Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Monkey See, Monkey Die
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 01.22.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's six weeks since the Dean's apparent suicide, and Mindy O'Dell shows up at Mars Investigations and tells Keith that her husband didn't kill himself, which was the official pronouncement. Keith goes to talk to Weevil, who tells him that Dean Ed wrote a suicide note on his computer. Keith notices that the prize bottle of booze Dean Ed had was untouched, which he thinks bodes ill for the suicide idea. Also boding ill for the suicide theory is that the circumstances of Dean Ed's death were ripped off wholesale from Veronica's "Plan A Perfect Murder" paper. Shows what being an apple-polisher will get you. Mac gets a tech call from a lab on campus, which was ransacked, and soon has Veronica on the case of a missing monkey. The lab students tell Veronica that an animal-rights group abducted said monkey. Veronica and Mac infiltrate said group, and some of the more radical members challenge Veronica to impress them. Veronica isn't too happy to learn that the monkey is scheduled to end his part of the experiment with a visit to the Great Big Banana Tree In The Sky, but she still enlists Piz's help in booking this musical artist who's known for anti-animal-rights sentiment, and ropes Parker and Mac into playing bimbo groupies as part of the operation. Hee. Turns out, though, that Veronica and Mac's reward for the stunt they pull off is the chance to pose nude for an anti-fur calendar. The looks on their faces are priceless, but it's a big joke, and they're in. In ContinuityLand, we revisit the Around The World party. Mac and Veronica are unenthused, but a really-ready-to-get-back-into-action Parker argues for hosting a country. In BizarroContinuityLand, the show seems to have forgotten that Mac is a vegan. I'm happy enough to forget about it too, so let's move on to the part where Veronica, seeing that the leader of the animal-rights group is quite taken with Mac, invites him to visit them in "Canada." Veronica has a crap time, but Mac's admirer shows up, and they're cute, until Mac rebuffs his attempt at a kiss. Parker forces her to see the guy again, though, which leads to a discovery of the missing rats. Mac's boy (Bronson is his name) claims that the rats just showed up in a box at his door. Mac believes him and, what's more, comes up with a clue from the lab's hard drive, which needed some time to dry out. The clue leads Veronica to discover that the male lab student kidnapped the monkey to save him from his cruel fate, and Veronica, who was already sympathetic, refunds her fee to the meaner lab student, only to learn that she's probably doomed a different monkey. Ouch. Dick is staying with Logan, and tries to get his host out of his funk by taking him surfing and drinking with Chip. Beer and bimbos aren't any consolation to Logan, although he does partake of both. Veronica and Piz have a heart-to-heart loaded with subtext, but it turns out they're talking at cross-purposes, because Piz thinks they're getting closer, but in fact, Veronica goes running back to Logan. They're not the only ones who kiss, though, as Mac lays one on Bronson. Yay! And finally, Keith talks up Landry in a bar, but Landry knows who he is. Landry does suggest that Keith check out his book on profiling, though, and in the end, Keith takes Mindy's case, because he suspects MURDER MOST FOUL! (Well, he didn't say exactly that, but it's a good way to end a recaplet, no?) Want more? The full recap starts right below!
How is it that "Spit And Eggs" seems like it was eight million years ago, and yet I can't believe the show is back on already? It's probably best not to analyze that too closely.
Mars Investigations. Veronica grumps to Keith that he should hire someone to do the filing work with which she's currently occupied. Keith: "You're lucky I'm not a farmer. You'd be out plowin' a field." Keith's pretty cavalier about plowing, not that we didn't already know that from all the nights Veronica's spent at the Neptune Grand over the past couple of seasons. Veronica muses about what the manila in manila envelopes could possibly be, and then starts to head off to class, but stops in her tracks when Mindy O'Dell enters. Keith emerges from his office and quickly gets mired in the awkward himself, not that there was any avoiding it. I mean, as elephants in the room go, the unspoken "I reported your affair to your husband the night of his death" is on the large side. Keith follows Mindy into his office and closes the door, but not before giving Veronica a quick and adorably bemused grimace. Veronica, after a pause, heads out, and she must really like whatever class she's taking not to stick around listening at the door. She could even claim she was doing some independent research for Criminology class, although somehow I doubt Professor Landry would approve in this particular case.
In his office, Mindy tells Keith that Dean Ed didn't kill himself. She looks pale and drawn, as well she might, so props to the actress and the makeup people. Keith tells her that he told Dean Ed about her affair on the night in question, and that the Dean was drinking heavily. Mindy firmly says that Dean Ed would never have killed himself over her, and from what we saw of him, I'm inclined to agree. Keith says that Lamb ruled the death a suicide six weeks earlier, and asks why she's only coming to him now. She confesses that the visit is financially motivated, since Dean Ed's death's being ruled a suicide means that his life insurance policy is void. That doesn't really answer the question, unless it took six weeks for the insurance company to inform her of this detail in the Dean's policy. (Now that I've typed that out, I'll admit that it sounds a lot more credible.) Keith asks where she was on the night of the death since, if the case is reopened, she'll surely be questioned. She says that she was with Landry all night. The implication here seems to be that no one knows about Dean Ed's visit to see Mindy and Landry at the Grand on the night he died. Keith obviously didn't know about it, because if he had, he wouldn't have had to ask Mindy her whereabouts. And Mindy's failure to tell Keith suggests that she has something to hide, which means she wouldn't have told Lamb either. She stresses that neither she nor Landry killed Dean Ed, but I'm wondering if she secretly suspects her lover. He would have had reason to fear for his job, right? Keith says that he'll check around, but it's clear that he doesn't think there's anything to Mindy's theory. Well, sure. I mean, how many enemies could Ed Begley Jr. have? (That joke's totally lost its sting. I miss you, Dean Ed!)