Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Art Imitating Life
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.20.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.There's a vote on campus over the issue of getting rid of the Greeks, and Patty Hearst is the trustee of Hearst College (okay, heh) who has the swing vote, but she goes missing. Was there a reference there I'm supposed to be getting? Patty is also the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and Dean Ed is none too happy with Lamb's complacency in searching for Patty, so he hires Team Mars to find her. Veronica discovers that Fern was working at the reception, and Fern tells Veronica that she relayed a phone call to Patty right before she disappeared. Keith goes to see Patty's husband, who apparently married her because he saw more, if that means anything to you. He's also in a wheelchair. Keith meets the husband's prissy assistant who can't hold a candle to Daniel Davis, and also learns that Patty employs a dog walker who goes to Hearst. Said walker turns out to be Keri Lynn Pratt from the second episode, and Keri tells Veronica that the assistant is in total gay love with Mr. Sheffield (that's Patty's husband, for the Nanny non-watchers). Keith and Veronica follow a lead and find Patty at the end of the fourth act, and she doesn't want to be rescued. I'm still not understanding the stuntcasting here. Patty's holing up because of something to do with Keri and secret lesbianism and extramarital affairs and divorce settlements, and I'll parse the whole thing in the recap, but man, was there a heaping helping of meta in Patty's speech there. Anyway. Keith and Veronica use Lamb to foil Keri and Mr. Sheffield's evil plan, and Patty gets a divorce while Mr. Sheffield gets screwed. Also getting screwed are the Pi Sigs, as Patty gives them the big thumbs down. Just in time, as the Pi Sigs are about to kick off "Sex Quest '06," in which they award themselves points for all their sexual exploits, much like they did last season, which was...also in '06. Okay. Chip gets his head shaved by an unknown assailant. On top of that, Dick lets it spill that the assailant stuck something where, as Dick puts it, "the sun don't shine." It's taking the concept of fraternity pretty far, but I wonder if Chip's going to insist that everyone do it. The something in the dark place is a plastic Easter egg, and it holds a date, and Veronica learns that, on said date, a girl fell off a sorority-house roof. Said girl, Patrice, just happened to be Claire's best friend, and in a confrontation with Claire, Nish, and Fern, Veronica learns that the secret room with the two-way mirror, also from the second episode, used to exist. In said room, Patrice took off her clothes, and when the lights came on, all the Pi Sigs made fun of her, and basically inflicted such emotional distress on her that she eventually intentionally walked off the roof. Veronica, now understanding the real reason behind Claire's fake rape, wonders if all the rapes were faked, but although the show seems to want you to go in that direction, that wouldn't seem too likely even if I didn't know there was one more episode to go in this arc. Finally, Logan and Veronica have a fight over the fact that, in light of last week's attack, he wants her to stay away from the rape case. Veronica is not having any part of that, so Logan counters by hiring some security to shadow her. When she inevitably finds out, she flips, and he tells her he loves her. And she...says she loves him too. Well, she says, "Yeah," but it is in answer to the right question. However, things are not okay, as at the end, Veronica ignores a call from Logan...only he sees her do it. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
A couple of guys are tossing a Frisbee on one of the lawns at Hearst when one of them gives the other a "go deep" gesture. In chasing the Frisbee, one of the dudes trips over Chip, lying face down on the grass in his underwear, with most of his head shaved. The other dude takes a picture of Chip on his phone. It's fitting enough that going deep led them to cross Chip's path, given their recent acquaintance.
Hearst FreePress. Veronica is talking to the new editor, who's a nerdy yet imperious type. He tells her that her portfolio was on the editor's desk when he took over; he understands that Veronica and Nish had "some baggage," but that's nothing to him. It's also nothing to Entertainment Weekly, if the scathing words they've been writing about this season are any indication. He asks whether Veronica knows about "the election," and Veronica exposits that the Board of Trustees is gathering to vote on a resolution to remove the Greek system from Hearst. The editor says that the vote is the next day, but that there's a reception for the trustees that evening, and that he needs Veronica to shoot it: "Bonus points if you get the Dean wearing a lampshade." Oh, man. Dean Ed giving anyone who'll listen the "Lishen, lishen, lishen -- I LUV you guysh" speech would be enough to make my head explode in the very best way. The editor says, though, that what he's really after are pictures of the school's "most famous alum and board member, Selma Rose." Veronica asks if that's Selma Hearst Rose, and the editor confirms that: she's the granddaughter of the founder of the college "and heir to the HearstMart fortune." So we could have titled this episode "Selma's Choice," and if that's not a clear enough Simpsons reference for you, I'll point out that the real name of the actress playing Selma is named Patty Hearst. And if the Patty/Selma thing isn't clear enough for you, Veronica will be helping you out soon enough. Veronica reminisces that her mom loved Selma (and despite what I did in the recaplet, I'm going to have to refer to her as Selma and not Patty, because otherwise I have to go along with the idea that Patty Hearst didn't exist in the Marsverse, which is just too weird), and adds that Lianne was "California's last flower child." I'm torn between asking Veronica just how much of California she's actually seen and asking her just exactly where Lianne got her poppies. Anyway, Veronica and the new editor discuss a stunt of Selma's where she liquidated her trust fund and dumped the money over Watts from a plane, and if Patty didn't quite do exactly this in real life, it should at least have appeared as an Asterisk on Fametracker. The editor adds that Selma was arrested for causing riots and spent a month in jail: "Perhaps the most embarrassing case of noblesse oblige of the twentieth century." Heh. All this fun is interrupted by the two Frisbee guys coming in and, upon confirming that the paper pays for photos, producing a large image of Chip lying where they found him. The editor recognizes Chip, and Veronica stares at the picture in disbelief, not that I blame her. It's no fun getting scooped in your first five minutes on the job.