Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars

by Rob Thomas

  As viewers we can only conclude that Veronica's innocence precluded her from processing Lilly's immorality and that the strange tricks played on us by time have kept her from reevaluating those memories. Whatever emotions she experienced at the time seem to have been fixed firmly in her brain along with the sequence of events.

  So what did Lilly see in Veronica? Did she see Veronica's potential to become what she is now? Could she have actually seen Veronica as "strapless red satin"? She saw Veronica's potential strength and daring, but she couldn't have envisioned the transformation that would ultimately take place. She could have predicted Veronica's disillusionment, but not as a result of her own death.

  Did Veronica have any idea what Lilly was capable of? No. She had no idea that Lilly had a relationship with Weevil and certainly no clue that she was sleeping with Aaron Echolls, despite repeated references to Lilly's numerous lovers. But none of that can touch Veronica's love for Lilly.

  On her homecoming date with Troy-wearing strapless red satinVeronica had the limo stop while she went skinny dipping-alonein tribute to Lilly. From Lilly she had taken two things: daring and courage. But she directed them toward a two-fold goal: supporting her father and finding Lilly's killer.

  Duncan, despite the devils that tormented him following Lilly's death and his horror at the realization that in sleeping with Veronica at Shelly Pomroy's party he may have slept with his own sister, seemed somehow less changed, at least during season one, than Veronica. He remained one of the in-crowd, and his idealism, for lack of a better word, remained intact. Note that when he was elected class president, he extended the coveted Pirate points program to include everyone ("Return of the Kane," 1-6). Veronica has no use for Pirate points, period. Or for politics. Or for working through the system. She now sees life differently. She believes to get respect one must demand it and in the first season repeatedly pushed revenge as the only answer to bullying. Her reputation is, perhaps, the best weapon in her arsenal.

  Yet, throughout all this, Veronica, reborn through her friend's murder, her mother's abandonment, and her decision to stand by her father, continues to yearn for a fantasy past that never really existed. She desperately wants her old life back. But even if she could have it, she'd no longer fit into it-especially as it was all a creation within her own mind. Even her home life was a sham. Her mother, who has a serious problem with alcohol, had been having an affair with Jake Kane, bringing Veronica's own parentage into question. At this point, everything she thought she knew has been proved wrong, and her eyes are now wide open. She's fearless, both book and street smart, and incredibly savvy, strong enough to stand on her own. And the part of the in-crowd she mourns and wishes to be a part of likely never even existed. She's changed, not them, and she can no longer pretend they're worthy of her attention.

  The in-crowd at Neptune High consists of wealthy (mostly nouveau riche) 09ers. Madison Sinclair's birthday celebration, laughably complete with string quartet and a catered cake during school lunch and a huge invitation-only party later at her home, probably best demonstrated the contrast between the haves and have-nots. The gap is made ironic by the fact that Mac was switched with Madison at birth, for birth is Madison's only claim to status.

  In-crowd people like Madison are in the minority, yet they run the school, continually shoving their perceived superiority in the faces of the out-crowd. They know no morality, something Veronica, despite her flirtations with breaking both rules and laws, knows well.

  At Gia Goodman's slumber party in "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner" (2-7), Veronica obviously did not belong, nor did she want to. She was only there to gain information. Around the pool, all of the girls were dressed in scanty bathing suits, while Veronica was clad in a long-sleeved top and jeans. Attendee Madison declared that Pretty Woman was her favorite movie, and stated, "Vivian is like my hero." To which Veronica replied, "She's a hooker," not once, but twice. When Beaver and Dick showed up for a panty raid, she'd had enough and left. The partygoers are all portrayed as shallow, immature, and immoral. Veronica had no time to waste on any of them.

  Veronica stated in the pilot that her fall from grace came about because of her decision to stand by her father, that she was forced to choose between him and the in-crowd. That choice, however, was not her sin. Her sin was in thinking for herself, for questioning the judgment of the teens in power (who deemed her father unworthy)-be- cause admission to the in-crowd means giving up autonomy, or in the case of maturing teenagers, never achieving it.

  Hopefully Veronica's naivete would have soon evaporated with or without Lilly's death. Lilly told Veronica she had a secret. It would have only been a matter of time before she'd confessed her affair to Veronica. Then Veronica would have had to make a choice. She might well have chosen to stand by Lilly, as evidenced by her visit to Shelly's party. The lure to belong, especially in high school, is strong. But the knowledge of what was really happening with Lilly and the in-crowd was soon to be revealed. Once it was, there would have been no putting the genie back into the bottle. Part of her innocence would have been gone.

  And if she'd stood by Lilly unquestioningly, what kind of person would she have become? Just another spineless in-crowder, certainly not someone worthy of our admiration. Interestingly enough, it was imperative that Lilly die first-before Veronica found out her secret-or her love for Lilly might have been destroyed.

  Veronica never got the opportunity to choose. With Lilly's death and her mother's departure, Veronica lost her emotional and intellectual innocence. With the loss of her virginity, she lost her physical innocence as well, allowing for her complete transformation. It was at this pivotal point that Veronica became the girl we love: the avenger.

  The "rape" that turned out not to have been a rape (at least until the end of season two) was a really interesting and effective addition to the plot during the first season, and one that the viewer might have questioned when originally watching the series. Did we really have to go there? But by the end of the first season, it became obvious that yes, we did. Lilly's death and her mother's disappearance were not sufficient to bring about the change we see in Veronica. If they had been, she would never have gone to Shelly's party. She went to the party in a last-ditch effort to prove that she was still the girl she had been, that she could still fit in without Lilly and Duncan (who, at that point, was convinced he'd been having a romance with his halfsister). And it was here that she had to lose the last of her innocence. She met with one betrayal after another. She was drugged, and, despite numerous opportunities for her classmates to rescue her from the inevitable, she ultimately had sex and was labeled a slut. (Considering the amount of bed-hopping going on in Neptune, such an appellation hardly seems relevant. It's an example of what's allowed by the in-crowd and forbidden to the out-crowd.)

  After realizing what had happened to her, Veronica went to Sheriff Lamb to report her rape. He scoffed at her situation and sent her away in shame. Her last shred of respect for authority was destroyed.

  Through unraveling the mystery of the "rape," however, the writers ultimately redeemed her, at least until season two, from that horrible experience. In good romantic fashion, Veronica was not actually raped. Instead she slept, albeit unknowingly, with her one true love, Duncan. For Duncan, this was a horrific, incestuous event, but one that served a dual purpose. His horror at what he'd done created an insurmountable rift between him and Veronica, and allowed him to find a new love.

  Meg Manning, who bore a striking resemblance to the sweet innocent that Veronica had once been, was a logical substitute for Duncan's affection. And Meg and Duncan's relationship laid the foundation for the undoing of the once-again budding relationship between Veronica and Duncan at the beginning of season two. Both wanted to recapture what they once had, but couldn't.

  Although Duncan will always be Veronica's one true love (and she his), they are no longer suited to share a happily ever after. By the end of season two, Duncan had put out a hit on Aaron Echolls, bringing hi
s moral suitability for our heroine into question. There's no easy path for these two lovers. They can never have the ideal life that Veronica and Duncan once envisioned at sixteen. Duncan's perceived obstacle to their union-incest-was replaced by obstacles he created himself. He's a father now, he's had another love, and he's a kidnapper on the run from the law. Actually, in many ways he's becoming, once again, far more suited to Veronica and far more interesting to the viewer. True love, especially unchallenged, makes for boring TV.

  But Veronica's love life is destined to be intermittent at best, for she has work to do. Dick proclaimed her to be "rich dude kryptonite" ("Versatile Toppings," 2-14), and that's exactly what she is. Fall for Veronica Mars and she'll find every skeleton in your closet, or at least every bag of weed in your locker.

  It's here that the revelation in season two that Veronica was actually raped at Shelly's party by Beaver should be addressed. Veronica's chlamydia becomes an important clue in unraveling the mystery of the school bus deaths. Taking away the "save" we thought we'd been given in season one concerning the rape emphasized once more that nasty people populate the city of Neptune and Neptune High. Her STD became one more physical trial for a young woman who will be hit by many more.

  Veronica yearns to go back to her quiet life, but there's no going back. That life doesn't exist anymore, not that it ever did. She is now the problem solver, the righter of wrongs, the one they-both incrowd and out-turned to when they found themselves threatened in the dangerous world that was Neptune High. One assumes she'll be doing the same at Hearst College.

  Most significant in her transformation from innocence to strength is her heeding the call to solve the mystery of Lilly's death. Neither Logan nor Duncan nor Lilly's parents took on that challenge. Sheriff Lamb is totally incompetent and swallowed the whole Abel Koontz confession without question. And while her father Keith did pursue the case, he came to the wrong conclusion with disastrous consequences. It was Veronica's determination that ultimately solved the case. It was her wit, her courage, her character, and her tenacity that allowed her to avenge Lilly.

  Veronica struggles with her fears and her dreams of what might have been. Yet she forges ahead, knowing there's no turning back, no second-guessing her commitment. She discovered Lilly's murderer and the killer of a busload of Neptune students. Along the way, she helped numerous individuals caught in their own crises. While she remains, at least to some extent, a social pariah, her abilities are well-established and respected by all, even those in authority. She's courageous, single-minded, and, at times, ruthless. She's not above blackmail, raiding police and school files, or even tampering with police evidence. And, ultimately, she is triumphant. She brings the murderers to justice, even when the justice system lets her down, as with the Aaron Echolls "not guilty" verdict. She does what she does because it's the right thing to do and because there's no one else to do it. At graduation, the crowd, despite a few boos, cheered her success and acknowledged her value to them.

  So, would Veronica's innocence have died on its own without the events set in motion by Lilly's death? Most definitely. With murderers and rapists, thieves and drug dealers, blackmailers and thugs roaming the halls of Neptune High, Veronica was bound to notice eventually. Would she have done anything about it? Probably not. She had to lose most of what she held dear before choosing to turn and fight.

  Why does she yearn for the past? Because it was a time when she didn't know the truth, and the truth, as far as she's concerned, ruined her life. But Veronica's a smart girl; she couldn't stay sixteen forever. Fortunately for us viewers, she hasn't.

  JUDY FITZWATER is the author of the Jennifer Marsh mystery series, published by Ballantine Books, and the suspense novel, No Safe Place, a May 2006 release from Silhouette Bombshell. A former journalist and an Air Force brat, she now lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband, where she writes novels filled with mystery, humor, and suspense.

  find Ime's me in fanboy mode.

  When Heather Havrilesky wrote a big, effusive review/think-piece about Veronica Mars for Salon.com, it made my week, possibly my month.

  I felt like Warren Beatty must've felt like when he read Pauline Kael's review of Bonnie and Clyde. I felt like I'd arrived. I mean, it's nice if People makes you a "pick" rather than a "pan," but Heather writing such glowing things in Salon? I was positively giddy. It meant the show was cool. This was even a bigger coup than the positive mention in The Onion. In the contingent of I-only-watch-quality-TV people, Heather's say-so is pretty much holy writ.

  Now that I know she lives in Los Angeles, I want Heather and her husband and her new daughter and two dogs to come over for a barbecue with my wife and daughter and two dogs. Can someone arrange that?

  The Importance

  of Not Being Earnest

  OONER OR LATER, the people you love let you down." This is what Veronica Mars wants us to know first and foremost, in the first scene of the first episode of the first season of the show. Before she tells us a thing about herself, before she lays out all she's been through in the past year, she wants to issue a warning to the naive idealists and wide-eyed optimists out there, to prepare us for the disappointments to come. "Sooner or later" (maybe this week, maybe next month, maybe ten years from now) "the people you love" (your mom, your dad, your boyfriend, your so-called best friend) will "let you down" (break your heart, disappoint you, dump you like a bad habit, or have an affair with your boyfriend's dad, skip town, and neglect to call or write).

  Coming from an adult, such a sweeping statement would sound far too cynical and world-weary to bear. It would hint at a predisposition to blame, to hold grudges, to live in the past, and it would suggest an inability to get over it, to grow up, to move forward. The kind of grown-up who walks around spewing fatalistic truisms about the inevitability of being let down by the ones you love also typically wears lint-covered Cosby sweaters, eats at the same really bad diner three nights a week, and says things like, "Why get married when you can have a pet? Pets are much easier to live with-and a lot less expensive! Bahahaha!"

  But coming from a high school student, such a statement sounds breathtakingly-no, inspiringly jaded. Because in high school, nothing is better than being world-weary. World-weary is the state that all high school students aspire to, the ultimate achievement on the emotional battlefield of the teenage years, and the natural ending point to the high school trajectory. Because even when you enter high school as a freshman, full of hope and romantic visions of big football games, winning the lead role in the fall musical, or getting noticed by some hot senior with a Mustang convertible and parents with a stocked liquor cabinet who leave town a lot, even then, you know where you're headed. You know that you'll have to savor the excitement and the novelty while you can, because by the time you're a senior, nothing about high school should seem remotely dramatic or even worthwhile. By senior year, the only real choice, the only clear solution to the sticky trap of leaving those teenage years behind, is to be totally over high school-and everything else in the world, too, if you can manage it.

  But Veronica takes it a step further. To be totally over not just high school, but totally over the people you love? To recognize, with an exhausted, eye-rolling certainty, that your loved ones are destined to let you down? To know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that even if they haven't let you down yet, they're sure to do it sooner or later? That's pretty heady stuff. That's the holy grail.

  Because being a teenager is all about taking all the things you cared about as a kid and smashing them to tiny little bits. Suddenly, there is no Santa Claus, your teddy bear is banished to a lonely box in the attic, and the advice `Just be yourself and they'll love you" is revealed to be a complete crock of shit. On top of all that, almost everything you ever cared about is "totally gay," and not only aren't your parents all that lovable or cool, they're also old and lame and they smell like blue cheese.

  Considering these recent revelations, it's not a big stretch to think that those you lov
e will disappoint you. Your mom disappoints you every time she puts on that idiotic reindeer sweatshirt with the se quins and the felt on it, even though it's the middle of February and it makes her look like she belongs in an insane asylum. Your best friend disappoints you regularly, like that time she drank four fuzzy navels, stuck her tongue in your crush's ear, then threw up in the hot tub at beach week.

  Veronica's statement makes perfect sense. But to utter those words so calmly? To let such a big assessment slip, matter-of-factly, as opposed to, say, screaming it at your mom as you run to your room and hurl yourself onto your bed face-first? That's power. To feel that resolved about your alienation, to be that sure of the total hopelessness of it all? That's freedom. That's better than reading the complete works of Rimbaud, learning to play the Cure's "Pictures of You" on electric guitar, and getting away with growing marijuana in the closet of your room by telling your mom it's part of a biology project.

  My glorious salvation from naivete and innocence came, like Veronica's, early in my high school tenure, about halfway through my sophomore year. I didn't achieve Veronica's world-weary calm or her enviably blase state of mind until years later, but I did take those first delectable steps towards disillusionment and despair, and it was every bit as tragic and heart-stopping as any teenager could hope for.

  During a summer of working at an ice cream store and eating bowls of ice cream the size of my head, I gained ten pounds, and they must've been the good kind of pounds, because after years of being flatly ignored by the opposite sex, a senior-let's call him "Mark"suddenly took notice of me.