Veronica Mars Season Premiere Live Blog!

8:21pm – Alrighty. The Butterfly’s made her tea and sufficiently recovered emotionally from that gripping Gilmore Girls (dammit, Luke, why must you be so cold?), I’ve set up the laptop, and we’ve allowed enough time to go by to where we don’t have to watch any commercials. This can only mean one thing...

VERONICA MARS LIVE BLOG*, BABY.

That’s right. For those of you who were worried about how I was going to fill that hour-long hole in my Tuesdays since I no longer have Pirates Rants™ to write for a while, fear not. I have come up with a way to fill that hole in the most unproductive way possible.

ON WITH THE SHOW!

8:23 – Scene 1 begins with Veronica, new curly hairdo in tow, walking across a campus that, as Butterfly quickly points out, looks a lot like UC-Sunnydale from Buffy.

8:25 – First unrealistic college moment of the season—an unreasonably attractive professor hands out clues to a murder mystery in a class called Introduction to Criminology. Gee…I wonder who’s going to be the first one to solve it?

8:26 – Veronica gets in trouble for reading a magazine…and then it turns out she’s already solved the mystery! She set the new record! Six minutes! Who knew? And the previous record-holder, now teacher’s assistant, is huffy. And she embarrasses him. Not a good way to make friends.

8:28 – Okay, the new intro is weird. They remixed the song. I hate remixes. And it’s slow and strange. Boo.

8:29 – Logan has heard from Dick, who’s apparently a mess. I guess at some point I should fill in some background plot and cast information since, judging by the ratings, not that many potential readers have probably watched this show. Here goes...

Cast of Characters
Veronica – obviously the main character. Her dad, Keith, is a private detective and former sheriff, and she’s joined in on the family business. In high school, classmates were coming to her to solve their problems, and methinks the same thing will happen in college.

Logan – Veronica’s rich-boy boyfriend. His dad is famous actor Aaron Echols (Harry Hamlin, absolutely perfect casting). Season One (running plotline: who killed Veronica’s best friend Lilly?) ended with Aaron having killed Lilly after an illicit affair. Season Two (running plotline: who blew up a busload of students, of which Veronica was supposed to be one?) ended with Aaron being acquitted of murder and then being shot by a hired gun. Logan lives in the penthouse of the Neptune Grand.

Wallace – Veronica’s best friend. His mom and her dad dated for a while.

Dick – Rich, shallow, partying smartass who hits on every girl that breathes (except for Veronica, whom he called “Kryptonite for rich people” last season). He’s Logan’s best friend...at least he was before it turned out that Dick’s brother, Cassidy, remote detonated the busload of students then pulled a Greg Louganis off the top of the Neptune Grand (in front of Veronica and Logan) after being found out by Veronica and remote detonating a plane containing the mayor (who molested Cassidy earlier in life) and supposedly containing Veronica’s dad (it turned out he wasn’t on the plane). Tends to mess you up a bit.

Alright, where were we?

8:33 – Wallace’s new roommate is named Piz? Really, Piz? And all his belongings (including the holy grail of guitars that he saved up to buy for two years) have been stolen from his car outside the dorm? I hope Wallace knows a good detective! Preferrably one who’s short, blonde and hot!

8:34 – Okay, the first commercial break contains a sofa full of girls who look 16 discussing the first 15 minutes of the show and talking about how much college changes a person. Um, yeah. Suddenly I’m reminded that my favorite show is a) on the CW, and b) marketed toward 16-year old girls. Not cool. I feel old and creepy. Must hit fast forward sooner next time.

8:36 – Piz was going to let the local police handle things until Veronica showed up. But she’s, like, so hot, so she gets the job. He offers to give her guitar lessons, she says she’ll take $500 instead.

8:38 – Including Gilmore Girls earlier, we’ve had our second pop culture reference of the evening involving Battlestar Gallactica. Guess that’s what happens when you get on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

8:39 – Okay, two VM episodes take place on a college campus (including a ‘college visit’ episode last season), and three girls have been raped by frat dudes and had their heads shaved. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, that makes sense...I was thinking Veronica solved the mystery of the shaved head/rape last season, but I guess she didn’t. Methinks I’m spotting one of this season’s running plots.

Veronica meets Mac outside an anti-rape rally (or something). A little more background: Mac is a computer nerd whom Veronica befriended in Season One because a) she didn’t have many friends and b) Mac could help her with any investigation involving computers. She was also Cassidy’s girlfriend before that whole “It turns out your boyfriend was a murderer...oh and it so happens that he was the one who drugged and raped Veronica in Season One...oh, and he gave her chlamydia that he got from the mayor” thing. Naturally, she’s not in the healthiest state of mind.

The current anti-rape rally is interrupted by a masked dude in a UK speedo (I bet it’s Dick), humping an inflatable doll and dancing to...Wrecks ‘N’ Effect? Uhh. So much for current pop culture references.

8:41 – The masked dude is Dick. I’m good.

8:43 – Keith Mars is giving a ride to someone who’s apparently tied to Kendall Casablancas, played by Charisma Carpenter, the Jamie Pressley of WB/CW shows (she only plays one character, The Hot B*tch on Teen Shows, but she’s so good at it that it doesn’t matter that she has no range as an actress; plus, she was on Buffy, making one more tie to that show). They’re revealing background plot too fast for me to type it. So I’ll just pretend I know what’s going on. Something tells me I’ll be needing to know a lot about this guy in the future.

Oh, so apparently the dude to whom Keith is giving a ride is a Fitzpatrick, a member of the violent Irish family that runs the seedy Neptune underworld. Why in the world is he giving a Fitzpatrick a ride? This isn’t going to end well.

8:44 – Flash to Logan and Veronica in bed at Logan’s place at 12:15am (on a school night). The phone rings, and Logan answers it before Veronica can tell him she had her phone forwarded to his so she could be at his place without her dad knowing. Not surprisingly, it’s her dad on the line. Awk-ward.

8:45 – Uh oh. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Veronica is going to end up with Piz. But I can’t say anything to The Butterfly, because she’s quite the Logan fan. But this is no time for suspicion because Veronica’s piecing together clues for the Mystery of Piz’ Stolen Goods.

8:47 – And we’re introduced with Mac’s slutty roommate (the computer geek rooms with a future slutty sorority girl...didn’t see THAT coming), who invites Veronica over to watch Top Model with them. Product placement! And they’re off to a rock show so Veronica can do some sleuthing! Hope it’s at The Bronze!

8:48 – The Bronze? God. I just made a Buffy reference all on my own. I hate who I’ve become. I do not respect myself anymore.

8:51 – Line of the night so far: “Breasts...or the holy grail of guitars?”

8:52 – Some kid with a really strange Boston-via-Glasgow accent gives Veronica a clue. Something about a hot girl in a fat suit. Or something. Seriously, typing makes me miss stuff. This is hard work.

8:53 – And Dick comes knocking at Mac’s door, looking for her slutty roommate. Oh, and he tells Mac that his brother never liked her. That darn Dick.

8:58 – Veronica volunteers to start mentoring, again to search for clues. And wouldn’t you know it, the teacher’s assistant leaves the room and she’s able to search through files just like she was hoping to. Amazing how that works.

8:59 – Logan and Veronica are eating at the mall. Yup, bad sign. Logan makes his second appearance on the show, in comparison to Piz’ (Piz’s? Piz’z?) ten or so. He gives her his room key as a gift. Aww. And there’s Dick, hitting on some girl who has a huge boyfriend...beating him up until Logan stun guns him. This happens all the time when I’m in a mall food court.

9:02 – Veronica has the mystery solved! And it’s time to embarrass the perpetrator while catching him! (Meanwhile, apparently “Veronica” is the hardest word in the English language for me to type...every time I’ve attempted it today, I’ve had to backspace after typing “Vernocia”. Which slows me down that much more.)

9:03 – The Butterfly: “Yeah, but I like Logan. And I mean...Piz...that’s just stupid.” Yeah, she’s caught on. We both see bad news in Logan’s future.

9:04 – Yeah, it’s official. This show requires way too much attention to detail for me to be typing during it. That’s right, I’m retiring from live blogging already. I’ll leave that to the pros. And, of course, berlin niebuhr. But just remember—I called the Piz thing way early on.

9:05 – And Veronica makes a “Boom goes the dynamite” reference. I love this show. Meanwhile, Charisma Carpenter makes her first official appearance of the season (aww, yeah) as Keith and New Cast Member Dude show up at her house.

9:07 – Keith’s walking in the dark. Here’s where we officially move into “not going to end well” territory. Yup, there’s the empty gun holster. Keith runs toward the house, but there are the gun shots. Yup, unless Mr. Fitzpatrick is a horrible shot, I’m guessing Charisma Carpenter just made her last appearance on the show. Bummer. Running from the house, Keith trips and hides behind a large rock. For some reason, the gunman doesn’t chase after him. Okay. Well there’s your other running plotline for the season. Amazing how trouble follows the Mars family everywhere.

9:08 – Dick appears at Logan’s door, bloody, drunk, crying, and saying “I messed up bad.”

9:09 – Back to Mac’s dorm room. Veronica’s buzzed, and I’m thinking Mac’s roommate is a goner. Actually, no...she’s just raped and bald. So I didn’t wasn’t 100% right. And...cut to credits. They tried to set that up like you’re supposed to suspect Dick of being the rapist, but unless the writers are off their game this season, I’m thinking he’s not. That would be too easy.

9:11 – My ass is asleep and those 16-year olds are talking about how Lorelai should have told Luke she cheated on him earlier on Gilmore Girls. Like, totally. This is apparently tied to a running American Eagle ad, which is just depressing. I don’t want to deal with this all season.

9:12 – Next week on Veronica Mars: Veronica joins a sorority, and it’s party time! Okay, not quite what I was expecting. Tune in! Because lord knows you won’t be getting any more live blogs from me!

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* As long as “live blog” means “typing it offline, spending sufficient time editing it to make it sound like I’m much more quick-thinking and witty in real-time, and then posting it a day later.