Don Lamb

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Don Lamb

Michael Muhney as Don Lamb
First appearance Pilot
Last appearance Mars, Bars
Cause/reason Murdered
Created by Rob Thomas
Portrayed by Michael Muhney
Episode count 29
Information
Gender Male
Age 34
Occupation Sheriff
Spouse(s) Madison Sinclair (Ex-girlfriend)

Sheriff Don Lamb is a fictional character played by Michael Muhney on The CW television series Veronica Mars, which debuted during the fall 2004 season on UPN.

The character, considered by many to be the character fans "love to hate", is one of Veronica's main enemies, and one of the most prominent adult characters, after Keith Mars. He was a recurring character during the first two seasons, and was promoted to series regular status for the third season.

Contents

[edit] Background

Very little is known about the background of Sheriff Don Lamb. What little is known includes cryptic comments that hint towards Lamb being physically and/or emotionally abused by his father while growing up and that Lamb attending college on an athletic scholarship for a year before a knee injury resulted in his scholarship being revoked, forcing Lamb to drop out. Lamb is 34, a Cancer and his hometown is Neptune, California [1].

[edit] Relationship with Keith Mars

What is known is that Lamb joined the Balboa County Sheriff's Department and quickly rose through the ranks through the patronage of then Sheriff Keith Mars. Little is known about the specifics regarding the mentor/apprentice relationship between the two men, but what is known is that the two had a rather violent falling out over Keith Mars accusing software mogul Jake Kane of murdering his daughter Lilly. When Keith Mars was forced out of office due to an emergency recall election, Lamb quickly maneuvered himself into the job as Sheriff with the support of various members of the 09er community, who felt that Lamb would be a much more controllable figure than Keith Mars.

[edit] Arrest of Abel Koontz

Lamb's tenure as Sheriff was quickly solidified when he arrested Abel Koontz, a disgruntled former employee of Jake Kane, for the murder of Lilly. Unknown to Lamb at the time, the arrest was secretly manipulated by the Kane family themselves, as they believed that Lilly's younger brother Duncan had murdered Lilly. The Kane family paid Abel to confess to the crime, planted evidence at his home (evidence that would later be revealed to have been photographed to look like it was inside Lilly's room the night of her death), and had their head of security Clarence Wiedman anonymously call in the information regarding Abel Koontz being the murderer, information that was crucial in leading the oblivious Sheriff Lamb directly to the Kane family's patsy and his arrest.

The arrest of Koontz helped raise Lamb's profile and standing in the community as Keith Mars' reputation fell drastically. It also caused Lamb to develop an oversized ego. His relationship with Keith Mars further worsened, with Lamb taunting Keith over how he caught the man who murdered Lilly Kane.

[edit] The incident

But Lamb's biggest action of controversy would be several months after the arrest of Abel Koontz, when Keith's daughter Veronica arrived one morning at the sheriff's office. Veronica had been drugged and raped and sought to report the crime. Sheriff Lamb agreed to take Veronica's statement personally regarding her rape, but Veronica quickly found that Lamb had ulterior motives, in what has become one of the most controversial scenes in the series:

Lamb: [sarcastically] Is there anyone in particular you'd like me to arrest, or should I just round up the sons of the most important families in town?
[Cut to Veronica, who's absolutely speechless.]
Lamb: [dead seriously] I've got not a shred of evidence to work with here, but that really doesn't matter to your family, now does it?
[Veronica starts to cry.]
Lamb: [mockingly] Look at this! She cries! I'll tell you what, Veronica Mars — why don't you go see the Wizard. Ask for a little backbone.

Veronica was then forced to leave.

[edit] Tenure as Sheriff

Portrayed as a stereotypical bureaucrat, Lamb is shown to care more about the fact that he is Sheriff of Balboa County than he does with actually carrying out his responsibilities as sheriff. His actual competence as sheriff is generally very poor because Lamb is a firm believer in the notion that, in any criminal matter, the obvious suspect is always the person who committed the crime. Whenever an obvious suspect appears, Sheriff Lamb will quickly arrest the suspect with little to no effort spent trying to confirm said suspect's alibi.

Indeed, it has been implied on numerous occasions that his record at solving crimes without the aid of Keith and Veronica Mars is rather abysmal. However, it has been argued that statistically, crime has dropped in Neptune since Lamb assumed the position of Sheriff. While Lamb himself was the one who made that statement, it was not refuted by his chief critics Veronica and Keith Mars.

In spite of his flaws, Lamb does at his core attempt to be a good police officer. This was made most evident at the end of season one, when, without any arm-twisting from the Mars family, Lamb arrested Jake Kane for obstruction of justice after it was revealed that his manipulation of Lamb regarding Abel Koontz allowed the true murderer, Aaron Echolls, to avoid arrest.

Another example was the situation involving the Manning family and their abuse of their daughter, Grace. When Veronica Mars and Duncan Kane were caught in the Manning family home, after discovering the hidden prison cell that the Mannings locked their youngest daughter Grace in to punish her, Lamb was called in to arrest the two. As Lamb dragged the two out of the house, Veronica pleaded with her arch-rival to listen to her as she described the location of the hidden prison cell. After placing the two in his police vehicle, Lamb returned to the Manning home and following Veronica's information, discovered the cell. As he walked out, Lamb responded coldly towards Mr. Manning's claims of being a victim of Veronica and Duncan and left the house again. He then gets into his vehicle and after driving several blocks down the road, silently pulls over to the sidewalk and releases Veronica and Duncan from the car. He then returns to the Manning family's home and ominously parks his car outside their house, as if to scare the abusive Mannings with the fact that Lamb knows their secret, even if he was powerless to officially arrest them for child abuse, due to Veronica and Duncan's involvement in revealing the abuse tainting any sort of investigation of them.

[edit] '09er connection

A large amount of Sheriff Lamb's power base comes from the wealthy '09er community, who arranged for his rise to power after Keith Mars was forced out of office. As such, Lamb often shows favoritism towards the wealthy citizens of Neptune and is often reluctant to arrest people of power and wealth without concrete evidence and even then will only do so with a general amount of arm-twisting.

Lamb does privately harbor a great deal of contempt for the wealthy 09er community. In season one it was shown that Lamb was prone to breaking up parties thrown by teenage members of the 09er community, confiscating the kegs of beer from the party which Lamb would then serve to his fellow police officers via impromptu parties he would throw at his place.

In season two, Lamb's relationship with the 09er community took a more complex turn. Lamb was revealed to be carrying on a secret relationship with the barely legal 09er Madison Sinclair, an affair that both Veronica and Keith Mars ultimately discovered. It was also shown that Lamb had blackmailed Terrence Cook, a retired '09er baseball player, who had thrown an ALCS game to help pay off a rather large gambling debt he had owed.

[edit] The Wizard

With regards to Sheriff Lamb's general disdain for the people of Neptune, the Sheriff's anger is most visible when dealing with those who Lamb feels are cowardly, weak-willed, or who generally wallow in a sense of victimization in terms of being unwilling to stand up for themselves. This was established in the pilot episode, through the establishment of the catchphrase "You need to go see the Wizard..." (a reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). The phrase was used by Lamb to show his contempt for those who he feels wallows in their own helplessness and self-pity.

In the third season, Wallace reminds Lamb of a time when Lamb told Wallace to ask the Wizard for courage. Wallace replies that the Wizard considers Lamb the only true Friend of Dorothy.

[edit] Relationship with Veronica Mars

Out of all of the characters of the series, Sheriff Lamb is one of the few characters whose relationship with Veronica Mars is firmly planted on the side of rivalry. Lamb's public displays of contempt for her father and his treatment of her when she tried to report being raped has resulted in Veronica hating Lamb with a passion unmatched by any of her other enemies on the show. Sheriff Lamb meanwhile sees Veronica as a troublemaker of the highest order and while he won't openly admit to it, is one of the few people in Neptune who recognizes the depth of her skill as an investigator. Indeed, Lamb considers Veronica to be a continuous threat towards him and his standing as Sheriff of Balboa County though he is not above taking credit for Veronica's investigation work if he can.

In spite of their hatred for each other, their sparring is kept on a strictly verbal level. Veronica often taunts Lamb by mocking his inability to close big cases and the foolish way that he jumps upon the first suspect he sees in an investigation as the guilty party. Lamb meanwhile often responds by verbally attacking Veronica's father or Veronica's friends (all of which Lamb has had run-ins with in his capacity as Sheriff).

That said, in spite of their hatred for each other, it was Sheriff Lamb who was responsible for saving Veronica's beloved father from a violent death at the hands of Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas. In the season 2 finale, Beaver blew up the plane containing Keith Mars and the pedophilic Woody Goodman as it flew over Neptune during his final confrontation with Veronica. It wasn't until the next morning, when Veronica awoke to find her father alive and well in their home that she learned how he was alive. Before take-off, Sheriff Lamb had arranged for Keith Mars to be taken off the plane transporting Woody Goodman back to Neptune, so as to keep the media from giving full credit for the arrest to Keith. As a result, Lamb's act of pettiness towards his rival inadvertently saved Keith's life.

Ironically, the central issue of why the two characters hate each other (Lamb's refusal to believe Veronica when she attempted to report being raped) has generally been sidestepped in their verbal sparring. During seasons one and two, Lamb does not bring up Veronica's sexual assault claims in attacking her, but, with season three, Lamb cruelly mocked Veronica when she called the police when a new friend of hers from college fell victim to the serial rapist that was terrorizing Hearst College. Lamb villainously asked if Veronica was the rape victim in question and further twisted the knife by implying Veronica "cried wolf" when she told Lamb that she had been raped in the pilot. While Veronica showed no visible reaction to Lamb's taunting, she did break down in front of Lamb when she confessed that she had walked in on her friend while she was being raped and could have stopped the rapist had she fully realized what was happening inside the darkened room.

[edit] Death

In the episode "Mars, Bars", Lamb and Deputy Sacks answered a domestic disturbance call at the home of Mindy O'Dell. Lamb confronted Mindy's former husband and suspect in the Dean O'Dell murder case Steve Batando, who fatally struck him with a baseball bat and who was in turn shot by Sacks. The county commissioner informed Keith Mars that Lamb had died in the hospital and asked him to become interim sheriff. Lamb's last known words were "I smell bread" (a reference to an episode of the television series M*A*S*H).[2]

[edit] Interests

Lamb enjoyed hitting the gym, weight training and "Wild Wednesdays at El Torito". His favorite musicians were Devo, Guns N' Roses, Duran Duran and Judas Priest. His favorite films were Dirty Harry, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, The Terminator and Terminator 2. He enjoyed watching 24 and COPS. His favorite books were Sports Illustrated and his hero was Clint Eastwood.[3]

[edit] Quotes

  • "Is there anyone in particular you'd like me to arrest or should I just round up the sons of the most important families in town?" (to Veronica, after her rape)
  • "So, what, this is blackmail? She's 18. That's legal." (upon being caught with Madison)
  • "Before we go in there, you should probably know something about Veronica Mars. We need to be careful with this one. She's...slippery."

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Season 1

[edit] Season 2

[edit] Season 3

[edit] References

  • Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season, Warner Home Video, 2005, UPC 01256972774.
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