Veronica Mars: A scene analysis

Jennifer Farrell

TV Scene Analysis

Veronica Mars: An Echolls Family Christmas

What happens in this scene: In this episode, Logan and his friends Connor, Sean, and Duncan had a high-stakes poker game. The leader of the local biker gang, Weevil, attended the game as well. When Weevil won the poker game, the guys discovered that the money was missing. Veronica investigated the disappearance of the money. When she figures out who stole the money, she forces Logan to host another game, where she will unmask the thief and take his place in the game. Her purpose is to win money to buy her dad tickets to a Padres fantasy camp for Christmas. In this scene, Veronica shows up at Logan’s pool house, the scene of the first game. All of the players are there. She succinctly establishes why Duncan, Connor, and Logan couldn’t have stolen the money. She then unmasks Sean as the thief. Weevil escorts Sean outside, presumably to beat the snot out of him for stealing his money, and Veronica joins table. She promptly displays some card-handling prowess and the guys look worried.
	Description/Purpose
Camera Shots	The first shot is a wider shot that serves to establish the locale: the pool house at Logan’s. It also reinforces the season; it’s Christmas, and there’s a large Christmas tree lit up in the background. Once the scene begins, the shots are mostly mid-shots and medium close-ups. The mid-shots are used to help the audience follow Veronica as she moves around the table from guy to guy. The medium close-ups are cut in and used as reaction shots to show the guys’ facial expressions as Veronica explains how she solved the case. The medium close-ups are used to draw in the audience and encourage them to figure out what happened along with the guys. Many of the shots in the scene are also two-shots and are used to underscore the social connections between the characters. For example, Veronica grabs the bottle of Jim Beam sitting in front of Duncan and takes a gigantic swig. While she’s drinking, we can also watch Duncan’s face as he realizes Veronica’s caught him in the act—indeed, in the next shot, Veronica wipes her mouth, announces that the Jim Beam is actually iced tea, and Duncan shame-facedly agrees. If you follow the show, you also know that Duncan and Veronica are ex boyfriend and girlfriend, so the dynamic of her revealing his little secret is even more interesting. The camera also tracks Veronica on an arc as she moves around the table. This is used to create a sense of circling or prowling, like a tiger closing in on his or her prey, which is similar to what Veronica is doing. Lastly, the scene also features a number of flashbacks. The flashbacks are pieces of what we’ve seen already, brought up again as Veronica illustrates why those pieces are important. The editor dissolved those pieces of flashback in and out with a bright white light to give the effect of something being remembered.
Lighting	The lighting in this scene is very atmospheric and low-key. Most of the room is dimly lit, with a bluish light filtering in from outside, presumably from the pool. The bluish tint gives the viewer a feeling of cold and hostility, which fits because the situation is tense. As I said, most of the room is dimly lit, with the exception of the card table where everyone is sitting. This also serves dual purposes: it focuses the audience’s attention on the situation at hand and adds to the dramatic tension of the situation. Since the show also draws heavily on the film noir style, the light hanging over the card table might remind the audience of a single light dangling over an interrogation table, like in old crime and detective films. In the flashback pieces, everything is tinted with a mixture of blue, white, and gray, making the scene look unreal and almost ethereal, much like a memory is.
Sound	The scene uses a little bit of diegetic sound like the patting of foot steps on a hard floor and the clicking of poker chips to make it realistic, but nothing is overdone. It’s merely there is establish the realism that the show strives for. The editor also uses Veronica’s explanation of the case as a voice-over in the flashback scenes. The purpose is to help the audience understand the plot by combining the images from earlier with Veronica’s explanation of their meaning as it relates to the case. The show as a whole makes extensive use of voice-over from Veronica as a central part of the narrative structure, so it wouldn’t seem at all out of place for the regular audience.
Music	The music in the scene is actually used in a really clever way. It is Christmas during this episode, so the editors used an old carol as background music. However, they chose an instrumental version of “Carol of the Bells” which has an unusual, almost eerie, tip-toeing feeling to it. The version they chose matches perfectly with the mood of the scene; Veronica is constantly moving and unraveling and the music adds an element of eerie playfulness to her little cat-and-mouse game she’s playing with the guys.