Veronica Mars 1.13 'Lord of the Bling'

It’s the subtleties of this episode that keep it above average for me, since story wise it’s the first slight misfire of the series so far. Even though the flashbacks are excruciatingly long, they certainly paint a picture of a completely different Veronica. It also lays the groundwork of the great quest to find Lynn Echolls that follows it.

Lord of the Bling’ follows Veronica and Keith as they help a local record label owner to track down his daughter, someone who Veronica has met before. Logan has trouble dealing with his mother’s death when he finds something which may lead him to believe she is in fact still alive.

I think so far, all the cases we’ve seen both Veronica and Keith tackle have been largely interesting, and in some ways fascinating, but ‘Lord of the Blog’ is the first episode where we’re saddled with a less than perfect story for the week which aside from being a little overwrought, suffers from an abundance of flashbacks.

So far most of the scenes of Veronica and Lilly have been carefully chosen and used somewhat sparingly. Here, though, they are quite over drawn, and a little tedious to watch. While Veronica’s past encounters with Yolanda were quite flat, these flash backs do give us a weird look at how different Veronica has become, once again; almost the direct opposite of what she claims to be like now, caving to peer pressure.

One of the smaller parts of the episode that I really loved was seeing both Veronica and Keith’s taking care of one another. The scenes of Veronica’s doting over Keith’s back problems were super cute, and I got a major kick out of her narrow slip with the hotel room bug. Small bits of humour like that are what keep some stories from getting run-of-the-mill.

Logan and his father’s dealings with Lynn’s death, though they were certainly a more entertaining part of ‘Lord of the Bling’, felt disjointed to the rest of the episode, and of course the characters. Other than Veronica’s two second acknowledgement, there is next to no impact on the rest of the residents. I did enjoy watching his scenes unfold, and seeing the “obligatory jackass” slowly fade away as the writers pick away at his more sensitive side.

The final cliff-hanger is one that sets up the following episodes focus in a way that doesn’t impact too much on the main episode at hand, though it could have done with a few shakeups. I’m not saying it’s terrible, since 'Mars can still trump a lot of series on an off day, it just didn’t feel as strong as the first 12 episodes have been.

7.5/10

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