S02.E07: Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

[Lisin]

From IMDB: "Veronica goes undercover after Duncan comes to her with a plea to help him find out which one of the children Meg was babysitting was being mentally abused by their parents. Meanwhile, Dick, Beaver and Kendall are visited by their lawyer, who informs them of Big Dick's wishes."

This is such a brutal episode. Meg's parents are evil. I love that Lamb lets Veronica and Duncan go and his threat to Meg's dad is great but he still doesn't actually DO anything because ugh, he's still worthless. No sympathy for Kendall here. She's too gross. 

[clemmyb]

This is a really brutal episode, and the music that plays at the end of the episode, when Lamb drops off Duncan and Veronica and then parks his cruiser outside the Manning's house is really sort of tonally perfect and haunting.

I've always wondered how Lizzie Manning was able to get away with being so "oversexed" at school when she was living in what's essentially a religious lockdown state in her house.

[Lisin]

I've always wondered how Lizzie Manning was able to get away with being so "oversexed" at school when she was living in what's essentially a religious lockdown state in her house.

I've decided she was pulling a "Sue Scanlon" a la Dead Scott's wild sister from 90210 Original Flavor and changing into her "whore" clothes at school. I think in reality in the purity test episode when Veronica suspects her, Lizzie has some line, either about how her parents are always on Meg but they ignore her because she's the middle child, OR that they're always on her because Meg's perfect and it's nice to see Meg taken down a peg. I honestly can't remember exactly which but I think it was vaguely addressed last season. 

[halgia]

Yeah, the end here is super rough and the music is great. I loved the whole adventures in babysitting deal, though: every family has some weirdo creepy things, and the normal nice ones are even worse. (Seriously, is there a single family on this show that doesn't have a deep dark secret? I guess maybe Weevil's is as close as we get.) Mrs Goodmanberg seems to be seriously horrible, though – Veronica might have stumbled on something else that's actually an issue there.

Veronica quoting The Dude at the beginning is wonderful.

Also liked that we got to see part of why Veronica doesn't really try to have normal friends: because what other people do when they hang out is awful.

Does Lamb really not do anything other than sit outside their house? I legitimately don't understand why not. Not enough evidence?

[clemmyb]

Also liked that we got to see part of why Veronica doesn't really try to have normal friends: because what other people do when they hang out is awful.

Does Lamb really not do anything other than sit outside their house? I legitimately don't understand why not. Not enough evidence?

 

I related so much to Veronica's horror at realizing there were other girls at the sleepover, because that was totally me in high school.  It's a great moment.

And yeah, I'm not sure that Lamb ever intended to do anything other than give a silent warning: "I'm watching you."  He's not exactly the most competent sheriff, and this is a plot point that unfortunately doesn't ever get fully explored.

[Hanahope]

Yeah, Lamb just "watching" from outside is worthless and these days, almost illegal given that so many states have pretty strict child endangerment/abuse/reporting statutes.  How does watching from outside stop anything that's inside the house?

 

Fun seeing Charisma Carpenter really channel her inner Cordelia of what she'd be like had she just married some rich dude instead of working for Angel.

[Petunia13]

I agree this was a really dark episode and the ending and ending music is super creepy.

WTF tho there was no resolution!?

[KAOS Agent]

In the second Veronica Mars book, Grace Manning returns and does blame Veronica for not doing anything about her situation and helping her. I'm not entirely sure what V could have done since she did make sure the police were aware of the abuse and it seemed like Lamb was willing to pursue it in this case.

[John Potts]

I liked the fact that it actually showed a more positive side to Lamb: as a foil to Veronica it seemed that he had no positive traits (except possibly for the negative one that he's stupid enough for Veronica to run rings around him), so it was nice to see there were limits to his corruption/incompetence and that certain crimes he WOULD take a stand over (and not even bust V for breaking in, either).