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All right, kids, this is it. It's Dead Week at Hearst, and a girl gets arrested in the food court for using a fake student ID, which doubles as a debit card. Meanwhile, Weevil files for workman's comp for an on-the-job injury. It's not long before the two kids who bought the IDs have accused Weevil of being their supplier, which means he's well and truly screwed, at least in Keith's eyes. Of course, Weevil turns to Veronica in his hour of need, and he tells her that he was an easy patsy because everyone knows he's an ex-con, thanks to her. Veronica flashes her new badge every which way as she pokes around, but the kids who bought the IDs are seemingly shooting straight when they tell Veronica how the deal with Weevil went down, and on top of that, Keith discovers that a machine used to put money on the debit cards was discovered in the locker right to Weevil's, and Weevil's prints were all over it. However, Wallace's Mech E professor informs Veronica that it would take an extremely powerful computer to pull off the stunt. He refers her to a student who's an expert in these matters, but when he looks for his research on the subject, he finds it's been stolen. Veronica and Weevil then try to figure out how his prints could have gotten on the machine, and they realize that he left his toolbox in the room of a girl who was in Veronica's Criminology class. Veronica discovers that the two kids that accused him, the toolbox girl, and the brilliant student were all in on the ID scam, and lays a trap for them. They try to bribe Veronica, but she stands firm, and Weevil is cleared. Not, however, before he gets his hand on a third money machine. Baaaaad Eli. In other news, some creepy guy starts following Wallace around, but he eventually reveals that he's been authorized to invite him into "The Castle," which sounds like a secret society of some kind, but we don't hear any more about it in this episode. Piz has Keith appear on his radio show with Vinnie, and they talk about drunk driving. Joe R will be so pleased. But actually, he will, for Keith pays a heavy Lincoln-Douglas price for his preposterous stance on underage drinking. Things aren't looking good for Keith retaining the "Sheriff" title too much longer. Dick's on a dad's-back-in-town bender; he's still stuck on Beaver's death, and cries in front of Logan. Logan tries to cheer him up with some surfing, but they run into Piz, Veronica, Mac, and Wallace, and when Wallace bails to work on his plane, the bunch of them sit around having the awkward. Dick then actually apologizes to Mac about how he treated her, and is both hilarious and sincere in the process. So this leaves the love triangle, and Logan wastes no time laying on the self-pity, which looks twice as bad in the context of Dick's first baby step toward redemption. And finally, Veronica is aware that Piz is mopey about their internship-driven separation, so Mac counsels her to tell Piz that she'll miss him, which she does, but he doesn't cheer up until they have The Sex. Well, you don't actually see them have The Sex -- until A RECORDING OF IT POPS UP ON THE INTERNET. Logan sees it -- and barges into the radio booth and beats the crap put of Piz. In the end, Logan shows up to Mars Investigations and tells Veronica there's something she should know. YOU DON'T SAY. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
So as you probably know from last time, the show is not coming back for a fourth season. And as I said before, I will miss it rather a lot, although there are certainly arguments to be made on both sides of the cancellation issue. But it's time to say goodbye, and I, personally, don't want to do so with any resentment or bitterness. I've had my share of issues with some of the creative decisions made over the past couple of seasons, wherever they may have come from, but overall, Veronica Mars has been tremendously plotted and written, and I don't know that many programs will ever have a season that got people to the edge of their seats quite like the first one of this show. (Heroes, your awesome exception is noted.) So as part of my eulogy here, I'm going to use the ten act breaks over the two episodes to detail, in the order in which they appeared, ten moments that made me fall in love with Veronica Mars, the character (and by extension, the show). Ready? Neither am I, really, but here we go.
Man, it is jarring to see Capra looking so good back in "Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough." Get better, dude!
Mac and Veronica are waiting on a Post Office-length line in the cafeteria as Veronica expresses the hope that Piz won't be moping for the rest of the year. So she's clued in to his mood since last episode. Considering that it took longer for her to figure out he liked her than it generally takes plastic to degrade, you have to admire her progress. She admits that if he didn't care, she'd probably be complaining: "To my girlfriend, while waiting to pay for frozen yogurt. I'm a girl!" I've seen the episode, and I'll say this: not for long. Mac suggests that Veronica might possibly want to tell Piz that she, too, will be bummed when they're apart, and Veronica is quite taken with that simple idea. The chick talk, however, is interrupted when a blonde girl at the front of the line gets led away by campus security over some snafu with her payment.
Weevil's in with some Human Resources guy filing a workman's comp claim for his knee, which he says he injured moving a busted washing machine across campus. The guy is condescendingly wary with just a touch of racist, telling Weevil that a lot of people file these sort of claims to try to take deep-pockets Hearst for cash, but that he'll pass Weevil's claim on to the review board, and Weevil can expect a decision within the month or so. Weevil, surely no fan of red tape at the best of times, asks what he's supposed to do until then. Well, dude, you could try stretching out your leg. It'll be therapeutic, especially if you happen to boot this guy in the face in the process.
Veronica and Piz are studying at opposite ends of his room when she takes out her phone and dials. He somewhat reluctantly answers, and she sweetly pretends that it's the summer and she's calling from Virginia, and says she misses him. She gets playful as she mock-accuses him of having a girl in his room, but then sincerely tells him that she really wishes she could be with him. He's still pretty stone-faced, so she hangs up and climbs into his lap, and offers to get naked. Now that's a simple plan that's pretty much guaranteed to work, and we cut out before the sock hits the doorknob.
Some guy from Hearst is informing Keith that kids' Student IDs double as debit cards, so the use of fake IDs spells fraud. He adds that the students who were caught got probation, and that their families have agreed to repay the stolen funds. Keith no doubt would like the opportunity for more of an example going into the election, and the guy gives him a folder containing the identity of the person they claim supplied them with the cards...
...and then the girl who got hauled out of the cafeteria is making her choice from a lineup that we don't immediately see. She leaves, and Keith shows in a male student, who chooses the same guy...and it's, of course, Weevil, who appears to know that he's been fingered. Either he knew what was coming when Keith called him in, or the department needs to increase its soundproofing budget. Credits.
1. "You know what they say. Veronica Mars, she's a marshmallow." It's the marshmallow core that truly endeared Veronica to me in Season 1. It seems impossible that a sixteen-year-old girl could be so determinedly bad-ass and yet not forget to be a person. Veronica proved otherwise.
In an interrogation room, Keith is expressing sincere regret that Weevil is in this predicament, but he says that two "Dean's List" students picked him out of a lineup. Weevil demands his phone call, and then asks Keith what Veronica's number is. Heh.
At Mars Investigations, Veronica checks the Luddite answering machine. Weevil is explaining his situation when the machine starts to cut him off, prompting him to raise his voice and rattle off what he needs her to do at the speed of Rory Gilmore. (It's not too late for that midseason spinoff.)
Veronica sees Weevil in jail and notes that he's "wobbling." Weevil completes the reference, saying that he's going to take the fall, losing his job in the process. Weevil explains that the kids bought IDs from someone who fraudulently put virtual money on them, and claims that he'd never perpetrate a white-collar crime. Veronica asks why, then, he was blamed, and Weevil tells her that it's because he's an ex-con. Veronica joshingly asks if he's been going around campus sharing the story of his personal journey. Weevil: "Only in your Criminology class, when you asked me to." Veronica's face falls, and she's like, "Oops!" Hee. It's okay, Veronica, I'd happily forgotten about that episode too.
Veronica accosts a woman in the burser's office and shows off her shiny new PI badge. The woman is shocked that Veronica's only nineteen, but come on, honey. You're no spring chicken, and I see no reason to believe you didn't like yourself a young Johnny Depp. Anyway, she explains that the IDs work just like debit cards (Veronica...doesn't know this? She may pay cash for things, but she's been a Hearst student for almost a whole year, here); you can give her cash, and she'll add money to your account and use it at any of various on-campus vendors. Veronica asks if the woman's got the only machine that can add money to the cards, and the answer is yes; if there's an issue with it, they have to send it back to Marietta, GA, where it's manufactured. And...they only have one? Oy. I don't think the vendors would be too thrilled for cash-poor kids to miss out on their food for a couple weeks due to the university not having a spare, although in my own experience with college dining, the kids would owe the machine a favor in that circumstance. The HR guy from earlier appears to get a check from the woman, in the process being present for her mentioning that Weevil has access to her office. This, of course, prompts him smarmily to pipe up about Weevil's bogus (according to him) workman's comp claim, and Veronica has no response to that other than a resigned smile. She gets up to go, but then asks the woman how she knew the fakes were fake. The woman confesses that she didn't -- it was a food court worker who spotted a number of suspicious names on the cards. Looks like if your name is I.P. Freeley at Hearst, you're totally SOL.
Veronica goes to see the worker, a sassy young black woman with awesome dreads, who shows Veronica a list she made of the suspicious names -- including Sylvia Plath, Fibonacci, and Honus Wagner. Veronica asks her to give her a call if any other obvious aliases show up, and the woman agrees, but says after Plath and Wagner got busted, the others stopped coming.
The blonde girl from earlier comes to see Veronica, who it turns out lured her there with an email about a nonexistent library fine. Veronica comes clean, in the process flashing her badge again, as she asks how the girl met Weevil. The girl says that the week before, she went to pay for her lunch, only to find that her card was out of money. That afternoon, she says, Weevil came up to her and offered to sell her a thousand-dollar card for a hundred bucks, so she paid him and supplied him with a fake name, and met him in the basement of the History building the day and got the card. She then adds that she didn't want to turn Weevil in, especially since he probably has "kids to feed" or something. If I were Veronica, I'd be asking where the girl got the hundred bucks if she couldn't even pay for a burrito, but she's too busy nodding in sympathy over Weevil's Kids To Feed (Thanks, Dead Grandma!).
Wallace stops for a drink at a water fountain, and when he's done, he notes that a guy seems to be tailing him. He gets more wigged when he sees the guy take a piece of paper out of the garbage that Wallace just threw away. Bad timing for Wallace's Art class to be studying Mapplethorpe, I'd say.
The other Weevil-picker comes to see Veronica, under the same ruse.
Jail. Veronica arrives and wonders if Weevil might have taken what the university owed him. It's a pretty toothless accusation, but given the plotline's resolution, it would be kind of hard to take offense even if she meant it. Unfortunately, the two kids' stories match up, and Weevil doesn't have an alibi for the time he supposedly met them and gave them the IDs. Keith arrives and lets Weevil out on bail, but tells him that the campus police just found machine identical to the one in the burser's office in the empty locker to Weevil's. Keith, you're supposed to lead with the bad news! He counsels Weevil to talk to his public defender and take whatever deal they're offering. Geez, Keith, don't you have faith in your daughter's detective skills? I just know you've seen her new badge!
2. "You can live in the wreckage and pretend it's the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. Because after disaster strikes, it's important that you move on. But if you're like me, you just keep chasing the storm." It's hard to believe this VMVO came at the end of only the third episode. But how perfectly did it capture Veronica's twin struggles to find Lilly's killer and to get her mom back? It's choking me up right now, although I think I'm a little bit more vulnerable than usual. Can't imagine why.
In the Mech E lab, Veronica is visiting Wallace, who's working on a "1/32 model of an amphibious regional turbo prop." It looks more like a toy plane to me, but there's a reason I stayed away from engineering in college. Those kids never slept. So it is with Wallace, who tells Veronica he's gotten about fifteen minutes of sleep in the last week. Veronica says that Piz was thinking the whole time that Wallace was with a secret girlfriend. Well, I think Piz was thinking "Mmm...boobs" for at least part of that time, but I'll allow the general sentiment. Wallace brings up his stalker, saying he's flattered, but also asking "which color bandana I'm supposed to wear that says I'm straight." I think perhaps staying away from any color at all might be the way to go. Ask Ace Young if you don't believe me. When Veronica learns that the guy took Wallace's old homework out of the trash, she suggests leaving bait for him, like his "cutoff jean short-shorts." Hee. Wallace puts an end to the good-natured shredding of his masculinity by asking his professor if he's ready.
He is, and I am too, because did I mention that this professor is rather well-tended? Anyway, he tells Veronica and Wallace that it would be almost impossible to make a working fake Hearst ID without the aid of a "supercomputer." He does tell them that there's one powerful enough in the Physics lab, "but they won't let you touch it unless you have a Ph.D," and that the Mech Es built their own, "Daisy." He suggests they talk to "Leon," one of his grad students, who just got a paper published on Cryptography, and says that they can find him after dark: "Leon's part vampire." So...she should bring only half a stake?
Chez Mars. Veronica is exhorting Piz to ask her dad to be on his radio show. Piz is intimidated, not by Keith's Sheriff status, but by his girlfriend's-dad-status. Well, I take his general point, but it's the Sheriff's status that gives him license to kill here. Piz and Veronica start smooching, but jump apart when Keith enters. Veronica gripes about the lack of a "courtesy knock," and I know you're in college, Veronica, but your dad is SO not your roommate. Veronica then surreptitiously coaxes Piz to ask Keith, who accedes when he hears that Vinnie is going to be there bright and early the morning. Veronica then hits Keith up for a new answering machine, since the "Amish family in 3B" has one just like theirs. After a little technology-related banter, Keith tells Veronica that Weevil's prints and no one else's were on the box.
Veronica's got her garlic ready as she's talking to Leon, who's psyched that his professor has such a high opinion of him. He then goes to get his research files, only to discover that they've been stolen. If Veronica's not wondering how a cryptology expert was so easy to steal from, maybe she should be. Then again, many academics are applied morons.
3. "Say hi to Shauna for me -- she sounds like a keeper." This was Veronica at her most invincible -- taking on a worthy foe and soundly defeating him. Who wasn't like "Hell YEAH!" during that VO?
Radio showdown. Piz asks Keith about his recent crackdown on underage drinking, and Keith says that he plans to continue enforcing the legal age. Vinnie says that he's going to enforce the important laws, "like murder and terrorism." Even the Fitzpatricks at home are like, "Nice phraseology, ASS." Vinnie says that maybe once he takes care of the big problems, he'll have time to drop in on campus-area bars -- "for a cold one." The crowd goes wild! Piz then takes a caller, who has a two-part question for Keith: "First, why do you suck? And the second part: what's it like to suck so hard?" Keith looks balefully at Vinnie, but dude, you totally brought this on yourself. There's no way that kid would be harassing you at 8 AM if he were good and hung over like he should be.
In the library, Wallace notices his stalker, so he gets up from his desk. As soon as he's gone, the kid goes over to snoop around his stuff, but Wallace surreptitiously sneaks back and returns the favor. He finds a little Trapper Keeper-shrine to himself, complete with pictures, game stats, and notes on his activities. When he looks up, the kid is in his face, and asks if he's familiar with "The Castle." Wallace has, in fact, heard of it, and the guy says he's been "authorized to inform" him that he's been "tapped" for admission; however, if he tells anyone, his invitation will be rescinded and there will be consequences. So all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was just to give him an invite to the Stonecutters or Tritons or whatever? I can't believe it was necessary to tail him for this long before offering him the invite, so I'm forced to conclude that if offered, the kid wouldn't turn down those cutoff shorts after all. We cut out before we hear if Wallace accepts the offer.
Veronica and Weevil walk/limp in the quad as Veronica notes that whoever framed him had twenty-four hours to get his fingerprints on the ID machine, and suggests that they retrace his steps. She shows him a camera-phone picture of the ID machine, and asks if he saw it, but the answer is negative, so they go in search of Places Weevil's Hands Have Been. Sniff -- my last chance to say "Make your own joke here!"
The same student, I think, is calling in to give Keith shit, rather hilariously asking if Keith simultaneously got a call about a kidnapping and a call about a twenty-year-old drinking a beer, which one he would answer first. Piz, trying desperately to salvage any future dinner invitations to the Mars home, says he thinks that ground has been well covered. Weevil and Veronica silently enter, and Weevil checks under the table for...something Weevil could have left his prints on, I guess? Maybe he's just looking down there to jog his memory -- that seems more likely. Anyway, whatever he's looking for, he comes up empty as Vinnie nauseatingly talks about how great his military-police service was. I'm thinking Vinnie only became an MP officer because Stripes led him to believe that would be an easy way to score some hot tail, especially given the fact that Keith mentions that Vinnie was dishonorably discharged. It turns out, though, that Keith took obvious bait here, because the door is now open for Vinnie to point out that as a PI, Keith was cited six times for various infractions, and on top of that, his daughter was arrested twice during that time: "The question isn't whether Sheriff Mars can clean up Neptune. It's can Sheriff Mars clean up his own household." Veronica takes this opportunity to pop Vinnie in the back of the head, which I guess is her little way of answering the question on Keith's behalf. She and Weevil leave, and Piz and Keith vainly try to suppress smiles.
Weevil and Veronica enter the HR guy's office, and converse about Weevil's visit the other day while ignoring the guy. The guy petulantly tells them to get out and starts to call Security until Weevil mentions that he did pick up an envelope with "the suit's" home address on it: "Not sure what good that'll do me." Heh. The suit hangs up, and if he's that scared of Weevil, he must really think he's faking the knee injury. He and Veronica leave...
...and show up at their stop, which is some girl's room. Weevil was in there fixing the sink on the day in question, and thinks he might have left a tool there, so she lets him and Veronica in, enthusing that he did a great job. Weevil leans down and urgently tells Veronica that when he was last there, there was a bunch of stuff under the sink that's now gone, but that he didn't pay much attention to what he was moving. That can happen when you're squatting down and lifting heavy stuff on A BLOWN KNEE. Veronica theorizes that Weevil unwittingly left his prints on the box, and then in comes the girl's roommate -- who just happens to be in Veronica's Criminology class, and Veronica gives her the oh-so-fake "Hiiiiiiiiii" that you usually only see between exes. And not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's just a little late in the game to be springing that particular revelation on us. Weevil starts to ask about his missing tool. Is that all you boys ever think about? Veronica, however, interrupts, fakely telling the fake blonde that she loves her fake hair. She asks if she can snap a picture to show her stylist, the girl terrifiedly accedes, and then the two of them leave. Outside, Weevil wonders what the hell that was all about. Veronica: "Walk me to work! I'll show you what the inside of a library looks like." You know, Veronica, Willow liked the library too. I'm just saying.
4. "You stand idly by." Until this point, Duncan had been Veronica's Kryptonite -- she walked on eggshells around him, despite the callous way he dumped her. Here, at least for a moment, she gained the upper hand, which was a major step forward, for her and for us.
In the library, they're looking at the picture, which Weevil says is out of focus. However, Veronica tells him her true target was the blown-up poster on the wall, which is a picture from Aspen of the Criminology girl with a bunch of pals -- including the blonde girl who accused Weevil and Leon the Asian vampire. Weevil's thrilled, but Veronica asks him if he just wants to save himself, or to take the rest of them down as well. Weevil asks how they're going to ID the others, combining a dose of practicality with the obligatory "duh" sentiment in his own special way. Veronica: "You leave that to me." I wasn't expecting an Alec Guinness shout-out at this point in the game, but I can't say I'm complaining.
Logan's on the phone with Parker, and he's actually quite happily telling her that he's got tons of frequent-flyer miles, and that they'll visit each other every other weekend if she's up for that. I like the subtle reminder that Logan's net worth no longer has enough zeroes to make you stop counting. Dick semi-staggers in with a beer in his hand, which can only mean that, somewhere in Balboa County, there's a kidnapping in progress. (Hey, if the show's not going to stop giving Keith shit, why should I?) Logan continues his chat until Dick's voice comes in from offscreen: "The night my brother jumped off the roof, did you, like, try and stop him?" Of course, the lingering stain outside the Grand is pretty much proof that Logan didn't try and stop Beaver, but now's probably not the time to lecture Dick on the subtleties of usage. Logan, interestingly, declines to tell Dick that he actually did trytostop Beaver, opting instead simply to ask if everything's okay. Dick tearfully laments one time when he duct-taped his brother's feet to his bike's pedals and then forgot about him for hours, and when he finally went outside, Beaver was still riding around in circles. And whoever Sally may have been, I doubt she lasted long after that incident. Logan: "Dick, I'm not sure spending Happy Hour with your dad's the best way of dealing with all of this." Logan and understatement: two great tastes that taste great, if rarely, together. He kindly (but not empathetically, and given his relationship with his own dad, that's a nice nuance) offers to take Dick surfing the day, and Dick gratefully agrees, although he says he's going to bring along a 24-pack, just in case. Your metabolism won't last long at that rate, kiddo. Just ask Chip Diller.
The Sink Girls are walking when the nice one sees a copy of the Aspen photo on a bulletin board. She reads the note on it, which says that the writer met these cool people on a ski trip, but she didn't get their contact info, so anyone who knows it should email vmars@aol.com. Nice Girl asks her busted roommate if she should jot down the address. I don't really get this, though -- the address is recognizable as Veronica's, so why doesn't the girl pretend that she'll do it herself and take down the poster when the coast is clear? It probably won't work, and maybe she assumes there are copies all over campus, but it's better than playing right into Veronica's hands, no?
Veronica is shaving her legs as she and Mac banter about how much boys like bare breasts. You may not have expected to be living proof of that, hon, but surprises lurk around every television corner.
Mac, Wallace, Piz, and Veronica have taken a little field trip to the beach to test out Wallace's toy plane or whatever. Mac makes a comment about the "Matchbox 20 reunion show," prompting this comment from Piz: "Rob Thomas is a whore." For a shout-out to himself combined with a wink to/slam on the fandom, that was pretty deft. No one said Rob Thomas didn't know how to be smooth. Veronica asks what happened with the whole stalking thing, prompting Mac to ask if Wallace has a man-crush. Piz: "The man-crush isn't me, is it?" Hee. Wallace of course can't talk about it, which does nothing to quell the rumors, as anyone familiar with the internet will tell you.
Elsewhere, Logan and Dick emerge from the water, and Dick seems to be having a good enough time that he's not even half in the bag yet. He does make a joke about how tight the wetsuit is on his balls, and he may not have touched the beer yet, but I'll have you know that that comment is sending me straight into a bottle of wine.
Wallace is prepping the plane, and Piz says he's so nervous that it's "knotting up his inner nerd." Mac: "You have an inner one?" Mac, I feel obligated to point out that boning a geek like Max doesn't exactly raise your social status. Nevertheless: HA! Piz glares at her, but then it's time to launch. The plane successfully gets off the ground, but after about ten seconds it unceremoniously crashes -- right at Logan and Dick's feet. The groups meet up, and Dick rather gregariously invites Veronica's crowd to hang out with them. She starts to decline, saying that she's there for Wallace, but Wallace says he needs to be alone to work on the plane for a while, so her excuse is blown...
...and we cut to the five of them hanging, as Dick has cracked a brew, and Piz (unsurprisingly given the circumstances) has joined him. Dick's genial sexual comments are kind of amusing everyone but Mac, who goes off to help Wallace. Dick heads after her, and we get the Wacky Electronic Keyboard Of Dick Clumsily Seeking Redemption as he kind of jauntily tells Mac that he was only ever mean to her because he was intimidated by how smart she and Beaver were. She's sort of only half-listening, but he puts a friendly hand on her shoulder and tells her that the way he treated her and "Beav" was totally uncool, and he's sorry for the things he said. Mac warily accepts his apology, and he tells her he gets what Beaver saw in her. I love Dick here, and I can never say enough about how great Ryan Hansen is, but the scene is happily saved from being sappy by Mac's expression, which never wavers from "Who are you and what have you done with Dick Casablancas?" Dick leans in for a kiss, but Mac shoves his gaping maw away and takes off. She looks back in disbelief, and Dick is all, "Don't tell Logan, okay?" He'd never believe it anyway.
Back at Moderator's Worst Nightmare, Piz is telling Logan that he had friends who would drive down to Sunnyside (an Oregon town) to surf, but that Piz had to work some crappy jobs in the summer, so he didn't go with them. He sounds to me like he's trying to tell Logan how cool surfing seems to him, but Logan goes the other way, saying the fact that Piz has worked makes him "salt-of-the-earth," while Logan's own life is frivolous. And while Piz denies that, honestly? I've heard worse theories. I mean, it's not hard to see that Logan is so defensive because he believes that to some degree. The Veronica factor is obviously exacerbating the situation to the nth degree, but this is one of Logan's core issues with his family, I think. The situation deteriorates (although it doesn't get nearly as ugly as it could), and then Veronica sees that Wallace has the plane working, which is all the excuse she needs to pull Piz out of there.
Later, in the library, Veronica has IDed all the people in the photo, and has discovered, as VMVO tells us, that one of them is from Marietta, and what's more, his dad is an executive at the company that makes the "Magneta-Corp" machine. Just as VMVO finishes up, the guy, "Patrick," shows up with Sink Girl, and tells Veronica that there are some people he wants her to meet.
We then cut to Patrick and Sink Girl leading Veronica into a study room, wherein all the other people in the photo are assembled, including the guy who picked Weevil out of the lineup and a sick-looking Leon. They all sit, and Patrick motions for Veronica to do the same. Better do what he says, Veronica -- after all, Honus Wagner is worthy of respect.
5. "Yeah. As a matter of fact, it is." Despite some forum outrage that we didn't get to find out Veronica's parentage here, this was one of the pivotal moments in the Keith/Veronica relationship. What stronger way is there for a daughter to express unconditional love for her father than saying, "I don't care if we share the same blood. You're my dad."
Veronica cracks wise about the "Injustice League," and makes a call, presumably to her dad. Patrick tells her to hang up, because they want her to be one of them. Veronica: "Is this where you turn me into a vampire?" Three seasons of Buffy recaps, and I have no idea what joke to make about that one. She does hang up, though, and Patrick offers her an ID that will mean she won't have to pay for food, textbooks -- stuff that could actually make quite a difference to someone in Veronica's shoes. Veronica thinks he's lying, because the machine was taken into custody, but Sink Girl says there's another one, and Leon the Vampire pipes up that he's already programmed it. Hey, I just realized it's daytime! No wonder Leon looked so ill. Patrick says the only reason they got caught is that they used stupid aliases, and it's nice that the Dean's List students FINALLY FIGURED THAT OUT. They appeal to Veronica's poverty, saying that it must be hard to pay for all that stuff, and Veronica concedes that it is. "Which is why a bunch of kids who can afford to ski in Aspen getting their kicks by ripping off my school and blaming it on the nearest kid from the wrong side of the tracks pisses me off so much!" She gets up, probably aware that her grand statement can be boiled down to "Meeting adjourned." Patrick bites out that the ski picture doesn't prove anything, but Veronica reveals that she was recording the conversation on her phone. After Blonde Girl stupidly reveals that the third machine isn't in one of their dorm rooms, Veronica says that if the charges against Weevil aren't dropped by noon the day, she's taking everything she has "to the finest law-enforcement organization in Balboa County." You might as well bring it to Vinnie, Veronica -- why have your dad start something he won't be able to finish? Veronica leaves some unhappy rich kids in her wake...
...and as she heads to her desk, Veronica seemingly sends an email or a text, and then calls Weevil and tells him to get to the Engineering Lab, because she thinks there's a third machine hidden there. Because when speed is of the essence, it's best to call a dude carrying extra pounds and a busted knee.
In his suite, Logan's watching poker on TV (nice) when Dick comes out with his laptop and shows him a video of the early scene with Veronica and Piz: "Not what I'd call bodacious, but firm. Supple. Pleasing to the eye." And Veronica's aren't bad either. Logan, temperature rising, asks where he got it, and Dick says that it came in an email. He asks if Logan thinks Veronica knew there was a camera in the room. Logan: "No." Hmm, that's kind of terse. I wonder if we'll ever find out who Logan thinks put it there?
In an unrelated story, Piz is doing his show when Logan does his best T-1000 impression. It's the straightest he's ever looked. He marches through the cafeteria, enters the booth, and starts beating the crap out of Piz. Piz does try to fight back, but Logan pretty much kicks his ass. It's probably because his fighting style is so eerily similar to Haaron's. It's uncanny!
Mars Investigations. Keith shows up and tells Veronica that a bunch of kids turned themselves in over the fake IDs. He then produces a new answering machine. Aw. Weevil calls, and Veronica tells him that he's cleared. She asks about the machine, but he says that he didn't find anything. They joke about who owes whom before they hang up, and then we pan down to see that Weevil is in fact in possession of the third machine after all. Ooh, nice. This is the most consistently written character on the show, bar none. I still think this means Weevil owes Veronica, though.
Keith summons Veronica into his office for some irrelevancies involving the old answering machine, and then Veronica hears Logan calling her from the front room. She comes out to find him smeared in blood and sweat, and she closes Keith's door before Logan tells her, "There's something you should know." Poor Logan. Who knew a night that started with Hold 'Em could turn into something this ugly? (I play Hold 'Em, and believe me, I AM KIDDING.)
: The bitch is back, for the last time.