OPEN CASE: VERONICA MARS

Season 1 - Episode 5

YOU THINK YOU KNOW SOMEBODY: Spilling your guts

by Spring Summers – 27-OCT-04

With the image of a piñata in the background, this episode takes a look at the need to find out what’s really inside. There are constant references to stuffing ingredients – a few among many:

· Logan talks of cavity searches.

· A border guard looks inside a car trunk.

· Veronica mentions Troy’s DNA.

· Veronica gets into a safety deposit box.

· Zigman The Gym Owner tells Luke the Teenage Steroid-User where he’ll put a baseball bat.

· Veronica calls the cell phones “messages in a bottle.”

· Logan has the dry heaves.

The dry heaves: That’s when you’ve got to get something out, but you can’t manage to do it. Sounds like Logan. He’s not managing to get at whatever is really bothering him. He’s not finding any real relief, but he isn’t exactly hiding his anger. He just noisily keeps trying to spew. Others are at least making attempts to be polite on the surface: “How was your day?,” “Good morning,” etc. But whether you go with the angry-young-man surface or the sweet-young-lady mask, when you are crammed full of booze or manicotti, eventually, you’re going to erupt. Everybody’s going to find out, and everybody’s going to see what’s inside. We get that message most clearly when Veronica and Keith finally go at it – despite her earlier protests that she is perfectly fine with Keith’s dating, all it takes is a correctly placed blow, and everything inside Veronica tumbles out. Veronica is not OK at all. She’s hurting terribly, and she’s furious at her father.

Information, like a club, bats away at us, and eventually, it breaks through. Throughout the episode, people make reference to “just asking.” It starts in the opening scene, when the border guard asks the boys: “Do you want to turn over your contraband?” They look startled, and the guard smiles and says that it works, sometimes. We also watch Veronica and a classmate do some nasty mock-interviewing. Ask the right question, to the right person, in the right way, at the right time – AND be ready to take off the protective blinders – and the truth that is deep down inside spills out like candy from a piñata. Note that Wallace, who isn’t invested in the notion that Troy is a good guy, immediately asks Troy the question that Veronica should have been asking herself: Why would Troy’s parents send him to boarding school, when a good grounding might do the trick? (“Sometimes the lies we let ourselves believe are for our own good.”)

As we hear about the past crimes of Keith’s girlfriend and Veronica’s boyfriend, we learn that a discriminating look at a person’s history can provide the information you need to get to know somebody. I mean, it’s no wonder (e.g.) that when it comes to Troy, Veronica is trying to “believe lies for her own good.” Just look at her history with Angel and Spike– oh wait. I mean – her history with Duncan. Sorry, wrong Daphne!! The episode is chock-full of references to movies: Brigadoon, The Passion, Dude-Where’s My Car?, Catch 22. It seems to be all about emphasizing the thin line between fiction and reality, and the need to tell the difference. But that Scooby-Do reference, with Veronica insisting she was Daphne – it just made this Buffy fan smile.

The truth is out there – you choose whether to see it, or not. There are many references to choices in the episode – e.g.: Troy says he chooses fun for the last 72 hours, whereas Veronica chooses the miracle cure. Keith hands Veronica the file on Troy, telling her she can choose to look at it, or leave it unopened. Keith can choose to keep seeing his new love, or face reality: Veronica isn’t ready for this, and if he pursues it, he risks both her well-being and his relationship with her. He must take more time helping Veronica heal. For all the give-and-take between them about “walks of shame” and the like, and despite Veronica’s “junior adult” attitude, it’s clearly Keith who is the adult. And he makes an adult, responsible, choice.

So what truths do we learn?

· Troy is a liar and a con man.

· Veronica’s mom, Lianne, has surveillance photos of Veronica in a safety deposit box. She seems to have left town in part to protect Veronica.

· Lianne was very worried and upset to learn that Veronica was dating Duncan Kane.

· Keith, in his description of how his new girlfriend makes him feel, and in suggesting that he might not want to find Lianne, reveals that he was already feeling unwanted and unhappy before Lianne left.

· Lianne still loves and cares for Veronica.

· Despite the tough-girl act, Veronica still wants and misses her mother.

With the border crossing images, and the references to super-powers (Super Veronica and Super Roger – here they come to save the day!), we are looking at identity, at the characteristics that define us, and at the difference between the image we try to project, and how others actually see us. Zigman isn’t getting across that border – not after the guards have his picture and recognize him for what he really is. The same could be said for Troy, and Veronica’s border.

Reminding me of the Meet John Smith episode, we also get many references to gender-bending and gender-issues in this episode. It’s very frequent: Luke gets called a bitch more than once, and he gets hauled into the Girls bathroom; Veronica makes reference to shrunken testicles and can’t understand Luke’s attachment to a ball; Veronica tells her mom that a male classmate is likely to be gay; Keith’s girlfriend refers to the need for women to commiserate about the foibles of men. It all seems to be about the overall “knowing others and yourself” theme of You Think You Know Somebody. Sexuality is a characteristic which pegs and defines us in some important ways – but not necessarily in all ways. It’s certainly a great metaphor for the general need for contact and interaction that is on prominent display in this episode.

There are many mentions of “deals,” most notably in the constant reference to drug dealers. You help me; I help you. You fill my needs; I’ll fill yours. You accept my girlfriend; I’ll accept your boyfriend. But the playing field isn’t even when it comes to parent-child relationships. Sorry, Keith. That’s not the deal. The deal is that you nurture your child, and you take responsibility for the life you brought into the world, and she owes you nothing. But I have a feeling that Veronica is a good investment, and as the episode ends, I find myself believing that Keith may one day be rewarded for his sacrifice this day, for choosing to be, primarily, a good dad.

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