OPEN CASE: VERONICA MARS
Season 1 - Episode 11
SILENCE OF THE LAMB: Lemme
outta here
by Spring
Summers –
The Silence
Of The Lamb begins
with Keith reading about the “E-String Strangler.” Apparently, a serial killer, that everyone
thought had been apprehended, is still on the loose. Murders which were attributed to known Serial
Killer A, apparently actually belong to unknown Serial Killer B. Keith isn’t surprised. “It never quite fit,” he says. Later, after he’s been engaged by the Neptune
Police Department to help, he explains the differences in M.O. to a group of
officers.
And we spend the entire
episode making comparisons and thereby figuring out what doesn’t fit. Which of these things just doesn’t belong
here?
·
The
blonde and vibrant
·
Officer
Leo notes that 17yr olds can’t get into bars.
·
“The
Worm” doesn’t really fit the profile for the killer.
·
The
term strangler doesn’t really fit the killer.
·
Wallace
and Mac and Veronica don’t belong at the party.
So
– what are the consequences of forcing something into a box that it’s not meant
to be in? Well, asphyxiation can result,
if the box is too ill-fitting and confining, no?:
MAC: “Just one more
year until I can leave home.”
Mac loves and appreciates her parents. And they love her. But something pinches. Both she and Madison, in different ways, show
signs of acting out, due to the pinching.
And Mac wants to leave home to find her true place in the world.
THE WORM: “Can I go
home?”
Sheriff Lamb has a empty spot he’s trying
to fill, and he’s trying to force-fit his suspect into the space. The Worm can’t do that, and he just wants
OUT.
We’re looking, in
general, at what defines people – their age, their experience, their genetics,
their environment, their histories (dirt digging, worms), their preferences and
proclivities, their creations (is that your art work? Did you make that?), their jobs - the inner
and outer forces that shape them into fulfilled and functioning adults, or
squeeze them into misshapen and misanthropic losers.
Keith identifies
himself as “the good cop,” Don Lamb points out the he is The
Sheriff. The Worm isn’t really employed
by Girls Gone Bad, Inc. Sorority Girls
and Frat Boys are lumped into one by the bartender. Labels are applied by others, self-applied,
misapplied, removed, reapplied, torn off, changed. (Note the many references to names and titles
in the episode – Cindy, Barbie, Leo, Deputy, etc.) Kids are finding out more about who their
parents really are by exploring their parents’ past.
MAC
(to her little brother): “Open that door
and you’ll know pain like you’ve never known in your entire little life.”
It’s a challenge,
and it’s a risk, to open doors, to step out of the secure confines of the boxes
and illusions and safety of childhood, and into the adult world. Mac opens the door, and it hurts, but now,
she can breathe a little easier. She
understands a little better. As Veronica
says to her, in regard to Leo’s rejection:
“I’m suddenly freer than I’ve ever been.”
The truth shall set you free. I
couldn’t help but notice that it was Keith who let the girl out of the locked
trunk, that he nearly died doing it (the killer was trying to stop him), and
that our new cutie-patootie Deputy Leo was the one who saved him. I liked Leo, and he’s the first guy on the
show that Veronica seems to have true chemistry with . . . so I’m hoping
there’s some kind of foreshadowing going on here. I mean, I’m hoping that it is Keith who will
eventually help Veronica find the truth that will set her free, that Keith and
Veronica will survive whatever dangers are inherent in that, and that Leo will
play a positive part.
But we’re being
given a message about the truth here, and about finding it: We have to cut through the distortion, as Mac
cuts through the distorted voice on the CD.
We have to ignore the distractions, as Leo should have, when Veronica
used her looks and her pizza and her Weevil to steal the CD. Note the many, many, references to, and
images of, extraneous, distracting noise – some examples:
·
The
guitar player has to shut the door to cut out the sound of band practice, so he
can talk to Don and Keith.
·
Mac
refers to how long her little brother is likely to stay quiet.
·
Weevil
complains about the noise level in his neighborhood.
·
Leo
says the neighbors complain about the noise from his band.
·
Don is
making useless comments as Keith tries to explain the murders to
·
The
killer makes a lot of noise about how inept Keith and Don are.
There are images
and mentions of insulation and isolation and stripping down. There are walls that keep the truth in, and
walls that keep the truth out. There are
people and places that protect us and keep us from spoiling, like Keith tries
to protect Veronica, and like the micro-fridge protects the pastrami sandwich
from the heat. And there are people and
places that limit and even asphyxiate us, as the killer does his victims. (LAUREN:
“
People hide, or
are trapped, or are self-confined, behind glass and uniforms and noise and
titles and in their own little caves. Leo
jokes that he’s got a tear-away uniform (Hello to the imagery! I hope we get to see this . . .)
But that image of the
missing girl, Kelly, coming out of the locked trunk - the truth will out. The little voice, eventually, will be heard,
over the din, and through the insulation.
The door will be opened. And as
the episode ends with an angry Clarence Weidman reacting to Veronica’s taunting
photos, I am glad to see progress toward unlocking the door. But I’m also feeling a little afraid for Veronica. What pain awaits her, on the other side of
that door?
We don’t get a lot
of progress on the mystery here, except to find out that (through Clarence,
somehow) a Kane fingered Abel. And that
episode title: “Silence of the Lamb.” Hmmmm. On the surface, this seems to refer to the
silence of the trapped victims; it reminds me of
But “Lamb.” Does Don know something he’s keeping quiet
about? It doesn’t seem that way to
me. I don’t get the feeling that he’s
hiding anything, so much as that he simply doesn’t know much, and isn’t
inclined to look past the easy answer.
We see that in what happens with The Worm. But of course, that’s a kind of silence isn’t
it? When Don Lamb accepts the bone that is thrown to him (Koontz), and closes
the case? Don, and by association the
entire Neptune PD, has been silenced.
I’ve got to say though, his own name doesn’t bode well for him – my
feeling is that he is not a co-conspirator of any kind, but rather a
dupe, possibly a sacrificial Lamb. His own
feelings of inadequacy (notice how he correctly nails this problem in another
person, and is accused in return) are being used, by people much more clever
than he, to manipulate him into complacency.
It’s a
puzzler. But we’re going to have to keep
watching, and try to cut through the noise and distraction, to figure out the
answers to our little mysteries. With
all that has been thrown at us so far, that continues to be a very challenging
task.
***
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