OPEN CASE:  Veronica Mars

 

Season 3

Episode 09

 

LORD OF THE PIS: Incoming messages

By Spring Summers – 10-MAR-2007

 

 

Guest starring in this episode is Patty Hearst Shaw.  Patty is an heiress of the Hearst publishing fortune - the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst.  She was once and famously kidnapped.  In this episode, she plays the fictional Selma Hearst Rose, an heiress of the fictional Hearst Retail fortune, who is kidnapped.  Only she’s not really kidnapped, she’s faking it.  She’s been blackmailed by her husband, Bud Rose, into pretending she’s been kidnapped.  Her husband’s name – Bud Rose – is surely a reference to the famous dying words of Charles Foster Kane, in the movie Citizen Kane:  “Rosebud.”  Charles Foster Kane was a fictional character, based on William Randolph Hearst.  You follow?

 

We’re also treated to the real Kristen Bell and the real Enrico Colantoni playing fictional detectives Veronica and Keith, who spend the episode doing amusing imitations of other fictional detectives.  And Kristen also plays Veronica pretending to be fictional TV reporter Martina Vasquez.  From the title of this episode, to its mention of the movie Paper Moon (when Keith and Veronica finally find Selma toward the end of the show), the references to fantasy and fiction – in this little bit of fiction - are absolutely non-stop. 

 

Among the many references is my favorite:  Veronica gets referred to as “Buffy” in this episode – it’s a character-comparison that has been made in the real world, and it has made its way into this fictional script.  There’s also more multi-level fakery on display:  Selma, Veronica, and Keith plant phony evidence to get Don Lamb on the true trail.  And Patty, Kristen and Enrico aren’t the only actors play-acting characters who are, in turn, play-acting:  Selma’s girlfriend Hallie lies to Veronica, and we learn that she didn’t really love Selma, she loved Bud – or so she says.  Claire & Co have faked rapes.  Veronica experiences real terror over an unreal threat, when she falsely believes that a burly, Logan-hired protector (who is following her), is the rapist who previously attacked her.

 

With its deliberately intense and confusing blending of the real and the fictional, the episode seems to be all about the malleability (and conversely, the relentless rigidity) of Reality.   Reality is all about how we absorb it individually (“my nose belongs wherever I put it,” says Veronica), but it is also about something outside of us, something that our puny rationalizations and interpretations cannot touch.  This exploration of the nature of Reality is furthered by:

 

  • The constant mention of right and wrong – who is right, who is wrong, and what seems right ends up wrong.  (Example:  Don Lamb is dismissed when he theorizes that Selma may not be kidnapped at all, but he turns out to be right.  “Poor Cyrus – he can’t get anything right,” says Selma.  Logan tells Veronica that she’s not always right.  Veronica later tells Claire & Co that they know that she is right.) 
  • Repeated mention and images of external messages that wind their way (or don’t) to the intended recipient. (Keith tells Veronica about messages from Logan, Fern tells Selma about a phone message, Deputy Sachs tells Don Lamb about a phone message, and Veronica doesn’t answer Logan’s call.)
  • All the images and mentions of orifices and senses:
    • Veronica’s nose
    • Chip’s keister
    • Rat’s asses
    • Fido’s lodgers
    • A reference to the Pinball Wizard (deaf, dumb and blind kid)
    • Dick eating a hamburger
    • Fern telling Veronica to watch what she drinks

Reality passes through - it filters through, comes in one way, goes out differently. (KEITH:  “I have so much information, I have no place left inside for food!”)

  • The omnipresence of assistants – the wait staff, Brant, Roger’s assistant, Deputy Sachs, Veronica as Keith’s “Tatum,” dog walkers, janitors.  The helpers stand between reality and the intended recipient – they soften or twist or turn or clean up the message.  They are the personification of our internal filters.
  • Constant mention of how sweet – or not – people are, and of how well people know each other (or think they do). 
  • Many references to life and death, and to money – i.e., to importance and priorities.  When is it important to tell the difference between reality and fantasy?  When does it matter?  Is it important only in matters of life and death?  Not even then?  Always?

 

LOGAN:  “I hired someone to protect you.”

VERONICA:  “You had no right to do that.”

LOGAN:  “Look, that’s probably true, OK? It’s just - I don’t care.”

VERONICA:  “You don’t care?”

LOGAN:  “Look, I don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s right or fair.  I don’t care if you’re angry.  I care that you’re safe.”

VERONICA:  “That’s all sweet and great.  But it doesn’t really work that way.”

 

It’s hard enough trying to clearly and honestly grasp tangible reality.  It’s hard enough, in our world, to know if the lemonade is what it seems to be.  But despite that, on top of that, just as we do in our real world, our characters must struggle to do more than that:  They struggle to understand how the world really works, what they are really feeling, what is right, and what is wrong.  We all have to do this because the world demands it.  It insists, daily, that we make choices.  So we each build a framework in which to make those choices, we each structure a code by which we can decide where to put our noses, and which phone calls we will take.

 

So, to sum up the reality bending exercise:  Real heiress Patty, who was really kidnapped, is playing fictional heiress Selma, whose kidnapping is both fictional and fake.  Her fictional husband Bud is named after the fictional last words of the fictional Charles Kane, who was based on the real William Hearst.  And like the real Patty, Selma is trying to live down a checkered 70s past, complete with famous poster and of course, the Hearst last name.   It’s almost like she playing herself playing herself. 

 

Right?

 

Can you follow that trail of 1000 Island Dressing without walking off the roof in desperation, like Patrice after she looked through the mirror?  Without going through that looking-glass?  Without jumping over the fence into Disneyland? Can you hop down the bunny trail, like Peter Cottontail, without ending up down the rabbit hole?   Be careful, and remember this: the only really real Patty is really Patty.

 

 

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