Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars Read online

  In sons ways this was a difficult essay for me to read. I hate camp. With few exceptions I dislike almost anything that's described as "campy." I'm never going for an ironic appreciation of the work. When something on Veronica Mars feels campy, it means we (read: I) have failed. Reading Lani's essay, however I see that she has both a wider net of what she considers camp than I, and a greater appreciation for it when she sees it.

  Here's the thing ...

  We are faced with this conundrum when breaking stories for the show: like Murder, She Wrote, each episode requires a crime of some sort. (Thank God we don't require a murder) I feel like we land in what I feel is uncomfortably campy territory when we bite off more than we can chew story-wise. My personal least favorite episodes-or if not episodes, storylines-are when the stories feel too big for Veronica's world. (See the E-String Strangler see season three's bone marrow transplant story, see Meg's coma.) When I think of quintessential VM MOWs, I think of a story like, "My boyfriend took a dirty video of me. Help me get it back." It's not lightweight and fluffy like a Nancy Drew mystery or something you might find on a family friendly network. It's noir and edgy, but it feels solvable by a seventeen year-old girl with skills.

  Clearly, we're not trying to do a little art-house film each week. We want to be the thinking-man's (or -woman's) popcorn show. It's fun. Stuff happens. When we get too campy, it means we dropped the "thinking-man's" part. In those cases, we just cross our fingers and hope the show works on some other (read: funny) level.

  Welcome to Camp Noir

  1. MY NAME is Lani, and I'm a TV junkie.

  I formed my addiction in the seventies, when I took my first hit off shows like The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Partridge Family, and The Brady Bunch. (Hey, give me a break. Out of all the shameful skeletons people have locked away in their seventies closets, I think I did pretty well.) In the eighties, I refined my palate a touch. Moonlighting was my drug of choice, with its ace dialogue and, sadly, unparalleled shark jumping. Cheers was my Thursday Night Special, and is to this day one of the hands-down funniest shows ever written. And Growing Pains was ... well. It was Growing Pains. (Yeah, yeah, I know But I was a teenage girl, and it was Kirk Cameron. I never stood a chance.) By the time Northern Exposure, Seinfeld, and The X-Files hit the scene, there was no hope for me; I was on the juice but good. (Hey, it beat a crack addiction by a country mile. Although crack does come with that awesome weight loss. Eh. Everything's a tradeoff.)

  Anyway, all this to say that, when it comes to TV, I'm your basic whore with a heart of gold: I've been around. If the fifties were seen as television's Golden Age, right now we're smack in the middle of a platinum one-thank you, Joss Whedon, for kicking that off-and my TiVo and I are likethis. Every year I get my list of new shows and make my predictions like a college bookie before March Madness: which ones will make it, which ones will tank, and how long it will take FOX to kill this season's most promising new show (I still haven't forgiven them for canceling Firefly and Wonderfalls. Two very bitter pills, my friends.) Not to toot my own horn, but usually, I'm fairly close with my calls.

  With Veronica Mars, though, I was miles off target. Modern-day Nancy Drew? UPN? Pfft. I gave it a half-season only because, unlike some other networks that shall remain nameless (Damn you, FOX! Damn you!), UPN wasn't quite as quick to Kevorkian an investment. I had no idea Veronica would turn into what it is: one of the defining shows of the Platinum Age.

  So, where were we? Oh, yeah. When the 2004 season rolled out, I watched maybe two episodes of Veronica Mars, and decided, "Meh." I didn't really think about it again, allowing Tuesday after Tuesday to slip by celebrated only by Gilmore Girls and House.

  Then, the buzz started. The unbelievable, unrelenting hype. People I hugely respected were calling it genius. Stephen King gave it high praise in an Entertainment Weekly article. Kristin Vietch at E!, whose TV tastes run pretty square with mine, raved every week. Joss Whedon acknowledged and embraced the Buffy comparisons.

  Me? Big doof that I was, I still didn't get it. The writing seemed. ..well ... clunky to me. I didn't get the characters. The verbal quips were too crisp, the teenagers too clever and in charge, the flashbacks too flashy, the storylines too outrageous. It was all too too for me. I pretty much figured I was going to have to sit this particular cultural zeitgeist out.

  Then, one day, I ran across a person who described the show as "camp noir." (I can't find this person, or I'd credit him or her with it; a thorough e-mail and Google search has yielded nothing. So if you're that person, out there reading this ... hey. Go, you.) Anyway, as soon as this person put the ideas together for me, it was like the skies opened and angels sang; suddenly, all became clear. (Okay, I might be overdramatizing a tad. But it was sunny.)

  Camp Noir. Of course. Camp, referring to over-the-top storytelling with a hint of kitsch that's not even trying for reality; noir, French for "black," used to describe storytelling with a dark edge, expressed visually by shadowy lighting and the classic Venetian blind stripes on any wall that'll have 'em. The two styles of storytelling are like Reese's, two great tastes that taste great together, and to the best of my knowledge, a television show has never combined them before. You could argue that films have touched on it (the Tarantino oeuvre comes to mind immediately, and I hear Sin City would also qualify, although I personally haven't seen it) but it's fairly uncharted territory for television.

  So, with this new perspective, I hurried out, got the season one DVD of Veronica Mars, and had myself a lost weekend. (Oh, don't judge. You know you've done it, too.) Finally, it all made sense. Finally, I got it. No longer was Veronica too too; it was just plain brilliant television. The thing I loved the most was that the camp and the noir, rather than being evenly mixed, were instead dolloped in like ingredients in a pint of Ben & Jerry's. (Mmm... Ben & Jerry's.) Just when you'd finished with a big chunk of Lilly-Kane's-death-scene noir, you could follow it up with Paris Hilton's acting? Seriously? Camp.' Sometimes the two mix evenly-I think camp and noir were in a dead heat when that freshman showed his tape of Lynn Echolls taking her swan dive off the Coronado Bridge ("Mars vs. Mars," 1- 142)-but at any given moment, with characters and storylines, it tends to be more one than the other. Let's start sorting the dark from the you've-got-to-be-freaking-kidding-me, and feel free to play along. Camp Noir is officially in session.

  Veronica. There's no better place to start than with the teenage detective with the mostest, and at first glance, we're coming in firmly on the noir side. Veronica has all the necessary noir elements. She's missing a parent. She's been ostracized from her peers. Her best friend has been brutally murdered. She's a rape victim. No, wait, she's not a rape victim. Noooo ... wait ... yes, a rape victim.' She has a long-lost love who might-could-have-been her brother (bummer) but then wasn't (yay!) but then knocked up another girl and escaped the country with their baby (bummer again). Basically, this babe is some black eyeliner and two angry lesbian poems away from taking a dive off the Coronado Bridge herself.

  But luckily, the you've-gotta-be-kidding-me superhero kitsch swoops in to save her. More clever than her dad, a highly skilled private eye who used to be sheriff? Sure. Able to break into the sheriff's office/principal's office and obtain whatever she wants whenever she wants without ever getting caught or grounded? You betcha. Able to ward off a motorcycle gang with nothing more than a pit bull, a Taser, and a smile? Oh, hell. Why not? Combined with the occasional dropping of an ironic, funky-white-girl fo' shizzle,4 all this camp mixes smoothly with the noir, creating a gentle balance between elements which, left to their own devices, would probably grate like a Taser on a chalkboard. As it is, I'm a little bitter about Kristen Bell's lack of Emmy nominations. Get on it, Academy.

  Veronica's Final Tally: 80% noir, 20% camp

  Keith Mars. Aw, the schlubby private eye with a surprising streak of tough-guy: what girl wouldn't dream of having this guy for a dad? (I mean, aside from the girls who would mind him doing background checks on all their boyfriends
, then dropping not-so-subtle reminders that he owns a gun.) Keith Mars is probably about as balanced a mix of camp and noir as we're gonna see on this show Sure, he's lost his job, his reputation, and his wife, and is one repossessed pickup truck away from being a country song cliche, but he's also ... kinda crazy. From buying a ten-dollar garage sale waterbed on a whim to out-crazying Alicia Fennel's craaaaaazy tenant, when the camp quotient needs a hike, Keith's your guy.

  On the other side, though, he's good for a heady shot of noir when it's needed, too. When Veronica meddled in the screwed-up pregnant neighbor's screwed-up life, Keith was the one shooting bad guys through windows and saving the day ("The Girl Next Door," 1-7). When Veronica got locked in a refrigerator and set on fire by a homicidal maniac,' it was Keith who risked life, limb, and skin grafts to save her ("Leave It to Beaver," 1-22). He's got the noirflava, baby. (It just doesn't work as well when I do it, does it? Fo' shizzle.)

  Anyway, while the noir and the camp are pretty much in a dead heat at this point, it's Keith's sad, sad love life that earns him a slight nudge toward the noir. His alcoholic wife cheated on him, left him twice, and stole his money. His brief fling with the school counselor ended when Veronica couldn't deal. And he can't seem to hold on to Alicia Fennel, Wallace's maternal unit, either; she lied about her ex, he invaded her privacy, and-shocker-the relationship fell to pieces. However, there is hope these two crazy kids will make it work in season three.6 Until he gets him some sweet, sweet lovin', though, Keith Mars is going down as slightly more noir than camp.

  Keith's Final Tally: 55% noir, 45% camp

  Duncan Kane. Oh, holy mother of all that is holy, this is one dudede-noir. He found out his one true love might be his sister. Yugh. His real sister got brutally murdered. Yargh. He's prone to violent epileptic fits that leave him totally blacked out and provide a smidge of doubt as to whether he's innocent of his sister's murder. Gak. He discovered Veronica wasn't his sister (yay!) and then lost her to his slightly psychotic (although sooooooo very yummy) best friend.' He got girl, lost girl, got her back, lost her again. He knocked up another girl, who went into a coma after a bus crash, only to die from a blood clot (luckily, Baby Noir survives).8 He escaped the country with Baby Noir, but was still close enough to order a hit on his sortabest-friend's homicidal maniac of an old man.'

  In two seasons, the closest this guy got to a lighthearted moment was when he was pretending to be drunk during a poker game so his friends would underestimate him and lose the money that doesn't mean anything to anyone anyway because they've all got more money than God ("An Echolls Family Christmas," 1-1010) He did get into funny-crazy camp when he jumped off the bleachers and cracked his head open, but, alas, he did it to distract Veronica from kissing Troy, and he also, you know, cracked his head open ("Meet John Smith," 1-3). Kinda put a damper on the camp. Despite the fact that Duncan was set up to be Veronica's One True, I think the total lack of camp in his character just killed it. After all, how could Veronica possibly be with a guy who couldn't even pull off an ironic fo' shizzle? Noir-boy was doomed from the start.

  Duncan's Final Tally: 99.9% noir,.l% camp

  Logan Echolls. Heavy in the camp, the school's "obligatory psychotic jackass"" has surprisingly separated from the pack and become quite the leading man. Always living at one end or the other of the campnoir continuum-usually on the camp side-Logan is all pooling brown puppy-dog eyes and perpetual heat on a slow simmer. (Yes, I have a slight Jason Dohring thing. Your point?) He starts out as sort of a Dick Casablancas vl.0 (perfected with the final version, the real Dick), a Quippy McCamperson with a pimped-out yellow SUV and a trust fund that would bring a sentimental tear to Bill Gates's eye. But somehow, through that thick sheen of campy jackass, a fascinating noir-rimmed character emerges. Alternately a total jerk and a sensitive soul, Logan keeps us on our toes. He beat out Veronica's headlights with a tire iron, then soulfully created a tear-jerking-yetbird-flipping video homage to his dead girlfriend.12 He rushed to Veronica's rescue when she was in danger from a teenage undercover cop, then made her his by planting one of TV's best kisses ever on her ("Weapons of Class Destruction," 1-18). Then he became a drunken, wallowing, anti-hero jerkface when he lost her.13 He's a hero, he's a jerk, he's a hero, he's a jerk ... but whenever he's a hero again, we're ready to take him back. As is Veronica. Cut her some slack; she's only human, and have you seen those eyes? I'm with Logan on this one; these two are epic.

  Logan's Final Tally: 20% noir, 80% camp

  Weevil. Eli Navarro, for such a cute guy, is among the most contradictory-and most interesting-characters to hit the small screen in a long time. He duct-taped poor, sweet Wallace to a flagpole, then repeatedly came to Veronica's rescue at the beep of a text message. He beat up Logan on the bluff in the pilot, but also took the rap for a crime he didn't commit to spring his grandma from jail. He set Thumper up to be killed by the Fitzpatricks to avenge Felix's death, and then got all repentant in confession about it.14 He heads a drugrunning motorcycle gang, but stays in school because of a promise he made to Grandma. He's tough and he's cuddly and he might be Frank Capra's great-grandson. He is an enigma; he is the heart of noir... except when he and his gang go to boutiques and try on the fashions to intimidate the owner, or when he uses his six-year-old niece and her fuzzy pink backpack to steal the senior class trip money.

  Whatever. Love the tattoos, Weevil. Don't ever change.

  Weevil's Final Tally: 95% noir, 5% camp

  Okay, with the main characters figured out, let's not forget the fine, fine set of secondary characters at play in Neptune.

  The Echolls Family. Oh, holy kitsch, Batman, the Camp Quotient is off the charts with this bunch.

  Aaron Echolls. The abusive, philandering, aging A-lister with a slight homicide problem gets bonus camp points for the show's use of clips from Harry Hamlin's early career "B"-buster, Clash of the Titans, as an exhibit of the fictional Echolls's Hollywood icon status.15 Most campified moment: Beating up Trina's boyfriend with a tiki torch.l6

  Lynn Echolls. Here we have the buxom, collagen-lipped trophy wife who, despite having a full bottle of prescription pills, took a dive off a bridge anyway. Why? Because she's a big drama queen. Most campified moment: Doesn't matter. Pick one. They're all winners. Although I'd have to say the bridge jump does slightly edge out the carolers-while-her-husband-lay-bleeding-from-an-icepick-wound scene. 17

  Trina Echolls. Totally unlikable as written, and yet, when played by the uber-lovable Alyson Hannigan, you can't help but just adore her. She's snarky and heartless and just wants a man like good of Dad-meaning cute, crazy, and violent as a Category Five hurricane. I have to admit to secretly wanting Hannigan's full-time gig, How I Met Your Mother, to tank in the ratings so she can come back to Neptune full-time. (Alyson, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, it's just the way I feel.) Most campified moment: Although watching her boyfriend get beat to a pulp with a tiki torch runs a very tight second, I'd have to say it was when she happily pretended to be dying in order to smoke out the wealthy Kanes, who she thought were her birth parents ("My Mother the Fiend," 2-9). Now that's class. Come back, Trina. Come back.

  The Echolls Family Final Tally: 0% noir, 100% camp

  The Kane Clan. Oh. Dear. Turns out that Duncan apple didn't fall far from the noir family tree.

  Jake Kane. Fairly nice for a gazillionaire, and he only cheats on his wife a little. Of course, he did try to cover up his daughter's murder, but only because he thought the killer might be his son. Biggest Noir Queen Moment: Well, finding Lilly's beaten, bloodied body is definitely a black moment, but also in the running are "You killed your sister, son," and the crazy, "You killed my daughter" switcharoo tune he sang when he found out about Aaron Echolls being a homicidal maniac ("Leave It to Beaver") .18

  Celeste Kane. The long-suffering wife who really only exists to complain about her life and shoot Veronica dirty looks. Biggest Noir Queen Moment: When she told Veronica that she couldn't stand to look at her because she represented everythin
g that was wrong in Celeste's life ("Hot Dogs," 1-19).19

  Lilly Kane. A breath of camp air in the Kane mansion! From bopping around in the pool house with her boyfriend's homicidal maniac of a dad to making ghostly cameos in her pep squad uniform while bleeding profusely from the head.20 Lilly never had a moment that wasn't pure camp. Most Campified Moment: Impossible to pick just one. I'm going with the pep-squad-bleeding-from-the-head scenes. All of'em.

  The Kane Clan Final Tally: 66.6% noir, 33.3% camp

  The Shameful Casablancases. The lovely thing about secondary characters is that you can really camp 'em up without serious consequences, and while just having two kids named Dick and Beaver alone seemed about ready to blow the top off the Camp-O-Meter, the Casablancases had hardly gotten started.

  Richard "Big Dick" Casablancas. Let's see; he swindled investors out of billions then hopped in a helicopter to presumably escape to places south, where the extradition laws are as loose as the women. Unlike his stock, his Camp Quotient (or CQ) went through the roof. Most Campified Moment: The helicopter, baby.

  Kendall Casablancas. She engaged in an affair with her stepsons' buddy Logan, then later, when she realized her CQ was dropping, she hopped in the sack with Logan's dad, the homicidal maniac everyone loves to hate, Aaron Echolls. Most Campified Moment: Headboard bopping with Aaron Echolls. Hands down.

  Dick Casablancas. This mop-haired, soulless rich boy might be as murderous as his little brother if only he had a little more ambition. Most Campified Moment: Making out with a transvestite hooker at the school carnival.2'