Penises Can Sometimes Be Distracting

Before we start off with this week’s recap, I just wanted to remind everybody that Veronica Mars is switching to Tuesdays at 9PM, starting April 11th. Our poor girl got trounced by idol and barely kept the ANTM audience so it’s on (hopefully) to greener pastures. For a show that always has some speculation floating around that it is going to get cancelled, this is not great news, but that still doesn’t take away from the here and now. I have been telling anybody who will listen, whether it be at a bar or a dinner party, that Veronica Mars is the best show on television. While that might make me the least interesting person in the room, at least my conscience is clean. Last week, Veronica found some explosives and detonators in the Terrence Cook’s hangar. You remember; it’s the one where he keeps all of his fine cars.That’s not to say that that Terrence Cook is guilty of homicide, but it will make Keith’s job a lot harder. I have never seen a Veronica Mars episode with so many flashbacks at the beginning of the episode before. That’s probably because it has been off the air for so long. I will try to fill people in on some of the details as I go along, but remember you can always check the archives for something that you missed, and please leave a comment if you think there is something important that I missed. As we race towards the season finale, we all have to keep on our toes.

Like I said, Veronica found explosives and detonators in Terrence Cook’s hangar, but as we know, it really isn’t Terrence Cook’s hangar. It actually belongs to Woody Goodman, but oddly enough, it seems as if the people investigation haven’t really picked up on that little part of the case, which seems strange because you would think that Veronica or her dad would pick up on this. Whatever the case may be, it really causes a conflict of interest for Keith, who is obviously working for Terrence, but is too good of a man not to report evidence that would help solve the investigation. Keith reports the incident to Sheriff Lamb, who loves seeing Keith come back asking for Lamb to investigate days after Keith came into that same office asking him to stop the investigation.

Now even though Terrence may have killed those kids on the bus, it is still only the second most scandalous murder involving a celebrity in this crazy town of Neptune. That title goes to Aaron Echolls, who is being featured on the latest “Tinseltown Diaries”, the Veronica Mars equivalent of the E! True Hollywood Story, narrated I believe by Harry Hamelin (the actor who plays Aaron Echolls) for extra comedic effect. I have to say, I actually felt sorry for Logan at the beginning of this episode. Say what you will about Duncan Kane, he was somebody that was there for Logan more often than not, even when you consider their histories with Veronica. Logan’s best friend is now Dick Casablancas who is too busy enjoying himself making jokes about how Logan’s dad got lean off of all of those tossed salads to take a moment to think about what his friend is going through.

Tinseltown Diaries is bringing up all of those bad memories for Logan like his mother’s apparent suicide and everything else that happened to him last year. For his part, Aaron still maintains his innocence, saying that he didn’t kill Lily Kane. The sex tapes Veronica found that really, um, exposed Aaron’s role in the murder last year are now nowhere to be found. While Aaron avoiding conviction of killing Lily Kane is an interesting story line, he would still be on the hook for at least one attempted murder when he locked Veronica in a refrigerator and set it on fire. Then there are the charges in the assault of the homeowner and Keith Mars, which is enough to keep Aaron in jail longer than this show is likely to be on the air.

Veronica is watching Aaron defending himself on television during a shift at Java the Hutt, but she does have a job to do. Wallace’s new girlfriend, Jane, is there with her sister, who is on stage singing Karaoke. Usually when somebody horrible is on stage, the producers like to follow it up with a ringer who is actually a singer in real life, but not this time. Jane’s sister Heidi is having her bachelorette party, and before you say who would be lame enough to have a bachelorette party at a coffee house, Java the Hutt was only the first portion of an all-night bacchanalia that the girls had planned that night. They were going to do a whole scavenger hunt thing, including the time-honored tradition of talking a man out of his underwear. Let’s hope that the guys they ask have better hygiene than Scott Long. Personally, I tend to avoid these sorts of gatherings like the plague. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t if more of them included number eight, which wasn’t explained to us, but which Veronica thought should have some mouthwash at the end.

After soaking in the way Keith cam groveling back to him, Lamb eventually went to the hangar where Terrence kept his cars. As Keith was getting there, he saw the bomb squad removing something, but Lamb made him wait until the press conference before giving him any more information, even though there weren’t exactly throngs of people breaking down the barricades for a word with the Sheriff. At the press conference, Lamb announced that there was now a warrant for Terrence Cook’s arrest, but nobody knows where he is.

And speaking of people that are missing, Jane has a request for Veronica. Apparently her sister, the beautiful bride to be, was missing. Heidi was a little bit of a wild child when she was growing up, and Jane wanted to make sure that she wasn’t out there ruining her life, or was, you know, kidnapped. The wedding is in three days, and since there is a wedding planner taking care of the details and no rehearsal dinner, Veronica can use all of that time to find Heidi and figure out if she is having cold feet, or had her heads and hands chopped off and thrown into the ocean.

Veronica calls her dad to run some phone numbers, and begins to interview the friends. After going to see “Packaged Meat” the all male revue they did run into some trouble at the happy horseshoe. Some guy was hanging around that Heidi recognized and had the bouncers throw out of the bar. They were taking pictures, so perhaps one of them caught this jerk on camera? I am sure that Veronica would have been very interested in seeing the pictures, especially since they were all taken on a novelty disposable camera that produced prints with penises around the borders. When Veronica goes with Jane to check out Heidi’s apartment, it looks like it has been ransacked, and although Jane says that Heidi always kept it that way, Veronica only finds some more evidence that maybe Heidi simply left town.

Remember back when Cassidy Casablancas decided to use his trust fund to start a business? He recruited his step-mom Kendall to be the face of the corporation since he was still in high school. Unfortunately, the Phoenix Land trust is out of capital, and Cassidy thinks they need new revenue streams. And although we are all sure that Kendall can be a very busy whore, even she might find it challenging having sex with enough people to get money for real-estate deals. Kendall is sort of annoyed that Beaver doesn’t think that she is smart enough to think for herself, but I think she realizes that he is too smart to be corrupted, especially now that he has his own girlfriend. Still, he has to be careful, because Kendall’s name is on everything, so she could potentially screw him over down the line. Then again, if Cassidy decided that he was going to bilk investors like his dad, Kendall would assume all of the risk.

Kendall’s maiden name was “Chesty McBoobsalot”

Kendall assumes a little more risk when she visits Aaron Echolls in prison. She is trying to get some money out of him, so she does what she does best, which is seduction. It’s been a few months since we have had to deal with Kendall, so that means it has been a few months since I have been drooling over her presence on the show. Aaron Echolls hasn’t had many chances to drool over a woman in many months seeing as how he has been in jail. Needless to say, Kendall is prepared to temp Aaron Echolls with an offer to make him a richer man. The older Echolls only asks for a little “quid pro quo” with his best Hannibal Lecter impersonation, and Kendall knows exactly what she means and starts to reveal a little bit of cleavage. Did I mention that Charisma Carpenter is hot? After his little peep show, Aaron tells Kendall to drop by his son’s hotel room “if she can find it”, not realizing that Kendall probably knows the markings on Logan’s ceiling and headboard better than the maid.

Meanwhile, Veronica had been moving along with her investigation into Heidi’s disappearance. Her father had tracked down a couple of calls to her, but the number was no longer in service, and even more strange, it was listed as having never been in service. Heidi hit three ATMs in one hour, and Veronica found her abandoned car not far from one of them. Things weren’t looking good, so she decided to break into the car to see if there were any clues, and comes across the penis camera. She gets the pictures developed, sans phallic overlay because as se said, “penises can be distracting”. That’s true, but I only notice when I am watching Tyra Banks on TV and have to take a time out every ten minutes. So Veronica has Jane look at these pictures to see if the stalker guy is in one of them. The good news is that the stalker guy was in one of them; the bad news is that his head is cut off, so the only thing Veronica can use to track him down is the logo on his bowling shirt.

It’s not hard to figure out that I don’t like Logan, but that’s not to say that I don’t have sympathy for his character. I think he is an ass that probably needs to get his ass kicked so it knocks some sense into him, and despite all of his flaws, I still think there is good in him. One guy who isn’t afraid to tell Logan what’s up is Cliff, friend of the Mars family and public defender extraordinaire. The DA wants to make a deal with Logan for involuntary manslaughter, which means he will only be in jail for two years with good behavior. Personally, I believe that Logan has a right to be pissed off for a crime that he didn’t commit, and should defend himself vigorously, but he also has to face the facts, which is that juries love convicting smug rich kids, and Logan is the definition of smug.

Logan has his own plan to get free, and that involves seducing Hannah. This time, Logan is working on Hannah’s mother, Steph Denenberg. Hannah’s mother wasn’t too happy to find out Hannah was with Logan either, especially after she saw that Logan had been paying homeless people to fight each other. I will never give up calling Logan a penis head, but Jason Doehring can really act when the writers aren’t trying to make him so smug and funny. Logan got into this relationship with Hannah to get at her father. The only way Logan would be able to have any leverage over Dr. Griffith was to get to his daughter.

It has never been a stretch of the imagination to see Logan using women, but he is about to reach a new low, even from him. It’s not so much that Hannah is young and innocent and Logan is taking advantage of her, but it’s the way that Hannah has looked at everything Logan has done and believed in him. She defends him like no other person he has ever met, but if Hannah’s dad testifies, it could mean a lot of jail time for Logan. While at her mother’s house, Logan asks to use the computer to check his fantasy scores, but instead uses Hannah’s mom’s computer to send and message to Hannah’s dad that she found some condoms in Hannah’s room. There are reasons for 16-year-old girls to have birth control pills that go beyond the presence of an active sex life. You can’t really say the same things about condoms. If you have some lying around, it either means you are having sex or are a drug mule.

Do you want to see my “Easy Rider”

The ironic part about this is that Hannah and Logan have been dancing around the question of sex. Her mother even warned her point blank that Logan is a phony that wants to have sex with her and break her heart. Nevertheless, I think Hannah wants to be with Logan. She made fun of him for acting like he was some bad ass, but there is a part of her that really likes that aspect. As for Logan, I think his plan was always to break up with her, but no necessarily to break her heat. He just expected that her father would flinch about their relationship, and he never expected to have feelings for her. Could Logan do it? I think in the end he will look out for himself first, and everybody else will come later.

When Veronica finally tracked down the owner of the bowling shirt in the pictures, she found somebody she should have expected in the first place – Vincent Van Lowe, also known as the other private investigator in Neptune. Props to the writers for throwing in a good “This is not ‘Nam! This is bowling! There are rules!” a la John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. I wish Vinny would have said, “Nobody Fucks with da Vinny” or have Veronica say, “Say what you will about the tenets of Vincent Van Lowe, at least it’s an ethos” or even “You don’t golf much” or, well I could go on for hours. Vincent wasn’t really letting on why he was following Heidi around, but just because he was thrown out of a bar for chasing women doesn’t make him a suspect.

Veronica had some more luck with Heidi after finding out the missing bride to be had a fax machine and had received a flyer for her ex-flame Nick’s band. Heidi was so into Nick the first time that she had his name tattooed on her ass after one week. She eventually had it lasered off and said she was over him, but that was the first place that Veronica had to look. Nick’s band XLR8 was in San Luis Obispo (probably playing for those hard working kids at Cal Poly), which is not that far of a drive, but with her car in the shop (or at least it was last week) she decided to take the train.

When Veronica gets there, Heidi is quite surprised that people are looking for her. She had received a message from her friend that she saw Heidi’s fiancée smooching with another girl, so Heidi left. She heard that Nick’s mother was in bad shape, so she decided to get up and leave. She couldn’t return calls because she had left her charger at home, and her car wasn’t abandoned, it was in the parking lot next to the bus station. It’s all a very good explanation until we hear that Nick didn’t send the fax to Heidi. Suddenly, Veronica knows exactly what is going on.

It’s Saturday, the day of the wedding, and being such a small ceremony, you can really tell when people who are supposed to be there don’t show up, especially if she is one of the people getting married. When Heidi does arrive, her soon to be husband and family are more shocked than relieved. They were the ones who hired Vinny to follow Heidi. He had been doing it for awhile, and had stumbled upon some parts of her past that were unsavory to the old money family she was about to buy into. Unfortunately, her husband, who she thought was a great guy, couldn’t deal with it and wanted to call off the wedding.

Being in polite society, if Heidi’s man called off the wedding, he wouldn’t be able to ask for the engagement ring back. It did cost him a lot of money, so they hired Vincent Van Lowe to make her disappear for the ceremony. Vinny stole Heidi’s friend’s cell phone and sent that text message. He also sent the fake fax that would get Heidi out of town. When Heidi discovered this plan, she came back, gave them all attitude, and decided to pawn off the ring just to spite them all. Count another mystery solved for Veronica Mars.

Til slutty past do us part

Kendall and Cassidy’s real estate plans might have taken a turn for the worse through all of this. When in the future business leaders of America meeting, the teacher talks about how incorporation would be good for one part of town, but bad for anybody in the county not fully incorporated. His real life example? Palo Alto. Rich and privileged core surrounded by, well, East Palo Alto mostly. I still say the shortest route from rich, academic enclave to surrounding shithole is the ride from Yale through New Haven, but anyway, I couldn’t tell by the look on Cassidy’s face whether he is planning for these changes, is going to get caught flat footed, or is just going to bail on the whole thing and cash out like his father, becoming the second Casablancas to leave Kendall holding the bag.

I thought this was a really good episode. Again, it’s too bad not a lot of people watch this, but I think things are coming along nicely. We weren’t told if Logan and Hannah had sex, but after Kendall hits Logan up for some real-estate cash, Dr. Griffith sees her as she is leaving. By the way, Aaron didn’t want Kendall to ask Logan for money, and she could do it buy herself anyway. She is able to leave some sort of listening device or bug in Logan’s room, and then sashays out of there. Hers slinky exit plays right into the idea that Logan is using Hannah only for sex, and Griffith and Logan make a deal. Logan would stop seeing Hannah, and Dr. Griffith would not testify against Logan. As for the Fitzpatricks, Griffith decided he would handle them when the times change. Logan might have saved himself, but at the end of the episode, he goes to Veronica and says, “I think I’ve done something horrible”. Wham, bam, thank you Logan.

On the other half of the mystery is Terrence Cook. Keith tracked down Terrence’s auto detailer, who said that he goes there every week, and would have notice id explosives were hidden there at anytime. Is Terrence hiding somewhere and trying to drop Keith hints that would help his case? If he is, he’s not doing a very good job. When Keith visits Lamb to tell him about the new little bit of information he has that might exonerate Terrence, Lamb has some bad news. Terrence was lurking around the Dumas home and was shot by Mr. Dumas. Quite obviously, not the type of thing you want to happen when you are accused of murder.

Again, I like the way the mysteries are turning out. Logan’s trial and the bus crash are pulling together a lot of story lines, and the writers have given us plenty of reason to stick with the show, even after it changes it’s time slot.

What did you think of the episode? What was Terrence doing inside the Dumas house? What will become of Logan and Hannah? What will happen with PCHers and the Fitzpatricks?