Entertainment Round-up (updated!)

I know some of you are tiring of hearing me go on and on about TV shows for the last few days.

But, um, Veronica Mars was Tuesday night, so bear with me. In white text, as usual, to prevent spoilage. Highlight to see…

I LOVE LOGAN ECHOLLS.

It’s a pure love, a deep love, the type of love that I can no longer hide. Fortunately, Sailor Boy understands. He thinks that he might love him even more than I do. And SB’s parents also understand, and accept our love. And now that Logan is single, we can be together, at last. Darling Logan, call me soon! I know you’re like a decade younger than I am, but isn’t it time for you to get yourself a real woman, the type of woman who can appreciate you so much more than that ditz you’ve been dating? Logan, darling, don’t make me wait.

Baseball bat! Police car! Brilliant. My Logan, O Logan, O darling, you’re back to your bad boy, loyal, wonderful wonderful self. The way you flexed your hand in that jail cell made me swoon. My heart pounded the whole way home. Sailor Boy is so wrong about it being contrived and about how you’re going to be stuck in jail for a while now.

Okay. So that was thing number one I loved. Other things I loved: 1) Mac. Always. Mac being brilliant and wonderful and snarky and tossing out drinks and saying awful things and wearing a fabulous t-shirt. Why don’t they use her more? 2) Dick. Always. Dick being a dick. So much love. 3) The unicorns. Clearly Carrie is actually Harmony, from Buffy. 4) The Neil Diamond tribute band. 5) Parker, saving the day, and Parker’s Posse, backing her up (note to Veronica: this is how you handle confronting a rapist. You take a posse with you). 6) The dean. 7) Logan. 8) Logan. 9) The fact that I totally called Moe. 10) Logan. 11) Deputy Sacks, getting schooled by both the junior cop and Keith. 12) Logan, I love you. I love you when you’re getting your heart broken. I love you when you’re beating someone’s face in. I love that you think the best pathway to personal revenge is getting yourself locked up. I love that you think nothing of taking a baseball bat to a cop car. Marry me, Logan Echolls. We can be DiLo. Or LoDi. Or something.

Things I hated: 1) Veronica, being a moron. Ws it GHB or stupid pills that she’s been taking? I have no idea why she thought that was the best recourse for dealing with her discovery of the rapist. Has she not realized over the course of her other near-death experiences, how bad an idea it is to go off, alone, to confront the villain? And where is her phone? She has her taser, but not her phone?

To quote Ally Carter, who is also a huge VM fan, and with whom yours truly dissected last night’s ep:

“But when is our 105 pound heroine going to learn that there are OTHER people who can stake out the dorm room where the rapists are going to be showing up? Call the cops and TELL them what’s going on. Call the campus cops. Call your dad. Call Logan and Wallace. Grab five random guys at the incredibly crowded party and say “hey, want to go wail on a pervert?” I’m betting she could get some backup. Hey, go get Backup–anything!”

Exactly, Ally. Exactly.

2) Mercer, monologuing. 3) Veronica, being a really unforgiveable moron. You run upstairs to get away from the wounded villain? Have you never seen a horror film? And where was your rape whistle then? And why the hell would you expect Piz or Wallace to be in their room when you know you left Piz at the party and Wallace went to the marina with Logan? 4) Mercer’s weird master/slave thing with Moe. WTF? See below. 5) Did I mention how Veronica was acting like an idjit? 6) The fake IDs. She hasn’t learned her lesson from season 1? 7) Wallace=Wasted.

But mostly, everything I disliked about the episode was redeemed by Baseball bat + Logan + police car = LOVE. Wow, was my heart pounding when I saw that scene.

Okay. Moving on. I also fianlly saw the series “finale” of Carnivale yesterday. Thumbs DOWN. But it was a good lesson for me, as a writer. In fact, the whole series was a great lesson in the following: 1) Do not let worldbuilding get in the way of the story. As interesting as carniers and the Depression were, they should serve as backdrop to the tale, not the other way around. 2) Yeah, make ’em wait, but don’t make ’em wait for longer than the payoff is worth.
3) Make sure there is a payoff. Sheesh. This, for the record, is why I gave up on Lost. I already went through this crap with The X-Files.

Updated to add: VeronicaMarsWhite Text: Thank the good people at Television Without Pity for pointing out to me what the dea was with Mercer “sir” and Moe “prisoner”: it was a reference to the prison experiment from the beginning of the season that Moe said “changed his life.” Ta da.