They seemed like such a normal family...The Secret Closet of Child Abuse and other forgotten developments

Thanks to HP for finally sending me a replacement monitor for my home computer since the original they sold me was a defective piece of crap. Unfortunately they gave me the same model, so I'm sure I'll find myself in the same boat a year or so from now. Bastards. Ahem. It's been a long two weeks.

Anyway, the good news is that I'm no longer shut out from the extensive personal Internet use that my pesky job tends to keep me from, and now I can participate in talking and writing even more about Veronica Mars than I already do on an almost daily basis. I may be obsessed, but that obsession has added another fan to our ranks. He just started season 1 and is digging it. Yay! Only 2 million more to go...

But I digress. Let's talk Mannings. It seems to me that the child abuse revelation about the family was written into the show for primarily two reasons:

1. To give Donut a reason to flee Neptune with the baby
2. Bus crash red herring

I wonder if the writers ever intended on wrapping up exactly what was really happening in that house or if it was strictly being used as a plot contrivance to write Duncan off the show. (And don't get me started on Duncan and Veronica's reasoning that he wouldn't be able to get custody of his own kid. That was pretty weak as far as plot developments go. Almost as bad as the evidence allowed at Aaron's "trial" at the end of the season. Eep.)

Of course, VM may revisit this next season and we may get some sort of closure. Maybe we'll learn that over the summer Lamb finally made himself useful. After all, he "brought down" one child abuser (yeah - brought down right out of the sky!), so maybe the Mannings were next on his checklist. Especially considering that not only was he gypped out of a trial for Woody, but first he lost out on putting the screws to Terrance, then Veronica showed him up (again) by figuring out that Beaver was a mass murdering criminal mastermind (that still doesn't make much sense to me, but whatever) and then Beav (sorry --- CASSIDY) took the scenic way down off the Neptune Grand's roof. No glory for Lamb - that's gotta frustrate our fair sheriff.

Wow. I'm already fanwanking season 3. And it's only June 1st. How will I make it to September?

Ideally, I'd like to see this resolved next season as a small 3-4 episode story arc. Maybe Veronica will somehow get in contact with Meg's sister, Lizzie, and the storyline will fire up again. Only time will tell. I would be very disappointed in the writers if they created a child abuse storyline just for the benefit of sending Duncan packing. It seems, as Cliff would say, tawdry. And very unlike Rob Thomas. After all, VM continuity is usually spot on. Unlike some shows I could name... cough ...cough ...LOST... cough...ahem...

Perhaps the baby is Mr. Manning's, and Duncan knew this because he knew that he and Meg had never consummated their relationship--and weren't we all more than a little surprised to think that they had, given how cartoon birds braid her hair and he's a closeted homosexual? (Hmm, maybe Duncan's involved with "CW"--an awfully familiar nickname . . . and why exactly did Wiedman leave the military? But enough of such speculation and back to other speculation.) This would explain why Duncan really did have to kidnap the baby to keep it from the Mannings. Of course, if this were true, it would mean he was willing to keep Veronica in the dark and allow the other daughters to remain in the Manning home--which means it's probably not true. So perhaps the father is really . . . Principal Van Clemmons.

I went down the "baby is Mr. Manning's" route earlier and decided that it was too far fetched and squicky even for RT. And then he had Beaver be the killer so perhaps we aren't too far from the truth with Mr. M. However, the speculation that Duncan and Saint Meg didn't sleep together would go a long way to explain that dream of Donut's where V looks "loose" and Meg looks, well, saintly.

This week's replay reminded me of the biggest SMP EVER, the flash drive containing all of Meg's files. Veronica resisted the temptation to download them, and I don't remember that we ever found out what deep dark secret(s) they contained, so deep and dark that Meg's parents would, in Lizzie's words, "pull the plug on her." I'll second the wish that next season devotes at least a little time to figuring out the Mannings, including the flash drive, Meg's saintliness or not, and Donut's true orientation.

Oh my god, I completely forgot about the flash drive! As I meekly admitted to MWR yesterday, I have not been watching VM since the season finale, but obviously, I need to do some rerun watching and refresh my memory on some of these vital points. I do agree that it would be nice if the show would wrap up some of these "hanging chads" early next season.