Coffee and Noir: VERONICA MARS
every instance of coffee in noir: 022
You learn a lot about a noir character by their coffee: sugar? cream? more whiskey than caffeine?
I’m cataloging every noir scene where coffee plays a role — rote and ritual, soul-dark or cream and sugar, served from dingy diners to shiny penthouses.
I rewatched the Veronica Mars pilot for Draft Zero’s episode about voiceover (along with The Emperor’s New Groove and Pain and Gain; a truly delightful threesome). Next you know I’m right back in it. Like I can’t drag myself away, like I just need one more taste. another! now another.
So. What does this scene have in common with the famous Heat coffee scene?
The beverage is a pretext.
Sure, Logan’s doing a nice thing, which could be seen as a simple societal gesture of camaraderie.
But if there’s no such thing as true altruism in life, that goes double for noir.
Logan buys Veronica a coffee to give them reason to talk. Veronica accepts because she wants coffee (and knows Logan can afford it, and is too smart to turn down a free drink) and as visible gesture of her mutual desire to talk.
The ‘cup of joe’ as Veronica so noir-fully calls it is an excuse: for Logan to touch Veronica’s hand, for them both to walk together (in circles around the cafeteria), to talk if only for a moment, to try and restore what they used to be: friends.
Does it work?
It doesn’t hurt.