OPEN CASE:  Veronica Mars

 

Season 3

Episode 4

 

CHARLIE DON”T SURF: Getting to know you

By Spring Summers – 31-OCT-2006

 

Charlie don’t surf.  If only Logan had known that fact about brother-Charlie ahead of time, he could have spotted the imposter. 

 

This season is the first season our characters are truly out of the nest (their first year in college) and it seems to me that we’ll be pounding the “find your place in the world, establish your identity” theme all season.  There are many references to identity in the episode:

 

·        Who is really Logan’s brother?

·        Who is really the rapist?

·        Who is the really Asian girl’s boyfriend – Chip or Charleston?

 

Getting to know others, and getting to know ourselves, takes time and exploration.  This is emphasized by images of betrayal and misjudgment – our characters trust those they shouldn’t trust, and mistakenly accuse the innocent:

 

We get images of siblings betraying siblings –

  • Charleston trusts Chip, but he’s wrong to do so.  Chip betrays his frat-bro Charleston by sleeping with Charleston’s girlfriend. 
  • Logan trusts Norman, but he isn’t who he seems to be.
  • It seems at first that half-bro Charlie has betrayed Logan by handing him over to the press.  But just as Logan was wrong to trust Norman Phipps, he is wrong not to trust the real Charlie.
  • Parker and company believe the Pi-Siggers are the rapists, and that Veronica has betrayed the sisterhood of women – in particular women who have been raped (as Veronica has).  But the frat-boys are innocent, and Veronica hasn’t betrayed anyone.

 

We get images of spouses betraying spouses: 

  • Charleston’s girlfriend has betrayed him,
  • Harmony’s husband, it seems, has betrayed her.  But he hasn’t.
  • We learn that Aaron had an affair with a stewardess. 
  • We also can’t help but notice that Keith and Harmony seemed almost to be hoping that Harmony’s husband was being unfaithful.  They seemed to be mere inches away from beginning an adulterous affair themselves.  But they didn’t.

 

Keith worries about leaving Veronica alone with Dick, no doubt because of the brotherly Beaver connection.  Logan worries that Aaron has managed to stuff more than just pears down his throat – i.e., has left him a lasting and unwholesome internal legacy in his genetic make-up.  But we see it over and over in the episode:   People are complex beings, and knowing them is not a simple thing.  Our full identities aren’t just about our genetics alone, or our history alone (whether we went to Yale or Brown, whether or not we’ve ever been victimized, whether or not we live in the apartment complex, or once picked up our maid there).  People aren’t just about their hobbies, and there is more to them than what we can glean from first impressions alone . . . as Veronica tells Parker, people don’t usually lead with the most intimate details of their lives (they have to get comfortable and begin to trust one another, before they kick off their shoes, eat pizza together, and tell each other personal stories about the time their daughter, say, saved a lobster).

 

It takes more than one perfunctory interview to truly connect and know others.  We watch Keith “interview” Logan, we hear talk of Logan’s Larry King interview, Parker doesn’t want to be interviewed for the school paper.  Logan is involuntarily interviewed by Vanity Fair, when he spills the personal stories too soon.  And Keith has the usual PI questions for Harmony.  Up until he learns the private details of her life, she’s just the “lady he helped with a tire, once.”

 

So our characters continue to learn and grow, and establish the self by continuing to learn how to forge inner strength, as well as how to build strong, reality-based outside connections.  It’s definitely not an easy thing to do – living with, and connecting to others is fraught with confusion and betrayal and heartache.  But it is also filled with loving moments like the one that Logan envies so much between Veronica and Keith, or the one where Harmony’s husband puts his family ahead of self-centered biological urges, or the one where Keith and Harmony subtly do the same, or the obvious caring we note between Veronica and Logan.

 

So we’ve learned another growing up lesson this week, about taking the time to get to know one another.  But what have we learned about our mysteries this week?  Well, I’m not sure:

 

THE CAMPUS RAPES:  Sure seems like our unknown Asian guy is behind the rapes.  But who is he?  Is he truly the rapist?  Is he acting alone?  Is there more to this than meets the eye?

 

THE KENDALL THING:  Seems dead in the water.  I wonder if it really is?

 

I liked the episode very well.   It’s always good to watch Jason D show off the acting chops.  I really felt for Logan.  I couldn’t blame him for punching out Norman Phipps, though it did make me worry about the same thing Logan worries about:  How much of Aaron is inside Logan?  Can he be the decent guy that Charlie seems to be?  Good-guy Charlie, the productive member of society, gives Logan hope.  But will Logan be able to make the connection with Charlie?  Or has he screwed it up too much, right from the start?

 

I also enjoyed the Dick Casablancas moments, too.  He’s not a particularly nice guy, but he’s an interesting guy.  Talk about your nasty genetic predispositions – he’s got a dad who committed major fraud and a brother who murdered others and then killed himself.   Yikes!

 

But the episode’s title suggests that we aren’t slaves to our biology.  Charlie is Logan’s brother, but look:  Charlie don’t surf.  The Harmony story reinforces this – we aren’t defined by our genes, or by the perceptions of others, or by the mass media – the important thing is to establish our own identities and values, and to be true to ourselves.  Harmony may need to get that divorce, or she may need to re-examine the marriage and find a way to get it back on track.  But whatever she decides, she needs to do it honestly, for real – legitimate, as in not bastard – reasons.  She needs to pay attention, and whatever she does, she needs to try to do it right, right from the start.

***

 

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