(This entry, in order: "Veronica Mars" and "Gilmore Girls.")Curiouser and curiouser, "Veronica Mars." All this time I had just thought Charisma Carpenter had been brought in to wear outfits like the one above to try to goose the ratings, and here Rob's been hiding a potential femme fatale right under my nose.
So Kendall Who Isn't Really Kendall is in bed with the Fitzpatricks (and I think we can all assume that's in a literal as well as a figurative sense) and has as good a reason as any to have wanted the bus to crash. Hmmm... For now, my impulse is to think she's a red herring. We've gotten no real hints until now that she was capable of this, and now her potential guilt came with so many flashing neon signs that it almost has to be misdirection.
On the other hand, I can't help shake the feeling that Rob thinks he's being sneakier than he's been with regards to Woody. There have been at least as many obvious clues about The Gutte's guilt (he warned his daughter to get off the bus, the C4 was in a hangar he owns, he has access to demolition materials and a motive to drive a wedge between the rich and poor elements of town, etc., etc.), and yet Veronica and Keith have shrugged off or just completely ignored them. It's like a magician telling you not to pay any attention to the that rabbit-shaped bulge pushing against the edge of his top hat.
Maybe I just wasn't trying as hard last season to identify Lily's killer, but I was both shocked and pleased to discover it was Aaron. Until proven otherwise, one of the safe assumptions in my life is that Rob Thomas is smarter than me, and the reveal will be both surprising and satisfctory, but we'll see.
Just a really good episode all around, both in terms of moving the arc and on its own merits. The Keith-in-danger cliffhanger was perfectly done, and Enrico remains awesome whether he's pleading for his life or crawling into Veronica's car after smashing through a picture window. Weevil essentially wraps up his entire character arc (though, again, there's a chance he could wind up going to jail for Thumper) in a very noir fashion, and we discover just what a clever bastard Aaron is with his plan to frame the MIA Duncan. (On the other hand, isn't Aaron destined to go away for a long time just for trying to burn Veronica and Keith to death? Or does he get a pass in Neptune because his potential victims were poor?)
Over on "Gilmore Girls," when you combine a lavish party with the phrase "written and directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino," you know it's gonna be good. Of course Mrs. Kim has a mother she fears and lies to just as much as Lane did to her for so long; after all, Emily always had to take all that crap from Lorelai the First. So here's the question: Rory and her mom obviously get along, but are she and Logan gonna have a kid one day who can't stand her grandma, or have they broken the cycle?
The "58 seats and 62 Koreans" joke got beaten into the ground, but slapstick and women running in heels is funny, and Sebastian Bach has risen to become maybe my second or third-favorite person on the entire show. A few unanswered questions:
- Whatever happened to Mr. Kim? There were references to him as being alive but unseen in the early seasons (sort of like Vera or Maris), but Lane walked down the aisle unescorted.
- Did the cold medicine make me doze off during it, or was the show missing a scene that set up the whole Yummy Bartenders concept? Seemed to come out of nowhere.
- Exactly how long is this field trip of April's? Rory was able to go from Philly to New Haven, put in some time at the paper, and still get back to Stars Hollow in time for the wedding.
- I know Chris is now richer than Trump or something, but man does he have some good in-house childcare. He's out for a few Saturday afternoon errands (on a day he presumably would be doing some daddy-daughter bonding) when he abruptly changes direction, goes to a wedding, gets very smashed and spends the night sitting next to his original baby momma. That sitter/nanny/au pair had better get a health plan.
Hi! Love the blog -- I just found it via tomatonation.com. I've been starving for good Veronica Mars commentary, and I think you're absolutely right about both Kendall (too early for this much evidence about the real guilty party) and Woody. The hints that Woody's up to Something Bad have been piling up fast and furious, and he clearly had the means and opportunity to plant the bomb. I have a feeling that we're going to learn he had motive as well sometime in the next few episodes.
ReplyDeleteI'm still operating on the assumption that I will be totally shocked when we find out who blew up the bus, so if it turns out to be Woody I'm going to be really disappointed.
I think GG showed both Lauren Graham and AS Palladino's limits this week -- the microphone scene was painful, and not because it was meant to be. The writing was bad, the acting was bad. They seem to be deep into yet another fallow period, creatively.
ReplyDeleteI thought Mr. Kim was dead....
ReplyDeleteI think there was a reference in an earlier episode to April's field trip being something like 10 days or even two weeks. Ridiculously long, in other words, and about as realistic as anything else I've seen lately in Stars Hollow.
ReplyDeleteI'm still figuring out why I never realized before the Lorelai was this incredible seamstress who could transform am impossibly ugly wedding dress into something Lane was willing to wear. I mean, you don't learn that stuff in home ec anymore and I can't see Emily teaching her...
Ellen
I thought Veronica Mars was really great this week. Even with some of the pacing problems and too much focus on Duncan, this season is really shaping up to be pretty spectacular.
ReplyDeleteI'm worried about your comment that Rob Thomas thinks he's not being obvious with Woody, because he has alarm bells all over the place. I think he'll be guilty for something bad, but it won't be the bus crash. I'm leaning towards untoward behavior with some of the kids he coached in Little League.
And finally! Kendall has a purpose. Can't wait for the last three episodes of this season. It has to be picked up!
I've made it from Philly to southern CT in about 3 hours, flying low, as it were. I can see it pushing reality, but still do-able.
ReplyDeleteI love that Lorelai sews. I'm pretty sure that it's a self-taught thing, where she learned because she needed to raising Rory. As a daughter of a seamstress, transforming the first god-awful dress into the new one makes perfect sense. lord knows there was enough fabric on the first one to just use the yardage and start from scratch.
"I'm worried about your comment that Rob Thomas thinks he's not being obvious with Woody, because he has alarm bells all over the place."
ReplyDeleteSince I do talk to/e-mail these guys, I should clarify: while I have told Rob my suspicions about Woody, he has not responded in any way. So I don't know that he thinks he's outsmarting us; I just can't understand why else Veronica and Keith would miss an obvious trick like Woody owning the hangar.
Anonymous: I thought the drunken speech was heart-breaking. Very real, very well-written, and impeccably acted.
ReplyDeleteA 10-day field trip, if arranged over spring break, is actually very common. Lots of fund-raising, sure, but hardly rare. A girl I tutor just went away for at least a week to California from NJ on a band trip. The trip overlapped with break so the kids missed 1-2 days of school at most. Very realistic.
As for Lorelai's sewing prowess, that's been a common thread (hah!) throughout the series. It's been long-established that Lorelai is a fabulous seamstress; this was very continuity-geared.
In case it's not clear, I thought this was a very good ep, very true to the style of the series and the character's voices.
yep, you missed the yummy bartender setup. It was a typical Kirk-starts-a-wacky-business intro w/Rory. Those I could do without, but yes, otherwise an excellent episode.
ReplyDeleteRegarding VM, I tend to think that Rob Thomas is well aware that Woody is shaping up to be prime suspect number one . . . and that's why he will be the last big red herring for the bus crash (much like Logan was last year).
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely something weird going on at the Goodman house, though. I don't know if it's Woody or Gia or both. But I *do* know that Rob Thomas is probably smarter than me and it will all be resolved in a very entertaining fashion over the next three episodes.
I may be crazy, but I have a memory of Kendall being someone Veronica et al knew from school - she was a senior when they were freshmen or something - which added insult to injury when Casablancas senior married her. I was really surprised when she showed up as someone with a stolen identity. Or is it not mutually exclusive - did she steal the identity and then show up at Neptune High, perhaps to help the Fitzpatrick's drug trade there? As far as her being capable - she's been portrayed as smart but shallow all along.
ReplyDeleteJulie, you're not crazy, but you're not right. (Maybe you're thinking of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure?) Kendall was a former Laker Girl.
ReplyDeleteIt was a good VM episode, but I thought the coincidences were just a little too much to take. Not so much Veronica and Keith winding up at the same place, because they were both investigating things related to the bus crash. But Veronica only found out about the car because it ran over Harry's dog. I guess Keith would have been really out of luck, then.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while I'm nit-picking, why was Veronica so panicked when she called Keith if she'd taken the bullets out of the gun? And speaking of the gun, maybe it's just me, but when she found it in the glove compartment, I really couldn't tell what it was. I even paused the tape and still couldn't figure it out.
As to the guilty party, it really can't be a complete surprise, because fans will go over every possible character, especially after last year. I do have my own off-the-wall pick, but no particular motive other than assuming the character's a psycho.
Wait. Sebastian Bach is on Gilmore Girls? The guy from Skid Row? I guess the gay community has forgiven him for the "AIDS: Kills Fags Dead" t-shirt.
ReplyDelete"Also, while I'm nit-picking, why was Veronica so panicked when she called Keith if she'd taken the bullets out of the gun?"
Because she didn't take the bullets out of the guns of whoever was in the house. She didn't know it was Keith.
Yup. Bach plays Gil, the lead guitarist in Lane's garage band, former member of a Skid Row-ish one-hit wonder group that imploded, "Behind the Music"-style. Now Gil's married with kids and runs a sandwich shop when he's not busy jamming with the band (or singing "Hollaback Girl" at the greatest bat mitzvah of all time).
ReplyDelete"I just can't understand why else Veronica and Keith would miss an obvious trick like Woody owning the hangar."
ReplyDeleteEspecially this week, when Woody's daughter told Veronica "My dad was on the phone with me right before the bus crash," which meant Woody could know that the bus was near the cliffs. The music swelled, and I assumed Veronica was going to react to that obvious clue, but nope, nothing.
I had started suspecting Kendall last week, but thought her Fitzpatrick connection would be through the plastic surgeon. There's a problem with Kendall as the killer, though - if she was willing to go through with this plan when she was living in style with Mr. Casablancas, it seems hard to believe that she wouldn't be trying to kill Dick and Beaver all the time now that she's broke and reduced to working for Beaver's real-estate company.
is it true about lauren graham being mean to the extras cast on the gg show ? i read she said some pretty mean things at break on the set. and the people were hurt. respect please. lauren if it is true .
ReplyDeleteone more year for the gilmores. i want luke and lorelai. to get married and live like a happy husband and wife. with rory getting a good job out of state and rory finds a true love and gets married. how is that fans ?
ReplyDeletei love the gilmore girls. I heard the 8th season is still on the table. some of them had signed but lauren and alexis have not. the fans are hopinng and want a 8th season. Time will tell they still are undecided. they who i am refering to are lauren and alexis. So enjoy the show now it is going to be good as the season comes to end. have a nice day.
ReplyDeletethis is better than pay review. the gilmores have to sign for another season. because i do not want veronica mars to end either. it was so great the 2 shows back to back tuesday was my favorite nite so without the shows tuesdays will be dead. lauren and alexis please sign we love you.
ReplyDeleteyou can watch the gg on family channel if you cannot get enough of them. i think rory should graduate and get married to another journlist. and visit lorelai and luke once in awhile then you can have a 8th season for sure best of all she moves out of state. so luke and lorelai can visit her too once in awhile. all you gg fans you know luke and lorelai will be a couple for good. just watch season finale of this year. you will be happy.
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