The main problem for me is that the mysteries don't interest me. The Lily Kane mystery was an umbrella story that was immensely involving, and it had an emotional resonance that carried through the whole season. The bus crash is a big snooze to me. I don't care what happened, and the writers must agree because it hasn't received much airtime. It's an afterthought. The continuity on this show is awful. Wallace tells Veronica off, runs away with his father, and then comes back to celebrate the holidays with Veronica as if nothing has happened. No word on his father. No word on what his mother said when he returned. No word on his anger towards Veronica. Just a happy reunion. Perhaps, there's something in the Neptune waters that causes selective amnesia. It's as if the writers don't watch the previous episodes and are writing from an outline that tells them what plot points to include in an episode.

This season, the cast is too splintered. There are way too many subplots. I'm not even sure I know what's going on with the Fitzpatrick and Felix's death. Wallace's girlfriend was a big bust. The Amelie girl and Steve Guttenberg make no sense to me. The child abuse storyline made sense, but that was basically dropped in favor of the whole (yawn) Duncan running off with the baby. The only good thing to come out of it is Duncan will hopefully be gone for a while. They bring on Charisma Carpenter, and she basically just disrobes. That may be fine for the lesbians and straight men, but as a straight woman, it has no appeal for me. The blonde 'dude' with the bad haircut is irksome. Now, we have another subplot with Wallace and this car accident. Why not deal with the issue of Wallace and his father before plunging into another subplot? If they are going to have this many subplots, they need a main story that will hold my interest. They've failed.

I think Celeste had to have been in on the thing. That's why she hired Vinny instead of going to Keith (even if his daughter was involved) or having Clarence Wiedman on the case. The only other thing that makes sense is that she is so clueless that she listened to her assistant about who to hire and was manipulated into hiring him.

I disagree with just about everything in all of your posts, but this one is particularly perplexing. The child abuse story was a catalyst for the "running off with the baby" story. I'm not sure how much more you want to see on it, other than seeing the parents/dad get punished in some way for it, which is obviously still possible since we're only on episode 11.

I don't know about some of you, but I like that they've tried more subplots. It gives more characters a chance to get involved and get fleshed out, and takes a litle pressure off of hearing about the same overall mystery week in and week out. It also makes the story a little more epic, part of something bigger than just Veronica and her friends.

"I disagree with just about everything in all of your posts, but this one is particularly perplexing. The child abuse story was a catalyst for the "running off with the baby" story. I'm not sure how much more you want to see on it, other than seeing the parents/dad get punished in some way for it, which is obviously still possible since we're only on episode 11."

There is no continuity. If Veronica and Duncan are so worried about the baby being left with Meg's parents, they'd do everything in their power to make sure the abused girl was safe. When has Veronica ever backed down from something like this? Instead, there hasn't been one mention. No follow up with Lamb. Instead, it's as if Lamb has developed memory loss. A line or two would suffice, but the writers are particularly sloppy which is why Rob Thomas often has to explain to TVGUIDE why certain things didn't make sense.

"I don't know about some of you, but I like that they've tried more subplots. It gives more characters a chance to get involved and get fleshed out, and takes a litle pressure off of hearing about the same overall mystery week in and week out. It also makes the story a little more epic, part of something bigger than just Veronica and her friends."

You must be watching a different show because I have yet to see any of the new characters get fleshed out. We're halfway through the season, and the supporting characters are so weak that I couldn't tell you (without looking them up) the names of any of the new characters besides Kendall. They are that uninteresting. The supporting players from the first season were memorable, and there was an emotional resonance that compelled the story. Do you believe that the new characters are as memorable as the characters from the first season?

Next week, I have a dilemma. Bones, KAth and Kim, and Veronica MArs are on at the same time. My DVR can only record two shows, and I chose the first two, and I decided to take a chance that I would remember to tape VM. That's how far the show has fallen in my estimation.

Wow, to each their own I guess. Sorry you'll be possibly missing out on what is still the best show on television.

It's no more than the 3rd best show on television (behind The Shield and Gilmore Girls).

Seriously, I also have to say to each his own in response to these comments as well. It seems natural to me that Veronica and Duncan would have as their primary concern sqaring away the baby because frankly the damage has been done with the other kids. Does the story need to pay off beyond where it has so far? Sure. I trust that it will, though.

I officially don't like Veronica anymore. This was the last episode I was going to give them to explain her complete and utter disconnect from reality this season, but instead they dug themselves even deeper with her character. Now I watch for Weevil and Logan alone.

Good riddance to Duncan. He was a poorly acted lame character who was nothing but dead weight as far as I'm concerned.

What do you mean? So if children were abused for few years, it's too late and useless to help them, and we should leave them to be abused until they grow up and move away or go crazy or kill themselves or their parents go even crazier and kill children themselves?
I don't quite understand why Veronica wouldn't try to alert other authorities other than Lamb, I am sure her father knows what to do in situation like that and could pull some weight with authorities as ex-sheriff. I mean, his reputation is fine again, surely he would be listened to.

I love this show, but I do think that The Wire (poor genius), Shield, Battlestar Galactica, Sorpanos, Deadwood, Rescue me, etc are better and more serious shows in almost every aspect. There is beauty in Veronica in that it's a much better show than it has any right to be, but I never could take it all that seriously, it was always a bit too gimmicky and cheesy for that. I actually like this quality, because there should be some middle ground between dark depressing drama and mindless entertainment. VM is very good balance of that. But I do not worship this show, so to speak.

Not at all. It's a matter of triage. It only makes logical sense for Veronica to have focused her limited resources on the baby until it was out of harm's way. The way things worked out with that, it is also going to be difficult for her to do much about the situation immediately other than make sure the right people are aware of what is going on.

Meg was alerting other authorities. We're apparently dealing with rather sophisticated abusers who aren't going to be caught by a visit from the social worker.

As to your other comment, I agree that the show isn't supposed to be serious.

I don't think there is any doubt that, to this point, it has been a very disappointing season. There are almost as many unbelievable things happening now as on LOST.

They never should have gone along with UPN in adding certain characters. They should have kept last season's core and added Mac.

They crammed a lot of things in each episode of the outstanding first season and that was my only complaint. Now it feels like I should be taking notes and it's distracting me from Veronica and the much better show that I know they could be doing.

uhmm... i think celeste hired vinny first, then veronica made a deal with him... remember when he was spying on her from inside the van, and she told him to pass a note to duncan that say "personal and confidential". i think it's her note to vinny to offer him money. she probably think it's easy to bribe him considering he was trying to bribe her earlier in the episode...

It sounds to me like you favor the assistant theory, then. Here's what I see you suggesting:

* Duncan vanishes as per the plan he has hatched with Veronica and the assistant.
* The assistant convinces Celeste to hire Vinny instead of taking this to Keith (not a hard sell) or Clarence Wiedman (a harder sell). Celeste is clueless about being duped.
* Veronica turns Vinny in the scene you cite.

That does seem to make more sense than Celeste being in on it. I doubt she'd be thrilled about Veronica helping out.

I'm not completely sure if Celeste helped or not. I can see the points from both sides of the fence.

One of the things that I keep going back to is that the last time Duncan was missing, Celeste went to Keith. So, I don't see exactly why she would now go to Vinnie, except maybe because Keith got her hubby in trouble with the law by finding Lilly's real killer.

But the other thing that gets to me is that I thought she was being even bigger than usual with her anti-Veronica schtick, like she wanted to make an extra big deal about her not liking Veronica to keep away any suspicions about the plot.

The one really strong point that shows Celeste probably didn't know about it was when Vinnie told Duncan that he pays better than his mom.

I don't know, but I do find it a little odd that Celeste wouldn't have a problem with just letting her assistant leave for a while. I also think that Celeste would probably do whatever was necessary to feel like her grandchild is safe.

Maybe the next ep will give us more details. But I will say that I won't be missing Duncan if he is gone for a little while. I have just always found him to be exceptionally dull, definitely the weakest character on the show.

That very likely just means that Vinny is clueless about the breadth of the conspiracy. It makes sense if you think about it -- he's a mercenary of a guy who would spill to Lamb or the FBI if he had to. The less he knows, the better.

"I officially don't like Veronica anymore. This was the last episode I was going to give them to explain her complete and utter disconnect from reality this season, but instead they dug themselves even deeper with her character. Now I watch for Weevil and Logan alone."

Thank you for this post. I was beginning to think I was alone in thinking the quality had dropped. Where is the Veronica from the first season? I enjoy Weevil and Logan, but I'm also confused as to what exactly is going on.

"Good riddance to Duncan. He was a poorly acted lame character who was nothing but dead weight as far as I'm concerned."

I tape the show for my sister, and her comment almost every week is "Why is Duncan on the show?" Duncan no longer serves a purpose. The actor has no chemistry with Kristen Bell, and his acting is mediocre at best. I also agree with Dolphinboy that UPN's notes were harmful to the show. When Weevil was MIA for weeks, I missed his presence. When other characters are on the show, I actually yearn for their departure. Why is the show sacrificing character for story? I forgot to mention that the turning point for me was when Veronica never once asked Meg what happened with the bus crash. You would think that would be her first question. Rob Thomas offered a lame explanation for why Veronica never asked, but it made no sense for Veronica not to question Meg. The second season of VM feels very much like the second season of ROSWELL.

That's a good point, hadn't thought of it like that.

I guess I'm leaning even more heavily now toward the idea that Celeste was in on the conspiracy.

Meg was in a coma for months. She wouldn't have remembered anything from the crash.

"Meg was in a coma for months. She wouldn't have remembered anything from the crash."

She can remember everything but the crash? That's a cop out. Even if I were to buy that, Veronica should have asked. Veronica didn't have head trauma. All the writers had to do was have Meg say "It all so happened so fast. I don't know what happened." A frustrating answer, but it would have made Veronica (and the writers) look less idiotic. Something that was supposedly so devastating to Veronica, and she never questions the one witness available to her? Don't buy it.

Veronica had already heard the phone message by the time Meg woke up, right? If that's the case, what would Veronica possibly ask Meg about? "Big boom, huh?" Yeah, that's going to be helpful in the investigation.

The bottom right of every post has a button marked "quote". If you press that, it will automatically quote posts so that you don't have to do it manually any more.

Even in bad crashes where a person doesn't end up in a coma, they don't remember the crash. It isn't a cop out, it is just reality. It isn't 24-esque amnesia, it is just the way things happen.

I agree it wouldn't have been a cop out, but I also think it would have been nice to have it said on screen.

Am I wrong or isn't there a strong chance that Astrid (Celeste's assistant) is actaully Celeste's daughter. In the episode where we find out that Logan's sister is actually the daughter of the lunch lady Veronica thinks that Astrid is the Prom Baby but it is never cleared up what happened to Celeste's child.

This may be another hint that Celeste helped out Duncan with the baby since she regrets losing her child when she was younger and is making it up to her by putting her through grad school.

One thing that I don't really get is why they had to abduct the kid in the first place. Meg's parents couldn't put the kid up for adoption without Duncan's consent. So they would argue that Duncan is mentally unfit but Duncan and Veronica and Sheriff Lamb all know that Meg's parents are child abusers so the baby definately wouldn't got to them. If the next logical person for the kid to go to would be Duncan's parents, so Celeste wouldn't have to help kidnap the kid they could just legally take her.

Rereading the last few posts on this thread I was thinking the same thing. Assuming Duncan is the father then he shouldn't have any problem getting custody, especially with the virtually bottomless pockets of his family.

Wow, I'd like to know more about what UPN did. I just got into the show recently through DVD & am now following season 2. I'm still enjoying it, but I agree that it's lost some of its magic and is harder to follow this time around.

Anyway, if either of you can give me the lowdown on UPN's interference or can point me to a good site that has the story, I'd appreciate it.

It's an interesting situation if you ask me.

On one hand, Duncan and his family have a lot to worry about. Do Celeste and her husband want to be involved with raising another child? Would any court in its right mind give a child to Duncan given his mental issues?

At the same time, a custody battle would probably be the best way to shine a light on the abusive tendencies of Meg's parents. It would take time, though.

I think the show nodded to all of these considerations when Keith said that he knew Veronica did what she thought she had to do. We have to remember that this was a plan hatched by two immature people in cooperation with either Celeste's assistant or Celeste. None of them have as much insight into the law as Keith has.