Episode Report Card Joe R: C | 2 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT The Less You Know
By Joe R | Season 3 | Episode 16 | Aired on 04.30.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.So Logan and Parker are for-real dating, to the point where Logan is throwing her a birthday party. They invite Veronica, and while she says she'll go, she also manages to make avoiding Parker and Logan something of a second job. Of course, there's that real job she has, too...
Veronica gets hired by the mother of Amira, one of her bitchy high school classmates, after her family-owned restaurant gets vandalized with anti-Arab graffiti. A paintball drive-by provides a momentary red herring and some sweet Pulp Fiction referencing, but the real help comes from video surveillance at the restaurant, which reveals a fratty-looking guy in a sweatshirt that reads "Sneed Batmen." "Sneed" leads Veronica to one Jason Cohen, who belongs to Hearst's Jewish fraternity and is currently boffing Amira. When Veronica gets to the frat, she sees someone taking photos through a bedroom window -- this would be Amira's parents-approved Arab fiancé, Nasir. Amira plays on Veronica's sympathy to recover the photos before her parents see pics of her macking on a Jewish boy and disown her. V gets the pics, but a photo-mart snafu results in Nasir getting his hands on the dirty photos anyway, and Papamira is pissed.
A second graffiti attack, this one caught on camera, yields an angry young racist whose soldier brother lost the use of his legs in Iraq. Angry Brother, Derrick, has been made angrier by anti-American fliers being distributed by Nasir. Upon informing Amira's parents, we get an avalanche of feel-goodery as Papamira declines to press charges, turns the other cheek, expresses his love for America, supports free speech, and ultimately has Nasir's sketchy ass shipped all the way back to Muslimabad or wherever. The end. And: yikes. How bad does a storyline have to get to earn the mantle of Poor Man's Crash?
Veronica recruits Wallace and Piz (man, the gang is ALL here this week) as wingmen for Parker's party, but Wallace first takes Piz out on the town in an attempt to wean him off his fruitless V obsession and onto someone, anyone who recognizes he's alive. Meanwhile, after an underaged kid gets hit by a car upon exiting a local watering hole, Keith gets all het up to solve Underage Drinking: A National Concern. Which only makes me long for It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia all the more. Particularly since the storyline is so boring and stupid. Suffice it to say, it involves Veronica-provided fake IDs, Wallace and Piz being used as narcs, and a whole slew of new and conveniently scapegoatable sheriff's department officers for Keith to fire. Lame.
In the end, V sucks it up and goes to Parker's party, sans-wingmen (Wallace and Piz needing to be unencumbered to compete for the same barfly and all). The party goes on forever, Mac and Max the Hookerlover get cute together, Dick scams on -- and is in turn scammed by -- two MySpace chippies, and Veronica ends up getting Piz to pretend to be her boyfriend in order to give some lounge lizard the slip. Wallace reads her the riot act for that one, as he should, because poor Piz is looking like a twice-baked potato, emotionally. She tries to let Piz down easy, and he responds by planting one on her and making his exit. Which is when Veronica decides she might just have a thing for Piz after all. Back of the line, Mars. The episode ends with V planting one on Piz by the elevators...which open to reveal the shocked and sad-sacky face of Logan. Ha! Suck on that, Bumfights! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
See what you've done, Veronica Mars? You've crafted an episode so terrible that you've run off your regular recapper! No, that's not true. But back in January when Couch Baron and I decided we'd end up swapping recaps in the hopes of staving off the cabin fever that tends to develop around this point in the TV season, who could have known that I'd end up having to recap the only episode in this entire series run that I've ever considered to be bad? That includes "One Angry Veronica" and Beaver as the killer and even "Inca Mummy Girl". Wait, wrong show. Regardless, I had to sub in for the only episode of this show I have ever not liked. Meanwhile, Couch Baron gets to kiss Chris Richardson goodbye? What a total rip-off. [At least you saved some money on Kleenex, there. -- Couch Baron]
Anyway, previously on The Veronica Mars Cancellation Watch III: Curse Those Pussycat Dolls: Keith became sheriff after Lamb's shoddy police work finally ended up biting him in the ass. He's being a dickhead to Jesus now. Mac ended up getting her frigid little swerve on with Bronson. Piz remained smitten with Veronica, while Veronica remained steadfastly dedicated to not getting it. And Logan got all hangdoggy as he told Veronica he was planning on asking Parker out. Aw. Shut up, Logan.
Speak of the antisocial sad-sack, here's Logan now. He's in the Hearst dining hall buying coffee, and when he spots Veronica at the back of the line, he buys her a cup as well, because when being completely and utterly whipped is what's working for you, why change course? They banter for a bit about class -- Logan's going through one of his "good student" phases, while Veronica's taking a class called Violence In Early Adolescence, which will come in handy in a bit -- until Logan mentions that he's throwing a birthday party for Parker. Ah, so some time has passed and they're a bit beyond making googly eyes over coffee. Logan says he's been watching My Super Sweet Sixteen for research purposes, and along those lines, does Veronica know where he can find some eunuchs? Rather than pointing him toward the previous fifteen episodes this season and telling him to find the guy who looks an awful lot like himself, Veronica just says that she can make some calls. And I kid, but I should also mention that the near-imperceptible way Logan steels himself before bringing up Parker to Veronica is a real nice touch, and it reminds me that for all the other hangdog bullshit, Dohring can really bring it. He tells Veronica that Parker would really like it if she showed up to the party. "We both would," he quickly amends, then tells her to think about it and walks off before she can muster a response.