Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sometimes Those Who Teach Can Also Do
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 15 | Aired on 03.02.2005
CB: Yeah, so you're okay with the result. Now, do you see elements of any other shows in Veronica Mars? For example, were you a Twin Peaks fan? RT: It's funny -- I was a big fan of Twin Peaks. I loved the first season. But as the show got stranger, and it became clear that they weren't really going to solve any of the mysteries, it frustrated me, and I stopped watching. I think a lot of people had that same experience. That's part of why I've stated clearly that the mysteries I laid out in the pilot are going to be solved by the end of the season. In some ways, I view Twin Peaks as a cautionary tale. But I certainly put a lot of elements of it into the pilot. In fact, as I said earlier, I originally thought Veronica Mars was going to be a cable show, so I was gearing the language and themes in the pilot toward that audience. Originally, Lilly's body was discovered in the ocean -- we even shot that. But the network freaked out about that and had us change it. Also, in the pilot when Veronica wakes up after she's been drugged and raped, she walks out of the party, and you see her walking down this path in her party dress. Originally, that walk was much longer, and when she gets to her car, the word "SLUT" has been shoe-polished on, and on the back you see, "Abel it should have been her." And that was something the network made us throw out, thinking it was too dark. But we're going to try to play that in the next-to-last episode of the season as a flashback. We know that the network now has more faith in the show, so we're hoping they'll allow it. CB: Now I notice sometimes that elements of your past work pop up here and there on Veronica Mars. For example, in "The Wrath Of Con," where the kids are playing "I Never" on the beach, Lilly says she's "never not had sex," which is an unusual construction lifted from Rats Saw God. RT: You caught that! Ha ha ha! I didn't write that! CB: Oh, seriously? RT: Yeah, one of the other writers did. CB: So it was like a little shout-out to you? RT: Exactly. She put it in, and when I saw it I wasn't sure if I was going to leave it in, but I did. CB: I also noticed that you used a Rashomon-type method of storytelling in your second book, Slave Day, and that popped up again in "An Echolls Family Christmas." Does that kind of reuse happen organically, or do you think, "I'd really like to use this idea again in another context"?