Dead blonde girls on TV

Early this year, I picked up Season 1 of Twin Peaks on DVD and watched the whole thing (it's only 7 episodes not counting the pilot, which isn't on the First Season set) for the first time in years not long after. Everybody who's worth talking to knows, of course, that Twin Peaks is primarily about the investigation of the murder of troubled golden girl Laura Palmer, although her killer isn't revealed until the (underrated) feature film Fire Walk With Me. Coincidentally, my wife and I have been renting the first seasons of Murder One and Veronica Mars from Netflix. The first season of Murder One depicts the investigation and trial of Hollywood star Neil Avedon for the killing of blonde teenage hooker Jessica Costello (the newsmedia on the show even refer to the case as the "Goldilocks murder") while the central plot of Veronica Mars season one concerns the murder of Veronica's (improbable) blonde bimbo-ish best friend, Lily Kane. All three are good shows. Twin Peaks' first season is truly classic television, Murder One has become one of my favorite television shows, and Veronica Mars mostly lives up to its hype. So, while I don't mean to disparage any of these shows, I would like to point out something I've noticed about murdered promiscuous blonde girls on TV shows.

Spoilers after the jump.

Whenever a blonde teenage girl is killed on TV, somebody's dad did it, and probably the top cast dad. In Twin Peaks, it's ultimately disclosed that her own father, Leland Palmer, played with eye-popping intensity by Ray Wise, killed Laura. On Murder One, we eventually learn (after Neil has been convicted) that the drug-dealer father of prime suspect and serial rapist Eduardo Portalegre is Jessica Costello's murderer. Finally, the last episode of Veronica Mars' first season reveals that Aaron Echolls, father to Logan Echolls, who was Veronica's very recent boyfriend and her primary suspect in Lily's death, actually killed Lily. Killer dad Roberto Portalegre was played by the great character actor (and frequent player in Alex Cox movies) Miguel Sandoval. Hollywood movie star Aaron Echolls was played by Hollywood TV star Harry Hamlin (who, also coincidentally, rose to fame on Murder One creator Steve Bochco's most famous law show, L.A. Law).

There you go. From now on I expect no one to be surprised again when a dead teenage girl who slept around on a TV show is discovered to have been done in by a character primarily identified as somebody's dad.