S02.E09: My Mother the Fiend

[Lisin]

From IMDB: "After finding her mother's old permanent record at school, Veronica wonders how well she knew her mother at all, and decides to investigate her mother's school friends. Meanwhile, Trina takes the role of director in the school play, and while she has a confrontation with Kendall, Veronica has one with Celeste."

I like this one for a lot of reasons. I like the reveal at the end that (Vice) Principal Clemmons had planned this all along. I like that Trina ends up hugging her mom even though she's not who she thought it was going to be. I like a lot of things. I love that we get a showdown between Kendall and Trina! So much fun! 

[clemmyb]

I do love the set-up for Vice Principal Van Clemmons to become Principal, and I love how much they play up the fact that Veronica is a thorn in his side as well as an ally.  He's completely aware of how good she is at getting to the truth of something, and it's nice to see that play out here.

[Lisin]

I do love the set-up for Vice Principal Van Clemmons to become Principal, and I love how much they play up the fact that Veronica is a thorn in his side as well as an ally.  He's completely aware of how good she is at getting to the truth of something, and it's nice to see that play out here.

I also love that he was able to pull one over on her! No one else would have gotten away with what he did in making her think he had discovered her keys and sending her to special detention! It's so great! 

[halgia]

Totally agree about how great it is that Clemmons manipulates Veronica to get the promotion, and loved the Trina/Kendall showdown.

But: did they really have to do the "take care of a fake baby" thing? It's such a TV cliché (and do high schools even do that anymore? I'm one year younger than Veronica and we certainly didn't do that), and I don't feel like it really adds anything to the episode. Sure, this is an episode about parents, and especially mothers' relationships with their daughters (or stepkids if you want to count the Kendall/Cassiver relationship which I guess you should). But I don't really see the dolls adding any thematic weight to the story; all it did was allow for some one-liners from Veronica, all of which were pretty droppable.

[Lisin]

We had to do the baby thing in my high school, though I'm much OLDER than Veronica, I think it was 1995 when I had to do it and it was soda bottles that we had to dress and make up like babies not robot babies (I doubt those even existed when I was in high school). I agree it's a trope, and it didn't really add much to the episode beyond being a bit funny when Veronica put hers face down and Keith started taking care of it, but it was a total throwaway.

[DeLurker]

But the faux baby was to underscore the preg Meg reveal. Heavy handedly though it was.

[John Potts]

There is a lot to love in this episode - Allyson Hannigan's hilariously bad acting ("not much of a stretch there!" if you want to be cruel), Vice Principal Clemmons' coup over his boss and kudos to Rob Thomas for including a deaf character without making it an episode about "The deaf are people too!" Unfortunately, it just relies too much on Veronica grabbing hold of the Idiot Ball (let's see Miss Hot Shot detective: your mother taught you sign language, here's somebody who knows sign language that knew your mother at school - which is more likely, that she called her something archaic or you just misread the signs? Then there's the whole "Celeste is the mother of the Prom Baby" thing which is based on the fact that - V doesn't like her? You may want it to be true, but that don't make it so!). Love V's little sunnation at the end (quoting Sun Tzu!) and now Principal Clemmons' reveal that he had planned the whole thing (which is either awesome or highly contrived when you think of all the contingencies it relied on). The "Frenemy" relationship between Veronica and Clemmons was an interesting one and it's a shame we didn't see more of that.

[bettername2come]

One question: Did the lunchlady misspell "friend" or did Veronica just miss a letter when it was spelled out? I give Veronica some slack if she actually spelled "fiend," which I thought she did.

[Lisin]

I think Veronica missed the r because the lunch lady was too fast.

[starri]

"Rode Hard, meet Put Away Wet."

[Hanahope]

Wait, how in the world did Meg be the only survivor of that pretty horrific bus crash, and she ends up pregnant, and didn't lose the baby?  Great reveal though on the 'story' of her being in a coma to hide the pregnancy, though.  I guess we're in for another 'who's the daddy' story line.

 

So did Clemens always know Trina was the principal's daughter, and was just waiting for the right time to sic Veronica Mars onto the mystery?  He definitely played it cool in bringing her to the files, and the tidbits about who was at the school at that time.

[John Potts]

Hanahope So did Clemens always know Trina was the principal's daughter, and was just waiting for the right time to sic Veronica Mars onto the mystery?

 

That was certainly what Veronica believed (and given that VP Clemmons had his PRINCIPAL CLEMMONS nameplate already made up, she was probably right).

[The Companion]

On 10/10/2014 at 4:48 PM, John Potts said:

There is a lot to love in this episode - Allyson Hannigan's hilariously bad acting ("not much of a stretch there!" if you want to be cruel), Vice Principal Clemmons' coup over his boss and kudos to Rob Thomas for including a deaf character without making it an episode about "The deaf are people too!" Unfortunately, it just relies too much on Veronica grabbing hold of the Idiot Ball (let's see Miss Hot Shot detective: your mother taught you sign language, here's somebody who knows sign language that knew your mother at school - which is more likely, that she called her something archaic or you just misread the signs? Then there's the whole "Celeste is the mother of the Prom Baby" thing which is based on the fact that - V doesn't like her? You may want it to be true, but that don't make it so!). Love V's little sunnation at the end (quoting Sun Tzu!) and now Principal Clemmons' reveal that he had planned the whole thing (which is either awesome or highly contrived when you think of all the contingencies it relied on). The "Frenemy" relationship between Veronica and Clemmons was an interesting one and it's a shame we didn't see more of that.

Allyson Hannigan was a delight in this episode. I appreciated a Deaf character whose story wasn't about her status as a Deaf character. There was one miscommunication but it wasn't central. I think the Magicians is one of the only other shows I can think of that really nails writing a character who is Deaf without making the character a trope, stereotype or Very Special Episode. 

Agree that Veronica has blinders on, but that is consistent. See also the episode in which her favorite teacher couldn't possibly be banging a student because she likes him and dislikes the accuser (for spreading gossip of all things).

On 10/11/2014 at 9:26 AM, Lisin said:

I think Veronica missed the r because the lunch lady was too fast.

It would be easy to miss at full speed. I didn't pay attention to what she signed, but I would assume Veronica missed it.

On 12/7/2014 at 10:22 PM, Hanahope said:

Wait, how in the world did Meg be the only survivor of that pretty horrific bus crash, and she ends up pregnant, and didn't lose the baby?  Great reveal though on the 'story' of her being in a coma to hide the pregnancy, though.  I guess we're in for another 'who's the daddy' story line.

So, IS she in a coma? The end was a little weird with her opening her eyes. I would actually have assumed they were keeping her alive for the baby had she not responded.

Guys, I am CONCERNED about her baby. 180 is a really high heartbeat unless the baby was moving and then it should be variable. I am kidding, of course, because I doubt it was intentional, but it seems like such an easy thing to get right. 

[secnarf]

13 hours ago, The Companion said:

Guys, I am CONCERNED about her baby. 180 is a really high heartbeat unless the baby was moving and then it should be variable. I am kidding, of course, because I doubt it was intentional, but it seems like such an easy thing to get right. 

180 isn't *that* high. Sure, it's a bit higher than normal, but it's not 200! That's not incredibly concerning from the short amount of time we saw. A low fetal HR is much more concerning.

[The Companion]

1 hour ago, secnarf said:

180 isn't *that* high. Sure, it's a bit higher than normal, but it's not 200! That's not incredibly concerning from the short amount of time we saw. A low fetal HR is much more concerning.

Yeah, I was joking around but it was weird because they could have just set it to read like 140.