Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT What A Non-Incorporated Municipality Without Pity Can Do
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.04.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Logan wins an essay-writing contest and gets to be a deputy "mayor" for one week under Woody Goodman. He's not able to get Lamb fired, but he does at least steal his parking space. Neptune High's all abuzz about the Sadie Hawkins dance, at which Veronica takes keepsake couple photos, and the utterly irritated Logan and hilarious Gia Goodman take tickets. Wallace and Jackie fail at being friends, and Wallace ultimately dumps Jane for Jackie, who doesn't let his new lone-wolf status interfere with her image-rehabilitation plan, telling him to get lost. Mac is getting tired of waiting for some Beaver, and embarrasses his slow-blooming ass into dumping her after he won't even touch her boob on the night of the dance. Veronica asks Logan to dance in order to keep him from destroying the loquacious Gia, and they are...there are feelings of some kind. It's intense. Basically: Everybody on the entire show is now single, including Molly Fitzpatrick, because getting molested by your entire trashy family every day doesn't count.
In mystery world: Weevil enlists Veronica's help in nailing Thumper for Felix's murder, admitting that he beat up Curly (video of which, remember, is Thumper's main leverage) just to save him from the angry PCHers actually killing him. Veronica and Logan find the truck driver from the bridge, who's afraid to talk because of PCHer fear, but eventually comes around. Lamb finally issues a warrant on Thumper, and that's good for Logan. Meanwhile, Weevil gets Molly to tape her family basically admitting to the whole murder scheme. Impatient about Veronica's Lamb-related obstructions, and wanting revenge for the beloved Felix's death, Weevil sets up the Fitzpatricks to think that Thumper is holding out on them, cash-wise. They tie him up below a stadium due to be totally exploded. That's bad for Logan. And the investigation. Also for Thumper.
Woody Goodman is fifteen kinds of sketch about a video Logan found in his office, which was shot in his house during dinner, last fall before the incorporation scheme became an issue. He eventually tells Keith to stop investigating it and drops some lies, but doesn't have an angle on the Thumper creepiness yet. Honorary Deputy County Commissioner Logan Echolls pushes the plunger, the building comes down, Thumper dies horribly, and we end on Weevil, making his first confession in a long time. Ouch! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
So when Couch Baron and Wing Chun offered me the assignment this week, I admit I was still in catch-up mode, because everything on TV comes on at 9 on Wednesday, so I've been borrowing copies from friends. Which is actually a backhanded compliment, because this is the only show I can watch two, or three, or twenty episodes in a row without stopping and still feel good about life. Not that I'm endorsing any kind of "three arc mysteries per season" madness -- I wouldn't give up the emotional blowout of "A Trip To The Dentist," or the episode we're here to discuss, for anything. But either way, it's more satisfying than most shows, and I'll try to do better from now on. And anyway, I looked at the episode listing, did the math wrong, and thought I'd be recapping some episode (last week's, turns out) called "The Rapes Of Graff." Perfect, I thought: Yet another sub for my rich portfolio of recaps about fucked-up sexual abuse. (Quite how I've become TWoP's very own Tori Amos is a question for another day; I play the piano like those old videos of spiders weaving webs while on LSD.) Imagine my laughter, then, once Wing Chun helped me with the math and I realized I was actually doing an episode with the innocuous title of "Plan B." It sounded like this, the laughter: "Ha, ha, ha. Wheeew." Funny story, right? That's the thing: I don't know if my instincts were all that off. I think either the show has gotten a bunch more subtle and creepy, or...I have, and I'm just reading my own sudden shit into it. I'm going with Plan A on this one, though, because: DUDE.
Nasal English Teacher Lady intros us to the hilarious and important B Plot this week, all about how "Citizens! The big moment has arrived!" That makes me laugh, because every time there's voting, I walk around all day addressing everyone as "Citizen," for precisely the dorky reason this teacher is talking like this. So one lucky student, thanks to winning an essay-writing contest, will be interning at the offices of the "Mayor" as his Honorary Deputee for a week. And "as the grand finale," she reminds us very enthusiastically, "This lucky patriot will push the plunger for the demolition of Old Shark Field on Saturday!" And the lucky patriot? Why, Logan Echolls, of course. Logan, smarmy as anything, slowly lowers his magazine, complete with oleaginous grin: "I'm sorry...did somebody say my name?" She pins the winning essay to her bulletin board and dismisses the class.