Things to Do in D.C. When You’re (brain) Dead

Um, yeah, I’ve been up since 4:30. I’ve done some of the line edits on my plate today, visited all the blogs, caught up on all the loops, and have been, for reasons not worth exmining, been reading the online Scarlet Pimpernel off of Bibliomania.

Please ignore the rambling. Scroll down to the next post to see my new covers.

If you’re an author and you have a picture of yourself surrounded by the ARCs/galleys of your book (in manner of this) please contact me.

And now, onto Veronica Mars. As usual, spoilers are in white text. Highlight to see (or, as one RSS reader angrily told me, look away now!)

WTF people?!?!?!?!?!?!? Has our girl gone TSTL or what? Look, I went to college. I knew people who had, LIKE VERONICA, been raped as a result of being slipped roofies and other drugs. Do you know the main thing these women had in common? They never took their eyes of their drinks. Ever. They never had uncapped drinks, they never left their drinks unattended, they never accepted drinks from people who said, “I can’t finish this, want it?” and in extreme cases, they would only accept drinks from bartenders’ hands directly, not bartenders who would prepare drinks them leave them on the bar (where anyone could get at them) to be picked up by servers and served. They lectured anyone who would listen about the dangers of drinking items if you didn’t know where they’d been. So much is made of the fact that Veronica is scarred by her experiences with untrustworthy men. What about her other experiences? What about the fact that she was drugged and raped, what about the fact that she’s a P.I. closely dealing with a serial rapist on campus? Should she be even MORE vigilant about her drinks? And even if you’re going to try to get me to believe that she’d just leave her drink there and wander around, there is no way I’m going to believe that, once she starts feeling the effects of the drug, her response would be to leave the nice, crowded, well-lit food court and wander down to the deserted parking garage. No. The Veronica I know would grab the nearest co-ed and say, “Call campus police. I think I’ve been drugged.” And I think she WOULD think she’s been drugged. With the serial rapist on the forefront of her mind, I doubt her first reaction woould be, “Gee, I don’t think that capellini is agreeing with me. YES, even under reduced mental capabilities. SERIAL RAPIST ROAMING CAMPUS.

I believe that Veronica would have behaved in the manner she did this episode about as readily as I believe that Logan would actually notice a car alarm going off in southern California. Yes, once he (luckily) noticed that it was Veronica’s car, and saw that someone had clicked the alarm off, I believe he would have gone looking for her, since, you know, she owns the car and he was looking for her.

Speaking of Logan, that’s another WTF moment, as far as I’m concerned. What’s all this “just trust me” crap. That only works if the secret is actually trustworthy. I was expecting it to be some kind of therapy session (Sociopaths Anonymous?) that he can’t share. “Just trust me, he’s not a rapist, only a Mexican arsonist-and-runner” doesn’t quite have the same cache. And of course, Logan’s part in the whole affair only further points out that he’s not a good guy, he’s just protective of the people he loves. I also don’t know if I believe him, given the whole setting-the-pool-on-fire thing. It’s disturbing and I’ve lost a lot of faith in the character, and I suspect that the writers are trying to pound it into our head that Logan is Not a Good Guy. I was clinging to the idea that his earlier sociopathic tendencies are always brought on by periods of great emotional stress — the whole girlfriend being brutally murdered, girlfriend’s best friend blaming it on own best friend’s dad, father beating, mother committing suicide, father revealed to have first slept with, then murdered old girlfriend as is trying to kill new girlfriend — thing (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, someone get this kid into therapy!)

The Mutant Enemy people pulled a similar stunt with constantly and explicitly trying to remind all the Spikelovers that Spike is Not a Good Guy, and it didn’t work, and eventually they gave in and gave him a soul, blah blah blah, but I gotta say, it worked just fine for me. I lvoed the Spike character. I even loved his nonrequited love for Buffy. I didn’t love it when he expected a return of affection, or got all schmoopy, or got a soul. Blecccch. Their reminders that he was bad worked for me. I liked him bad. I didn’t want him ot get all good. Logan isn’t evil like Spike. He’s not a torturing, murdering, blah blah blah fiend of the night. He’s a kid who fucks up a lot, and needs therapy, but isn’t evil evil. Veronica is supposed to fix him. guess this is supposed to show that she doesn’t have any effect on him. And I guess, also, that they will now break up, and, as Logan does every time they break up, he will go about showing how bad he can really be, because he’s self-destructive like that.

And I know I’ve been complaining about Logan losing his edge. So am I happy now? Um, no…
Schmoop schmoop schmoop.

Justine says my problem is that I’m watching it on TV for the first time, rather than Netflix. I think she may be right.