Do You Smell Bacon, Season Two?

Series Stats:

Dead Humans - 21
Backup Sighting - 14
Veronica Breaks In - 16
Veronica Tases Someone - 3
Mac Hacks - 7
Who's Your Daddy? - 3
Wallace Does Veronica a Favor - 13
Weevil Does Veronica a Favor - 3
Leo Does Veronica a Favor - 3
Mac Does Veronica a Favor - 4
Cliff Does Veronica a Favor - 1
Veronica Wants a Pony - 3
Logan Punches Someone - 6
Dick's Single Entendres - 16
Shenanigans Called - 14
VERONICA WAS RIGHT - 4
VERONICA WAS WRONG - 7

Season Two Stats (including comparison to previous season):

Dead Humans: 19 (+17)
Backup Sightings: 4 (-6)
Veronica Breaks In: 6 (-4)
(Keith Breaks In: 2 (+1))
Veronica Tases Someone: 2 (+1)
(Beaver Tases Someone: 3)
(Keith Tases Someone: 1)
Mac Hacks: 4 (+1)
Who's Your Daddy?: 0 (-3)
Wallace Does Veronica a Favor: 1 (-11)
Weevil Does Veronica a Favor: 0 (-3)
Leo Does Veronica a Favor: 0 (-3)
Mac Does Veronica a Favor: 0 (-4)
Cliff Does Veronica a Favor: 1 (+1)
(Veronica Does Weevil and Logan a Favor: 1)
Veronica Wants a Pony: 2 (+1)
Logan Punches Someone: 3 (=)
(Logan Kicks Weevil in the Head: 1)
(Jessie Punches Someone: 1)
Dick's Single Entendres: 12 (+8)
(Logan's Single Entendres: 4)
(Duncan's Single Entendres: 1)
Shenanigans Called: 7 (=)
VERONICA WAS RIGHT: 0 (-4)
VERONICA WAS WRONG: 2 (-3)

Additional Stats

Absences: 52 total (Wallace 5, Duncan 10, Logan 0, Weevil 10, Dick 7, Beaver 10, Jackie 10)
New Recurring Characters: 40 total (Cute as a Bug Manager, Veronica's Other Job, Vincent "Butters" Clemmons, Kendall Casablancas, Gia Goodman, Woody Goodman, Terrence Cook, David "Curly" Moran, Richard Casablancas, Jane Kuhne, Mr. Pope, Nathan Woods, Stewart Manning, Rose Manning, Grace Manning, Cora Briggs, Michelle Thompson, Dr. Tom Griffith, Thumper, Deborah Hauser, Rodney Goodman, Mrs. Goodman, Danny Boyd, Liam Fitzpatrick, Principal Alan Moorehead, Ryan, Molly Fitzpatrick, Kelly Kuzzio, Astrid, Super Huge Deputy, Hannah Griffith, Leonard Lobo, Arturo, Chip Diller, Drew, Foreman, Marcos Oliveres, Lucky, Peter Ferrer, Ethan Lavoie)
Future Famous Person: 3 total (Krysten Ritter, Ari Graynor, Laura Bell Bundy)
Already/Past Famous Person: 6 total (Steve Guttenberg, Julie Chen, Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat)
Generally Known TV Face: 13 total (Cress Williams, Michael Kostroff, Christine Estabrook, Lucas Grabeel, Bradford Anderson, Michael Hyatt, Robert Maschio, Ivonne Coll, Lucy Xena Cylon Lawless, B.J. Britt, Jessy Schram, Kristin Cavallari, Matt Bush)
(New) Buffy Alum: 3 total (Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase), Charles Duckworth (Glenn), Gil Birmingham (Peru Man from Inca Mummy Girl))
America's Next Top Model: 3 total (Naima Mora (Ms. Dumas), Kim Stolz (Stacy), Furonda Brasfield (Beverly Simms))
Famous Musician Cameo: 2 total (Courtney Taylor-Taylor (The Dandy Warhols), Britt Daniel (Spoon))
Logan's Nicknames: 11 total (Action (Duncan), Nurse Ratched (School Nurse), Zippy the Pinhead (Corny), Bessie (Kendall), Nip/Schmuck (Dr. Tom Griffith), Mars-wan Kenobi (Veronica), Rode Hard (Trina), Put Away Wet (Kendall), Mopey (Duncan), Angel of Mercy (Veronica), Princess (Hannah))
(Veronica's Nicknames: Sleazy (Logan))
(Sheriff Don Lamb's Nicknames: Brer Rabbit (Veronica))
Veronica's Alias: 13 total (Deputy Ann Shaughnessy, Dawn Lamb, assistant to the District Attorney, Curly Moran's niece whose name is coincidentally Veronica Mars, UCSD student with a flat tire, Vocational Ed Coordinator Mae Hadwell, Margot Schnell's friend, colleague of a jerkface, a version of Veronica that wants plastic surgery, Laurie Zachs, adult Veronica Mars P.I., UCLA rep, Gia Goodman)
Keith's Alias: 1 total (angry caller to tech support)
Cliff's Alias: 1 total (Amelia's distraught father)
Logan's Inspirational Greeting: 2 total ("To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best." - William M. Thackeray; "Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late." - Ben Franklin)

While we've got a marked increase in dead bodies (thanks for that, Beaver) and in Dick's single entendres (being a regular instead of recurring helps with that), a lot of our other stats have dropped. We're tempted to blame the lower favor count on the fact that most of our regulars missed a fair amount of episodes (except for Logan, who has perfect attendance. Four for you, Logan Echolls). And it appears we got much stingier this time around with doling out VERONICA WAS RIGHT.

Zelda's Thoughts (with heavy cribbing of Daniel's Thoughts):

As Daniel pointed out several times, this show and this season have a high percentage of grown men sexualizing teen girls, and it's always been gross, and is increasingly hard to stomach in our current era. I think there's a lot of that that I definitely brushed off or ignored on my initial watch, not because I didn't think it was problematic as hell, but because it felt so ingrained in the culture and it's easier sometimes to numb yourself to the grossness. My more recent heightened awareness of this kind of mentality infiltrating way too much of media and society has definitely thrown a spotlight on it. And in light of what's currently going on in Washington, my god is the Aaron Echolls of it all just too much. And that's not even getting into the serial sexual assault perpetuated by Woody on all those young boys, and how deeply he scarred so many children. The world is full of monsters, and a number of them live in Neptune, California.

Context and internal raging aside, I still think the show is good, but that it never quite lives up to Season One, in terms of seasonal arc. All the work they put into V taking the bus bombing personally felt forced, as a means to get her as invested in solving the crime as she was in finding Lilly's killer. But perhaps I feel that because on our rewatch, I know just how little to do with V the crash was. And her obsession with it, as a result, waxed and waned as the episodes required, for whatever else was going on that week. And then, again as Daniel pointed out, the many hops and leaps in detectiving that Veronica made in the finale, without taking us along with her (until the showdown with Beaver), was less engaging because of how convoluted it was. With Lilly's killer, we followed her on that journey. With the bus crash, we had to run to keep up.

That being said, I still love the Mars family, and their dynamic is beautiful and performed by two stellar actors. (Also god bless the good ship #LoVe)