Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT See What Happens When You Don't Take Backup?
By Couch Baron | Season 2 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.22.2005
Logan and Veronica pull up to some dump in Logan's Xterra. Logan starts to get out, but Veronica tells him to stay put, since some subtlety might be required: "But if I need anyone punched in the face, I'll whistle for you." You might want to take some water with you, there, Veronica -- you don't want your lips going dry at an inopportune moment. Veronica knocks on the door, and a man answers that she quickly establishes is Danny Boyd. He looks on the south side of forty, is fairly fresh-faced with blond hair and blue eyes, and is drinking a tallboy and wearing a wifebeater, the better to let us see that he's either in construction or spends a lot of time at the gym. He slobbers all over Veronica like a big dog, and her response of "...okay" lets us know that at least one of the Mars's timing is on this week. She tells Danny that she's thinking of having Griffith perform plastic surgery on her, so she wanted a reference. Boyd tells her that Griffith is great, but that she doesn't need any work done, "besides the obvious." Hee hee. Veronica looks deflated. Maybe that's what he was talking about. She soldiers on, however, and asks Boyd about the reprimand Griffith got. Boyd is surprised that Griffith got in trouble, and offers to show Veronica what it was that Griffith did.
Boyd leads Veronica around to the back of the house, and a dog on a chain that looks suspiciously like Backup tries to attack her on the way. That's about as bad an omen as you can get without bringing the name "Damien" into the picture. They enter the back door of a nearby building, and Veronica realizes that she's in a bar called the "River Stix," which VMVO tells us is home base for the Fitzpatricks. It also seems to be a pool-oriented place, which explains the play in the name, although I don't know why they didn't just call it "River Sticks." Considering the part of town they're in, it would have added nuance to the pun. And that's not something you see every day. Speaking of which, Boyd shows Veronica a big stain on one of the pool tables, and laughingly tells her it's his blood. Veronica asks what happened, in a voice that went for "casual" but made a wrong turn and ended up at "I just found out vampires are real." Boyd says it was a bar fight, and pulls up his shirt to reveal a huge, nasty scar: "Forty-five stitches. Good as new." Veronica somewhat incredulously asks if a plastic surgeon really left that mark. Hon, given who you're talking to, I wouldn't be surprised if that was sort of the point. Boyd calls to a rough-looking guy who looks a bit like Peter Saarsgaard in Garden State, only bigger and meaner, and asks if Griffith isn't a "friend of the family." The guy, "Liam," starts to amble over their way, and Veronica subtly starts to look panicked as she realizes that the situation is getting out of control. Boyd obliviously babbles that he spent three months in jail over the fight, so Griffith must have gotten in some trouble as well. Then Liam, the Doberman to Boyd's golden retriever, asks Veronica who she is. Danny starts to explain that she's "Laurie," and starts in about the plastic surgery before a blonde that looks a bit like Amy Locane in the four episodes of Melrose Place she did pipes up to say that "Laurie" goes to Neptune High, and Laurie is actually Veronica Mars, daughter of the sheriff who put five of the Fitzpatrick boys behind bars. Veronica tries a lame "Go Pirates," which is disappointing, because we know Veronica's got a silver tongue, and you'd think an effort to get out of this bar in, say, fewer than five pieces would be a good reason to use it. Liam menaces that if Veronica doesn't tell him the real reason she's there, she's the one who's going to need a good plastic surgeon. For something besides the obvious, that is. Veronica gulps us into the closing credits.