In the first episode of the first season of Veronica Mars<\/i>, Veronica struggles with developments that have brought up painful elements of her and her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past in the town of Neptune, California. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to start Veronica Mars<\/i>.<\/p>\n
OH MY GOD, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TIME FOR A NEW SHOW. HOW EXCITING. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go over the rules for any newbies who have shown up for the ride:<\/p>\n
1) Please do not spoil me or anyone else. <\/b>If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never experienced a Mark Watches review series, I am approaching this show without any spoilers. Please take great<\/i> care when commenting about this show for the benefit of myself and any others who are watching Veronica Mars<\/i> for the first time. What counts as a spoiler? Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a guide for that, but essentially: Have I seen it in the canon of the show yet? THEN DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T POST IT. Also, do not<\/i> point out things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve missed or have not put together.<\/p>\n
2) Use rot13.com to cypher spoilery comments and thoughts<\/b>. You are<\/i> allowed to talk about spoilers and generally sob about how I said that one thing<\/i> and oh my god he said the thing<\/i>. The gibberish you see in the comments is rot13<\/a>. Firefox and Chrome also have plug-ins that allow you to cypher text within the browser; I would highly recommend using them.<\/p>\n 3) Video commissions to accompany reviews are $25 per episode, can be purchased here<\/a>, and will remain free to download for everyone<\/i> while I am reviewing that season of the show. <\/b>So, once I finish season one of Veronica Mars<\/i>, all the video commissions will move to my store to be permanently archived<\/a>, and they will cost $0.99 a piece to download. This helps pay for the very high cost of hosting every aspect of this community. Please consider supporting me<\/a> if you like this project, as it helps me pay bills and keep this online universe up and running for all of you.<\/p>\n 4) Please read the Site Rules<\/a> and FAQ<\/a> about commenting conduct. <\/b>My moderators and I do our best to make this a safe, inclusive community. We have a strict policy about slurs and bigotry. If you are warned by a moderator, please take the advice they give as a warning and nothing more. It is not a personal judgment on you. We are not trying to control how you speak in your own life; we are merely asking you to be considerate of others while you post in this one community. Repeated offenses or particularly egregious ones will get your comments deleted and may possibly earn you a suspension or a ban. If you use the Free Speech\/First Amendment argument as a counter to moderation, you are automatically banned for not being able to understand said issues and because you are clearly demonstrating an unwillingness to put in the time to make this community awesome<\/b>.<\/p>\n 5) Have fun!<\/b> Share opinions! Post non-spoilery fan-art! This is as much a critical analysis space as it is a fandom space. Our intent here at Mark Watches is to make this safe for you to celebrate and analyze this show as you feel you want to, so please nerd out, geek out, or analyze to your heart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s content! I do read the comments, and may often reply to things. This is my IntenseDebate profile<\/a> in case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m saying.<\/p>\n Overall, please be considerate of others, and let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s keep this lovely community what it is.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Trigger Warning: I have to discuss rape as part of the plot and in a personal sense, so please take care when reading this review, as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible to address \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pilot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d without talking about it.<\/b><\/p>\n So, as is tradition around here, I will confess to what I know going into Veronica Mars<\/i> so that you can see just how unprepared I am. In particular, this show is going to be a doozy for me because I know the following:<\/p>\n And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so thankful for that, because this pilot is FUCKING FANTASTIC. Pilots are rarely just meh<\/i>. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re either hit or miss for me. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m either 100% interested from the get-go, or I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m bored and disinterested until something better comes along. But I always approach new shows on Mark Watches far differently than new books for Mark Reads. Pilots are a strange thing because so many people expect things to be instantly gratifying, whereas with a book, most folks are willing to be patient with the narrative. Despite that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re different storytelling mediums, I tend to like treating a season of a television show like a novel, and so the pilot is just the first chapter. Who reads just one chapter and decides that the rest of the book is crap? (Actually, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened to me before, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a different story.) So, I come to new television shows with patience. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m willing to give them time.<\/p>\n Except then Veronica Mars<\/i> gives me a compelling introduction to this universe, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need<\/i> half a season because HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THIS IS SO FANTASTIC. I absolutely love the noir tone to this show, which takes place in a fictional California town that feels freakishly familiar. It reminded me of Malibu, California, or perhaps somewhere in the South Bay, places where there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really a middle class. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the rich mingling with the poor, which is shockingly the case in a lot<\/i> of California cities. This dynamic, which the show captures surprisingly well, is represented throughout the characters. Veronica Mars<\/i> is about a family who fell from their social graces because of a murder, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as much a noir as it is a biting commentary on class. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating to me how much of this informs the characterization of these people, too. Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jaded attitude is not just there for the sake of it; she saw her best friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dead body. Her father was voted out of his job after accusing the head of the Kane family of murder, and her mother left her behind after the stress of losing their social standing became too much; and then, in a desperate attempt to show her peers that she was not fazed by what had happened to her, Veronica attends a huge party, only to be drugged and raped and then immediately disbelieved by the first cop she talks to<\/i>. Fuck Don Lamb, for the record, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fairly certain that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much of anything that can redeem his character for me after that scene. What a gross, disgusting human who \u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/p>\n Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m jumping ahead of myself. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll talk more about that in a bit. The city of Neptune isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just full of the rich and the poor. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also actually racially diverse like California is<\/i>. One of my main gripes about Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/i> was the fact that for a show set in a Southern California high school, there were almost no regular characters of color. Here, two of the main characters are Latino and Black, most of the background cast is diverse, and it looks<\/i> like where I spent most of my life growing up. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s believable! That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perfect<\/i>. I think I like Weevil, but as it stands, his whole womanizing gangster thing feels a bit too much like a stereotype. EXCEPT THERE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S A BIT AT THE END WHERE I FEEL LIKE WEEVIL GIVES A HINT OF SOMETHING MORE. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see<\/i>.<\/p>\n But Wallace, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Wallace<\/i>. God, what a fantastic character. Well, Veronica and Keith count, too, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so rad to go into this pilot without knowing anything and be able to come away with such distinct feelings about these three characters. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re well-defined without being caricatures, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so much potential. Wallace is a geeky black kid who is eager to be adventurous when the time calls for it, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also fiercely<\/i> loyal, as demonstrated by his rapid attachment to Veronica. Who he hangs out with extensively despite all the horrible things he hears about her! He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care about the rumors because she helped him<\/i>. A FEELING. I ALREADY DEVELOPED A FEELING FOR THIS GODDAMN SHOW. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s over, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S OVER.<\/p>\n But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just nothing<\/i> in this pilot quite like the amazing dynamic between Keith Mars and Veronica Mars. It is a thing of beauty<\/i>. Here are a daughter and father who clearly adore the hell<\/i> out of one another, who want the best for their loved one, and who are entirely obsessed with being private investigators. I got a sense that Veronica really only started doing detective work once her mother was out of the picture, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like she had to pick up the slack when her father was desperate to make enough money to support the family. Oh god, that dance he does when he comes back from his job<\/i>. No, I am not going to be able to handle this family at all<\/i>. YOU ALL DID THIS TO ME.<\/p>\n Even the rest of the characters are easy to distinguish. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got Duncan Kane, Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ex who turned against her after Keith went after his father for Lilly Kane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s murder. Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Logan, who was Lilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s boyfriend, and is now also firmly against the general idea of Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s existence, so he bullies her. A lot<\/i>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like Logan, either. A lot<\/i>. And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this is a simple case of just giving Veronica some antagonists to mess up her day. No, this is all about building an atmosphere to explain why<\/i> Veronica is the way she is. As I mentioned before, her bitterness is based in having her life essentially taken from her. It explains why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so close to her father, and then informs why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so friendly with Wallace. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much of anything<\/i> aside from Mars Investigations anymore. Her mom is gone, the city she lives in is full of people who hate her and her father on principle, and she now lives firmly in the lower class. OH BOY, CAN I RELATE TO THAT LAST ONE. I mean, I started out generally poor, then got SUPER POOR, then moved to Oakland and entertained 18 months as a middle class tech worker, then got laid off and have been living firmly in the lower class since the beginning of 2012. I mean, I know how<\/i> to live on very little means, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strangely familiar, but I know how jarring and upsetting it is to suddenly lose that kind of class status.<\/p>\n And amidst all of this, there are so many fantastic stories<\/i>. The murder of Lilly Kane obviously hangs over everything, especially since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had such a catastrophic affect on the Mars family. The reveal at the end of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pilot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that Keith hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let go of the case, despite that someone has already confessed to the murder, signals that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much more to this. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the mystery of who Jake Kane is meeting with (LIANNE MARS, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME<\/i>?!?!?!?!), along with the fact that Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rapist is still on the loose.<\/p>\n About that. Yeah, so, obviously, given my very personal and traumatic experience with rape, that came out of nowhere. Strangely, it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trigger me, which I sat there anticipating because one of the times I was raped involved someone drugging me. For the most part, I think that the episode handled this well, showing us how absolutely disorienting it is to wake up as Veronica did, and then portraying Don Lamb as an antagonist for his behavior. That<\/i> made me feel a lot better about this because the writers aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trying to ignore how traumatizing it is to be raped and<\/i> how horrifying it is to be dismissed as Veronica was here. Again, I hate Officer Lamb with the passion of a billion raging suns, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to stay hating him until otherwise stated.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting to think about how this episode is organized, because it introduces a ton of stories, and all but one of them is left unresolved. The only closure we get is on Wallace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. Through a complicated plan of double-crosses and favors that Veronica calls in, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to piss of Logan (GOOD) and Don Lamb (EVEN BETTER) and<\/i> get Weevil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motorcycle gang off of Wallace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back, since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like Wallace actually did anything wrong here. And so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the foundation of a friendship here between Wallace and Veronica, and then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a hint of a possible ally in Weevil, who must be feeling some<\/i> gratitude towards Veronica for what she did for his CLEARLY GUILTY friends. I do like the idea that this whole show explores the grey areas of morality, especially since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like Weevil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friends deserved the help they got. But Veronica did what she had to do to help Wallace, and I admire her for that. It seems Keith is following the same logic, since he openly lies to his daughter out of some desire to help her, too. I got the sense that he never<\/i> really lies to Veronica, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to see. In the end, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re left craving more on purpose. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brilliant way to close out a pilot because it accomplishes so many things that take other shows a lot longer to pull off. I can identify the characters and<\/i> identify with them; I get a sense for the tone and style of the show; I am left wondering how certain stories will end; and I care<\/i> what happens to some of these people. This is one of the strongest pilots I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen, and by gods, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m excited to see more of this. I know that I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t addressed every single detail, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hoping my video commission covers some of the gaps. You can download that\u00c2\u00a0right here for just $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n ONWARDS TO MORE VERONICA MARS<\/i>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – If you would like to support this website and keep Mark Does Stuff running, I’ve put up a detailed post explaining how you can!<\/a> In the first episode of the first season of Veronica Mars, Veronica struggles with developments that have brought up painful elements of her and her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past in the town of Neptune, California. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to … Continue reading \n
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