S01.E15: Ruskie Business

[Lisin]

From IMDB: "As Valentine's Day approaches, Veronica finds herself working as a love detective, tracking down Meg's secret admirer and helping a Russian woman find her missing fiancé, both with unexpected results. Meanwhile, Logan's family troubles continue when he stakes out a hotel that he believes is hiding his mother."

Ugh, Logan waiting for his mom is so so upsetting for me. Full disclosure, I don't like Meg. I know, but she's just such a goody two shoes. It annoys me.  The Russian fiancé storyline didn't really do much for me either.

[Carrie Ann]

I'm not a Meg fan either. She's most likable from her first appearance until

she starts dating Duncan

, and then it goes downhill with a quickness. But even from the beginning, it's sort of disingenuous how she acts like it's Veronica's fault that she just didn't notice that not all 09ers hate her. Like, if she wanted to be nice to Veronica, why did it take months and months to reach out to her at all? Months in which Meg couldn't have missed people (her friends) being terrible to V. And then

she starts dating Duncan, immediately puts it on Veronica to be cool with it, and is a straight up beeyatch to her from the moment she determines Duncan is still in love with her. Like, that's really not Veronica's fault. And when they start dating again? Well, that's no worse than what Meg did to Veronica by dating Duncan herself. I get that the pregnancy thing is probably influencing how angry she is about it (I'm assuming?), but it's still shitty and in the end Meg comes off like a real brat. Duncan probably comes out looking worse of the two of them, but that's another conversation for another day. 

[Lisin]

Yes to everything you said in your spoiler! I'm onto season 2 right now and I'm having trouble having sympathy for Meg even though I know she's in a coma and pregnant and everything. Ugh. Such a pill!

I couldn't agree more about how disingenuous it seems that Meg all of a sudden figures out what's happening with the 09ers and Veronica, and how she sort of acts like it's Veronica's fault they're not "working it out" or whatever. I mean it was one thing when Troy tried, he didn't know the history, but Meg does.

[clemmyb]

Meg has always been a problematic character for me, because she's kind of a Mary-Sue, but also because she seems like such a fairweather friend.  Maybe that's partially on Veronica, too--maybe Veronica's guardedness and cynicism push Meg away so she doesn't try so hard--but I never

liked the way that their relationship sours, especially over someone as bland as Duncan.

That being said, I've always liked this episode, despite the fact that the central mystery is sort of lackluster.  I think Veronica does some nifty detective work with tracking down Steve the dog (plus Wallace gets that awesome line about drunk dingoes), and I love me some 80's clothes.

Side note: did anyone else think that the artist's sketch of Duncan wasn't very good?  I remember watching the episode for the first time and being like, "Who is that supposed to be?"

[Lisin]

I totally agree about the artist sketch. There's another one in season 2 (or 3, I can't remember) that's someone else and again I thought it was really bad. I'm guessing that production budget didn't allow for a great sketch artist, but still. You'd think someone in the production could draw better than that.

[halgia]

Yeah, Meg+Duncan's not great. The sketch also wasn't super recognizable, but (a) Duncan is the blandest person ever and (b) it's based on a shopkeeper's impression of some kid who bought flowers from him a few days ago.

I didn't mind the main mob storyline much though, it was kind of fun to see just straightforward detective work for most of the episode there. The resolution was a little lackluster though.

Alyson Hannigan does a great job being very hateable as Trina...contributing to by far the saddest bit about Logan's mom.

By the way: OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT DEPUTY LEO IS SCHMIDT FROM NEW GIRL. I was wondering where I knew him from and thought it was just remembering him from the first runthrough.

[Lisin]

By the way: OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT DEPUTY LEO IS SCHMIDT FROM NEW GIRL. I was wondering where I knew him from and thought it was just remembering him from the first runthrough.

Hee! It's easy not to recognize him, he's so mumble mouthed here and Schmidt is prone to over ennunciate.

[Hanahope]

Yeah, there's my decade, all nostalgia now.  I didn't recognize Meg's dress or what she was supposed to be looking like.  Most everyone else was recognizable.

 

I thought both sketches were pretty awful, the other didn't look like Veronica either. 

 

So, should I root for Veronica to stick with the rookie cop?  They seem to work well together. 

 

Was I supposed to recognize the guy in the bar, or was it just him giving Veronica a real serious look?

 

I wish Veronica had found out if Kane was really her father so she should put to rest any romantic feelings about Duncan, if that is the case.

 

Liked seeing Veronica really multi-task.  I guess with the sister using the credit card and the video from the last video, Logan's mom is really dead.  Pretty sad.

[paulvdb]

Was I supposed to recognize the guy in the bar, or was it just him giving Veronica a real serious look?

It's been a while since I watched VM so I don't remember exactly what happened in which episode. But if this is what I think it is, that was Clarence Wiedman, head of security at Kane Software.

Edit: and I just read the thread for the next episode and see that you already figured that out.

Edited October 13, 2014 by paulvdb

[moonshine71]

God damn, I love Veronica, but this episode really hammers bike that she is an awful friend. The SPRING dance is going on during this episode, and she asks Wallace "you're on the basketball team, aren't you?". The season has been going in since probably November, and she's not even sure if he's been in the team, much less gone to a game to support him(realistically, the season should be over by the time of a spring dance)? 

 

I've always gotten a kick out of the next episode and how Veronica gets to see the view of Wallace from kids at another school when she goes undercover and realises he's kind of a rock star, but on this rewatch I just really notice the timeline more and how late in the season this is taking place. Now I really wish they had been able to drop this and the following episode into the season earlier, like around Christmas or right before, then it kind of becomes cute that Veronica doesn't know that what she views as her dorky best friend is really a basketball star, and it would make sense that she hadn't been to any games, with her not exactly being someone who's had a great experience at Neptune and feels the need to show a bunch of school spirit or is interested in sports. But for the entire season to go by with her seemingly not even knowing Wallace is playing, or if she thinks he might be not going to a game, really sucks on her part. 

[Affogato]

On 2/20/2022 at 9:24 AM, moonshine71 said:

God damn, I love Veronica, but this episode really hammers bike that she is an awful friend. The SPRING dance is going on during this episode, and she asks Wallace "you're on the basketball team, aren't you?". The season has been going in since probably November, and she's not even sure if he's been in the team, much less gone to a game to support him(realistically, the season should be over by the time of a spring dance)? 

 

I've always gotten a kick out of the next episode and how Veronica gets to see the view of Wallace from kids at another school when she goes undercover and realises he's kind of a rock star, but on this rewatch I just really notice the timeline more and how late in the season this is taking place. Now I really wish they had been able to drop this and the following episode into the season earlier, like around Christmas or right before, then it kind of becomes cute that Veronica doesn't know that what she views as her dorky best friend is really a basketball star, and it would make sense that she hadn't been to any games, with her not exactly being someone who's had a great experience at Neptune and feels the need to show a bunch of school spirit or is interested in sports. But for the entire season to go by with her seemingly not even knowing Wallace is playing, or if she thinks he might be not going to a game, really sucks on her part. 

One of Veronica;s themes in all the seasons is her attempts to be both her authentic self and a good friend. I'd maintain that, held back by her mother from school for a year she was kept close to Mom (and when Liane was busy babysit by Dad's deputies, who taught her lock picking and poker); she practiced being a mini adult.  She didn't have friends her own age or childish fun. When Mom loosened her hold enough to let her hang out with Jake's kids, Lilly called the shots, like she did in the relationship with Logan. When Veronica decides, after her rape, to be her true self this is completely new territory for Veronica and she makes mistakes.

She is still, this whole year, getting up at 4 to walk the dog and do homework, leaving school to work in Mars Investigations, going home to walk the dog and or make dinner for Keith, going out to surveil until 2 AM, sleeping for two hours, rinse and repeat. Basically she has not much time to go to games or inclination to hang out with her previous pep squad/sports group. She misses a lot.

So, yes--not a good friend by the lens you use. But she tries to make it up to him with spirit boxes and going to games later. It isn't she is a good or bad friend. It's a process.