Potpourri

Veronica Mars is only four episodes away from the reveal of Lilly Kane's murderer in the season finale. Wow, a show with an ongoing mystery that will actually provide a timely resolution. (As opposed to, oh, I don't know, Twin Peaks? The X-Files?) What a novel concept.

Even better reward for loyal viewers: a second season has been confirmed. This show keeps on delivering the goods. This week's episode had the surprising but plausible development of Veronica's father dating her best friend Wallace's mother, it had a very nice, low-key performance from guest star Joey Lauren Adams as the new journalism teacher (although the other guest star, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, as an ATF agent -- not so much. This week, JTT, last week, Zachery Ty Bryan... at least that means there's only one more damn kid from Home Improvement they can cast), they finally gave a reason for why the previous journalism teacher, played by Sydney Tamiia Poitier, disappeared (got "knocked up," which must be code for, "she was boring and useless and the show is better off without her"), and best of all, there was the kiss. Logan and Veronica, bitter enemies at season's beginning, now so hot for each other Veronica's forgetting all about Deputy Boyfriend. That won't lead to any trouble, I'm sure. You had to see it coming, but at the same time, it was done so well it didn't matter. This kind of makes me suspect Logan as the killer all the more, despite the fact that Veronica believes he has an airtight alibi; how much more painful would it be for her to find out her best friend's killer is someone she's possibly going to get involved with? Frankly, though, I kind of hope it's Weevil. That character needs to go, and this would be an excellent excuse to get rid of him next year.

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Perhaps you will be relieved to know that I was unable to watch Stacked, as I threatened to do, because it was up against two other TiVoed shows, Smallville and Lost. If I had known Lost was going to be a repeat, I probably would've recorded Stacked instead. So maybe things worked out for the best. Also, it's about frickin' time Smallville came back with some new episodes. It feels like it's been two months.

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In comics news, so far I've read:

Flaming Carrot Comics: Feels like it was written ten years ago, with its constant references to political correctness and incorrectness. And the art still looks way too rushed and sketchy in places. But it had enough weird, goofy laughs to keep me entertained.

Iron Man: Love the art. Much heavier on the action than the jibber-jabber this issue, which is good; while I've been enjoying Ellis' dialogue, it's about time Iron Man finally met the bad guy. I really like how the fight scene is presented. When doling out sound effects in comics (HAMD! DUSCHK! SWAG!), in my mind it's always better to err on the side of less, and I don't think this comic has any. Which is just swell.

Hoax: This was an impulse purchase, an anthology comic of five... "underground"? "Alternative"? I don't know how they want to be described. Non-mainstream, how's that? (Better than, "five chumps I've never heard of.") -- five short pieces from five non-mainstream cartoonists. I picked it up because of the interesting cover, kind of a hopscotch-grid of panels woven all over the place, different panels drawn by the five different artists, presenting different scenes which intersect at several points. Inside, the content was hit-and-miss in quality. My favorite would have to be the Hunter S. Thompson-style, autobiographical journalism piece about a failed rally against the WTO in Savannah; the closing piece of the comic is also very striking, examining cannibalism in the animal kingdom, then transposing those habits onto human characters. But none of the five works were flat-out bad, or uninteresting. I think I'll be checking out the next issue as well.

Still to read: Fables.