It's quite possible I've now watched certain clips from Look Who's Stalking three billion times. I have I Hear the Bells on repeat and make small, incoherent sounds. Ack. Where do you begin? The locker scene alone would have made the episode. Veronica and Logan forsake points scoring in their one-on-one verbal combat for the sake of sustaining a rally. He gives her the read-my-face game to play and she takes it; he gives her the invitation to the prom, and she's already given him her answer. I didn't know spelunking was a word until this episode and now love it so much it may possibly be what I shall name my future children. Not all of them, of course. Unless I happen to marry a Mr Spelunking. The odds are shorter than you think, since should I meet a Mr Spelunking I'd feel compelled to marry him. Unless he was a Mr Spelunking as in, Mr Outdoor Pursuits UK. That would be different. And is spelunking strictly an outdoor pursuit? Hee, I'm avoiding the subject because I know I don't have the words. The prom. Ack. I am always a sucker for Cinderella-goes-to-the-ball. Fairy godmother or no fairy godmother, a little bit of dressing up gets me every time. And Veronica is room-stoppingly gorgeous here, Grace Kelly-esque, tiny blonde one casting everyone else into the shade. When Logan sees her she is Audrey Hepburn at the top of the staircase in My Fair Lady. And I love that Veronica should look so beautiful and Logan anything but. Waiter-on-a-cruise-ship is not a good look on anyone, unless you are actually in on-board catering, in which case you have an excuse. And then. There are scenes that never grow old because they are so nearly flawless they are self-sustaining. This is one of those scenes for me. It hits every spot, every time. I don't think it could be better judged or more beautifully nuanced. I love that shift in intimacy, when something ceases to be about what I'm being told and becomes about what the characters tell each other. And honestly, this scene just about has every kink in the book for me. (Unless he'd pulled out a pair of reading glasses at that point, of course. Oh, hang on! Wrong show.) One of the things I first loved about Veronica Mars was the soundtrack, and yes, the song choice is sublime, but it's more than that. It's the silence in this scene that gets me, the fact that the song is part of the scene, and the way that allows the two of them to sit and bask in the scene a little. It's the sweetest, most tremulous of silences that leads into Veronica's, "I really like this song." I love how Logan, wrecked and barely able to prop himself up against the wall, looks at Veronica with such indulgent longing, while she sits there poised and perfect as a porcelain doll. Come too close and she might break; but then, the real gamble for Logan here is that she might not. It may be Logan who slurs out the great, epic speech, shifting ever closer, but it's Veronica, I think, who reaches out for him and pulls him to her. He leaves her with commas and in the silence, the moments between moments, they become ampersands; what Veronica doesn't say in this scene is as important as what Logan does. I also think "y'know, tortured" may have just about pushed "anthropomorphic. All yours, big guy" off the top spot in my All Time Favourite Logan Moments Ever. I mean, the smile! Oh, I have missed you. Logan mouth. Mouth of Logan. And then, when he reaches out to her. It's so many things all at once: the pilgrim at the shrine; the moth drawn irresistibly to the light. And I love the way she sighs and turns away, only to turn back, into his hand. It's that fateful moment where the prince holds out the other glass slipper. This is my Veronica and Logan: mythic and incongruous. Because how can a glass slipper be a perfect fit? Shouldn't it break? Shouldn't it be like walking on ice? How can you possibly hope to dance? That's it, isn't it? The glimpse of the fairytale love story, the perfect fit: and yet so hard, so brittle, so easily splintered. It ought to be impractical, impossible and yet there is always the possibility that somewhen, somehow, you might fall into perfect step and you might just dance. And then the clock strikes midnight and she runs. Next day the carriage is a pumpkin and the horses are white mice and the footmen are newts. Veronica should see that, and yet. Why does she dare to hold onto words she knows were alcohol-saturated? But I don't think it's just the what-ifs of a would-be epic love story that keep this Cinderella awake half the night thinking this one over. It's the glass slipper. There is a Veronica who wants to be seduced by words and fingers and breathless silences, but the extraordinary temptation here is something long held and long suppressed: the possibility that she might, after all, dare to hope to dance. Of course, it goes without saying that in the harsh light of day Prince Charming is a rat once more. (On a side - and, I confess, entirely shallow - note, what is it about Dohring, that he's so clearly been working out and yet even with Such Hipbones he still manages to look flawed and thus human and thus somehow twelve times more desirable?) The look the two of them hold as Veronica waits in the elevator is exquisite. I love that she looks him straight in the face, so heartbroken and defiant. And then the doors close and you know if they had just had a half a second more he would have gone to her in spite of everything and...ack.
