by Incarnadine » Mon May 09, 2005 6:58 am
Dang, I wish I had DVD's of this show already. I never thought there would be real clues, I'm so used to shows just making up an ending that comes out of left-field with no real facts set in the previous episodes (most movies are like that too which is Why "The Sixth Sense" was so cool, there were real clues through that movie that made sense in retrospect)
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WHO killed Lilly Kane?
That question has been on the minds of roughly three million fans of UPN's noir, teen detective drama "Veronica Mars" for the last eight months.
The identity of the person who murdered Veronica's (Kristen Bell) best friend, Lilly Kane ("Mean Girls' " Amanda Seyfried), will be revealed tomorrow night (9 p.m./Ch. 9) in the biggest episode yet of the first-year series.
Add the mystery of an unknown killer that's been strung out over an entire season, and interest in this finale has been feverish.
Rather than indefinitely drawing out the mystery the way ABC's "Lost" has, "Mars" creator Rob Thomas promised early on that the murder would be solved by the season's finale.
For those playing along at home, clues were inserted into each episode so that you could try to figure out — along with Veronica — whodunit.
"There are red herrings in the show, clues that don't lead to the murderer, but at the same time, there are subtle things that do," says Thomas.
"The challenge is that you don't want everyone to say: 'That's exactly who we thought!' It's not fun that way, but you also don't want to pull someone from so far out of left field that everyone feels cheated."
Everyone's a suspect, including the dead girl's rich and influential parents, her epileptic brother, the head of security at her family's software company and the leader of the high school biker gang (with whom she had a fling).
Midway through the season, though, Thomas briefly flirted with the idea of changing the identity of the murderer and creating multiple endings for the finale.
Part of the reason for this was "fearing that the answer would be floating out there [and] growing attached to characters that might not be around next year," says Thomas.
Ultimately, Thomas' biggest concern is whether people will be satisfied after the big reveal.
"Everyone has a guess, everyone has a theory, and when they see that it's not who they thought it would be — except for the people who were right — I hope they think, 'Wow, that's cool. I didn't see that one coming,' " says Thomas, who has no reservations about revealing the murderer's identity so quickly.
"The upside of solving the mystery in one season is that we can give big clues and move the story forward — it's not that endless delayed gratification," says Thomas.
"The downside is that it puts a lot of pressure on us to have a big season-two mystery that's as good or even better than the first."
Although he's reluctant to give away any details, Thomas says that fall will bring another big death into the "Mars" orbit: "I'm not saying whether it's a murder, but someone will die. I just don't think I can do 22 episodes based on insurance fraud," he laughs.
Everyone, start making your guesses now.
