S01.E14: Mars vs. Mars

[Lisin]

From IMDB: "When a girl in school accuses Veronica's favorite teacher of sexual harassment, Veronica finds herself pitted against her father, who is hired by the girl's family to get him fired. Meanwhile, Logan enlists Veronica's help to track down his mother, who he believes is still alive."

For some reason this episode bothered me less in terms of Veronica vs. Keith than the Drinking the Kool-Aid episode. No good reason for that... But Adam Scott! Leighton Meester! (In my house whenever Leighton Meester is in something you must repeat "Meester! Meester!" because I love running a joke into the ground.) Watching this again after all these years it's really fun to see people pop up who are way more famous now and would be considered stunt casting when back in 04 they were just bit players.

Logan searching for his mom is going to break my heart every time. I can't help it.

[formerlyfreedom]

Adam Scott nails this performance. While re-watching, I had to continually remind myself that he is an "actor" and that Ben from Parks&Rec is really not a perv. Well, not much of one. Not in this way.

A part of me was heartbroken to see Veronica 'lose' to Keith, but the other part of me knew that this was necessary. Veronica does need to be reminded that she does NOT know the answer to everything.

And again with Logan. Poor kid. Nice work by JD.

[Lisin]

I wasn't so much bothered to see Veronica lose to Keith as I was in the cult episode to see him disappointed in her. I mean I was sad that Veronica was wrong because it meant Adam Scott was a perv and he seemed like an awesome teacher and I wanted him to be innocent. 

Poor Logan forever. JD does a great job in this story line. So sad. 

[Carrie Ann]

I like when Veronica's wrong, because it prevents the show from presenting her as superhuman and perfect. There's no way you could watch the series and see her as anything but an awesome, flawed person. And one of her flaws is that she really does think she's right all the time, because she trusts her own judgment and because she's smart and skeptical. And her instincts are generally good, but when they're off, she's pretty blind to it.

[Lisin]

I like it when she's wrong too. Not because I want her to be wrong, but like you said, it stands to reason she wouldn't always be correct and it makes the show more believable. I like it when she has to deal with her actions too. Like feeling bad about screwing Leo over for example. 

[clemmyb]

I love that the show isn't afraid to let Veronica be wrong and really screw up every once in a while.  I feel like this is a great example of her wanting to be right because she loves Rooks as a teacher.  She's also letting her anger at Carrie Bishop bias her against the case.

Something that has always, always bothered me about this episode, though: are we really to believe that Rooks was trying to seduce Veronica in the end, there?  If so, why would he do that after she had just cleared his name?  

Or am I completely reading that scene wrong?

[Lisin]

I don't think you're reading the scene wrong... I think that he was maybe trying to seduce her but because he thought she liked him too? I think he thought she fought so hard for him because she cared for him and that meant she'd be into it. At least that's how I took it. I could be way off.

[halgia]

I agree with Lisin's reading of the end with Mr Rooks – in his world, why would any (attractive, young) woman help him except if it was because she liked him?

Also, the argument that texts can be faked if you swipe the sender's phone is a little silly - are they saying that Carrie somehow supposedly stole Rooks's phone repeatedly outside of school hours months ago? Not that it's probably not easy to put texts onto your own phone with a fake sender, but that wasn't at all what they argued.

I also agree that this one felt like it put Veronica and Keith much less at odds than the cult episode, which was a little strange for the title. The dye pack was fun.

Also agree that it's really good to see how any one person, even Veronica, is super vulnerable to being biased by who they like or don't like - which is why Mars Investigations can't run all the law enforcement in Neptune. :)

Also: as a megafan of Adam Scott, I found him surprisingly unlikable here, even before we found out the accusations were true. Maybe that was just me being colored by remembering "oh yeah, this is the one where Adam Scott's a child molester" at the start of the episode, though.

Oh! And the kid who shot the jump footage was the most adorable thing ever, how excited he was about his war movie and stuff.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Dougal

[ApathyMonger]

Rewatched this one last night. I'd forgotten this show's ability to get lines like "You got a trophy for a rim job?" past the censors.

[Hanahope]

Well, yes Veronica was wrong about Mr. Rook seducing A student, but she was right that it wasn't the student who was accusing him.  So in a way, there was a win and a loss on both sides. 

 

Loved the dye pack scene.

 

So if Logan's mother jumped off the bridge, who used her credit card?  Or, was she pushed and the credit card stolen?  Or did someone else go off the bridge? I hope we get more of that story.