LoVe vs. Quick - Who Did It Better?

Veronica Mars and Glee aren't two shows that I ever thought I would be mentioning in the same breath. From their aesthetic to their storylines to their fan bases, they couldn't be more different. Glee is an ensemble cast of singers and dancers in a high school that where bullying may run rampant but if you have a solid group of really good friends then you can overcome anything. Veronica Mars stars the eponymous character as she navigates a town of the corrupt and the occasionally murderous and, aside from one memorable scene in a karaoke bar, there is very little singing at all.

However, with "New Directions" continuing the romantic subplot between Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman — better known by the portmanteau "Quick" — and finishing the second part of Glee's 100th episode event for better or worse, the way that Puck and Quinn's inevitable reunion went down drew a lot of parallels between them and the reunion of an even more inevitable couple: Logan Echolls and Veronica Mars.

Both Male Leads Have Become Changed Men (Sort of)

Logan and Puck occupied similar positions in their respective high schools. Puck was the big man on campus at McKinley High, a jock with a heart of gold buried so deep that not even he knew that he had it. His relationship with Quinn, fittingly enough, began behind the back of her actual boyfriend, Finn Hudson, and resulted in a pregnancy. Logan Echolls was the big man on campus at Neptune High as well, occupying more or less the same role to Duncan Kane as Puck did to Finn Hudson. His initial relationship with Veronica was also kept secret although they were both single at the time, mostly because Veronica was his best friend's ex-girlfriend and public enemy number one almost right up until he stuck his tongue down her throat. Flash forward to the present, when both Puck and Logan have reformed into military men — Puck to the Air Force and Logan to the Navy — with all the maturity and respect to their partners that you'd expect to come along with that.

Both Female Leads Accepted Themselves

Veronica Mars and Quinn Fabray, on the other hand, could not have been more different. Quinn was an alpha female, a cheerleader with a rotten attitude, who had cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend and was taking advantage of his earnest though dim-witted nature to convince him that the baby was actually his. She went through a lot of inconsistent character development and never could seem to decide whether she wanted to reform or not. Veronica Mars, in contrast, was a social pariah who solved crimes on the side. By the time of the movie, Veronica has remade herself into a lawyer in New York and left her Neptune past behind. Accepting her darkness, and her attraction to darkness, was a lesson that Veronica learned the hard way.

Both Couples Hit a Snag in the Form of a Love Rival

From the moment we saw Quinn interact with Biff McIntosh, played by Chace Crawford, we knew that wasn't going to last beyond the end of the episode. And although we technically knew the same thing about Stosh "Piz" Piznarski while watching the movie, they made such a good case for the believability of their relationship that even I couldn't help feeling a bit bad for Piz when the end finally came. Piz and Biff were in the same boat: dating a girl with a messed up past who had yet to meet their parents. They even both got left behind in the dust in favor of that same girl's high school boyfriend, the only one who truly accepted her for who she was.

The Big Kiss

This was, perhaps, the most egregious example. In an event that made several members of the movie audience actually stand up and cheer, Logan carried Veronica home, put her in bed, wrote her a note to call him when she woke up, and prepared to walk away only for Veronica to stop him and ask him quietly to stay. Moments later came the kiss that has been making its rounds in various gif forms across the internet. On Glee, after a pretty bad breakup with Biff, Puck tells Quinn how he feels about her and walks away to leave the choice in her hands. She catches him in the hallway and quietly asks him to stay. Kiss. End scene.

Now that both couples are happily together (though "happy" never seems to be a word that describes Logan and Veronica for long), who did it better? I don't think there's any real contest there. There's a reason that Logan and Veronica are better known by the portmanteau LoVe. And their love will always be epic.

Image: FOX