Neptune (Veronica Mars)

Neptune, California is the fictional United States unincorporated town in the fictional Balboa County that is the setting for The CW (formerly UPN) television series "Veronica Mars". The series describes it as "a town without a middle class". In the show, those who live in the rich part of the town are known as '09ers — a play on their (again, fictitious) zip code 90909. The nearby towns, at some distance from the beaches, do not have the same extremes between rich and poor.

Geography

Neptune is a coastal community located between San Diego and Los Angeles on the route of California's Pacific Coast Highway.

The series locates it in the fictional Balboa County. Many locations in California are named after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, including the Balboa Peninsula section of Newport Beach in Orange County and San Diego's Balboa Park. While certain aspects of the location would place it in the real-life Orange County, others suggest a closer parallel would be the suburban enclaves of northern San Diego County, known colloquially to San Diegans as "North County".

In real life, State Route 1 does not run south of Orange County. However, characters in the show seem to consider San Diego the closest nearby city, and visit it more frequently and casually than most Orange County residents would, and visit Los Angeles much less frequently. Orange County is generally considered to be part of the Greater Los Angeles Area, which is separated from the San Diego metro area by the stretch of undeveloped coastline occupied by Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. The series states that Neptune is within easy day-trip distance to Tijuana; while this is technically consistent with a location in Orange County, it's much more likely to indicate a location in San Diego County, which actually shares a border with Tijuana and sees a high level of cross-border traffic. Furthermore, the North County area is home to a large number of technology firms, which are responsible for much of its affluence and which may have served as an inspiration for Kane Software.

Series creator Rob Thomas stated in an interview that the Neptune is located near San Juan Capistrano in Orange County. [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/19960/] Southern Orange County calls State Route 1 PCH, use the moniker "South Coast" for many organizations (such as the South Coast OB/GYN Society in "The Rapes of Graff"), is a suburb of both Los Angeles and San Diego, is located close enough Tijuana for daytrips, and has a considerable Latino population that works in the service industry.

Neptune scenes are generally filmed in San Diego County, and exteriors of all of the show's most notable locations are found there. For example, exteriors of the Mars residence are filmed in Point Loma, and exteriors of Mars Investigations are filmed on Adams Avenue in Normal Heights. Oceanside High School in Oceanside, CA doubles as the fictional Neptune High, and San Diego State University doubles as the fictional Hearst College.

Both North San Diego County and Orange County share many of the same cultural stereotypes such as affluence, political conservatism and large income gaps with little middle class. The relationship of Balboa County to San Diego and Orange Counties, and the borders between them, in the "Veronica Mars" universe has not been established.

As a coastal community, Neptune is home to many beaches. Some of these are open to the public, but many others are the domain of the wealthy, either directly or through private clubs. The climate is warm year-round with little rain, as evidenced by the outdoor school lunch area.

The closest real zip codes to 90909 are 90899, which belongs to Long Beach, California, 91001 which belongs to Altadena, California, and 92009 which belongs to Carlsbad, California. 909xx series zip codes are an unassigned series in the greater Los Angeles zipspace [United States Postal Service. [http://pe.usps.gov/text/dmm300/L002.htm L002 3-Digit ZIP Code Prefix Matrix] (Domestic Mail Manual online), viewed 2008-07-20.] .

Politics

All aspects of Neptune, including its politics, are controlled by the '09ers. Neptune is the county seat of Balboa, containing the county's main Sheriff's Office (the only one seen) and the County Supervisor's Office. When the series begins, the sheriff is Don Lamb. Lamb is more concerned with the bureaucratic side of his job rather than proper and thorough police work. He gained his office in an emergency recall election, after the ousting of his former boss Keith Mars. Lamb has consistently displayed significant favoritism toward 09'ers, such as allowing Jake Kane to avoid having his daughter Lilly's car impounded for unpaid parking tickets.

A County Supervisor, informally referred to as the "Mayor" of Neptune, was seen during the season one episode "Silence of the Lamb," but his name was not given. At the start of season two, baseball team owner Woody Goodman ran for and won the position of County Supervisor, holding the position until fleeing Neptune after being accused of blowing up the school bus at the start of the season. Besides being eventually exposed as a pedophile child molester, Goodman was murdered by Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas, the son of a wealthy '09er family who had been sexually abused by Goodman when he was younger. As of the third season, no word has been given as to how Goodman's death would be handled in terms of naming a successor to the position of "County Supervisor".

The second season explored these political elements with plotlines involving an election for the offices of Sheriff and County Supervisor, with Keith Mars (supported by Goodman) trying to get his old job as sheriff back by running against Don Lamb. While Keith lost his bid to reclaim his old job, Goodman won his election. Afterwards, he showed his ambitious side by launching a campaign to incorporate Neptune, which would lead to the town having an official mayor and its own police department, with the municipal boundaries only including the '09er sections of town. Those outside this incorporation area came under risk of lower property values and even further reduction in government response and effectiveness. The incorporation would also have gutted the powerbase of Sheriff Lamb, as the local Sheriff's office is located outside of the '09er section of the town, effectively leaving Lamb on the outside looking in. This led to much speculation as to why Goodman aligned himself politically with Keith Mars, a plot point that was not explored during the season.

In the end, Goodman's incorporation scheme failed due to a blackmail scheme orchestrated by his former child molestation victim Cassidy Casablancas. With help from his stepmother Kendall Casablancas, Cassidy had purchased a great deal of property outside of the incorporation zone at bargain-basement prices (due to the depressed property values brought about due to incorporation talks) and sought to make a profit on them by killing incorporation, driving their prices back up to their original values. Threatening to go public regarding the child molestation charges, Cassidy forced Goodman to manufacture a sex scandal which implicated Keith Mars. Cassidy knew that Keith would fight Goodman to clear his name, and would ensure as a result that the public would think of Goodman as an adulterous politician. This 'backfiring' scandal would then cause Neptune residents to vote against Goodman and incorporation. Following the plan, incorporation lost at the ballot box -- though Cassidy would not live to reap the rewards of his scheme for himself, as he committed suicide after Veronica revealed that Cassidy had murdered several of his classmates (along with several innocent bystanders) in order to keep said classmates from exposing Goodman as a pedophile child molester before Cassidy's blackmail/real estate scheme could be carried out.

Economy

Neptune has a huge gap between the rich '09ers and those who work for them either directly or through service industry businesses. In Veronica's words, if you live in Neptune, "either your parents are millionaires, or your parents work for millionaires".

In the pilot episode and other season one episodes, it was implied that the Mars family existed on the fringes of the '09er society and that most of their social standing came from Keith Mars's job as sheriff and Veronica's friendship with the children of software mogul Jake Kane.

The largest and most successful business in the community, Kane Software is run and operated by Jake Kane, father of Duncan Kane and Lilly Kane. The company holds the patent on streaming video over the Internet, and according to Veronica is responsible for the huge boom in the local economy. When the patent was approved, many people in the community became rich overnight. Other '09ers (such as movie star Aaron Echolls and his family) choose to live in Neptune due to its warm climate and its beaches, thus contributing even more to its economy. A few residents have become rich through service businesses (such as the Casablancas family, through real estate) in the boom created by the other '09ers.

References

* "Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season", Warner Home Video, 2005, UPC 01256972774.
* "Veronica Mars: The Complete Second Season", Warner Home Video, 2006, UPC 012569769175.