Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars

by Rob Thomas

  Conversely, Keith sacrificed his family's financial security in pursuit of the truth. Keith followed the evidence and found that it led to Jake. Despite the fact that his primary suspect happened to be the most powerful man in town, and even though his investigation ruined his law enforcement career and his marriage, Keith did what he believed to be the right thing to do: investigate the Kanes.

  Although eventually released from prison and cleared of all charges thanks to Keith's efforts, Abel was still a dying man, and he wished to see Amelia one last time. But the money he'd earned, obtained in love in exchange for a lie, took his daughter out of his reach, and indirectly cost Amelia her life.

  Jake and Abel, although originating from opposite sides of the class spectrum, are very much alike. Jake told Duncan in "Return of the Kane" (1-6) that "your happiness is all I've ever wanted," and that wasn't just a line (the way it would have been had Aaron said it). Ev- erythingJake Kane did following his daughter's murder, he did out of love for his son. He didn't kill Lilly, but you can't fault Keith for suspecting him. After all, Jake did cover up the crime.

  Jake isn't a perfect man (we learned of his long-time affair with his high school sweetheart, Veronica's mom Lianne, early on), but he loves his family. Remember, he is the father who lost his daughter. As he became the primary suspect and remained under suspicion from the Mars family (and the audience), it was easy to forget that important aspect of his character. He was genuinely devastated by Lilly's death, as his tears during Logan's video tribute to Lilly attested, and honestly tried to do right by Duncan, his remaining child. Although Jake was a smart and successful man with half the town loyal to him as the source of their high-tech fortunes, his world fell apart when Lilly died. He may not be the most ethical man but, thinking that his son was to blame, he did the best he could to save the family he had left using the resources that he had: his fortune and his loyal head of security.

  Keith tried to save his family after their world fell apart as well. He continued to investigate the Lilly Kane murder even after removal from office, and he did so not to settle a score, but in an attempt to restore some normalcy to Veronica's teenage life. He was willing to give up his relationship with school counselor Rebecca James for Veronica's sake, and then broke things off with Alicia Fennel when Lianne returned, despite Lianne's secrecy, affair, and lack of support. And he went into battle to save Veronica from Aaron Echolls, suffering horrible injuries and burns. Keith doesn't have 3 million dollars, but he does have other currencies to work with, and he'd give them all for his daughter, just as Jake would do anything to save his son.

  Woody Goodman

  After the first season, Aaron, Jake, and Abel's stories had been largely played out; the show needed a slew of new fathers to use as comparison in season two. We saw quite a few over the course of the season, but right off the bat (pun intended), we met Woody Goodman at Shark Stadium, dressed in a baseball uniform (just as he might have been when he coached the boys he molested, but of course, we didn't learn about his evil deeds until much later).

  Any character with a jolly name like "Woody Goodman" had to be more than he seemed, and the burger chain and baseball team owner, county supervisor, and nominal "Mayor" of Neptune certainly lived up to that expectation in perhaps the nastiest possible way. Unlike the real McDonald's owner who once owned the real San Diego baseball team, Woody Goodman was nowhere near the pillar of the community that he seemed to be. We didn't know the truth about Woody for quite some time, even with the suspicion both his name and the casting choice (the well-known Steve Guttenberg) automatically elicited from some viewers; like Harry Hamlin the season before, someone that well-known was unlikely to take on a role unless it was an important one. A good-guy character who was supportive of Keith, hoping to make him the chief of police in an incorporated city of Neptune, wouldn't have been enough.

  Like Trina Echolls before her, Woody's daughter Gia didn't act as the other half of this reflection; Cassidy did. The younger Casablancas shared many of Veronica's more admirable traits: he was intelligent, he was thorough, and he was resourceful. Between those qualities and his drive to succeed after his father's departure, Cassidy seemed, on the surface, to be one of the characters most like Veronica on the show His success with Phoenix Land Trust (and the lengths he went to in order to achieve it) was something Veronica herself would have been proud of, and his intricate plot to stop the truth about the past from getting out was equally ambitious; only Veronica's plot to get Duncan and his baby daughter out of the country equaled either in complexity or nerve. However, when Woody, Cassidy's coach and, as such, his stand-in father figure (from what we know of Cassidy's actual father, Woody's excuse that he was giving the boys the attention their fathers were not, however self-deluding, seems likely to also be true in this case), molested him, those potentially positive traits were warped, and he turned into a sociopath.

  As a coach in a children's league, Woody's responsibility was to care for the children under his protection. Instead, he took advantage of them, abused them. Because of this, I consider Woody to be the official villain of the second season, and here we see parallels with Aaron. While Lilly was smart enough to take steps to protect herself-even if those steps got her killed-Cassidy and the other boys were too young and powerless to fight back.

  While the fault for the season's main crime, the bus crash, still rests officially with Cassidy, Woody was the person who set that deadly plot in motion-along with everything else that Cassidy did, from raping the unconscious Veronica, to destroying his father, to killing Curly Moran, to Cassidy's own suicide just as Aaron began the devastating series of events in season one (including the loss of status of the Mars family, Lianne's departure, Veronica's rape, and Abel Koontz's imprisonment) by engaging in a sexual relationship with someone much younger than himself (albeit a consensual one). Both men exhibited a similar pattern: they were both father figures who abused their position in society.

  The second season revolved around information and how far one is willing to go to control it. Woody was willing to sabotage his own campaign for incorporation in order to keep his past deeds a secret when Cassidy threatened him with exposure. On the other hand, Keith sacrificed his bid for sheriff rather than jeopardize the bus crash investigation: he turned in evidence that would have cleared his justsullied reputation to Lamb instead of going public. And while the season overflowed with acts like Woody's, where people hid information to improve or change their situation in some way (Richard Casablancas's real estate fraud, Terrence Cook's gambling problems, Thumper's dealings with the Fitzpatricks), far fewer reminded us of Keith's, making his decision stand out in the crowd.

  Duman Kane

  We know Duncan best as Veronica's ex-boyfriend (twice over), Lilly's younger brother, and, as the son of software billionaire Jake Kane, one of the crown princes of the 09er crowd. Duncan took on other roles during the first two seasons (such as murder suspect, and possible brother to Veronica), but by the middle of the second season, after the death of his ex-girlfriend Meg Manning, Duncan took on what would become his most pivotal role to date: single dad.

  Early on, Duncan was a guy whose usual "way," according to Veronica, was to "stand idly by" ("The Return of the Kane," 1-6). He walked away from problems instead of dealing with them. He became student body president without actually entering the race himself. He didn't inform Veronica of their possible siblinghood, choosing instead to silently break off their first relationship by ignoring her, leaving her crushed and confused. Since it was easier than actually talking about it, he chose to believe that their tryst at Shelly Pomroy's party would be something they never spoke of, not knowing until much later that she had no memory of it and believed that she had been raped (of course, she really had been raped that night, but by someone else). His method of dealing with the suspicions against him regarding his sister's death was to run away to Cuba. Even his second courtship of Veronica after breaking off his relationship with Meg was fairly passive, c
onsisting primarily of regular visits to Java the Hut.

  The birth of his daughter changed Duncan's "way" He suddenly became proactive, his life centered on his child. Fellow father Keith has done his share of creative detective-work-as Veronica reminded him in "Like a Virgin" (1-8), "Overstepping is your main form of transportation"-but Duncan willingly took the law into his own hands to protect his daughter. In this, Duncan turned out to be more like his father than we would have suspected.

  This previously unknown moral flexibility, a big part of what makes Duncan so fascinating as a father, was highlighted in "Donut Run" (211) as it directly affected the relationship between Keith and Veronica. Instead of bringing the audience in on the game from the start, Veronica pulled the wool over our eyes, concealing her plot to help Duncan smuggle baby Lilly (formerly "Faith") out of the country until the second half of the episode. They began by faking a break-up, which took everyone's focus away from her actions while she helped arrange Duncan's escape. They succeeded brilliantly, of course, surprising us all with their tactics.

  We weren't the only ones who were surprised. Veronica also deluded her own father completely, thus driving a wedge between them that had never existed before. Veronica has fooled a lot of people in her investigations, and she's quite good at it, but fooling her father is something else entirely. Although Veronica has no problem taking matters into her own hands without Keith's knowledge, this betrayal is different.

  Most of the time, Keith can see through any ploy Veronica comes up with (think back to the aforementioned ink bomb from season one). However, in this instance, Veronica used his love for her against him, knowing that he would be too concerned about his brokenhearted daughter to question how she was spending her time. Veronica betrayed the one person who is there for her no matter what, and in helping one father, she lost the trust of her own.

  But let's get back to our Man of the Moment. Duncan may have been created as the prototypical "sweet boyfriend," a symbol of the life Veronica had lost when Lilly died, but the finale of the second season showed exactly how much Duncan had changed since then. This supposedly sweet guy had Aaron Echolls assassinated from a comfortable sandcastle-side seat in Australia, again taking matters into his own hands (well, through Clarence Wiedman's gun, anyway). While a part of each of us may applaud Duncan for getting rid of such an awful man, someone who clearly deserved to be punished for his crimes, this cold-blooded act should disturb us. The original, passive Duncan we met in the pilot would never have been able to take such steps; the birth of his daughter-the responsibility he suddenly had for another human being, a responsibility Aaron Echolls failed to understand and Woody Goodman failed to live up to-changed him.

  As you've probably noticed, dads in Veronica Mars fall into two categories: the dads whose actions are driven by doing what they think is best for their children and the dads, like Aaron and Woody, who do whatever they wish. Unsurprisingly, this exact dichotomy shows up within the Mars family as well, in the form of Keith and Lianne. Lianne took off rather than standing with her family, ostensibly to protect Veronica but just as much to protect herself from a situation she didn't know how to handle. She later accepted and subsequently squandered Veronica's life savings, and then, after returning home pretending to have been cured, stole the reward money from the Kanes, money that would have replenished Veronica's college fund. As much as Veronica has had to deal with others' villainous parents, we often forget that her mother falls in that category as well.

  Yet again, it's all about duality, from the show's structure to its wardrobe details, to the way its plots are driven by the characters that embody that duality: the handsome movie star who is a murderer; the politician and business leader who shares the dirtiest of dirty secrets with an innocent-seeming boy who will go to the greatest lengths to keep those secrets hidden; and the good fathers who do bad things to protect their children. Those fathers have a lot to tell us about fatherhood, and a lot to show us about the main father of the piece, the one who does right because the deed is right, even if it hurts himself or his family in the short term-who does everything he can to help and protect his daughter without violating his own ethics. Keith and Veronica's exceptional bond is the result-and we appreciate it even more for seeing the alternatives.

  Freelance columnist AMY BERNER is obsessed with television. Although she spends much of her time as an event planner, she pops up in various places with reviews and essays, primarily covering genre television. She has appeared in several Smart Pop anthologies, including Five Seasons of Angel, The Anthology at the End of the Universe, Alias Assumed, Farscape Forever!, and Getting Lost. She lives in San Diego, California.

  there are times when viewers pick out literary elements or devices from Veronica Mars of which I'm completely unaware. They uncover the "obvious" Christ imagery infused into the Wallace character or the underlying political message of the show. In many instances, I have to admit that the result is unintentional. In her essay, Lynne talks at length about a cornerstone of Veronica Mars of which I'm both aware and proud-the show's moral grayness.

  It's not easy to get (and keep) a titular character on television who so often does as morally ambiguous things as Veronica Mars. She respects no one's privacy. She steals her ex-boyfriend's medical records and her classmates' permanent files. She is never satisfied with simple justice. She wants retribution. She's jealous and vindictive. She takes advantage of her friends' kindness as well as her enemies' weaknesses.

  I remember a particularly frustrating experience on my first televisionwriting job at Dawson's Creek. In the episode I was writing, a football star was spreading rumors that he'd had sex with Joey. In my first draft, Joey was going to get even by spreading an equally mean-spirited rumor about the football star. The retribution got nixed, because, I was told, it would make Joey "look too mean." Perhaps. But the upside, to me, was thatJoey became a character who wouldn't take shit from people. I hoped if the show were mine, Joey would go down swinging.

  There's a sweet and cuddly core to Veronica (which Wallace points out in the pilot), but you have to go pretty far in there to find it. I want to make sure it stays that way.

  On the Down-Low

  How a Buffy Fan Fell in Love with Veronica Mars

  R Long Time age, We Used to Be friends...

  My guilt begins with the theme song: "A long time ago, we used to be friends, but I haven't thought of you lately at all...." It's the soundtrack to my shame, the rhythm of my secret agony at betraying Buffy, the Slayer, with Veronica, the bubble-gumshoe. As I gaze lovingly at my newly arrived Veronica Mars DVDs, I hear the Slayer whisper in my ear: "What about me?" After I turn the phones off and settle into my favorite chair on Tuesday night, I allow myself to finally face the ugly truth: I am on the down-low with Veronica Mars. I still love Buffy, the mythical slayer who battled vampires while looking for love and who empowered her posse, the Scoobies, to do the same. As a virtual Scooby, I reveled in our weekly triumphs, our loves and our losses-and our unrivaled kill-ratio. Yet, here I am, tiptoeing behind Buffy's back every week for some Neptune nookie. How did I let this happen?

  Buffy and I go way back. We spent seven years fighting our inner and outer demons together, loving and hating the paths we were destined to follow I've never known a program that made me so vividly remember the pain of lost love or imagine the horror of losing my mother. I've also never known a program that helped me connect with my students as much as Buffy did. From the intelligent dialogue infused with pop culture and literary references to the accessibility of its season-long story arcs, we "got" Buffy. The night I spent on speeddial with a student, trying to figure out if Willow and Buffy would find the disk with the soul-restoration spell on it in time to save Angel, taught me that there was more to being a professor for me than just teaching-that connections didn't just happen in the classroom. Ultimately, however, it was the monsters and the mayhem that kept me coming back to Sunnydale. I found my inner demons much easier to face when their faces had
fangs. There were few consequences when Buffy staked vampires-they turned to dust and then disappeared; it was all very black and white. Real life, of course, isn't so black and white. It's a pretty gray world in which we have to play nice with people who frequently aren't so nice, and we can't do a thing about it; I needed a place where I could vicariously slay the demons that I couldn't face in the real world. Buffy's monsters were metaphoric beasties that provided a target for my frustration; Sunnydale gave me a place to hide while I slayed them.

  Sunnydale wasn't perfect, of course. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was strict about "good" and "evil," but "bad" was sexy and redeemable. Redeemable monsters had both vampire and human faces to remind us why they were worth saving; evil, however, was ugly and neither sexy nor salvageable. Despite describing a world where good occasionally became evil and evil good, Buffy was clearly about the black and white: We all knew which monsters would not survive the episode and we knew why. It's that clarity that I love. In my weakest moments, I still retreat to the black-and-white world of Sunnydale until I'm ready to deal with the real one. It would take a special town to lure me from my Sunnydale haven and it would take a special heroine to make me cheat on my Slayer. Enter Veronica Mars of Neptune, California; a girl with a lot of sass from a town without a middle class. Wanna know how I lost my heart to Veronica? Yeah, so do I.

  ... But 1 Hawn't Tluruyht ut Vu u lately at Fill.. .

  Oddly enough, my relationship with Veronica Mars got off to a pretty rocky start. In fact, it's fair to say that my first nip into Neptune almost put me off television forever. Picture my pain for a moment I've finally decided to check out this program that my friends had been raving about for a year, and in the very first scene, I see Wallace taped naked to a flag pole in the center of the school parking lot with the word "snich" (sic) written in white paint on his chest. Surrounding him are laughing and jeering students; one even snaps a picture of himself next to the stoic Wallace. Lynching, Neptune-style. Why on earth was a Black man strung up (okay, taped up) on a pole in the middle of his high school parking lot in this day and age?