aaron Echolls “not guilty” of all charges, when, half a season ago,
Veronica led a pool of jury members to an acquittal that took a while
to get there, because, in that episode, the writers actually cared about
the depiction of the judicial system (even if the episode itself was bonkers in all the bad ways)? That Aaron would be found “not
guilty” might be a solid way to bring a lot more excitement into the
season finale – with Mayor Woody on the run, Aaron Echolls roaming around free, the bus
crash still needing a conclusion, as well as the high school graduation – but in terms of realism, this verdict is kind of a blow, because there is no way
that this would ever have happened, and definitely not at that speed. Even though I am happy that it took an entire year for the show to go through Aaron Echoll's court case, because that happened to be the only realistic part of the story – court cases never happen the minute after someone murders someone else, like most TV shows want to make us believe.
But hey, it is almost a guarantee now that the season finale will be packed with plots up to the wazoo and that kind of excites me – there is no better way than a season finale which promises one story after another, although maybe there is a little too much story, and there could be a chance that the writers were letting the stories run into each other and collide.
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| Woody is not a good man. |
What I also found absurd is that Keith would send Veronica a text message about the verdict being in, knowing that Veronica would be sitting in one of her finals, working towards that Kane scholarship, working towards getting to Stanford. All these efforts of Keith to keep Veronica focused on her finals, yet when the time came for her to be focused on her finals, Keith sent that text and led Veronica to the court, which essentially means Veronica just walked out on the finals, she screwed the Kane scholarship, and she essentially screwed Stanford. It is a realization that might come in the next episode, but it is one that has been established during this hour.
I did however like how the relationship between Keith and Veronica was depicted during the courtroom scenes. There were a few more examples of Veronica having kept a few secrets from her father (the treatment against an STD, breaking into the Manning home, manipulating Leo D’Amato), and it is not like Keith did not know that Veronica was keeping her greatest secrets from him (“Donut Run” was an entire episode about that betrayal), but this episode established that Keith still fully trusts his daughter, despite the secrets. And if we are all honest here, Keith has a few secrets he is keeping from Veronica as well, so we should not be pushing the hypocrisy train here.
Still, Keith decided to take a stand against how Veronica was being depicted in court by Aaron’s lawyer, and damn, did I appreciate Keith pulling the lawyer by his tie and threatening him to break his fingers. Keith defended his daughter at a cost, which essentially means their distrust towards each other during and after “Donut Run” might have disappeared – maybe it has something to do with the fact that without Veronica, Keith would have been killed by Liam Fitzpatrick.
In the meantime, Neptune High was going through its final days. Wallace was happy, Veronica was studying, and even Weevil decided to quit as a gang leader for a second and work towards getting his feet up onto the graduation stage for the sake of his grandmother, which was an interesting story. I loved that he was tutored by both Mac and Beaver (who decided to maybe get their naughty going in a closet or something... wait a minute, did they have sex as “ordered” by Weevil?), and I loved that Weevil had a success story here, even if the Sheriff’s department was about to take Weevil in once more, because there can never be an episode in which Weevil is not dealing with death and violence.
But hey, that one scene with the kid in the van who witnessed Weevil taking out Thumper is finally being used in the narrative. I happened to remember that scene very well, because the kid showing up was just too suspicious, and I did not even need the “previously on” from the beginning of this episode to be reminded of that scene, when the mother and her two kids came to the Sheriff’s department and were about to identify Weevil for the attack against Thumper.
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| It is always a delight to see Mac work. |
Let’s just have a few words about the beginning of the episode, when Lucky decided to snap and pretty much shoot up the entire high school. VERONICA MARS needed 43 episodes to depict a high school shooting, and even if it turned out to be blanks in Lucky’s gun, you still could not get past the sense that Neptune High was just another one of many America’s high schools that have suffered a mass shooting. And I must say that the shooting looked somewhat ridiculous, even if I personally cannot compare it with any of my own experiences. But while I found it just a tad bit worrisome that almost all of the students decided to hide behind and under tables, instead of running left and right like a bomb just dropped on them that will explode in a minute, I appreciated the torturous level of emotions the students might have felt, especially Gia, who was named by Lucky, and Jackie, who had to look him in the eye. There was a sense of terror in that scene, and I am pretty sure when real-life high school shooting survivors happen to watch this episode, there needs to be a trigger warning in front of it.
