This show makes me cry like a baby. It's so beautiful and emotional.. And all the dialogues and performances are amazing! One of the best shows on TV right now!
[screaming at TV] BATTERIES!
I'm still expecting a switcheroo but I guess the theory of the house burning down and Jack going in to save Kate's dog looks more likely than ever.
That ending marked a big change of pace compared to the beginning, when I had Robin Sparkles' "Let's Go To The Mall" in my head the whole time.
Damn, why you gotta have hopeful music with them planning their future as partners like everything is going to work out. Y'all are just mean. That episode was cruel. Brilliantly and beautifully written, but cruel nonetheless. I was mostly crying every other scene and by the end I was a total and utter mess. These characters are too close to my heart, especially Jack. To see what happened that day and how it happened was harder than I thought. And I had not one, but TWO seasons to prepare for it.
Wow, my heart broke a million times during this. I feel like I’ve known Jack my whole life and I’ve just lost him. The pain is too real. Everyone deals with grief differently and I love how they wrote and showed that. Outstanding performances from everyone, especially Mandy.
What a masterpiece this episode and this whole series is. Such a touching show that just keeps on breaking and putting my heart back together. And this episode just did that. Everyone was flawless, Mandy Moore’s performance was next level, I’m really glad jack didn’t die a horrible death in the fire, also loved that they played us thinking that little boy is going to be Randall’s next foster kid, but someone from a flash forward to Tess working for kids looking for foster families in the future
Oh well … what can I say
"This hospital, huh!?"
There were so many great scenes in here - it's hard to mention all.
BUT there was one scene standing out!
When Rebecca was on the phone talking to the hotel, the focus moves very slowly from Rebecca to the background. While the unsuspecting Rebecca makes her call (in real-time), the background moves in slow-motion.
Then the focus moves back to Rebecca again, now she is calling Miquel, then the focus goes slowly back to the background again, once more in slow motion.
AND THEN … (at 24:55) right before she put the money into the machine YOU CAN HEAR JACK's VOICE CALLING "Beck!?".
Which must have been shortly after Jack had left his body! She even turns around!
DID YOU GUYS NOTICE THAT?
(please share!)
I also LOVED how they did not show Jack's body, but only the reflection of him in the window, together with his wife now realizing the situation. And then these split second shots of younger Jack … Awww man - why are you doing to us!???
Ugh - What a freaking masterpiece!
What can I say … I just love this show!
{Honorable Mention:} GREAT performace by the doctor talking to Rebecca, amongst everybody else on this show!
I don't know how this show manages to make me cry every single week... yet, here I am always back for more!!!
So much appreciation for Beth. She is Queen. <3 Also, this episode was too funny and sweet and I loved it.
I actually enjoyed this quite a lot. Good cast and it built tension really well. That said, it was massively undercut by a fairly abrupt conclusion and a highly cheesy closing scene and dialogue; a shame.
[spoiler] in this new world librarians will rule because they know how to shhhh people. This should have been the ending [/spolier]
Suprising, original and constantly entertaining, Better Watch Out really is a fun breath of fresh air in a time when most movies feel predictable and telegraphed. It reminded me of two of my favorite horror comedies of the last years, Krampus for the thematic and tonal similarities, and The Visit for the reunion of stars Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould.
Damn!! I didn’t expect that and it went into it really fast and got darker and twisted the more in and ended up a decent film with a good ending to it.
Thought this was some other cliche movie. But man was not expecting that. Original and entertaining.
Well that was unexpected. What begins as a standard home-invasion horror takes an interesting turn that you either go with or dismiss entirely. I fell into the former category largely on the strength of the performances, especially Levi Miller, whose role could easily have not worked at all. There is also a natural feel to the dialogue from the start that is also funny, but equally ensures the dramatic twist that the story takes doesn’t completely feel like it hasn’t been earned in some way. The film also does a great job of gradually escalating the tension and building to each plot development that forces the audience to constantly reevaluate where the film is ultimately going to go. Well worth a look.
PSA - Explanation of what the two ladies on the phone are talking about in this episode:
World Premiere Review:
Surprisingly good. I had a smile on my face throughout most of the movie and it's genuinely funny. The whole cast is spot on with Ewan hitting it out of the park. Having grown up with Winnie the Pooh, I definitely had an enhanced experience. Discounting for nostalgia, it goes from a 9 to an 8, only because the opening third is quite slow, but it's a very well made film. You believe the stuffed animals are living, breathing things...and you want to believe!
Oh, Brianna. You shouldn't have married Roger just because he followed you through time. All the issues that made you say no the first time around were still unresolved. It was doomed to fail from the get go smh
Also, I hope pirate dude (Bennet?) gets his jingle bells cut off (I'm keeping with the holidays spirit lol). He has terrorized and taken advantage of not only Jamie and Claire, but now also Brianna. I'm already looking forward to how satisfying it's gonna be when shit catches up with him. Slow and excruciating. That's what I'm hoping for.
"Good day to you sir... SMAAAAAASH IN THE FACE"
That escalated quickly.
Diana Gabaldon must really hate Roger.
That Russian guy that they kidnapped is really cool :D
Better Call Saul is great when it comes to contrasts, especially when it comes to its two most significant characters (who are, incidentally, its two legacy characters from Breaking Bad). "Amarillo" shows Jimmy as a man trying to do the wrong thing, or at least the underhanded thing, and being pushed to do the right one by those closest to him. It also shows Mike as a man trying to do the right thing, the right way, and having him pushed back toward crime and the seedier side of his new home because of those closest to him.
We know that Jimmy McGill tends toward the con, toward the misdirection, toward the razzle dazzle in an "ends justify the means" sort of way. So when we see him pay off a bus driver from a local Sandpiper nursing home in Texas (with a beautifully shot opening of our hero dressed in white against the Lone Star State's flag painted on the side of a building to boot), it's par for the course. There's something intoxicating for Jimmy, and for the audience, to see him work his magic on that bus full of seniors. Sure, there's something a little underhanded about it--even part from the payoff, it feels like he's manipulating them more than a little bit with his "send your nephew to talk to the manager routine--but he's so damn good at it! If there's one thing viewers love and admire, it's talent and competence, and Jimmy is a talented, more than competent client outreach specialist.
I promise, at some point I will stop comparing this show to Breaking Bad, but it's hard not to see the parallels between Walter White and Jimmy McGill here. I'm not suggesting that there's the same sort of pride or evil lurking within Jimmy that there was as Walter slowly let Heisenberg out of his cage. But both Walter and Jimmy are very good at something (making meth and talking their way into/out of anything respectively) and that makes them each loathe to give up plying their trade even when the rules make it a dangerous proposition. Each knows where their talents lie, and know what got them to where they are, and each is unhappy, if not afraid, of the idea of letting go of that and risking ending up back where they started.
Besides, when it comes to Jimmy's situation here, what's the harm, right? It might not be totally above board to walk the line between following up on a mailer and soliciting, but he's not taking advantage of these people. He's trying to help them! Sure, he's helping himself at the same time, but there's no real victim here.
Then, we run into Chuck, sitting across the table from his brother and pouring cold water on Clifford and Jimmy's good news about the number of clients Jimmy managed to sign up. It's a wonderful sequence in the episode, and one of the things that makes it interesting is the way that Hamlin and Clifford both realize this is a family feud and try to stay neutral, diplomatic, and supportive of both sides in the argument.
And it's quick, but it's a hell of an argument. In Game of Thrones, Tyrion Lannister once describes his own sibling as more than capable of using true feelings for something false. In that vein, I love situations like the one presented here, where Chuck is 100% right about the concerns he expresses about Jimmy's outreach efforts, and yet not exactly for the right reasons. Jimmy's brother isn't wrong when he points out that any questions about the way their legal team obtained their clients, especially with seniors, leaves them vulnerable in a way that could torpedo the case. And he's also not wrong to be suspicious of Jimmy wrangling 20+ clients while following up on a single mail-in response, particularly given what he knows about Jimmy's past behavior and what he (rightfully) suspects about his current behavior.
It's a risky, arguably foolish thing that Jimmy did. And Chuck's rightfully pointing that out, but coming from him it feels petty. Chuck's made it clear that even if it's bound up with his own sense of pride in his work and accomplishments, he can't shake his skeptical, dismissive view of his brother. Chuck may very well be legitimately and earnestly concerned that Jimmy is going to poison this whole deal. Maybe Chuck even thinks that given Jimmy's financial stake in the outcome, he's saving his brother from himself on that front. But it also can't help but feeling like he's trying to just knock a brother he doesn't believe in down a peg, to try to show that he doesn't belong here. The contrast between those two things--asking the right questions but for the wrong reasons, with so much bad blood there--makes it an endlessly interesting little scene.
Jimmy, of course, uses the same skill he did his fellow attorneys that he did with those seniors. He comes up with a plausible story; he sells it to the assembled with little trouble, and a despite the uncomfortable air between them, he managed to shut his brother up. But Chuck is, no doubt, unconvinced, and neither is the only other person in that room who knows Jimmy well enough to smell his B.S. In contrast to the last time the two of them were in the boardroom together, Kim moves away from Jimmy's advances under the table, because even if she doesn't say it, she agrees with Chuck.
And as sorry as I am to go back to the well of Breaking Bad, it makes me worry that she'll receive the same kind of reaction that Skyler did. Without delving into the thorny issues of sexism, at base, people don't like to see their protagonists thwarted. Jimmy is the main character of Better Call Saul. We get the show through his perspective, and that means that, consciously or unconsciously, we're psychologically on his side. We're with him on this journey, even if in the back of our minds we can acknowledge the actions that he takes as morally questionable. Storytelling is constructed to make the listener sympathetic to the person the story's about. That creates a risk that someone like Chuck, with sketchy motives, comes off worse despite the legitimacy of his concerns, and between this and the end of the prior episode, it risks turning Kim into something audiences like even less -- a scold.
Kim has more or less replaced Chuck as the cricket on Jimmy McGill's shoulder, as the person in his life who keeps him aspiring to be better and do better. Chuck's admonition at the table doesn't move Jimmy; it just gives him cause to strike back. But Kim's response causes him to interrupt and emphasize that yes, in fact, all of his client outreach will be above board.
And when we see Kim push back against Jimmy after the meeting, she offers a damn good reason for why she took Jimmy's news with the same skepticism that Chuck did. She put her neck out for Jimmy. He is, if not a nobody, than a hustling public defender who would have otherwise had to spend years in the pit before he ever had a chance to so much as sniff a partner track job like the one Kim finagled for him. She put herself out there for Jimmy, with her boss, with her colleagues, and with her own reputation and prospects at stake. She's absolutely right when she says that everything Jimmy does in this job reflects on her and her judgment, and that Jimmy doesn't just have himself to worry about when he's scheming and flim-flamming his way into more clients.
There it is. Suddenly that incredibly amusing, downright charming scene with Jimmy on the bus seems a little more sinister, a little less harmless. While adding more wronged individuals to the class seems like a good thing on the surface, if it's done in a way that doesn't pass muster, it could mess up a good portion of the case and leave the HHM/Davis & Main team playing from behind when trying to pursue justice for these people. And if it goes wrong, if Jimmy is chastised for stepping outside the lines, it could also screw over the person who stood up for him and put him in a position to have a seat at the table, the person whom he seems to love.
But what's great is that the show does the opposite with Mike. Mike is trying to stay on the straight and narrow. He's trying to do right by his son, by his daughter-in-law, by his granddaughter, and that, ironically, pushes him to use his skills and talents in a way that he's not necessarily inclined to -- to help criminals. Mike is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
And what's so striking about it is that Mike knows he's being taken for a ride. When Stacey left a pregnant pause after telling Mike about her money troubles back in Season 1, it was a nod toward the idea that she wanted support from him, but there was enough ambiguity as to whether or not she really meant it, whether she was specifically trying to guilt Mike or, rather, just venting her anxieties to a sympathetic ear without any ulterior motives.
But that wiggle room pretty much goes out the window in "Amarillo". The question now is whether Stacey is deliberately and intentionally playing on Mike's guilt, or whether it's merely something subconscious. But the phantom bullet mark, not to mention the token resistance she puts up to Mike's suggestion that Stacey and her daughter come live with him before immediately agreeing to it suggest the former rather than the latter.
That makes Mike seem noble even as he slowly but surely starts heading down a path that we know will lead him to "big time jobs for big time pay." He doesn't want to be a criminal, at least not at a lethal level. What's more, he knows he's being taken advantage of in some sense, that, at a minimum, Stacey isn't just being straightforward with him and asking for help and support, but laying on guilt trips and making up stories to get him to intervene, with the knowledge that he's too broken up about his role in what happened to Matty that he can't resist. So Mike compromises some of his principles. He steps back into a world he seemed to be trying to avoid, all in an effort to do the right thing.
Nobility comes less naturally to Jimmy than it does to Mike, but poked and prodded or not, he too tries to do the right thing. It's heartening to see Jimmy using his creativity to succeed within the rules rather than to find clever ways to get around them. Again, his idea of a targeted commercial, based on his intimate knowledge and diligence about the schedules of the folks at Sandpiper, is fairly genius and perceptive.
When we see him constructing the commercial, it shows his innate understanding of human nature, of how to affect and have an impact on his target audience. The fact that he's channeling it into something legitimate, that he's succeeding even when boxed in a bit, is an encouraging sign. By the same token, it's hard not to feel proud for him when Kim watches the commercial, put together by Jimmy and a couple of college students, and walks away impressed with him. She is, after all, a big reason why he's doing this rather than continuing his less-savory ways of finding clients, so her approval is big.
It's also heartening to see him try to work his magic on the phone system, just like he did when sequestered in the back room of the nail salon, and see the results of his work roll in. There's such a great bit of tension in the air in those moments where we wait to see whether Jimmy's ad-buy scheme is going to work. His frantic dissecting of the gameplan with his subordinate conveys how anxious he is about the whole thing, how much is riding on this play for him. That makes the moments where the phones start lighting up, where it all falls into place, that much more exciting, for Jimmy and for us.
But that excitement is short-lived. Even when Jimmy's doing right; he's doing it wrong. He doesn't run the ad by Clifford. He thinks about it. He comes close. But at the end of the day, he just can't face the risk of failure or rejection. He can't face the possibility that he has this brilliant thing he put his heart and soul into, and that someone could tell him no. That's Jimmy's game -- do whatever you think needs doing, and bet on the fact that the results will justify whatever actions you took to get there.
The problem is that Jimmy isn't just betting on himself here. He's gambling with Kim's reputation, with his brother's I-told-you-so's, with whatever ethical rules for attorney advertising he may or may not have paid particularly close attention to when making the ad that could, again, jeopardize the case as a whole. Jimmy is trying. He is trying so hard in the best way he knows how to both keep things above board but achieve at what he sets out to do, and that's why he's sympathetic but also complicated.
And yet even as he tries, there's a piece of Slippin' Jimmy still left in him, a part of him that thinks the best way to show Kim and Chuck that he's worthy of their love and respect is simply to succeed, and that the ends will justify the means. The tragedy is if that effort, motivated by a desire to show those close to him what he's made of, is what drives them from him, and turns him into the relatively scruple-free huckster we come to know down the road.
It's difficult to build tension and stakes in a prequel to some degree, and the problem is magnified the closer you are to the familiar part of the timeline. If you already know who lives and who dies, who has to reach a certain point of the larger narrative unscathed, it can deflate some of the excitement and intrigue of a particular storyline.
On the other hand, it can also heighten the tension in an episode, by spotlighting the mystery between the known beginning and the known ending. As Better Call Saul sets up Nacho calling a hit on Tuco, we know that Tuco lives; we know that Mike lives, and thanks to the opening scene, we know that Mike gets ridiculously roughed up, presumably in the attempt. It all raises the question of how we get from A-to-B. Does the hit go wrong? Does Mike beg off from Nacho and get a beating for his troubles? In true Breaking Bad fashion does some unexpecting intervening factor come into play that throws the whole situation out of whack? We don't know, but we want to know, and that's just part of the masterful job that BCS does in using its prequel status as a benefit and not a drawback when it comes to holding the audience's attention and interest.
It also does so by firmly establishing its characters' motivations without making them feel obvious or blatant. The closest "Gloves Off" comes is Nacho explaining why he's trying to take out Tuco. It takes a little prodding from Mike, but Nacho explains why he would want to be rid of the notably mercurial Tuco in a satisfying way that coheres with what he already know about him. Tuco is unpredictable. Beyond what we've seen in Breaking Bad, he has to be talked down multiple times in the desert with Saul, and it's perfectly plausible that he would be even more temperamental when using, which lines up with what we know of him from his run-ins with Walter White. Temperamental is bad for business, and it makes sense that somebody who seems cool, collected, and perceptive like Nacho would want that unpredictable element taken out of his calculus and his livelihood.
And then there's Mike, who is increasingly feels like the most down-to-earth incarnation of Batman there's ever been (and please, someone cast Jonathan Bank in a The Dark Knight Returns adaptation while there's still time). At some point, Mike Ehrmentraut's moral code, and his supreme ability to assess a situation and find the best option could hit the implausibility button a little too hard. But for now, it's a joy to see him listening to Nacho's (fairly well-reasoned) plan for Tuco and then poking holes in it before coming up with a better one, and eventually, an even better (if both more and less costly) one after that. There's a world-weary certainty to Mike, a sense that he's seen this all before and he knows the angles before anyone else does.
That's why the moral element to his storyline is vital and captivating. Taking a life is rarely something that's treated lightly in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. One of the most interesting aspects of Walter White's descent in Breaking Bad is the way that his killing escalated, from self-defense with Krazy-8 (who cameos here), to his failure to act to save Jane, to his more active vehicular activities to save Jesse, until making deals with neo-nazis and calling hits of his own.
But we know Mike's motivated not to do that, not to reach that point, and also that he will eventually. He doesn't have the "Mr. Chips-to-Scarface" transition that Walt does--we've already seen that he's killed the dirty cops who took out Matty--but there's a different between that and doing random hits for a big payday from various drug dealers, something the audience knows he eventually makes his peace with.
I bring up the Batman comparison with Mike because despite the difference in tone of their source material, they fit surprisingly well together. Both are gruff, both are uber-capable, and both, at this point at least, have a code against killing. There have been a lot of different interpretations of The Bat's reasons for this, but one of the most persistent is the idea that if he crossed that line, he wouldn't able to stop himself from killing every two-bit punk who crossed him, that it would be the easy solution to too many problems that required a more measured response.
But one of the interesting things about "Gloves Off" is that it comes close to positing the opposite for Mike. When Mike's going over his rifle options with the arms dealer we first met in Breaking Bad, he comes upon an old bolt-action rifle and makes clear that (in addition to his expert knowledge of rifles) that he's used one and is more than familiar with them. The scene intimates that Mike fought in Vietnam, that he he's seen the horrors of war, and likely bitten off more than his fair share of it. It's not a far leap to think that Mike killed people in war, that he was probably damn good at it, and that despite the avenging impulses that spurred him to take out Matt's killers, he has no taste for it.
When Nacho pays Mike and asks him why he would give up twice the payoff for a tenth of the effort, we already know the answer. Mike has a code. But he isn't Batman; he's already crossed that line and seen and felt what it does to a person, and that reminder, a symbol of that time, is enough to make him earn his money the hard way to avoid having to dip his toe into those waters once again. The sequence where Mike provokes Tuco, with his corny payphone accent and road rage argument is fun and it's clever and it's brutal. But it's the cumulative result of all Mike's seen and done, of who he is, and it makes those bruises we see him packing frozen vegetables onto more meaningful and important, both to the series and to the character.
It would be too much and too far to call Jimmy's story an afterthought in "Gloves Off", but his is clearly the B-story of the episode, despite the pretty significant fireworks between Jimmy and his bosses, his girlfriend, and his brother. The chickens have come home to roost from what we witnessed in "Amarillo". Jimmy is on incredibly thin ice with his employers, and also with Kim, who's been shunted down to the basement as punishment for his sins.
These scenes tease out a great deal of the core of Jimmy's character as well. One of the things I love about Chuck McGill as a character is that he is often wrongheaded or petty or unduly harsh, but there's a germ of truth to most of the things he says, even if he bends that truth to suit his needs. Chuck's not wrong when he tells his brother that he always seem to think that the ends justify the means, that if Jimmy can get the right result, what does it matter how he gets there? It's a striking moment when Clifford Main disabuses Jimmy of the notion that the partners' anger is about the money spent, or that the success of Jimmy's plan mitigates what upset them in any way.
Instead, it's the fact that he circumvented them, that he knew (despite his protestations to the contrary) how they were likely to feel about it, and rather than confronting them directly and trying to argue his case, he went with the mentality that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. That mentality blew up in his face here, and not only did the blowback threaten the promising position he's lucky to have here, but it hurt someone he loves. Jimmy cannot help breaking the rules, and his golden tongue has almost always offered him a way out of any real consequences. Here, that doesn't fly, and his bad behavior takes down Kim with him.
"Gloves Off" ties together the three big factors we know motivate Jimmy: his inability to color within the lines; his desire to be with and do right by Kim; and his jumbled up resentment, love, and desire for approval from his brother. The scene where Jimmy and Chuck confront one another, like most scenes between them, is dynamite in how it teases out more of Chuck's perspective and personality, and leans into the tremendous, complicated dynamic between the two brothers.
Is it too much to suggest that Chuck might be playing sick, or at least embellishing how bad he feels once Jimmy arrives? He seems surprised that Jimmy is still there in the morning, and it's hard to say whether Chuck is above using such tactics to avoid uncomfortable confrontations he could undoubtedly see coming. Better Call Saul has yet to dig into what specifically led Chuck down the path of his electrical sensitivity, but it would not surprise me to see it as a reaction to, and a way of avoiding, stress or trauma or something unpleasant in his life.
That's the crux of the confrontation between Jimmy and Chuck. Chuck still sees Jimmy as a shyster, as someone who bends the rules, who gooses the system, in order to get what he wants, regardless of what the risks are or whether other people have done it the hard way. And Jimmy confronts Chuck with his hypocrisy, that Chuck can't outright say that he wants Jimmy out of the legal practice and that he'd leverage Kim to put pressure on Jimmy to that effect because that would be extortion and that would be against the rules. But even if he can't say it out loud, or admit, even to himself, that that's what he's doing, Chuck has his less than savory ways of getting the result he wants too. He uses Hamlin as his proxy and hatchetman; he subtly undercuts his brother and puts the screws to him and the woman his brother cares for, all under the guise of keeping things proper. And yet, he sees himself as quite above the fray.
There's more than a bit of Jimmy in Chuck. There's a sense that Chuck too knows what levers to pull, what buttons to push, to make things happen, but while Jimmy, to some degree or another, owns what he is and not only acknowledges its utility but can't escape it, Chuck is in denial, and convinced that he is a saint simply trying to keep order with an agent of discord who's threatening to topple the applecart and make a mockery of all he holds dear. And in between them, Kim is willing to fall on the sword, even when she'll be hurt by the result, because it's the right thing to do, and despite her extracurricular activities helping Jimmy con Ken Wins, the right thing comes far more naturally to her than to Jimmy, or even the petty Chuck.
Even though they never interact, "Gloves Off" draws a contrast between Mike and Chuck here. Mike knows what his goal is, sees what it would cost to his soul in order to get it, and without seeking praise or understanding, suffers more to get something less, but to keep something greater. Chuck, on the other hand, won't do the dirty work. He won't demote Kim himself; he won't be direct with his brother, because he can't suffer the minor indignities even as he's trying to bring about what he sees as the greater good. Mike acts with honor even when he's on the wrong side of the line; Chuck can't let himself be the bad guy even when he thinks he's in the right, and Jimmy is stuck in the middle, trying to figure out his place in a world where he's punished if he breaks the rules, but worries that he can't succeed without doing so.
[9.0/10] Welcome back to Neptune! I am glad to report that Rob Thomas, Kristen Bell, and the rest of the cast and crew haven’t missed a beat since we left them. If anything, this re-pilot episode feels more like the classic Veronica Mars than the 2014 film did.
We’re back to the outstanding (and winkingly modernized) banter, back to the great father/daughter dynamic, back to the haves vs. have nots, back to dealing with the treatment of young women, back to an intriguing mystery to motivate the season. In brief, I was shocked at how true to form this thing feels, as though there were no time at all, rather than a decade-plus gap, between seasons 3 and 4. This is Veronica Mars, back in all its wondrous glory.
But a few things are different though, and they’re all good things (or at least promising things)! Most importantly, we have a new cast of characters involved in a mystery, from a douchebag law bro and his friends, to a nerdy crew trying to get by on Spring Break, to a young party girl and her coterie, to the brother of a congressman, to a middle class hotelier and his daughter, to a harried pizza guy played by none other than Patton Oswalt! While I’m sure that some familiar face will be involved in the bombing incident somehow (most likely Dick Casablancas’s dad), it’s nice to see a new set of whodunnit candidates that feel new and yet of a piece with the show’s milieu.
We also have the involvement of some kind of cartel boss, with scenes in Mexico that feel like something straight out of Breaking Bad. It’s new and different territory for Veronica Mars, and I’m curious to see how it intersects with Mars investigations.
Speaking of which, the show has advanced Veronica and Logan and Keith and even Wallace to create new challenges and storylines which all feel unique and, again, promising in the early going. Wallace’s part isn’t really a storyline, but it’s still nice to see him with a wife and a kid and the irony with which Veronica calls him an 09er. Keith’s possible alzheimers is an interesting hook for someone who makes a living on their wits, and has the potential to show Veronica having to confront what happens when a parent starts to slow down, which is fruitful territory.
And, of course, for you LoVe-rs out there, we get some good Veronica/Logan material. The prospect of the two of them making a life together over the past five years, one that Logan wants to make permanent, but which Veronica is wary of given their respective families’ marital histories, is a strong one out of the gate. It gives both of them someplace to go without an arbitrary break-up and get back together, and roots the challenge in something true to the characters’ pasts without regressing them to their teenage selves.
All the while you have interesting spectres and echos of things from the series’ past. You have money troubles versus justice creeping in as a theme, as Veronica winces at who she’s working for in the cold open, while Keith is taking jobs for nice shopkeeps who may not be able to pay the going rate, as both think about the future of their P.I. firm. You have a rough and tumble bartender who goes after assaulting dudebros and challenges the uptight well-heeled entrenched interests much like Veronica herself did. And in the show’s most fun sequence, you have Cliff sashaying through the hospital, handing out business cards, and rustling up business for our heroes.
The laughs are there. The character dynamics are there. The mystery is there. The class-consciousness is there. The black velvet heart of it all is there. In short, Veronica Mars is back. There’s still seven episodes for the show to go off the rails from here, but the hardest thing for a revival is to make the proceedings feel like they once did, to recreate the alchemy that made a show so memorable and worth bringing back in the first place. At least in its first episode, season 4 of Veronica Mars has that down.
[8.6/10] This one was a little more disjointed than some of the prior episodes, but man, the ending. I like the fake out here. Veronica does some legit detective work with the help of Maddie (aka Veronica Jr.). Keith nails down the lead and feeds it to the cops. The cops use it to arrest the bomber. Badda bing badda boom. I’m not saying it’s totally plausible that this season would wrap up its mystery in episode 3, but you can envision Veronica Mars having the bombing be a minor red herring, or accidental entree into some sort of bigger mystery.
The episode actually sells it pretty well too! Fresh off of Patton Oswalt’s character bringing up how Keith had trouble with the Lily Kane murder, and got kicked out of the sheriff’s office for evidence tampering is a nice reminder of past issues with the Mars family being overzealous. Keith himself brings up that Veronica doesn't have more than a hunch to go on that there’s something bigger here, and that they’re known to “tilt at windmills.” You buy it, or at least the threat that this is building a sandcastle out of nothing.
But then, in a moment of calm, when we’re expecting nothing but more silly Dick Casablancas antics, the second bomb goes off. I don’t normally like voiceover in shows, but Veronica’s sarcastic asides and noir-esque monologues always work for me, especially here. The desire to be wrong, to want everything to be okay, only to realize that your instincts are unfortunately right, speaks well of Veronica’s detective bona fides, but poorly of her future safety and mental health. There’s a soft pain to that moment, which is well-directed, as everyone runs away from the blast, the danger, but Veronica can’t help marching into it, time and time again.
But hey, to lighten the mood, “PLAY NO SCRUBS!!!” As indulgent as some of Ryan Hansen’s schtick gets here, it’s nice to just see Veronica and her crew having a bit of fun and being silly at Comrade Quack’s. Again, one of the things that made this show great in its day was despite the dark subject matter, it always had a lighter side, and beyond the show’s classic exchanges, it’s nice to see it still vindicating that side of things.
It’s also nice to see the show following up on Keith Mars’s mobility and memory issues. Clyde getting him into a concierge doctor, and the medical wonderland that follows, is a nice indication of the show’s exploration of classism that’s still in play. It’s also a way for Clyde to ingratiate himself to the people most likely to be investigating his boss and associate.
I’m into what seems to be the larger mystery, namely some kind of conspiracy among the people who were at the prison in Chino: Big Dick, Clyde, Perry Walsh (the bomber), and the guy from the bakery who set the rat at Hu’s grocery, to run some “undesirables” out of town. (That’s also coupled with Veronica’s mugger, who she suspects of being in league with them, being the guy who took dumps in the Sea Sprite ice machines.) Now why do they want to do this? Maybe it’s a real estate scam with Big Dick, or some prison racket through Clyde. Whatever it is, I’m anxious to find out.
I’m less enamored with the continued amount of time devoted to the Congressman Maloof storyline. Him getting kidnapped and beaten by the rednecks, and then kidnapped and threatened with murder by the cartel members feels like things are starting to get far fatched and a little convoluted even for Veronica Mars. But maybe I’m just less excited by the non-Mars parts of the show.
That said, I continue to get a big kick out of the dynamic between the two goons, whose matter of factness and ways of ribbing one another get a big laugh out of me. Plus, we have a Weevil sighting! I was wondering when he was going to get involved!
Otherwise, we have the continued training of Maddie, and reflections on the anger of losing someone close to you at that age, which feels like a nice way to reflect on where the show started. The Patton Oswalt Murder club is less adept at wringing comedy out of that, and feels like the show trying to be meta in a too cute fashion, but it’s brief and light enough to be forgivable.
Overall, this is another winning outing from the revival season, with dramatic twists, some fun moments, and a hell of a beat to go out on.
[7.6/10] Holy cow, there’s a lot to unpack here. This was the most disjointed of the episodes so far, with a slew of former guest stars returning in a somewhat haphazard fashion, and fewer throughlines to unite everything.
So let’s cover those guest stars! We have the two culprits from season 3 playing the Hannibal Lecter game with Veronica in season 3. We have Max (Mac’s old boyfriend) as the owner of the dispensary on the boardwalk. And we even have the triumphant return of Vinny Van Lowe, in all of Ken Marino’s usual glory, as a separate P.I. hired by Mrs. Maloof to track down the family ring. It’s a minor thrill to see these people again, but everything is so glancing that it feels like more of a case of “hey, remember that guy!?” than naturally adding them to the story. (Though meethinks we haven’t seen the last of Vinny.)
Heck, I was even a little come-see come-saw about the return of Leo, and he was my favorite of Veronica’s love interests back in the show’s original run. I don’t know what it is, but the dynamic between him and Veronica isn't as easy or natural as it was back in the day, and the two of them talking about their romantic lives on a stake out feels pretty contrived. He’s still a welcome presence, and I like that he’s an FBI agent assigned to the bomber case because of local ties, but right now he feels more like a device than a character. (Though my favorite part of the episode was his awkward interactions with Logan, and Logan ensuing query of whether Piz was hiding in the back somewhere.)
Oddly enough, the best pairing in this episode was between Keith and Clyde. There’s something endearing about the two old guys trading war stories together, even if the show seems to want you to think that Clyde is playing Keith to some extent. It also gives Veronica a chance to be clever when she uncovers what’s in Clyde’s bag from the hardware store.
Oh, and I almost forgot the return of Weevil! I like the fact that he got to save Veronica’s behind here, showing his continued loyalty, but also remaining sort of a tweener on the good/bad divide, since he’s fallen into chop shops and working with local “hoodlums.” He gets the line of the episode when Veronica chastises him for these things, “It must be nice to have choices,” which sums up the show’s complicated take on racial and class divides, letting its protagonist be self-righteous but also flawed and, at times, myopic about where she sits in the social order.
I have to admit that I’m a little tired of The Murderheads. I do like that Maddie goes to them because she doesn't know where to turn after overhearing the Mars family’s theory, and that the Murderheads, in turn, blow up the Mars family’s spot by broadcasting the hypotheses Veronica and Keith are still running to ground in an explosive town council meeting. Still, the comedy stuff with that crowd has gotten a little too broad for my tastes.
But the mystery stuff is coming together at least. We’re getting more pieces falling into place for the whole “real estate plot from Big Dick” theory, with shell companies buying up boardwalk businesses. That said, it’s way too early for an answer to the central mystery to be that clear and that right this early. So my new theory is that the owner of Comrade Quacks is behind the bombings, meaning to teach the assulting douches of Neptune a lesson, given who’s ended up dead so far.
I’ll admit that I’m a little worn out by the Congressman Maloof story, which feels a little more exaggerated than the rest. (Give or take a neck bomb.) Him being faked out and presumably extorted by the cartel guys is a little much, and the same goes for the hillbillies being found in the desert. I like that they’re bringing the cartel folks closer to Veronica’s orbit, but until then, it just feels like a distraction.
Oh, and I almost forgot that Dick is pretty damn funny in this one! Him landing in a Lifetime X-mas movie in Romania about a woman who falls in love with two mannequins is the kind of comedic specificity that I get a big kick out of.
Overall, this one was not as strong or cohesive as some of the past episodes of this season, but there’s still good stuff to enjoy along the way.
[8.0/10] There’s two things I really liked in this one. The first is the conceit of Ketih and Veronica testing their theories that the other’s new best friend is the culprit behind the conspiracy/bombing. The second is the collection of emotional confrontations Veronica has with three of the major figures in her life (or at least what used to be the major figures in her life).
On the first part, I like how Veronica starts bonding with Nicole, and Keith starts bonding with Clyde, while at the same time having to test out one another’s theories. Veronica and Nicole playacting at Wallace’s party, getting high in the bathroom, and then staging an impromptu glass bottle firing range is a lot of fun. But it also lets us know that Nicole is understandably still scarred by her own sexual assault in a way that would give her motive to take out the various assaulting douchebags in her clubs, and that she has the familial construction/demolition know-how to get it done.
At the same time, there’s something adorable about the old man bromance between Keith and Clyde. Plus, it gives Keith the opportunity to nab some photos of a text conversation between Clyde and Big Dick which suggests they’re out of the loop on the bomber...unless it’s a feint from the seemingly genre-savvy Clyde.
The reveal that Nicole’s already sold Comrade Quacks, and that Clyde (or someone) left a dead duck in Patton Oswalt’s bed complicates the motives and possibilities even more. I like the show building up both theories, and having Keith be the voice of caution, noting that they’ve had crazy conspiracy theories before. Still, the very fact that the show’s clearly articulated both of these theories by episode 5 suggests that neither of them is accurate, and that instead it’s some third option no one’s considering (presumably involving the Mexican cartel we’ve spent so much time with).
But apart from the fun mystery angles, I like the scenes we get with Veronica and some of the people closest to her or, in the case of Weevil, who used to be. One of my favorite things about the Veronica/Weevil relationship from the original show is that the two would talk truth to each other, and it’s nice to see that continue with them as adults. Weevil asking for Veronica to lay off one of his young lieutenants, only for it to turn in a spilling of guts and recriminations between the two of them is a welcome development.
You can tell there’s genuine bad blood and hurt feelings between the two of them now that their friendship has soured, with low blows on both their parts. And Kristen Bell does great work with Veronica initially putting up the tough front after Weevil declares that there’s no more good will between them, until he leaves and then in one expression, she show’s Veronica’s hurt at that realization.
The scene between Keith and Veronica is even better. For one thing, I appreciate that the lead-up is Veronica sensing something is up and basically drumming it out of Cliff. When she and her dad sit down and have an actual conversation about it, it’s one of the more heartwarming, mature bits in the whole series, and a sign of the snarky dynamic but genuine love between them that very likely makes them the best father/daughter duo on television.
And the scene with Veronica and Logan is the cherry on top. There’s some recency bias for me here, but it’s hard for me not to see the LoVe relationship in this season as a strange echo of the Jennings’ relationship from The Americans, a volatile connection between two damaged people who nonetheless care about one another deeply. You can sense Logan being hurt and worn out behind is staid exterior, and Veronica struggling with him not just getting with the program. You can see Logan worrying that he’s an unfortunate anchor to Veronica living the life she wants, and Veronica’s equal and opposite reaffirmation that he means so much to her.
The exchange between them about “What would you do if your dad and I weren’t here?” “I would stick my head in the oven because the two most important people in my life wouldn’t be there” is, again, one of the most charged and heartbreaking of the whole show. It is, again, mature real stuff that the show is doing, and it finds a solid emotional throughline through it all.
Overall, this episode does a really nice job of advancing both the mysteries and the personal relationship sides of the season in entertaining and, at times, poignant fashion.
[7.7/10] I’m not sure Veronica Mars has ever given us this big a chunk of the mystery answered this early before. Having us get to hear that Big Dick was, in fact, at least partly responsible for the Sea Sprite bombing, for the reasons Veronica suspected, is an interesting reveal. The same goes for Clyde being against it, and Big Dick thinking that Clyde got rid of Perry Walsh for him. Obviously, there’s going to be more to the story, because this show wouldn’t give up the ghost in episode 6, but still. It’s intriguing to get that piece of it so early, and Keith’s mini-interrogation is well-done to boot.
It’s also a heart-pumping moment to go out on, with Congressman Maloof getting shot by one of his hillbilly antagonists. It’s a cool moment to get Clarence Wiedman back in the picture, however briefly, and something dramatic to make bingers want to immediately click on the next episode (which I managed to avoid for the time being).
I also appreciated that Logan got to be a part of the mystery-solving team. Him using his military intelligence connections to track down Congressman Maloof’s hacker, is an amusing bit, especially when he regifts his buddy a milkshake giftcard for the privilege. But him using some conman skills to get the white supremicist teenager to admit to it is a nice touch that shows his wits.
It also brings the collision course between Veronica and the cartel goons ever closer. The show’s done enough to build up Alonzo to make him an interesting foil, with enough ties between their worlds to make the inevitable confrontation have intrigue. At the same time, I like that we’re getting more Weevil here (though I have to admit that his performance is a little shaky here). That said, I still like the writing, where Veronica and Weevil are upset with one another for essentially the same thing -- that each had a certain chance to escape this life and both of them turned it down. It retreads some of the same ground from the last episode, but it’s still good.
It’s also nice to see Keith and Veronica doing some good ol’ fashioned con work when they’re scoping out Alvarado’s hotel room. Keith faking a heart attack, and Veronica being identified by Weevil’s sister because she thought it might be real is a nice touch to be sure.
I also liked the Veronica/Logan stuff here, which is to say, poor poor Logan. The show is doing a nice job of showing how its protagonist is flawed here, with her turning down his multiple requests that she join him in therapy, and being kind of standoffish until he’s on another mission. It’s sad, because you can see how hard Logan is trying to be healthy, and how much he cares about her (see also: his farewell voicemail), and how much Veronica is only interested in maintaining the status quo. It all makes me afraid that the show is going to kill off Logan, since it’d be a very noir-ish thing to do that would shake Veronica’s world and make all of their interactions much more poignant.
Regardless, I’m not crazy about the show playing things coy and flirty between her and Leo, if only because the love triangle thing always bugs me, but I do like that he bugged/tricked her for once by leaving out the old case files! The sequence with her and Leo partying with Nicole was well done, even if it portends unhappy things.
And last but not least, I’m intrigued at the prospect of Maddie being Veronica’s roommate for the time being. It seems like there’s more to Maddie’s involvement in this whole thing than we realize (maybe even to the point that she’s the culprit, who knows!), and even if she’s just playing Veronica Jr., I like the dynamic.
Overall, an episode that has some pretty dramatic reveals in terms of the mysteries, and some pretty striking developments on the personal front as well.
[8.0/10] I keep using superlatives for this season, and I want to resist the temptation, but here we are anyway. Was the gunfight with Alonzo the most tension-filled Veronica Mars sequence ever? (I feel I should admit here that I found both Aaron Echolls’s and Beaver’s late episode supervillainy to be more cheesy than scary.) Veronica counting her bullets instantly adds to the suspense. Her breaking her “cuss” rule is an odd but effective way to signify the seriousness of the situation. And Keith rummaging through his car and trying to reload while the bad guys advance is a nail-biting moment if I’ve ever seen one.
Plus, the whole thing gives us an unexpected Big Damn Heroes moment for Weevil! That’s twice that he gets to play hero this season, and I like the nod of recognition and loyalty between him and Veronica, that cuts through their past conversations and bad blood.
Otherwise, the big news is obviously Veronica accepting Logan’s proposal, which I like the destination and reasoning of, if not every step along the way. The show tries a little too hard to fake us out with Leo, including by making Leo more of a douchebag than he was in years past to accomplish it. There’s no reason he can’t have gotten a little jerkier since we last saw him, but his intense flirting when he knows that Veronica has a boyfriend feels at least out of step with what we knew of him previously, and his little apology at the end feels like a fig leaf to try to get the audience to like him again after the show no longer needs for him to be “the other man.” And by the same token, Veronica’s erotic dream feels a little explotative as a “hey, we’re not on network television anymore” moment!
But I do like where they end up and Veronica’s reasoning, even if it takes some voiceover to convey it. The notion that post-dream, she felt relief for not hurting Logan rather than a new yearning for Leo, and that in her near-death experience, Logan’s all she could think about, works for change of heart. It’s the type of thing that could put what really matters into focus, even if it doesn't exactly wipe away the ways in which she was not being the best or most sensitive partner to Logan.
The one thing I didn’t really care for her was the obvious red herring with Patton Oswalt. Maybe it’s just the rules of T.V., where you’re sure that they’re not going to reveal the second bomber in the penultimate episode, and it seems unlikely that they’ll make the comic relief character the villain, and despite some good dramatic turns in Big Fan and Young Adult you can’t really see Oswalt as a killer. To that end, it felt like the show was spinning its wheels by focusing on him, and I didn’t really buy Keith and Veronica thinking that he’s the culprit either (though their interactions with the chief of police were amusing.)
(As an aside, was that Matt Damon on the phone as the head of the FBI? I couldn’t place the voice, but it sounded familiar.)
Thankfully, Oswalt’s interactions with Cliff were good for a laugh, and the bomber’s limerick gives us a nice ticking clock to motivate things in the final episode. Heading into the finale, my current theory is that Mama Maloof is behind it all, hoping to eliminate an unsavory prospective daughter-in-law and help propel her other son to the Senate, but hey, that’s at least my fourth theory here, so take it with a grain of salt.
The other part of this episode that I really liked was Keith’s confession to himself that he should get out of the game. You knew something bad was in the offing when the “Previously On” repeated his “what if I do something that gets us hurt” line. The actor does a great job at communicating the way that Keith hates himself over this, over the possibility that he might have gotten his daughter hurt or killed, and the hardship of having to accept that he may not be up to his chosen profession anymore. It’s really good, powerful stuff.
At the same time, I enjoyed the scenes focused on Clyde here too, including his one with Keith. It’s nice to see their mutual admiration society breaking down over the bombings, with Clyde still playing it cool. And the fact that Big Dick may have outlived his usefulness in Clyde’s eyes after going back on their deal, to the point that Clyde throws Big Dick to the wolves (aka the cartel goons), is an intriguing development.
But theirs is not the only bromance (er, friendship) to break down in this one. I like Veronica’s choice to come clean to Nicole about bugging her office. There’s this sense of nobility and honesty you don’t always see in Veronica, which makes it a good way to signify what this friendship means to her. In the same way, that makes it all the more impactful when Nicole tells her to get the hell out.
Overall, this was a very momentous episode that kept me on the edge of my seat in the suspenseful parts, and feeling for the characters in the series of one-on-one interactions that changed or reshaped any number of relationships here. On to the finale!
[7.3/10] Well, that was bold. I have to give the show that much.
Let’s start with the big mystery reveal. I suppose I have a bit of egg on my face after my last write-up when I railed about how Penn couldn’t be the real bomber. The show gives him a good bit of motive and opportunity. We see him having been harassed and disrespected by all the Spring Breakers, which gives him reason to hate them and want them gone. And his interest in true crime gives him the understanding of how these investigations proceed to be able to (a.) potentially get away with it (b.) feed the investigators what they need and (c.) understand how the explosives work, something he’s been working up to.
You can also see how the whole Murderheads thing makes him love the spotlight, idolizing killers, until the two combine and he realizes the best way to hang onto the spotlight is to become one of the murderers he so admires.
But I don’t know, at some point it just requires too much contrivance to really make complete sense to me, less from motivation and more from action. Can you really picture Patton Oswalt lugging the body of his “friend” Don or getting the neck bomb on that kid? And at the same time, for his plan to work, he had to be able to play Veronica and Keith to a degree that feels impossible, requiring them to pick him up at just the right time so he could leave his bag in their car, and lead them to Don, and all this other stuff that just seems kind of implausible.
Beyond Penn turning into a Bond villain and delivering monologues to Veronica at the end (which you can at least attribute to him watching true crime shows and aiming for their same sense of grandiosity), beyond the sort of visceral implausibility of Penn managing to stage all these crimes, it just requires too much to go right for him for everything to work out the way it did.
Granted, I think of the 7 major mysteries the show has done at this point, I think I only found one of them fully satisfying, so there’s a fair argument that this sort of thing is just the show’s M.O. and a decade and a half after the series’s debut, you’re either on board with it or you’re not. I like Veronica Mars for the great humor and dialogue, the strongly-written character relationships, and the fun and twists of the mystery along the way, regardless of whether the answers make complete sense.
But man, those character relationships take some pretty big blows here! I admire the show’s boldness in killing Logan right when he and Veronica are at peak happiness. This show was often compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its early days, and that’s a very Buffy move. The ethos for this show has always been that in Neptune, where everything is rigged, even when you win, you lose. To have Veronica solve the mystery, marry the love of her life, and get a clean bill of health for her dad, only to see the bomber take one last pound of flesh, and to have the corporate and gentrifying interests take over the beach anyway, feels true to what the show is and has been.
I’ll admit, though, that I don’t really like the fake out with it seeming like Logan was going to bail on the wedding. I understand needing to have some stakes in these moments, but it just came off cheesy to me, as did the whole “last recorded voicemail” shtick. Still, as a BSG fan, it’s always a thrill to see Mary McDonnel pop up, and I appreciate that the silver lining to all of this is Veronica accepting that she needed to deal with some shit and going to therapy.
I also neglected to mention that however contrived the situation is, I really like the scene at the heretofore unmentioned Kane High School commemoration. For one thing, it’s just fun to see Veronica show up and crash another Kane event (almost literally). But there’s legitimate tension when Veronica has to watch Keith stand there and try to convince Penn to confess and defuse the bomb before they’re both blown up. Say what you will about how the show crafts its mysteries, but it knows how to pull off a suspenseful scene.
Otherwise, I like where things land for the most part. I appreciate the reveal that Maddie is the one who stole the ring (Vinnie was right!), which establishes her rough-around-the-edges bona fides that makes her fit to fill Veronica’s shoes at Mars Investigations. I like that in the end, Keith still can’t abide what Clyde did, despite how endearing their bromance is, and I like that Clyde ends up with his girlfriend and his car dealership, underscoring the anti-”evil never prospers” message of the show. And I like that maybe, just maybe, Veronica is genuinely ready to move on from Neptune, to go see what else is out there, now that the best life she was living there has been ripped away from her.
Overall, I’m not entirely satisfied with the answer to the big mystery, but otherwise I really liked this season. It definitely had the tone and sensibility of the show right. It had some good personal developments with the main characters, and brought in a slew of interesting new fresh faces. And it made some bold moves here, that challenge our hero, and live up to the show’s perspective rather than sanding it down. Good, bad, and otherwise, this season was still very much the Veronica Mars that I remembered, and that’s a good thing.
